WARNING: Operation Fireball 2.0

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[01:35] Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. And I'm a little extra excited because today's episode is really exciting and one that all of you were asking for. So we pulled together some resources to do a follow-up on an episode that we released just a few months ago called Operation Fireball. [02:05] recommend you go back and listen or else a lot in this episode is not going to make sense you'll be really confused but brit i think our original operation fireball episode was one that i've never seen such a response from fans i mean we got completely flooded in our dms the fan page the email inbox i mean immediately after it aired and for weeks after yeah definitely we got so many [02:35] the original episode was not only creepy, but how some of you had actually experienced the exact same scenario or at least something really similar to it. Yeah. And again, I did a call out on the episode for people to write in. It's what I wanted, but honestly, the amount of responses. We didn't expect it. Oh my gosh. Yeah. It blew my mind and it made me realize we had to do a follow-up episode because again, it was just one after another, after another. People all across

[03:05] United States saying that they experienced the same situation at either a bar or restaurant. [03:12] Now, remember, Jez's incident happened in Denver, but some of the stories we've read after the episode first aired came from San Diego, Nashville, Seattle, Detroit, even cities in Florida. And many of them included the detail about two fireball shots or some kind of distinctive drink being ordered by a single person waiting for a date. Now, I've said this before, me, not an investigative journalist. Same. [03:42] Luckily, we here at AudioChuck have one of the finest on staff. So I asked Delia D'Ambra to do what she does best and track down some of the people who noticed what was happening to Jez inside the old Chicago in Denver and figure out what they thought about the situation and why they jumped in to warn her. [04:12] Chicago from Jez's story. So you'll get a little bit of a recap from their perspective. And she actually got in touch with the FBI to talk to an agent about whether or not this whole scenario could be something even much more sinister than what anyone was thinking, like a large-scale human trafficking ruse or even a serial killer's tactic. Oh my gosh, that is honestly so amazing. Yeah. So are you ready, Britt? Definitely. Well, then let's do it because

[04:42] This is Operation Fireball 2.0. [04:46] Music [05:17] Okay, Britt, so just to recap a little bit, in our original episode, Jez, who was a young woman completely new to the Denver area, was in this like bar slash restaurant called Old Chicago in downtown. Right. And she met a guy online who was supposed to be meeting her there. He told her to order two fireball shots and wait for him at the bar. But then after a while, he wasn't showing up and he texted her stuff like, you know, oh, I'm running late. [05:46] Like just excuse after excuse. Yeah. And then Jez said, you know, it just kept getting later and later and later. And the guy just kept making more excuses about why he wasn't there yet. And to a certain point, Jez started to kind of get suspicious, right?

[06:16] to her and started talking to her. Yeah, and she was even kind of starting to get annoyed by this dude and the fact that she was pretty sure she'd been stood up by this first guy and she was just ready to kind of say, it's a bust, let's call it a night and just go home. Exactly, yes. But the guy next to her at the bar just kept persisting that he buy her dinner and make up for this guy who stood her up. Like, the dude was unrelenting. He just kept trying to get her to go to a table with [06:46] Well, while that was playing out, the bartender, a guy who we now know is named Johnny, noticed what was going on. He'd seen the guy who was talking to Jez so many times before, literally doing the exact same thing. And the man was. [07:05] always sat next to girls who were waiting alone at the bar for another date and who'd ordered two fireball shots. [07:18] You guys, I feel like we all have that one friend with that niche expertise. Like they have the best outfits, the most unique decor, amazing vintage jewelry or whatever. Well, imagine if you could shop right from their home or closet. That is what it's like on Whatnot. Now, if you've never been on this app, it is great. It's this live shopping experience where you can bid on the best stuff. I was just eyeing these like three container porcelain kitchen set thing. I think you put like flour and sugar in it. I don't know. I was gonna have three different cookie jars basically, but I'm redecorating and I'm really

