BONUS: Amanda’s Early Exploits: Was she ‘sick’ even back in college? 32:59

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Nice Commander listeners, it's Charlie again and I'm joined by Nancy in the studio. We have been contacted by so many different people and two people that we wanted to get on the line to speak to us to tell a bit more is Kenrick and Lennon. Kenrick was a supervisor of the resident advisor's

at the San Jose State University. And it was around 2006, 2007, which is when Amanda was at the university and she was a resident advisor. As somebody that's English, I've had to learn what resident advisor is. And Lennon was a resident advisor with Amanda. So, Kenrick, you were the supervisor. Yeah.

that looked after the resident advisors. Can you, well, welcome along and thank you so much. Can you describe to us a little bit about that role? Sure. Well, my role was the assistant director of the department and with that came a bunch of different tasks. I actually supervised the

her supervisor. But the interesting thing about Amanda, she was very involved in our program. So she worked for me in my office as a student assistant. She also worked as an RA for a couple of years and then she later became a graduate assistant, which was a level of supervisor amongst the staff members. Right. So she did that for about a semester. And in my role, I

hired and trained all of the staff. I did staff conduct and a variety of different things throughout the department. So you trained Amanda? Yes. And she was what, around 19 and 20, 1920 at this time? I would say so. She was already an RA when I had arrived in 2006. I think I might've gotten her for the last year that she was an RA when I came in, in August of 2006. And Lennon, you were a resident advisor

Amanda, what kind of things did you do? So, yeah, I mean, in our role as resident advisors or RAs for short, you know, it saves us time, syllables. It's an desire to learn what an RA was, Lennon, that's why. Yeah. But yeah, in our jobs, we...

We're students actively ourselves, so we lived on campus, we lived in the residence halls or the dorms, depending on who you're talking to. And we had about, I would say, about 80 or so students assigned to each of us. And on the floors that they lived, we would meet with them if there were roommate issues. We would kind of do this thing where we hold what we call is our duty phone or on-call phone overnight. So we would respond to crisis calls.

We would obviously host events and activities to build community and engagement. So it's kind of like, you know, if you're familiar with other university settings, it's like the perpetual welcome week, your orientation or something like that. But we're doing it year round. We're actively working within our communities. And so we end up having like a reasonably sized team to achieve that with our supervisors and everyone else.

Lennon, you totally just reminded me of something. And these tidbits just keep popping up. I actually ended up living on her floor because I negotiated housing for a couple of years. And I lived on her floor, I think, for a year or two. And so I got to see her as an RA.

So she was kind of like my RA, even though I was a professional staff member. But that's funny. So I really want to dig into this. So I suppose the first thing I want to ask you is when you found out what Amanda was doing, was either of you surprised? When I first found out about it,

I was about 50% surprised and the other half of me was, you know, was like, ah, this all makes sense now. I'm really surprised at some of the things that I'm learning more and more as I hear the podcast. But you're not surprised that she's done this? Not surprised. Some of it makes sense. Yeah. Why? Why?

As a student assistant, I got to work with her closely. And I've had people, other people in my life, who've gone through cancer treatment and have fought cancer. And some of the behavior, it just didn't line up. Like, she was never wanting to talk about it, which is fine. That happens with some people. But it just...

didn't line up with how someone would look and how someone would feel. She was always very energized and very bubbly and very outgoing, which is a wonderful quality of her. I never saw the pain of what cancer folks would go through, right? And so that immediately made me question some of the authenticity of what she was experiencing.

Lennon, what did you think? What was Amanda like? Because, you know, I suppose you could argue with what you were just saying, Kenrick, that, well, people show things, show their pain in different ways, right? Yeah, you know, and I think it's thinking back to the totality of the question of being surprised and then also, you know, what it was like.

I still work in higher education. And so I think I'm at a point where I don't know if I'm get too surprised about the behavior of people, unfortunately. But when I look at the cultivation of a skill set to do these things, I'm not surprised.

And what I mean by that is on one end, and this isn't a promotion for people to become RAs, to become scam artists, but it's this idea of learning how to turn it on is something that is a skill set. I think we all do it. We all go through our lives and some of us who are the most successful or become continually successful or find our definitions of success is our ability to acknowledge how to turn it on, turn it off, recharge, all these other things.

