164: What if a shocking accusation devastated your family? 53:01

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Thank you all again for listening. It's truly such an indescribable feeling. It was just horrible nausea. And it feels kind of like the walls are closing in on you. Like, reality is just collapsing. From Wondery, I'm Witt Misseldein. You're listening to This Is Actually Happening, episode 164. What if a shocking accusation devastated your family?

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I grew up in a pretty average American household. We lived in a quiet suburban neighborhood, did all the typical things a family would do, an average middle-class family, that is. And things were pretty normal. I was happy. I loved my mother. I adored her. She doted on me. You know, I was her firstborn, so of course we had that special bond. My father, I have less memories of him. I think he worked longer hours than my mom. And when he would come home, he would spend time in the backyard in the shed.

So my mom worked as a teacher. She went into special education, just like her mom, my grandma, did. My grandma worked with the severe learning disabilities, and it was her passion. And so my mom followed in her footsteps, and she focused on teaching reading to students who had a hard time with that. Many of them had ADD, ADHD, processing disorders. Maybe some had Down syndrome.

She had a great reputation as a teacher. From what I know, she was well-loved by her colleagues.

My mom and my dad had a happy marriage for the first two years. But my mom noticed a couple years into their marriage that my dad was starting to act strangely. His behavior was changing a lot. He grew more secretive. He would spend a lot of time in our backyard in this giant shed that we had, smoking weed and doing drugs. And she wasn't aware in the beginning of what he was doing.

It was gradual, according to my mom. It got progressively worse as the years went on. By the time I was five years old and my sister was born, he was just acting erratic, doing different kinds of drugs. He quit his job multiple times, and he was abusive towards her emotionally. He would put her down. He would accuse her of things.

Like one day, my mom had bought like a little cute lamp that she loved and he just threw it on the ground and broke it and just laughed. He would lie or he would accuse my mother of lying. He would always talk about, you know, how intelligent he was or how good he was at his job when he was actually falling behind.

He was paranoid. He always thought that people were watching him or that my mother, you know, was too overbearing, you know, for asking him about where he was. And he would disappear, you know, for hours at a time and wouldn't come back. And that was just how he became. But he wasn't like that in the beginning. One thing about him is he did not like my sister. He was upset that she was a girl. He wanted a son.

He has always seen me as the golden child. He adored me in his twisted way, and he never tried to hurt me. He just tried very hard to convince me that my mother was evil. My mother was miserable, and she was afraid of him. And that's when she realized that the situation was serious, and she needed to find a way out. It was a very ugly process.

It took a long time to actually finally get him out of our house. And then he would continue to return, you know, and beg my mother for forgiveness. He would come to my school every day and try to have lunch with me. He would, you know, harass the babysitter who stayed with us every day. He was like a parasite. You couldn't get rid of him. When it really got bad is when, you know, the divorce was finalized, but we had court mandated visitation with him.

He would just sit there and look at me and tell me all these things about my mother and how, you know, she was wrong and she was destroying the family and that he loves me and they were still married in the eyes of God. And that we would be a family again, that my mother is evil and wrong and that my grandparents, my mother's parents, were also evil. And he would even go as far as to say they're going to go to hell for doing what they did.

But I wanted to listen to him. He was my daddy, you know, and that means a lot to a little girl. So it was horribly confusing because I adored my mother. She was my main caregiver. You know, I lived with her full time and I would only see him every other weekend. And it caused a lot of pain. And as soon as my grades started slipping, I think that's when, you know, my mother realized something was very, very wrong.

So my mother, I think she had been separated from my dad for maybe a year or two years. And she meets her second husband. This guy sweeps her off her feet. He waves his money around. He has a background in law enforcement. And that makes her feel safe. Finally, she thought that, you know, she, my sister and I could get away from my dad and be protected from him.

She got engaged to him six months after they met. They were married pretty soon after. And we all moved into his home, and he had a son. So I had this new stepfather and stepbrother. At the very beginning, I still had court-ordered visitations with my dad. The brainwashing had continued. It was nonstop. The visits were miserable.

