transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:04] Hey, it's Stephani, back with another bonus episode. Before we get to episode 10, I want to explain a bit about Laura and her mom's interaction with the Scottsdale Police. In November and December of 2023, the police were dispatched to Laura's house for a welfare check on her, at least four separate times. Two of them were recorded on officer body cams, and have been made public. Today, we're going to play you those recordings. You'll get to hear from Laura's mom, Jan Black, and from Laura herself. They tell the police their side of the story. We lightly edited them to cut out dead air or repeated information, but we've left these mostly intact, so you can hear the whole interaction. We're starting with the welfare check on December 12th, 2023. Laura's mom Jan is the one who answers the door. And just a heads up, you'll hear the officer's phone buzzing from time to time.

Speaker 2:
[01:03] Hi, there.

Speaker 3:
[01:05] Is Laura here? Yeah, is this, is somebody called in a welfare truck about her? Yes.

Speaker 2:
[01:11] Yeah, it's a friend from New York. I don't know if you know who that might be.

Speaker 3:
[01:15] No, what I do know is that she is the target of an online harassment campaign that has been going on for months. Okay. And one of the things that they wanted to do, it was started by a disgruntled ex-boyfriend of hers. And he started posting all of this crazy stuff about her on Reddit, stuff that is unbelievable. And so he has encouraged people to do, to call in the Scottsdale Police Department and ask her well for a job. This is like the third one in a week. Okay. And I had contacted the, I mean, she called in and talked to the Scottsdale Police Department as well, and said, you know, we don't want your resources, this is ridiculous, it's a prank thing. But I'm happy to go get her, she was taking an amp. This has been devastating beyond belief.

Speaker 2:
[02:22] Is she asleep now?

Speaker 3:
[02:23] She's taking a nap, but I can wake her up.

Speaker 2:
[02:26] I don't think that would be necessary.

Speaker 4:
[02:28] It's okay. Well, so I don't, for some reason, it wasn't in our notes for your address. I'm going to put comments in there that says this is an ongoing prank. Right. They still may send, we have to understand because if we don't, if it's not us on or it's not the same dispatchers, they still might just send on it. But I would work on trying to contact Reddit and let them know.

Speaker 3:
[02:56] She has contacted them. They will not take it down. They will not take it down. And this guy, he's created different fake accounts. He, I mean, it's-

Speaker 4:
[03:10] He's going to Great Lakes. Have you looked into an adjunction against harassment?

Speaker 3:
[03:16] She has against him. She's- This is part of his- Part of his thing. She's had this against him for two years. And-

Speaker 2:
[03:24] Oh, this is an old ex-boyfriend then?

Speaker 3:
[03:27] Yeah. Oh, wow. It's an old ex-boyfriend. And she had the adjunction against harassment against him. I mean, he's really- Another friend of ours who is an FBI profiler had looked at, you know, what this guy is all about, and she said he's the kind of a person who is not gonna stop unless he thinks he's got a win.

Speaker 2:
[03:52] Okay.

Speaker 3:
[03:53] And he had said to her, he texted her, I will destroy your life, I will destroy your reputation. And that was two years ago, and he's just continued this.

Speaker 2:
[04:03] Is he local here?

Speaker 3:
[04:05] Yeah, he's local.

Speaker 2:
[04:06] What's his name?

Speaker 3:
[04:07] He's local. His name is Grace Velasquez. But he could have called from a fake number, or like I say, he's tried to start stuff online. She contacted the Scottsdale Police Department with a lot of instances of these, and they sent it to the prosecutor's office. And the prosecutor's office said that they didn't think they could get a conviction on it. They said there was a lot of stuff, but they didn't know if they would be able to get a conviction on it. So I think that one of his motives is to try to make it so that when her order against him comes up for renewal next year, that he can say, well, look, you know, she's, you know, she's crazy. You know, look at all this stuff that he's posted online about her and, you know.

Speaker 4:
[04:54] Well, and then especially for her, a document, I get copies of it. So then she can go right back to the judge and be like, right, what's going on?

Speaker 3:
[05:00] Right. And he's contacted a podcaster who has also been doing just relentless posts about her. And, that's so strange.

Speaker 4:
[05:12] I know.

Speaker 3:
[05:13] Well, what happened, what prompted a lot of this stuff is my daughter became pregnant by the guy who was the bachelor last year. And she became pregnant by him in May. And then he was acting like, oh, you're not really pregnant or if you are pregnant, it's not mine. And then other times he was saying to us like, oh, but he wanted to be involved in the pregnancy and all this kind of stuff. So anyhow, when this ex-boyfriend found out about her pregnancy with this guy, then it sent him like into kind of an overdrive thing. And then he reached out to him and it's like, my daughter finally did a big post on Medium the other day, explaining just the toll that all of this has taken on her and how it's just crazy beyond belief. Is it your neighbor? I think there's probably somebody, our neighbor babysits dogs during the daytime, so I think this is like pick up time.