[07:48] flair to my new space. So I have been deep into the antiques and decor side of whatnot. But truly, there is a category for everything. I mean, with over 10,000 fashion, beauty, and bag sellers on whatnot, there is always something for every buyer to discover live right now. And the best part is the deals are unbeatable. You almost never pay full price. It is name brands, but without the retail prices. Download the whatnot app today and get free shipping on your first order. Just search [08:18] Start scoring amazing deals. [08:21] Where the bar was located at, inside the restaurant, you could literally see anything that was happening, at least on the bar side. There was partitions that blocked the family dining room side. But everything in the bar you could see, very wide open. [08:39] And at that time, you know, Fireball was really just starting to come on the scene. [08:45] Um, [08:46] And with the new, you know, the new trends pretty much in every bar was fireball. [08:52] We'd never see him come in with anybody. He'd always come in separate, but then somehow he would end up [08:58] sitting at a table, [09:01] with a girl or somebody else [09:05] you know, we would tie the fireball, um, [09:08] to this person. It wasn't until later... [09:13] that some of the circumstances were like, all right, [09:16] He's always coming in alone. I don't know his name because he's not sitting at the bar usually.

[09:21] But he always, you know, he's always coming in here and then somehow he's always, you know, he's always... [09:28] ends up sitting with, um, [09:31] you know, a woman or, or somebody else, um, [09:35] and then usually ends up leaving with that person. [09:39] Now, Johnny and his wife are actually big Crime Junkie listeners. And when he heard the first episode about this, he was floored. Johnny doesn't work for Old Chicago anymore and actually moved away from Denver a few years ago. But he said as soon as he heard Jez's name mentioned in the episode, a flood of memories came back to him. [10:03] I remember Jess coming in and sitting at the bar again, being very personable, you know, talking with her. [10:09] I'm trying to get in, you know, [10:11] a feeling for [10:12] She'd been there before. [10:15] If this was her first time there, what brought her in? [10:19] We found out that she was new to town just through chatting. So then, you know, that she didn't really live nearby. [10:26] Um, but she chose to come to that location for whatever reason. [10:30] So then as her story unfolded about, um, she was meeting up with somebody, um, [10:35] She'd ordered the two fireballs and they just said, "Hey, [10:39] This guy said he's running behind, ordered two fireballs. [10:43] Um, [10:44] So I'm going to sit here and wait for him to take him. It's like, okay, so... [10:49] I... [10:51] I'm going about my business. And then that's really when the wheel started turning. It's like, all right.

[10:56] two fireballs like this is very familiar um luckily that night we weren't very busy at that time [11:01] Thank you. [11:02] Um, [11:04] But the wheels were definitely spinning in my head. All right. Like... [11:07] This seems too familiar. [11:10] And I didn't quite tie it together at the time. [11:12] at that moment. [11:13] But once he saw the guy show up and sit next to Jez, that's when Johnny said he realized what was happening and told a waitress named Morgan that something was up and they needed to intervene. Wait, so Morgan is the waitress who ends up stopping Jez in the bathroom and warning her? Yes, yes. [11:34] I went aside and I went to talk to Morgan. It's like, hey, you know, something's not right here. [11:39] It's like, this guy usually comes in and orders fireball. [11:42] Bye. [11:43] He's sitting at the bar right now, and he's not drinking water, but this... [11:47] A girl came in and she is, you know, she has two fireballs waiting. [11:53] And I kind of see his eye contact, you know, him like peeking over at her like, [11:57] checking her out a little bit and, um, [11:59] Then like going back to whatever he was doing, just kind of like keeping an eye on her. [12:05] So something's really weird. I was like, this guy comes in and gets fireball all the time, right? And so we started talking about [12:13] the times she might have seen him whenever I wasn't there or vice versa. [12:17] And finally, as more of the pieces of the puzzle started to come together, I was talking with Morgan again. We kept communicating. [12:24] And, uh,