One day, I remember I was just so overwhelmed. You know, I didn't know who to believe. I felt like a shell. The last straw that finally severed the tie between my dad and me and my sister was when I had to see this counselor. And during my interview with her, I told her that if I had to go see him again, that I would kill myself. She was like, well, those, I guess, are the golden words. You won't see your dad again. And so that stopped that.

My father has received multiple diagnoses over the years. The main one that I always cite is that he has narcissistic personality disorder, but he also has been diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder and bipolar disorder and severe paranoia. He never accepted that he was actually damaging, you know, my sister, my sister and me. He just claimed that it was my mother and my grandparents brainwashing me into thinking he was the bad person.

I was very confused about how I felt about my mom, but our relationship healed. I mean, the only damage to it had been caused by him. You know, all I had to do was look at her and see that she adored me. She always has. So my mom's second marriage appeared pretty perfect from the outside, especially from the beginning. She had the ideal blended family, a nice house, a husband who had his own business.

This man I actually referred to as dad, and I loved him. He was good to me and my sister. He was playful. But there's a statistic that women who are abused will often get with a second abuser in their lifetime for whatever reason. And that is exactly what happened with my mom. I don't think she realized again until it was too late that she had made a mistake marrying him so fast when she didn't really know him.

My stepfather, like I mentioned, had his own business, but it was not a booming business at all. And then my mother, she had continued working as a teacher. She had changed schools. She was working at a middle school now, which was not exactly her element. I remember my mother's behavior starting to get a little erratic. She would have mood swings. She would stay in bed late. She would cry before going to work every day.

She was miserable at her job. She did not have a good relationship with her boss at the new school. So she was drowning. Her marriage, her second marriage was failing when she wanted it so badly to work. My biological father was always hanging around in the background, threatening to get custody of my sister and me. She started drinking more and she was just sad.

One day I just found her in my bathroom and she had like this tiny, like a little razor blade. I don't even know where she found it from. And she was just like scratching right behind her ear, like incessantly. And I was trying to be like, mama, like what's wrong? Like, why are you doing that? Stop. You know, like you're bleeding. And she just kept going.

So she was going through like a full fledged breakdown. And my stepdad wasn't helping her at all. He was just kind of letting it happen and draining her bank account while it did.

As a kid, it was very scary to watch my mother unravel. I remember feeling like I didn't have an adult in my life who I could really rely on. You know, I was starting to be fearful for my mother and maybe of my mother, too, when I would see her in these very bad states of mind. So I was in eighth grade.

At that point, I was just an awkward middle schooler. I never had a boyfriend. Didn't think I was attractive or anything like that, like most middle schoolers think. My mother one day brought some students over to her house because they were working on an extra credit project. And my mom has always been extremely open and loving and helpful. So she invited them over and they were working on their poster board projects in the garage.

And I got to meet her students. They were my age. They were also in eighth grade. And one of them was a guy. And I thought he was kind of cute. He seemed nice and funny. And the strange thing was, he seemed interested in me. He thought I was pretty. He told my mom that. And she, of course, told me because she thought it was sweet and thought, oh, you know, well, maybe maybe he can be my first boyfriend.

He was one of my mother's students. He was technically special education. He had some learning disorders. I know for sure that he had ADHD and a very bad temper. He had aggression issues. So he would work with her, you know, again, to learn coping strategies. I asked my mom, you know, like if he could come over more often, if we could hang out.

So he would come over fairly frequently and my mom was fine with it. She was just excited to see me have a crush on someone and see me have that first little puppy love experience, I guess.

It was as serious as an eighth grade relationship can possibly be. You know, I would see him pretty regularly every week. It's not like we had riveting conversations. He would just, you know, crack jokes and I would laugh and that's about it. We would hang out in my room or hang out, just messing around, going on walks,

And one thing that is very sad to reflect back on, you know, I was so young. I was only 14 at the time. And he repeatedly would try to like get me to do sexual things with him. Like he would beg me. He would make inappropriate comments. You know, he would grab me by my shirt and like pull me close to him and like act like he was trying to pull my shirt off. But we never did anything sexual. The most we ever did was make out.