Speaker 4:
[06:14] Oh, okay. It's more like a...

Speaker 3:
[06:16] I know, I know. I'm always kind of like that too.

Speaker 4:
[06:19] Get online, I also try to get online. You can contact Google at different places and have her information removed from online, like house, phone number, things like that. Work on doing that too. Try to get as much information as you can offline. I know it's hard. We have to do it, and that's exactly how they tell us to do it. And there's ways to like whitepages.com and you can go on. There's a link. It says remove my information. You can go on that, have her start doing all that information too. And then I get that they're coming to the house, but see what you can do to block that information.

Speaker 3:
[06:58] Right, right, right. Well, I just feel, I feel really awful for you guys because, you know, this is, this is, it's a waste of, it's a waste of resources and it's obviously, you know, prank stuff. Do you know what phone number had contacted?

Speaker 4:
[07:13] It's a 415 area code. It's out of New York.

Speaker 3:
[07:17] 415 is San Francisco, so we're from San Francisco. Our number is a 4151.

Speaker 2:
[07:22] The 4151, the person that called us gave us that phone number. Contact her. So whoever called doesn't have her current.

Speaker 4:
[07:29] It's getting old information online. Okay.

Speaker 3:
[07:32] Do you have, do you, because I just like the-

Speaker 4:
[07:35] Give me a second. I'll walk out and go grab it.

Speaker 3:
[07:37] Oh, that would be great.

Speaker 2:
[07:38] Do you know how to spell Greg's last name? Is it G-I-L-L-E-S-P-I-E? Has he been harassing her by stopping by the house at all? Anything like that?

Speaker 3:
[07:49] He has gone into her e-mail. They dated very briefly, and she became pregnant by him. And he was very, shall we say, violent in his effort to get her to have an abortion. So she filed an abortion coercion case against him, which really ticked him off. She didn't ask for any money for her. She asked for a charitable donation for abortion coercion.

Speaker 4:
[08:19] Did you get it? Yeah, it's for- I'm going to actually give them a call to follow up with them.

Speaker 3:
[08:29] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[08:29] What does Greg drive? Do you know?

Speaker 3:
[08:31] I don't.

Speaker 2:
[08:32] Don't.

Speaker 3:
[08:32] I don't. He's made lies. I mean, absolute, he's made crazy things. He's posted online stuff saying that he went to high school with her, which he never did. He's posted on these fake accounts saying that he knew her in high school and that she was pregnant by a developmentally disabled kid, the father of somebody else, the principal, the school principal. I mean, things that are so unbelievably outrageous. I mean, it's to really, I think, try to discredit her again, so that when her order against him comes up, then it'll look like, oh wow, you look at the stuff online, man.

Speaker 2:
[09:19] So there is a current order of protection against him?

Speaker 3:
[09:22] Yes. Yes, there is.

Speaker 2:
[09:24] Was that filed through Scottsdale or county? Okay.

Speaker 3:
[09:30] And the guy is unhinged. I mean, I had no clue when I had said to her, when she wanted to file this abortion, coercion case in the first place, I said, you know what, just let Sleven Dogg's lie, just be done with him and everything like that. She was like, no, I feel really strongly about what he did and the way he did it to me. And so she went ahead with it. And as I say, it just started this torrent of, yeah, yeah, really, really bad stuff. But anyway, I, I, I appreciate it.

Speaker 4:
[10:08] Yeah, no problem. Oh, look, and definitely looking to try to get any information you can removed online. They had your name too.

Speaker 3:
[10:15] They did. What did they have as Elizabeth? Okay. That's my, yeah, that's my given name. Jam is my nickname.

Speaker 4:
[10:20] She was really like Robert.

Speaker 3:
[10:23] What was it? When I took a picture of it. Okay.

Speaker 4:
[10:26] They had your husband's name too.

Speaker 3:
[10:27] Okay. Wrong.

Speaker 4:
[10:27] Wrong.

Speaker 3:
[10:28] Okay.

Speaker 4:
[10:29] So, and this address. So I would, I would definitely try to see whatever you can remove from online.