[12:26] It's like, hey, I'm pretty sure this is it. But again, you know, I don't want to jump to the conclusion. And, you know, that's when Morgan just jumped in. She's like, [12:33] She's going to the bathroom. I'm going to go warn her. Like, we just need to we need to warn her, maybe not with calling him out specifically, but we just need to make sure that she's aware of possibly what's going on. So just like Jez said in her original story, the waitress like bursts into the bathroom and tells her that the guy at the bar does this all the time and she needs to get away from him. [12:58] Morgan, too, heard the first Operation Fireball episode, and when Delia interviewed her, she said that she remembered a lot from her and Jez's interaction. She said, [13:10] I was sort of just waiting for a moment to get her alone to talk to her. And so as soon as she went into the restroom, I went right there. I didn't want the guy at the bar to see me. [13:22] I went through an expo line into the back way into the bathroom so he wouldn't watch me go in there. Because I definitely feel like I was being, I'm not very good at being subtle. [13:34] And, you know, I've been lingering around. [13:38] Um, [13:39] I knew I had one chance to get her to listen to me, too. Because it was... [13:45] It all seems really... [13:46] weird and surreal. And I don't know how I would respond to someone following me in the bathroom and telling me that a stranger was out to get me. I just wanted her to take it seriously. Um,

[13:59] I knew how far-fetched it sounds. [14:03] sounded but I um I was scared I was really creeped out and I just didn't want anything bad to happen to to her. [14:13] Even in the moment, I felt really afraid. I felt scared for the girl. [14:21] I... [14:23] I was just really creeped out that... [14:26] Someone could go through that much effort to trick somebody into going to a location and all of the pretending and the lying was a giant red flag for me. [14:41] I do remember being sort of being very blown away by how cool she acted when she got back to the bar. [14:50] I don't think I could have pulled that off, but I'm not really good at hiding anything. [14:55] Wow, I feel like so many of us can relate to Morgan in that moment. And I guess what I can't get past is the fact that Jez was able to just coolly and calmly hear this terrifying warning from the restaurant workers that she'd basically been tricked into coming to the bar. And the guy behind this whole scheme was just like out there sitting next to her, trying to get her alone. And the fact that she was able to get out of this situation without tipping him off is truly incredible to me. [15:25] how she tried to dial the number for the guy that she was supposed to meet, the one that she'd been like waiting on. And then Lyon said it wasn't in service. Like it wasn't a real number. I mean, I think a lot of people would probably start freaking out. Oh, for sure. Yeah, at that point. Now, Johnny says that he thinks Jez was the only person he and Morgan tried to warn and was successfully able to intercept. He said a lot of the previous times,

[15:55] stranger. They would get intoxicated really quickly and then leave with him. Johnny is obviously much more concerned about the situation now. But all those times before Jez, he just didn't feel like he had enough information to report the guy. [16:14] We couldn't really prove anything outside of what we had seen. And again, we didn't know what was happening after the fact. So there wasn't really any... [16:24] rules or laws that have been broken enough to where we can [16:27] you know, contact police or somebody else and say, [16:31] This is going on. [16:32] Morgan says the conversation she had with Jez in the bathroom is something she'll never forget. She's glad Jez wasn't duped into something terrible and the guy who was trying to pick her up wasn't successful. [16:46] We never had a situation quite like that before. And so we talked about... [16:50] calling the police, but we didn't really have anything to tell them. A lot of us, we were really close to a lot of the other workers that worked in the neighborhood. And so I, after I got off work that night, I even kind of looked around for the guy and didn't see him. And if he'd ever come in again, I would have... [17:12] We tried to get something from him, but we never saw him again. [17:16] What's super interesting is that Johnny said in his interview that he actually did see the guy in the bar one more time after that. And their interaction was super sketchy.