He would, you know, like play fight with me, but he would hit so hard that he would like leave bruises. It was pretty bad, but I was just so excited to have someone interested in me at that age that I just overlooked it and thought that it was okay. My boyfriend had been making a lot of sexual comments about my mom. He would make them to me, which was extremely uncomfortable, just talking about how attractive she was.

I'm sure, you know, that he probably said these things to the other boys at school.

But my mother didn't do anything to provoke this. She was just trying to do her job. And again, I cannot stress enough how miserable she was working at that middle school. And she was miserable, not because of her students, but just because of the work environment, the colleagues and her boss. The principal despised her for whatever reason. I don't know. All I know is that I saw my mother, you know, in tears going to work every day because she was so miserable.

My father had also meddled in my mother's work so much with the school district that the school board was aware of him. He had just made such a fuss that I suppose my mother had a reputation of being the woman who had been married to a crazy man.

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My mother was in the middle of her breakdown, really, when I was dating this boy. She was just doing her best to try to keep me happy. So she facilitated the visits between him and me. She would bring him over to spend time with me. She would drive him to come see me.

Sometimes she would take us shopping with her. One day we were in a clothing store just looking for a new shirt for me. And she ran into one of her colleagues, a fellow teacher at the school. And the teacher made a comment, oh, why are you with this student? And she said, oh, he's friends with my daughter. They're spending time together. And the colleague said, oh, okay, that's cool.

At one point, she was taking my boyfriend home from a visit and he was having a meltdown in the seat beside her. So she pulled off into a park to try to get him to calm down because he was kicking her dashboard so hard that he was going to break it. That's when she pulled off into the park that a cop pulled up behind her and was like, what are you guys doing here?

She just explained what was going on and he said, oh, okay, be on your way. But just so you know, your tag is expired. You need to renew it. And she said, okay. And I think she may have been given a ticket for that, something like that, or a warning. I don't know. The next day, as soon as my stepdad heard about it, for some reason, he just really latched onto that and he flipped out.

He had already been accusing my mom of infidelity. My stepdad had had an affair during their marriage, but I guess so many people like to project these days, and so he was constantly accusing my mother of cheating on him. He is a former police officer, so he went down to the station

I don't really know what went through his head. I don't know if he saw it as an opportunity. All I know is that he went to the police station and talked to some of his friends about what happened. And I have heard conflicting stories from my mother, from my stepdad, from my grandparents. All I know is that when he went to the police station, he raised some eyebrows as to why my mother was in the park with my boyfriend at night alone.

Her principal had also caught wind of what was going on between her, the student, slash my boyfriend, and me. So I had gone to school like normal. And I was in choir. And my friend came up to me. And she said, are you okay? And I said, yeah, why? And she said, well, I heard about your mom. And I said, what do you mean? And my friend said, well, I heard about the arrest. And I said, what?

Later in the day, we had computer lab and I Googled my mom. And the first thing that came up was her arrest in our local newspaper. You know, teacher arrested on sexual assault charges.

When I found out that my mom had been arrested, it's truly such an indescribable feeling. It was just horrible nausea. And it feels kind of like the walls are closing in on you, like reality is just collapsing. And I also felt like I had every single eye on me. I was like, everyone knows what's going on.

The next day, it was in the newspaper. And the newspaper, of course, had been delivered to the school and whatnot. And my principal called me out of line and told me, you know, that he was watching out for me and that everything was going to be okay. The day my mom was arrested, my stepdad did not come get me from school. I don't quite know where he was. He just abandoned me and my sister.

My grandparents came and picked us up from school and they explained to us that my mom was in the county jail, that she had been accused of rape, but that they were doing everything they could to take care of her. I remember going back to our house and getting my things and taking the two puppies that we had at the time. We just took them and going back to my grandparents' home, which became my home.

They were very lost and I was confused. I didn't know what was going on. And I don't even remember talking to my stepdad during that time. He just vanished, evaporated into thin air as soon as my mom was arrested. So my mother ended up with four charges.

She has a charge of aggravated child molestation, which is 25 years to serve, no chance of parole. She has child molestation, which is 20 served, and statutory rape, which is 20 years straight, and then also sexual assault, which is 30 years served, 25, with parole eligibility. This sinking, nauseous feeling just stayed with me, probably for weeks.