In the case of the kind of work we were doing and how it may be translated to Amanda is when you live where you work, how do you turn it off? In the work we did, we probably get about an hour, hour or two. So I look, I look at that. It's like literally you get back in your room and that's the only time you really get a chance to stop smiling or stop putting up the bold face. Once I discovered that it wasn't real, I kind of was like, wow, okay,

This is something I'm not surprised by because I think there had always been an element of putting on the show. So wait, wait, wait, wait, guys, right? So this was back in 2006, kind of 2007 time. She started a blog in 2012 to remind everyone, which is when she said she was diagnosed with cancer, with Hodgkin's lymphoma. So hang on, we're talking about it as if, well, she put on this good face and

So did she say she had cancer then? Yeah. What? Well, she definitely had. I don't know this for a fact. I'll say this. I think she started off very, very small and realized that maybe she could do this to get out of stuff like classes or work or what have you. And then she just saw that it was a success and started building on it, right? And said,

I could do this. I can make some money out of this or something. I don't know that for a fact, but. So when you say, I don't know for a fact, but she was saying she wasn't very well. She was saying she was sick. Yes. Oh, yes. I remember her being sick. And I remember that coming up because when you're looking at your peers and there's 1,400 residents in one building, right? Pretty big building. 1,400 residents in one building and there's only 15 RAs.

you know, we got to work. And so anytime someone was excused, you felt it. She was sick and lethargic, I'll say, quite a bit when it came to the extra duties of what was asked of us. Because one of the things we also found out through somebody who was a boyfriend of hers back around that time was that she was saying she had lupus. Does that ring any bells for either of you? Absolutely.

Absolutely. Yeah. And I just want to pick up on, you know, you were saying Kenrya Kao, she's always really smiley. Like in all the photos we've gone through from her blog posts, and this is years and years and years, she is always really smiley. And one of the things that people said about her was, you know, she's so charming and lovely. And I mean, I've met her and she was smiley and lovely, even though she'd been just been sentenced.

Can you describe a bit more of what she was like and what the interactions were like? Was she kind and a good person? How would you describe that? Yeah, this is the difference between what she's done versus how she appeared, right? Because she was very much everything of a helper. She was... I mean, if you met her, you would immediately...

I melt into her wanting her to be a good friend of yours. Right. I thought she was very bubbly, very personable. She she actually was a very hard worker. So I don't want to take any of that away from her. She did. I think she did her job and she did it well. And, you know, her accolades prove that.

She was, it seemed to many of us that she was a good person and she was genuinely doing things to help people and was really caring about other folks. I think, like I shared earlier, it's 24-7 and we're around each other all the time. And you can...

You can be genuine. And I would totally agree with the standpoint of the hard work and the way she shows up. Like her creativity, when she's on, she can win. She would win. Like I think there are a number of...

of things, I think her biggest strength in the work that we did was around programming and engagement, like really showcasing, obviously a great speaker, very energetic, super welcoming. And those are qualities that when you think about interviewing someone for a role like this, stand out in an interview.

Um, I think for some of the other things that, you know, a fellow RA would track and that we would feel, and we definitely felt it at the time was, but yeah, but how many of your students do you actually know? Like you've got 87 residents. Do they think you're a resource or do they engage with you outside of the space? So I think that we were seeing things and tracking things in a light where it was, um,

I think we felt it once again as peers, but I think from a showing up standpoint, like even myself, like and at the time, even being, you know, in that window friends with Amanda, I think we

If it was time to do something, you wanted her to be on your team because you know she wanted to win. So it's like, and so she was going to show up and put on as best she could. So there's so much productivity there from that lens and engagement. And so I totally see, like Kenrick was sharing, that sort of energy of, oh yeah, she is someone you, upon meeting, are like, oh, there's someone I can almost look up to. Yeah.

But, but, Lennon, wouldn't you agree that some of that was in the manipulation of all of this? Is that I feel like she showed up like...

an A+ student to the people who matter, like supervisors, maybe teachers, people who were making decisions, who had the power to make some of that. So she wanted those people to know that she's fantastic and she's great and she can do all this stuff and she looks good in front of them so that later possibly they could be sympathetic to her cause.