[17:33] I feel like I remember him coming in one time where he walked into the bar and [17:38] And I looked at him again, the placement of the bar in the front door and just throughout the restaurant. You could actually, you know, you'd see everybody that walked in the door. [17:46] I feel like he had walked in at one point [17:50] came, you know, not too far into the door. [17:54] We had made some eye contact and then he had turned around and left. [17:58] Thank you. [18:00] And then from that point on, I don't ever remember seeing him, seeing him again, so... [18:05] And again, you know, it's living in that situation or in that time. [18:11] You know, never did I think that we'd be sitting here talking about that night. But here we are. So I have a quick question. And I think a lot of the listeners who wrote in about this asked about it, too. Did Johnny say why he didn't write down this creepy guy's name? I mean, I assume that every time the guy came into the bar and tried to pick up people who had just ordered the fireball shots that Johnny would have had to check his IDs. You know, I actually thought the same thing, too. And Johnny actually mentioned this in his interview. [18:41] The night that the guy tried to pull a bait and switch with Jez, he would have shown Johnny his ID because Johnny carded everybody. But he says that he never really like paid attention to the guy's name. You know, at the time, it was after he'd already carded him and she's going into the bathroom that he realizes it's happening again and he can't like pull the card again. And he says, you know, all these years later, there's like no way he can remember it.

[19:11] Yeah, I don't think people even really look. Yeah, so I'm sure Johnny does that. Johnny's great. Right, we love Johnny. But I mean, say the guy at the bar wasn't using his real name or ID. Like, if it was a fake, it really wouldn't have mattered what the license actually said or if Johnny had remembered it. Like, if you're planning on committing a crime or executing a con or, I don't know, say work a human trafficking network, you probably won't be using your real name or ID anyway. No, that's so true. [19:41] Now, when we told Johnny and Morgan that we were investigating a bunch of other similar reports from people who'd written into the show, they were definitely surprised. [19:54] There's no way that... [19:55] this same scenario was played out somewhere else. [19:59] It's definitely startling to hear that that's happened other places. [20:05] whether it was the same guy or different guy, but, um, [20:08] or, you know, person. [20:10] That just gets to show you how. [20:13] Um, [20:14] scary and unsafe, you know. [20:17] you know, online meeting people can be. And I know we say stuff like this all the time, Britt, but Crime Junkie Life Rule, be your own detective. Don't trust everyone just because they seem nice or strike up a conversation. Do your research before meeting anyone that you talk with online. And if you get bad vibes from them or anyone else, leave. And here's the thing of this story, right? Like, Jez didn't even get bad vibes. Like, the waitress Morgan had to tell her. So even

[20:47] if no one's putting off bad vibes. There are wolves in sheep's clothing. And I hate to say trust to no one, but just be really honest. [20:57] careful. Yeah, I mean, be weird, be rude, stay alive, right? Exactly. And that's the motto a lot of women who wrote into us followed. And based on the stories they told us, it probably saved their lives. [21:15] For decades, some cold cases have been reduced to files in a cabinet, but not anymore. I'm Ashley Flowers, and me and my team on the deck have been traveling across the country to report on these forgotten cases. And in some instances, it's resulted in these cases being solved after decades. [21:35] Join me every Wednesday as we revive these stories one card at a time. Listen to the deck now. [21:42] wherever you get your podcasts. [21:46] Okay, Britt, so I think Delia sent you the list of cities where listeners said they experienced the exact same situation or something like incredibly similar as what happened to Jess. I mean, we got hundreds of messages, but we narrowed it down to the ones that like most closely fit. Now, I'm going to say, [22:03] All of these accounts occurred between 2009 and as recent as 2019. So can you read off the cities for us? [22:11] Okay, so like you said before, Jez's story came from Denver, Colorado, but we also had stories come from El Cajon, California, Seattle, Washington, Winter Park, Florida, Detroit, Michigan, and Nashville, Tennessee. And if you look at a map of the states and those cities, you're looking at like all four corners of the U.S. and some places in between, too. Yeah, it spans the entire country. And when I read through Delia's research and realized just exactly how far and wide these reports were coming in from, I mean, it just...