The process of like finding out that my mother had been arrested, her being in the county jail, the news reporting on her to the time. I think it was probably a few weeks later that we got her out on bond. I was thrilled for her to come back so things could seem normal again. So I could forget that image that I had in my mind of her mugshot because it was everywhere. And the poor thing and her mugshot, she just looks so confused because she didn't know what was going on.

I remember the night that my mom got out on bail. They had to sneak her out of the jail. She was wearing, you know, like plain clothes and a cap to hide her hair. And she just, she seemed kind of like a zombie. That strange state where she didn't seem to know like what was going on. She was just in a state of shock. I feel like 75% of the time, especially during those first few weeks after everything went down.

She was still very much broken, but she was still there for me. She tried her best, you know, and she tried to explain things to me and my sister so that we would understand. But she was also horrified by her own charges that it made it hard for her to talk about them with us.

She tried her best to hide it. My mom has always tried to hide her pain for me and my sister. But there were times when I saw her break down. I saw her cry. I have a very strong memory of her just laying in the guest bedroom on the bed, just sobbing. You know, she was like a little kid. This was just unlike any pain that I ever could have imagined before.

to be accused of a crime, to lose your job, to move back in with your parents who are also frightened and don't know what to do. It felt like a nightmare. Her life was collapsing. She just was lost. At the age of 14, that was the first bit of awareness that I ever got that my mom is a person. You know, she's not just my mom, but she has feelings and she's an individual who was suffering more than she ever had.

I think my family as a whole is very naive. I think that we're good, hardworking people. My grandparents especially have always lived, you know, very normal, middle class, happy lives, never getting into trouble or anything like that. And then with my mother being accused of rape of one of her students and losing her job and her second marriage collapsing, they just didn't know what to do. They were just appalled.

And of course, during this time, my stepfather was nowhere to be found. He was doing God knows what, probably just happy to get rid of my mom since I think she had become a bit of a drag since she had tried to convince him to continue supporting a family that he didn't want to support.

So the news had a field day with my mom. You know, this was a big case for an otherwise pretty boring town. The news tends to sensationalize stories like my mother's, you know, a teacher seduces a student. They love to talk about those. And I remember like the news trying to interview us. They filmed themselves walking up to our front door. The good thing is that my identity was kept secret because I was a minor. And so I was safe.

But I remember hearing whispering from other students, oh, did you hear about that student who got raped at the other middle school? Every time I heard a little comment like that, it felt like a knife in my chest.

My mother, I remember she tried her best to try to keep attention away from her. She'd always dyed her hair pretty blonde highlights. But then as soon as she had her mugshot pasted all over the news, she went back to brown. And she did not venture out in public that often, just out of fear, you know, being recognized. I think everyone enjoyed the sensation of the story.

People love gossip and people love drama. And I think that's what my mother's case was. And the school district ran with it. You know, they made a big deal out of claiming that they were providing counseling services to the fellow students at the school where she worked and all this crazy stuff when really none of that was happening. What I felt was confusion and just sickness.

You feel like you're in a nightmare, like it's just unreal what's going on. And it feels like there's no there's no escape. My mother was at home on bail for probably roughly a year before the main trial. And to be honest, the latter half of that year was incredibly happy.

I have very happy memories of coming home from school and just sitting and talking to my mom for hours, telling her about my day, my classes. We would watch shows together. We were big fans of the show Supernatural. I suppose that's kind of the silver lining, if there is one, of the situation that I was able to repair and just have true quality time with her away from stepdads or biological dads who could interfere.

My mother sort of recovered from her breakdown. Of course, she still had this trial in the over her head and the grief over her failed marriage and her lost job and this accusation that she was facing. But aside from all of that, she was not just going to sit at home. She wanted to work towards her next career since she knew she would never work as a teacher again. So she tried to become a hairstylist.

I never believed that my mother could do this, ever. Even at her worst point, when I saw my mother going through the worst part of her breakdown, I never thought my mother could hurt someone in that way, especially not my boyfriend at the time. It was sickening to know that he was the one making this accusation.