Speaker 3:
[10:36] Yeah. Well, they've been trying to post on our social media stuff. They've posted on her social media stuff. They've, and this guy, as I say, when she was going out with him, he said like, you know, well, I'm really suspicious of people. So, you know, would you give me your passwords? Cause I wouldn't want to think, you know, I don't want everything to be, you know, to, I want to trust each other. So he, she gave it, she was like, oh, okay, sure, no problem. So he's gone in to her emails from years and years ago and doctored emails and sent them as though they were from her. He's doctored letterhead. He did come here one time when she was dating him. And the first thing he said is he said, I need your parents Wi-Fi information. He was out here and he said, I need their Wi-Fi. What's their password and stuff like that. So he's, he's been doing it. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[11:35] If later when you speak to Laura, like I said, I don't necessarily want to wake her up. If she wants to speak with someone from the police department about everything that's been going on lately, because you said it's been like the third time in about the last week or so.

Speaker 3:
[11:51] Right. And she had talked with Detective Reedy, I think, had had, he had come up with, he had sent the stuff and forwarded it to the prosecutors, but the prosecutors just said that they're, you know, they'd have to be assured of getting a conviction.

Speaker 4:
[12:06] Have her reach out to Detective Reedy again, and let him know what's going on with this now. That may be able to kind of help maybe refile the charges.

Speaker 3:
[12:17] I think what his thing was that it would be difficult for him to be able to prove, you know, she was suspicious of all this stuff.

Speaker 2:
[12:25] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[12:26] But I mean, we pretty, you know, there's nobody else who would have the motive to do.

Speaker 2:
[12:30] Yeah, it is difficult to prove it.

Speaker 4:
[12:32] Yeah, it's approving because he goes under fake names.

Speaker 3:
[12:35] Like I say, he obviously, you know, doctor, did they say what their concern was when they called?

Speaker 4:
[12:42] Suicidal comments.

Speaker 3:
[12:43] Okay. Well, because she had, when she posted this thing on Medium, she had written in there that this unrelenting, this has gone on for months, that this had made her feel borderline suicidal. Okay. So, you know, but she said the borderline suicidal thing, but that's not, you know, Yeah, that's not the case. Right, right. It's like she had said to me like, Oh my God, how much more of this can I take?

Speaker 2:
[13:14] Does she have any friends in New York?

Speaker 3:
[13:17] My daughter lives in New York. My other daughter lives in New York, but she's well aware of what's going on. She would.

Speaker 2:
[13:23] And she would contact you directly?

Speaker 3:
[13:25] Oh, of course, of course. And Laura talks to her like twice, like two hours a day there on the phone. So, and I was just with my daughter in there, like five minutes before you guys rang. And the reason I, she lives in the Casita, and the reason I left was because she said, Hey, I'm just, I'm spent from all this. I just want to close my eyes for a little bit.

Speaker 4:
[13:46] So, when did she post that?

Speaker 3:
[13:49] When did she post the medium thing?

Speaker 2:
[13:52] She said yesterday. Yesterday?

Speaker 3:
[13:53] No, it was before, I mean, it was on there yesterday, but I want to say it was maybe today's Tuesday, maybe Friday night or Saturday.

Speaker 4:
[14:04] That kind of goes with the timeline. I'm going to give this to you, not that you guys are in crisis, but they might be able to kind of help, just give her someone else to talk to, or they have resources that we don't even know exist.

Speaker 3:
[14:18] Oh, really?

Speaker 4:
[14:19] Reach out, they might be able to help you, put you guys in a good direction. Okay.

Speaker 2:
[14:24] And also reach out to the detective for you again, and see if there's something else that's been going on.

Speaker 4:
[14:30] Yeah, let him know what's been happening, and that way he's kind of apprised of it too, so it might be able to help kind of open a different door, a different direction, but reach out to him again. Yeah, these guys have a lot of resources that we don't even know exist.

Speaker 3:
[14:45] Okay.

Speaker 4:
[14:46] So give them a call.

Speaker 3:
[14:47] Okay, okay. Yeah, it can't hurt, because she had said she had tried to be anonymous with this whole thing initially with the pregnancy with the bachelor guy, and then people were saying, well, wait, this guy was starting the conversation, that wait, you can Google the case, and then her name comes up, and it's Laura Owens, and she's a podcaster. She and I do a podcast, and we've done it for, I guess it's 2017, and iTunes named us one of the top 25 most downloaded new podcasts in 2018. So we've had success with it. But I mean, this is just, she really had wanted to stay under the radar on this, and then she finally decided like, hey, this guy is controlling the narrative, and I have to speak out, I have to explain what's been going on, because otherwise she was feeling like she was getting no support from anybody, because she didn't really want to go tell her friends and everything like that, that this was all going on. So it's just, it's a nightmare, a nightmare.

Speaker 5:
[15:55] But I really appreciate you guys coming.

Speaker 4:
[15:57] We'll put comments in there so they know.

Speaker 5:
[15:59] Okay.

Speaker 3:
[16:00] Officer Hranik was the guy who contacted her the other night.