Like you in a way, Kenric, because you hired her, right? You hired her as a grad assistant. So she actually worked for you. So you must have seen those qualities in her. Absolutely. Absolutely. Like I said, some of them just did not, it didn't match up. It didn't match up. Can you tell us about this residency program that

Amanda was part of a sought-after residency program where students got a $3,000 pay plus room and board. But then Amanda mysteriously left after about six weeks, which is unusual.

That's actually the graduate level position that she was employed in. We hire both graduate students and undergrad for the RA position, but there's a level of assistant residents position

Our residence life coordinators are professional folks that have gone through grad school and all that stuff. And then we have assistant residence life coordinators that might do a bunch of supervising and some other tasks. But she entered into that role for, I want to say like maybe six to eight weeks or something like that. And we had gone through the process of getting her hired because we had to make sure that she was

A grad student, that was the number one priority. And to us, she was a great candidate because she had already known our department, had known our program, and she could easily transition into the role, having all of those skills that we didn't have to necessarily retrain her on.

And so it was really interesting. After six or eight weeks, she was gone. She was like, she resigned and she didn't give us a reason. She just was done. And that role did pay for, we paid tuition, we paid room and board. And we also gave, I want to say about a $3,000 stipend a month to all of our grad students. This episode is brought to you by Shopify.

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Go to your happy place for a happy price.

That's a lot. Do you mind if I'm just going to bring Nancy in? I've got Nancy in the studio with us and I'd love to bring Nancy in at this point. Nancy, do you think there was a particular reason why it was around that six to eight weeks timeframe? Yeah, I mean, for me, I noticed, you know,

She had racked up a lot of education debt when we were looking at the bankruptcy, and I couldn't figure out how that worked. And I do know, like, once you come around about the six-week mark, you can withdraw and usually get a reimbursement of the funds for your tuition. There's like a cutoff point, and then if you get out before, you get reimbursed. So I always thought that was the situation.

What do you think about that, Kemrick? You're nodding your head. I think that is brilliant, to be honest with you. I mean, aside from having the debt, but to have figured out that as a way to make some money, I'm not suggesting that people do that because clearly this is one of the outcomes. But she...

It's crazy that if that's what she did, she got room and board for a period of time. She got the monthly stipend and then she got us to pay for her tuition and

which could be upwards of $10,000. And then after a while, she just left and got reimbursed for the amount because after we transfer the money, we have nothing else to do with it. It just leaves our hands and it now goes into the student's account. And so she clearly, and I never ever thought about that, but it would have meant that she would have

gotten all of those funds as she withdrew from those classes. Kenrick, when you posted on Facebook about the podcast Commander and about knowing Amanda, you said something wasn't right. And loads of people commented on that and felt the same. What was not right from either of you? Do you think, was there any...

obvious lies or things at the time, any complaints made or anything that made people question her. I think, you know, we all kind of secretly had these feelings but never outright said it to one another. But it was, you know, it's stuff that we each observed, you know. It might be that I'm feeling she called out sick, but yet she's going to a party or going

You see her all dressed up to go out on a date or something, right? And so some of those things just didn't make any sense. And then it makes, it raises eyebrows. And I almost wish that we were brave enough to say something to one another back in those days. I think something Kenrick alluded to earlier is this idea of looking good for those that matter.

I think there were times where a person recognizes their accolades exceeding their actual effort and they don't thrive in that energy. I would say, or at least I would say a good, reasonable person would not choose to thrive in that energy. If I gave credit to Kenrick right now for something he know he didn't do, he would probably say, thank you so much, but actually a few other people contributed to that success.

And one of the things that I think stood out was there were often more accolades than were actually achieved that Amanda would speak to.