But I think what's important to note about this accusation is that it was really spearheaded by my stepdad and by the boys' family and by the school district. So my mom's trial took place the summer after my freshman year of high school. And I remember it lasted about a week.

Every day, you know, my mother would put on her nice clothes and she and my grandparents would drive off to the courthouse and I would be left at home with my sister. So the public believed that my mom was basically having an affair with her accuser who was her student. At first, he maintained that nothing happened. I heard that he was just as shocked by what was going on as any of us were.

during like the very first interrogations with police. He was like, nothing happened between us. That's insane. But he was questioned multiple times. I know my family has copies of the transcripts and you can read, you know, as he gets hammered by the police, it's sad in a way. He just starts saying, okay, well, yeah, that, that did happen. I guess that did happen there. So he claimed that he and my mother had had sex multiple times in different locations and,

in our house, out riding four-wheelers, which was bizarre. So it was pretty wild what he claimed. She was painted as the teacher seductress,

And even during the trial, you know, when he was getting examined by our attorney, you know, I was told that he had his head down the entire time. He wouldn't look up, wouldn't look at anyone. He was barely speaking. You couldn't even hear him, really. He was just saying yes, you know, to whatever the attorney said, that yes, it happened. He was basically being fed answers. And then I guess he just ended up running with it.

I know for a fact that his family got a huge settlement from the school district because, of course, they threatened to sue or maybe they did sue. I'm not quite sure. I doubt it got that far. The school district was, of course, involved because as soon as my mother was arrested, they were they were ready to wipe her from their record and get rid of her.

It's important to say that his files, you know, like he was a special education student with a very long history of aggression and lying and other behavioral issues. His files were sealed and they were not brought into the trial. So my mother's trial was built on hearsay. There was no evidence, even though they took all of our computers and mobile devices and went through her truck with a fine-tooth comb, you know, looking for DNA evidence.

The only thing that the trial was built around were the verbal accusations from my boyfriend, who I had not spoken to since her arrest. They went through her clothes. My stepdad gave them like our entire laundry basket. Like it even included the clothes that she was wearing the night when they found her in the park.

They took my laptop, my iPod, her laptop, her phone. And we never even got one of those computers back. Searching for like messages, I guess, or photos. They didn't find anything. None of that existed. You know, that's the thing. The case was built on the testimony from the accuser.

So my stepdad was at the trial. He testified against my mother. He spoke to her instability regarding her breakdown, you know, the breakdown that he witnessed and did nothing to help her with.

I know that he was the one who stirred up a fuss and got people looking at what she was doing in the park that night. I don't know what else he did. All I can say is that he comes from a very influential family. He was a deputy sheriff himself for a long time, so I don't know what he did, but I do think he pulled some strings.

This whole thing was just an opportunity for him to escape. Like his marriage with my mother was falling apart and it was his fault. You know, he spent all of her money. And I literally think that this shit show, this story was his out and he used it.

There was no evidence. There was no DNA evidence. It was truly just a he said, she said situation. I think it gained momentum because nothing happens in my city. Nothing exciting happens. And this was a big story. And, you know, if my theory is correct, which I'm pretty sure it is, that my stepdad was pulling some strings with the police department, you know, and also the school district, you know, wanting my mom gone. The story just grew. You know, it's sensationalism.

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Someone can come at me and say, but you're her daughter. Of course you're going to defend her. She still could have done this horrific crime. But I point to the fact that there is no evidence. You have to look at it for what it is. It was just gossip, fake gossip that got out of hand. So anyone can look at it and say, yeah, this was wrong. This was messed up.

There were very few people physically there at the trial in support of my mother. There were my grandparents who went every day and some of my other family members and some of my mother's friends. But aside from that, my mom was alone. It wasn't because she was disliked. My mother's always been liked by everyone, has had many friends. I think it was just the magnitude of this trial and the accusation against her. People just couldn't believe it.

My mother was very hopeful. She had a lawyer who claimed to also be hopeful. The last day of her trial, she came into my bedroom. I was still asleep and she woke me up. She gave me a kiss on my forehead and said, you know, I love you so much. I'll see you later. And then I remember her leaving and closing my door and she did not come home. The last day of my mother's trial is ingrained in my memory forever. It's probably my worst memory ever.