[22:41] It's incredible. Yeah, it's kind of mind-blowing. [22:44] A woman from Detroit named Alex said that in 2018, she met a guy on the app Hinge and they decided to meet up at a bar. [22:53] But he claimed he was running late and told her to order two shots for them. Now, he kept getting delayed and delayed, and then some other guy sat next to her at the bar and tried to pick her up. Thankfully, she called a friend and left unharmed. Another girl named Amanda from near San Diego wrote in and said that back in either 2009 or 2012, she met a guy on Plenty of Fish, and they arranged to meet up. [23:23] insisted that they meet at a bar that was like, [23:26] kind of far away from where she lived but they ended up agreeing on a place kind of in the middle okay so amanda said that the guy she was messaging told her he was running late and to order two fireball shots and wait for him after like a half hour amanda felt like she'd been ghosted and she tried to call her date's number bet you can guess what happened oh no [23:50] It wasn't in service. Right around that time, another guy like swoops in next to her and tried to get her to join him for dinner. She said that this guy was super pushy and she ended up leaving with a group of friends that she saw walk by. Wow. Thank God. Yeah. Yeah. [24:11] Now, in 2019, this is just two years ago, a woman named Mary from Nashville, Tennessee, said that she'd just moved to the city, very much like Jez, and decided to chat with some guys on Tinder. And, you know, one of the guys she's talking with, they decide that they're going to meet up. But the guy that she was supposed to be meeting kept giving her excuses as to why he was late, and he told her to order two shots of tequila and wait for him.

[24:41] guy slid into the barstool next to her and tried to get her to leave with him instead. [24:47] Now, Mary's story to me is actually a lot like Jez's because she decided to hang with him for a little bit. They ended up having a few drinks together and he was actually able to get her to leave with him. But as they're walking out, like they're getting up from the bar, about to walk out the door, literally crossing the threshold of the door, the bar's bouncer and manager stopped her and told her to come with them. [25:16] Now, the guy that was with her or who was trying to leave with her, like, got really upset and, like, grabbed her arm and tugged her away. But the bouncer overpowered him. When the bar's manager got Mary alone, he told her that the guy she'd been leaving with had done the same thing a few times before. Oh, my God. [25:46] ordered two shots while they waited. So, I mean, this manager is another Johnny and Morgan. Yes! I mean, this manager and the bouncer, like, I don't know their names. Mary didn't know them either, but I... [25:59] love them. They stepped in and quite honestly could have saved Mary from, I mean, honestly, we don't know, but I know in my gut, it was something wrong. [26:11] terrible. A similar thing happened to a woman named Kate from Winter Park, Florida. Kate doesn't remember the year her encounter happened, but she says after chatting with a guy on Facebook Messenger, they decided to meet up and he told her to order two

[26:28] fireball shots and wait for him. He never showed and another man ended up trying to pick her up. [26:34] Kate said she ended up having dinner and drinks with that man. And when she went to the bathroom, a server warned her to get away from him. Oh, my God. The server said that the guy came in every week, always met a woman whose date were late or had been stood up. [26:48] always ordered two fireball shots. That's honestly just so eerie and pretty terrifying. Did any of these women remember what the men they met at these bars look like? I mean, are we thinking this is all the same guy or a bunch of different people kind of trying the same trick? I don't know. I mean, at this point... [27:08] I don't know how it could be the same guy. I mean, all of these stories happened in different cities over the span of like a decade. That's a very good point because we said it was from 2009 to 2019, right? Yeah. And I mean, that's just from the reports we know about. I mean, there could be tons more, right? Because in so many of these cases, at least in two of them that were wrote into us, like the bartender, the manager knew this was happening over and over again. So I know this is happening even more. [27:38] who moves around a lot and uses the same ruse to pick up dates. [27:42] I mean, it's possible though, right? Like, I'm with you. Nothing good is happening in these situations. Maybe it's not trafficking. Maybe it's not murder. But I think at a minimum, these women could have been potential victims of a rapist. You know, when I saw the list, I remember thinking maybe it was some horrible monster who traveled for work in sales or in transportation and assaults women across the country.