And those of us in the know were like, you didn't do that. Like, you know, I think that that was probably the grand struggle, right? It was just kind of like this idea of that's not true. So I think like just those little bit of embellishments, it was tough because there was, I think at the time, and I'll say this is at the time, there were so many of us working so hard and we were collectively being successful to have one person make it seem like they were only successful is the part that kind of stuck with people was like this idea that you were somehow excommunicated

the reason everything took place. And this is, I would say, a rough week. I had another friend that I lost to cancer this week who had had a long battle. I can think of a 12-year battle she's had with cancer and it was away, then came back. And I can remember her cutting her hair and I can remember, you know, all these moments. But in seeing her journey and thinking to myself, there's a real...

piece of this and you only get so much from a picture, you only get so much from a moment. But I think that part that didn't sit well was this idea of

It just felt a little done up. And I can't, and it's tough now because of the timeline. Like I think as well as a foundation of this was, you know, years ago, 10, 15 years ago. So I think it's, it's not like we use social media the same way as we used to. So everything seemed authentic and I can remember giving outreach when I saw the posts. But then there's just a point where you start to be like,

I know what my direct friends and family who've gone through this can't do. And you seem to be able to do everything under the sun, whether that be have children or different things. I'm like, I just know everybody who can't do a number of things and are hyper limited in how they can interact with life who are going through these battles. And it really did seem like a miracle. And that's where you're like, that's almost too good to be true.

But you don't want to be a skeptic about wellness, you know, and that's that's the hard part. Who wants to be that person that says you don't have cancer? Yeah. Can you just prove to me your medical records, please? And I think that's one of the things we, you know, we want to we want to raise awareness and.

stop people doing this, but also make sure we don't become, we don't push out the skepticism where, you know, oh, question people because not for a second are we saying that because it's really important that we don't. And Lennon, thanks for sharing about that because, you know, really sorry about the loss of your friend. And I think that's what

you know, cancer in some way touches all of us in some way. We all have a story, whether it's ourselves or our family. And I know that's something very upsetting and close to Nancy's heart because, you know, Nancy, you lost your sister. Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. Like I think I had said earlier that I'm familiar with folks. I've had a couple of folks in my life who have had struggles with breast cancer and a couple of folks who have lost their lives because of it. And for me, having experienced their hardships and their day to day trials around that is

it always seemed off. There's no way that someone who claimed what she had would have that much energy to be able to do certain things. The level of energy did not match up with someone who was going through what she was going through. And certainly people handle stuff in different ways, but my experience did not yield what it was supposed to. I just want to ask you both,

a question I wonder, did you know anything about her before you met her? As in, did you know anything about her past, where she came from, what kind of background she has? I just think of like when I went to university, you know, people, I got to know people and, you know, I told them a bit about where I was from and I don't know, my family and did they, did she ever, do you know anything more about her from that perspective?

No, no, no, I really didn't. I don't know if she was trying to be very mindful of how much she shared because she didn't want to get caught.

When I would ask her questions about what she was going through, so I was inquisitive, wanting to learn more and also wanting to see how I can possibly support her. She was a little evasive and wouldn't get into much depth about what she, which was at the time I thought, okay, maybe it's her business and I shouldn't be asking that, whatever. But she never outright said, no, I don't want to talk about that. She just kind of beat around the bush and

and just made up stuff about it, right? Or hardly even talked about it. When I think about how most of the team's conversations would go or my conversations with her directly if we were like, you know, because at night we'd be on duty together. So we'd sit at a desk for three hours, you know, and so that'd be a mix of class and life and what we're doing this weekend or all these other things. So we would get, you know, probably

10 times out of the semester, so probably 20-ish times a year, I probably would get a solid three hours with her that wasn't even like any other social time. But more times than not, it was mostly school, current school, like, you know, university related. I always, I did know her faith was big to her. I was a religious studies major. So that was a component that she was speaking to, at least around that time, was

this idea of at least wanting to get into church. I don't know if she was involved in a church. I'm trying to think of like, we had some like student Christian clubs and I couldn't recall if she joined any of them. And then no, a lot of her other time and energy at the time, which I remember her, her,

cousins coming by but I think I've now discovered that those weren't her little cousins the girls that would come over but they would come by Hang on, hang on sorry Lennon I'm just going to pick you up on that who? She yeah she would have two two young ladies there would be one young girl and maybe like one a little older that would come over periodically

And at the time it was presented to me as cousins, but I felt like, yeah, she would have people over. And then the guy she was dating at the time, not Corey, that was a big part because of sporting events. He, she, the two of them and I would go to sporting events together as well. So like, I felt like the foundation of her home life outside of school was mostly at the time, her current boyfriend, the family stuff with, with the girls and everything. So I'll tell you who those two girls were. Yeah.