I was at home with my sister. It was a summer day. I remember being in our living room watching TV. And I remember watching the clock. And I was on my laptop and I kept refreshing the news feed to see if they had posted an article about her. Eventually, it refreshed. And I saw, "Teacher sentenced to life in prison for the rape of her student."

I don't think I quite registered it when I first read it. It feels like, you know, the walls are crashing down. You're in a dream. You're like, is this real? And shortly after that article was posted, I remember getting a call from my mom. I asked her, I said, how long did you get? And I remember listening to her voice. It was trembling. She was about to cry. And she said, 25 years. And I said, oh, wow.

She said, but don't worry, we're going to fight this. Like, this isn't the end. Like, this isn't it. It's going to be okay. And I just remember telling her that I love her. So when my mom was convicted, she was convicted of aggravated child molestation, child molestation, statutory rape, and sexual assault. And the charge that has given her the life sentence of 25 years is the aggravated child molestation charge. There is no chance of parole.

My grandparents got home shortly afterwards and they were holding it together shockingly well. And they just told us that we will fight this, that the lawyer said that he will do what he can, you know, with her appeal, that it isn't over. The rest of the afternoon, I don't remember anything.

But I do remember that night being in my bedroom upstairs and the stairwell was right across from my door. And I remember hearing my grandma walking up the stairs, sobbing. Just the sound of her crying is ingrained in my memory. I'd never heard someone sound so broken and so in pain before.

I think that nauseous feeling was probably worse than it had ever been. But I went to bed that night after hearing my grandma cry like that with a pounding headache, like the worst headache I had ever felt in my life up to that point. They took my mom to the county jail before she was ultimately moved to her prison. I remember talking to my mom on the phone a little bit, but our main form of communication was letters.

I just tried my best to comfort her, you know, as a 15-year-old at this point. She was soon transferred to the prison where she has been now for seven years. So I started visiting my mother in prison regularly when I was in the 10th grade. And I have gone to that prison hundreds of times at this point to see her and sit with her on the weekends when they have visitation.

I like to think that I have been very successful despite my mother's situation and my family being a little bit broken. I went to a very good high school, the best in my city. I worked extremely hard. I got good grades, which ultimately led to an excellent scholarship for college. But my mother's absence was noticeable. You know, I went through high school without my mom.

You know, I got to look around and see my friends, you know, their mothers would take them shopping or take them out to eat. You know, when prom or homecoming would come around, their moms would be taking them to buy their dresses. It was actually just me, you know, doing all of those things. I had my grandparents take care of me, but they were older. And it was just easier for me to just become my own person. And I adapted pretty quickly to life without a mom.

She didn't get to see me play in a single one of my soccer games or swim in any of my swim meets. She missed seeing me have my first real relationship. She was just absent.

And it was also a secret for most of my high school career. I would talk about my mom. I would mention, you know, I have my mother. I talked to her about, you know, this and that. There was still sort of like a gloss or like a glaze of secrecy over it. I never told anyone really, you know, where she was because my grandparents had insisted that we keep it a secret.

I think the worst part, you know, even to this day about having, you know, a mom in prison and not having any parents really, you know, besides my grandparents is seeing other people take their parents for granted. You know, like I have friends who complain about their mother being overbearing, you know, or criticizing them for this, saying that, you know, whatever. And I just think they don't know.

Not downplaying their pain. I know moms can be a pain, but I wish I had mine, even if she was nagging me about something. I tell everyone that my mom is my best friend. She and I are extremely similar. I tell her everything. She is my role model. And truly, despite all of the agony and trauma that we've been through together, two divorces and incarceration, it's ridiculous. I still see my mom as the best mom I could possibly have.

A friend of mine, she said something funny recently. She said, I don't know what your mom did, you know, what God she angered in a past life. I said, yeah, you know, my mom has felt more pain in this in this lifetime than anyone should ever have to go through. But she's still a good mom. You know, she's a flawed human being. And I see that now, you know, like I see her as a person, not just a mother figure.