[28:12] going across the country and who's not even being detected. It's not impossible. One of the reasons I think this is, you know, when Delia was talking to all of these women, she was getting kind of like, you know, what was the description? What do you remember about the guy either that you were talking to online or specifically the guy who showed up? And all of the accounts are a little bit different. Like the woman from Seattle named Trina said that the guy that she matched with [28:42] of his chest. And none of the other women with these stories described a guy who looked like that. That is really unsettling. And just the thought that this could be something related to human trafficking or like a really elaborate date rape situation is, I'm like frozen in fear thinking about it. Yeah. And I mean, again, I said it was terrifying to think it's one guy going around undetected, but is it more terrifying that they're this underground group where these people are [29:12] Exactly the same in all these situations. Maybe it's a ruse that people have just all come up with on their own that they have found works. But what's scarier is what if they're sharing this information? Hey, I tried this in Denver. Or even helping each other, being the phone number, being the text messenger. I mean, oh, fuck. [29:29] So because I think it could be something bigger and scarier, I asked Delia to see if the FBI would want to weigh in on this and give us a little insight into what actually might be going on here. And the Bureau let us interview one of their victim specialists from the Denver field office to talk about all of this.

[29:50] For decades, some cold cases have been reduced to files in a cabinet, but not anymore. I'm Ashley Flowers, and me and my team on the deck have been traveling across the country to report on these forgotten cases. And in some instances, it's resulted in these cases being solved after decades. [30:10] Join me every Wednesday as we revive these stories one card at a time. Listen to the deck now. [30:18] wherever you get your podcasts. [30:21] Just as a disclaimer, the FBI isn't working any of these specific stories as actual cases, and they aren't confirming that Jez's story is, in fact, human trafficking. They just agreed to have an agent talk with us in a strictly expert general capacity. Okay. [30:38] Ann Dar, an FBI victim specialist, works predominantly with people who have been rescued from human trafficking and have been victims of online crimes that involve luring tactics. She's listened to the Operation Fireball episode and right away her antennas went up. [30:57] She already had a lot of red flags that kind of sent up her spidey sense. And so that was great for her to be aware of that. And then the person that was trying to kind of conversate with her next to her, knowing to kind of have her guard up, that was really, really good. Because again, you never know, maybe that person was trying to exploit that vulnerability of being new in town, not knowing the area, and then trying to lure her away from the bar for, again, we don't know.

[31:27] assault situation, a carjacking situation, a recruitment in the human trafficking situation. It could have been any of those different things. And so it was so great for that intervention to take place so that way she didn't... [31:41] become a victim. [31:43] I give, you know, major mad props to the bartender and the waitress in that scenario for warning her. Because, again, you don't know what was going to happen next. [31:53] Anne actually says a common misconception a lot of people make who experience or witness suspicious scenarios that involve luring or online deception is that they don't report it to anyone. They oftentimes, out of embarrassment, can like delete all of their messages or photos of the person that they were talking with, which actually isn't the best move. [32:17] I think sometimes when you're in a scenario like that, you just want to wash everything away or you just want to delete everything. And helping law enforcement gather that kind of intelligence is key. So having, again, being your own detective and having those things ready to go when you're reporting can be crucial to you. [32:36] to possibly identifying or saving someone. She says all information, no matter if you think you can't prove a crime is being committed, is still important for the FBI and state task force to receive. [32:54] We have 56 field offices across the country. We specifically have 86.

[33:01] task forces that are specific to the child exploitation and human trafficking. And so with that, it's important that we share intelligence. [33:10] especially if there is a new trend or some kind of new form of recruitment. [33:16] For us, intelligence is key. Therefore, reporting any kind of suspicious activity can really help gather information for us. Because you never know, we may already have, you know, another scenario where somebody else had a similar situation. And that's additional information for us to build on to be able to kind of have a lead to go off of if we get some of that information coming in. [33:46] right or sits right, it's probably not right. [33:49] Even though the FBI can't say for sure what exactly is going on in all of these stories, Anne says the basic ruse the victims are experiencing has the telltale signs of something wrong. [34:01] much more dangerous. [34:03] Some of the ruses of what we see is a lot of times, you know, a potential trafficker or a subject in a case, they're going to do anything that they can to exploit any type of vulnerability. So they're going to look at, you know, [34:19] who you are, when they're contacting you online, they are looking at what's [34:25] vulnerability can we exploit? So thinking about, you know, the person who was on the original podcast was new in town.