They were Alita's children.

So Alita was Corey's wife at the time and Amanda was going to her house and was helping those two kids and became a bit of a friend to them because Jamie had, at the time, cancer, which was Alita's eldest daughter, and then Jessa, who later became Amanda's bonus daughter, stepdaughter. She called her bonus daughter. So those two kids, she said, were cousins, were actually Alita's children, Jessa and Jamie. Right.

And that's the reframing, right? Like at the time I didn't even like, you know, I wouldn't even have no one questions that, like, you know, like, you know, someone brings their family over kind of thing and, and everything. But, uh, yeah, no, I mean, I think it's, it is been interesting to see some of the overlap with these things years later, um,

And not knowing, it's like, I don't think anyone could have really sat there at least until Nancy started doing some research. But I don't know if anyone could have sat there and just said, let's connect all these dots and piece these things together. But I definitely feel like

I think in small bites, people test the waters and see what they can get away with. And I think just over time, we saw these small bites turn from, "Hey, I can't make it today because I'm not feeling well. I can't do this because I'm sick," to, "Oh, how much more can I get?" Yeah.

Thank you so much, Kenrick and Lennon. We really appreciate you sharing your story with us and for coming on and giving us more insight and clearly that this was going on far longer than before her blog was

And we did find out before that in 2010. But, you know, this era that we're talking about right now is around the kind of 2006, 2007 years. So thank you, both of you. Any final words? What would you say to Amanda if you saw her now? For me, I would just say why? And I think that's the biggest question that lots of folks are having about all of this is why? Why would you do this?

Like, why fake it? There's lots of people going through this. Talk about karma in itself that, God forbid, that that comes back to you, right? Why would, I mean, if money is the answer, that's not the answer. There's lots of legitimate ways to get money. And obviously, you know that now because you got caught. It's just ridiculous that this would be one of the ways that you would

live your life and scheming around and you're making people trust you and just ultimately lying to everyone, you know? I don't get it. Lennon? It's a mixed bag, but I think it's on the most mindful and thoughtful end. I would hope, or I would probably tell her along the lines of, I hope that this doesn't deter others from giving to those who really need it.

I would hope that she considers and weighs the weight of every dollar that in the last 10 to 15 years that could have potentially actually helped save a life, actually help get a little more research, get a bit more medication that could have gone to someone in real need. And ultimately, I hope her faith is real because I hope that she can find some way to find a way to

I don't want to say cope, but to navigate the impact of that reality. Because I think I would imagine if a person took on the weight of that impact of what has occurred, it'd be very difficult to navigate. And so whether that's counseling, faith, whatever is out there, I hope that there are some real spaces for her to get help and to become a better person.

because I don't expect flawless out of anyone. I've got my flaws. But the intention behind this, the effort it took to hold this up, I feel like it's just so intense that I'm hopeful to the listeners and to the families and those out there who still have a heart to give, feel like they'll still be encouraged to find a real cause to give to.

Thank you. I think that's a great message to end on. Thank you, both of you, Kenrick and Lennon. Thanks for joining us. Nancy, thanks again for coming in the studio. And thanks, everybody, for listening. We really appreciate it. I hope you enjoyed this bonus episode. And it gives you, well, it gave us all a lot more insight into Amanda. Don't forget to give us a rate and review. And if your friends haven't heard about Scamanda, they should have. Thanks again. Goodbye for now.

Scamander is hosted and produced by me, Charlie Webster, and produced by Jackson McLennan. Edit and theme music by Nico Pallella. Assistant producer, Casey Hertz. Assistant editor, Seema Grewal. Additional production support from Stephen Sletten, Will Hagel, and Nicole Urban. Executive produced by me, Charlie Webster, and Nancy Moscatello. Scamander is a Lionsgate Sound production engineered by Pilgrim Media Group.