I think my mother's fault, which also makes her a beautiful person, is that she is so kind. She just has always viewed the world through rose-colored glasses. She thinks that people are good and that if she's a good person and goes out of her way to make people happy, then she's doing the right thing. You know, she's doing her job.

But that naive outlook on life has been her downfall always. And she's let these men and these people walk all over her. She's ignored red flags. She's just been so focused on trying to be a good person and trying to do the right thing and trying to give people the benefit of the doubt or give people more chances than they deserve that it's what's been her downfall.

But I love her. I adore her. And it just sucks. It feels like a punishment having my mother stuck somewhere where I can't do a thing to get her out. And I'm having like a really good, like successful life so far, at least. And she can't see anything. It's like she's not only getting punished, but I am too. My entire family is getting punished for this alleged crime.

Even the judge, you know, who had to sentence her was like, this case was built upon hearsay. I was told that the judge said as he sentenced her, he said, this needs to be appealed. He said, please appeal this.

So we've gone through three defense attorneys. I think she put in two appeals with that second lawyer. They were denied both times. We now have a third defense attorney who I think is the most impressive nominee.

I actually sat in on that appeal and watched them bring my mother in in shackles and shaking in front of the judge, who was actually a female judge. So I was so excited. I was like, this is it. You know, finally, like a woman, you know, will empathize with my mom and see her two young daughters sitting behind her, supporting her. It dragged on for a year and we finally heard back and it was denied.

The defense attorney was appalled because the judge had literally just like copied and pasted some stuff and said, we care about children in the state of Georgia. Like I will not overturn, you know, any of these charges. I'm not going to show that I don't care about the kids.

Our justice system is so broken. And I think many people see that now, you know, especially, you know, given the current state of our country. But I know that you can't rely on a lawyer or a police officer or a judge to save you because they won't. You know, they have their own interests at heart. To me, I see the justice system as a game. Lawyers just want to win. They don't care, you know, if they're fighting for the truth.

And as soon as you put someone away, they're gone. Out of sight, out of mind. I think that I was destined to be as good-hearted and naive as my mother. But I certainly am not that way. Not after seeing what's happened to her and what can happen to a person if they let their guard down. That's where I have anger and resentment and rage. It's mainly towards my stepdad. You know, he has continued his life.

It's so infuriating and it makes me sick. He disgusts me. You know, he had two little girls, my sister and I, who adored him and who saw him as a father. But he just threw us away, you know, as soon as we weren't convenient to him anymore. And the only other people that I am angry at would be the prosecutors on my mother's case and the people who worked actively to destroy her life.

They ruined her and they ruined my family. They robbed me of my mother and they especially robbed my sister. She has probably suffered more than I have. She has been without her mother since she was 10 years old. And she doesn't have many memories, you know, being with my mom. I did feel guilty for a time. I thought, you know, why didn't I see how sick and toxic this guy was? Why did I put up with all the things he did to me?

You know, I was a child. I didn't know anything. You know, I try to give my past self, give her some sympathy. You know, she didn't know what was going on. She was watching her mother have a breakdown. Her stepdad was no help. What was she supposed to do as a 14-year-old? I don't know how I've been so resilient throughout my life. I think a lot of it comes from having that strong foundation that my mother built.

I've prided myself in the success that I've had in school, and it has carried me very far to where I am now. My grandparents have always been there for me. They told me repeatedly that I have to keep working hard, that I can't let what's going on get me down or destroy me. And I've had counselors, too. Thankfully, I think I've just been very proactive in taking care of myself and doing what I need to do to not get sucked into that dark hole.

The only way I can really cope with my mother's situation is by not thinking about it too hard. I don't sit and dwell on it. I don't think about it too hard or else I start to feel like I'm suffocating. This sense of helplessness. I think the scariest thing is thinking, you know, that she's going to continue to miss my life events. My grandmother died a few years ago and my mom missed a whole thing.

You know, I'm close with my mom. Well, my mom was very close with her mother. They had a wonderful relationship. And my mother missed the entire funeral. And she's just kind of rotting in prison. That's how she puts it, too. She's like, my life is just passing me by. You and your sister are growing up and I'm missing everything.