[34:34] So it was someone who was looking for companionship, looking for friendship, didn't necessarily know the area very well. And so it's thinking about how they can exploit that kind of vulnerability. [34:46] They will find anything they can of your weakness, [34:51] and then they'll try to exploit it. [34:53] She says in her experience, there definitely can be multiple people behind this kind of behavior. And if this is human traffickers at work, she's not surprised it's happening all over the country. [35:07] It is a billion dollar industry. And so it's all about making money and profiting off of others. [35:14] It may not seem visible and they try to stay hidden, but it's right in front of us. It's in our own backyards. It's in our own communities. And it happens. A lot of our victims are recruited at a restaurant, at a bar. The best thing anyone can do is be cautious online. Yeah, I mean, don't let your guard down if you're meeting a stranger or a stranger approaches you and you feel embarrassed that you got stood up. Right. Right. [35:42] It's just so normalized to meet people online, whether that be for specific reasons, whether or not it's a meetup group, social activities, for friendship, for relationship. And so not to scare anybody away from having those kind of online kind of relationships and friendships, but it's just making sure that you are your own best advocate for

[36:07] and staying on top of your own safety because you never know who you're going to be meeting on the other side. [36:13] And one thing that really drove this point home for me was something that Johnny told Delia at the end of his interview. Like after going through his memory of Jez's incident and learning that so many other people have reported the same situation he saw, he said something really frightening. [36:31] And one of the things that really... [36:33] you know, stands out to me about Jez's situation is, um, I'd actually, I had met my wife at, you know, that same bar, um, you know, very similar situation where she was new to town and she would come in there. She was going to school across the street. Um, and, and, [36:52] on campus over there. And, uh, [36:54] She would come in, hang out, do her homework, and we got to know each other and be friends. [37:01] This very easily at some point could have been her putting her trust into somebody else. [37:08] Oh. [37:09] type out that she might have met online [37:12] Bye. [37:13] you know, and going through this same type of scenario. So... [37:17] That gives me full body chills. Me too. So crime junkies, be weird, be rude, stay alive. There are real people out there who will try and deceive you and trick you in your most vulnerable ways. [37:36] moments.

[37:37] Be your own detective. Be your own advocate. But also look out for one another. We have heroes in these stories. The managers, the bartenders, the waitresses. We are a community, the crime junkie community, and we have to have each other's backs. And if you want to learn more about the FBI's Human Trafficking Task Forces and state and national hotlines to report suspicious incidents, visit FBI.gov. [38:07] trafficking.com. We're actually going to link to both of those in the show notes and on our website. Because like FBI agent Ann Dar says, [38:18] That might save a life one day. You never know. So when in doubt, report. [38:34] Special thanks to our number one reporter at Audio Check, Delia D'Ambra, for helping us out with this episode. We couldn't have done it without her. And make sure to follow us on Instagram at Crime Junkie Podcast. [38:48] new and more normal episode of Crime Junkie.

[39:17] you [39:18] you [39:18] you [39:22] Crime Junkie is an AudioChuck production. [39:25] So? [39:26] What do you think, Chuck? [39:27] Do you approve? [39:28] *Mooooooow* [39:31] Okay, crime junkies, you know I absolutely love a twist and a turn, especially when it comes to people who turn out to be someone they're not. That's why I have been obsessed with the podcast Chameleon. Every Thursday, host Josh Dean deep dives into a scam so bizarre, it will leave you wondering, how did they get away with that? [39:49] It is truly one of my favorite podcasts right now and I've been listening for years. [39:53] I think you'll love it too. [39:55] Listen to Chameleon wherever you get your podcasts.