Is she going to die in prison? You know, her health has declined rapidly since she got there. And she'll make comments. She's like, I'm afraid I'm going to die in here. You know, and I don't know what to say when she says that to me. I just say, you won't. But I can't guarantee that. I haven't seen my mom in person since March. Because right after my spring break in March, my campus was shut down and I was sent home. And the prison shut down visitation.

She actually has COVID right now. So she's really suffering in there health wise. She says that it comes and goes like the symptoms. She'll feel okay for a few hours, then feel terrible for the next. And it's been extremely hard on her to not be able to see her family.

I can't put my life on pause. I've always had big dreams. I still have big dreams. I'm working towards them right now. I have to keep going. And I guess in a way, if I'm successful, then at least my mother can be proud and she can know that she did something right. You know, that she did protect me and my sister and give us a good life.

I think if I were to be a mess, then I would just be letting her down and disappointing her. Making all of her efforts over the years to protect us and keep us safe and taken care of would be for nothing. I think the saying is true. You know, bad things happen to good people. My mother is the prime example of that. I know how unfair life can be, and there's no rhyme or reason to it.

The justice system came into my life, destroyed everything, took a wrecking ball to everything, and then just left me to pick up the pieces and make sense of the chaos. And it's just not fair. It's just not fair. You know, going back to my friend's funny comment about what God did my mother anger in her past life to get all of this grief and torment. She just is a very unlucky person.

I get very irritated, you know, with those people who are always like, oh, you know, but you'll learn from this. Like, it'll all be okay in the end. Like, I do tell myself those things. Like, yes, everything's going to work out. Yeah, it'll be okay. But not because there's some set design out there and my mother's supposed to go through all of this, you know, or I am to get some deeper meaning in life. This just happened to my family and it sucks. Yeah.

any of that. It all happens for a reason. No, that's not true. Everything happens for a reason is such bullshit like that. And that's not true. Good things happen to bad people. Bad things happen to good people all the time. Yeah, that's just how it goes. I don't see the world through rose colored glasses. I think I still like to see the good in people and I do actively look, but at the same time, I don't trust. I know that people can be rotten to the core and

I'll always be afraid that I'm going to make the same mistakes as my mother and fall in love with an abuser. You know, I don't want to repeat the past. There's no easy way out of this mess, but you have to build your life literally piece by piece.

You can't prevent necessarily some bad things happening to you. I mean, you can take steps to try to prevent it, but you might end up suffering some traumatic event or some sort of torment in your life. But you just have to keep working your way around it, working towards a better future. I feel like that's the one thing that I can do. It's to make my family proud, you know, and repay them for everything they've done for me.

I graduated top of my class in high school within the top 10%. Got a scholarship to a very elite Southern college. Was very successful there. Wrote an honors thesis. Traveled abroad. Got an excellent fellowship coming out of that school. It's what I work on now. Living in a city that I adore. I'm still close enough that I can go home to see my family and see my mother whenever visitation opens up again.

And I have big plans. And I'm going to continue working towards them and just hope, you know, that my mother will be there by my side physically one day to see what I've built. Today's episode featured Catherine Cole. You can find out more about her on Instagram at CatCole20. That's C-A-T-C-O-L-E-2-0.

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Welcome to the Offensive Line. You guys, on this podcast, we're going to make some picks, talk some s**t, and hopefully make you some money in the process. I'm your host, Annie Agarne.

So here's how this show's going to work, okay? We're going to run through the weekly slate of NFL and college football matchups, breaking them down into very serious categories like No offense. No offense, Travis Kelsey, but you've got to step up your game if Pat Mahomes is saying the Chiefs need to have more fun this year. We're also handing out a series of awards and making picks for the top storylines surrounding the world of football. Awards like the He May Have a Point Award for the wide receiver that's most justifiably bitter.

Is it Brandon Ayuk, Tee Higgins, or Devontae Adams? Plus, on Thursdays, we're doing an exclusive bonus episode on Wondery+, where I share my fantasy football picks ahead of Thursday night football and the weekend's matchups. Your fantasy league is as good as locked in. Follow the offensive line on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can access bonus episodes and listen ad-free right now by joining Wondery+.