Speaker 4:
[16:05] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[16:05] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[16:06] So we'll put comments in there with the address and then it'll come up in the history. We'll go back and read through the comments. So we'll try to do that to kind of help you guys out a little bit.

Speaker 3:
[16:15] Okay. Yeah. No, I really appreciate it. Anything.

Speaker 4:
[16:17] No problem.

Speaker 3:
[16:18] Hey, wait, I've got something for you guys. Hang on one sec.

Speaker 1:
[16:24] At the end of the video, Jan hands a candy bar to one of the officers. He takes it and thanks Jan.

Speaker 3:
[16:31] I hope this isn't bribing, bribing the cops.

Speaker 5:
[16:33] Well, thank you.

Speaker 4:
[16:35] I will never say no to chocolate.

Speaker 3:
[16:37] Thank you so much.

Speaker 1:
[16:39] Another welfare check happened a week earlier on December 4th, 2023. And this time, Laura joins the conversation.

Speaker 6:
[16:48] Hi.

Speaker 7:
[16:51] All right. Are you looking for Laura?

Speaker 1:
[16:54] Laura is my daughter.

Speaker 6:
[16:55] Okay.

Speaker 7:
[16:55] Is she here?

Speaker 6:
[16:57] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[16:57] What's going on?

Speaker 7:
[17:00] She called the FBI, and the FBI called us to come check and make sure she's okay.

Speaker 6:
[17:08] She was reporting something to them, but she was upset and sounded like she made some statements. They just wanted to make sure she's okay.

Speaker 3:
[17:15] Oh, was this a long time ago?

Speaker 6:
[17:18] No, this was supposedly this morning.

Speaker 7:
[17:19] Okay. Hang on a second.

Speaker 3:
[17:21] Can I just make sure I can see her car?

Speaker 6:
[17:24] They said she's back here, but she was going to come out.

Speaker 3:
[17:27] Where's your police car?

Speaker 6:
[17:28] Huh?

Speaker 7:
[17:29] Over there.

Speaker 3:
[17:30] The police car. I just... We've had some really strange things. Where's your police car?

Speaker 6:
[17:35] There's two of them sitting right here.

Speaker 3:
[17:36] Okay. Okay. Okay.

Speaker 5:
[17:38] All right. Well, come on.

Speaker 6:
[17:39] Here. But she lives in the back, in the little casita?

Speaker 3:
[17:46] Yeah, she lives in the casita. Why don't you come on in? Okay.

Speaker 5:
[17:50] Yeah, and sit down.

Speaker 4:
[17:51] Hi, puppy.

Speaker 6:
[17:52] It's okay.

Speaker 3:
[17:53] Yeah, she's had some real issues with an ex-boyfriend who, it is the most complicated, bizarre story ever.

Speaker 6:
[18:06] But the only reason we're here is she evidently gave the FBI, talked to them. They just wanted us to swing by to make sure she's okay.

Speaker 4:
[18:15] Okay.

Speaker 6:
[18:16] That's all we need.

Speaker 4:
[18:17] Hang on one second.

Speaker 3:
[18:17] Let me just go gather them. Hang on.

Speaker 5:
[18:20] Hi.

Speaker 6:
[18:21] Hi there.

Speaker 5:
[18:24] Morning. Good morning.

Speaker 7:
[18:26] Did you contact the FBI this morning?

Speaker 5:
[18:28] Cyber crimes unit. Yeah.

Speaker 7:
[18:31] Did you talk to somebody or?

Speaker 5:
[18:33] No. Nobody contacted me. I just submitted it an hour ago. If it's the same thing, she helped me with the report.

Speaker 7:
[18:44] So, the information we got was that you submitted something to the FBI. It didn't say whether you talked to somebody on the phone or electronically, like made an online complaint.

Speaker 5:
[18:53] Yeah.

Speaker 7:
[18:53] They said something you said was borderline suicidal.

Speaker 1:
[18:59] Right.

Speaker 5:
[19:00] That was from the guy, but that was also from...

Speaker 7:
[19:04] So, the FBI called us to come check on you and make sure you're okay and you're okay.

Speaker 5:
[19:08] Yeah.

Speaker 7:
[19:09] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[19:09] Yeah. No, that was like from...

Speaker 7:
[19:10] So, you weren't... were you talking about whatever you said? Were you talking about yourself or some other situation?

Speaker 5:
[19:15] Yeah, but it was like from a couple months ago.

Speaker 3:
[19:18] She was saying she's been targeted, but she's had a horrible situation with cyber harassment from an ex-boyfriend and from another guy who is obsessed with her.

Speaker 5:
[19:29] Yeah. And she has 50 videos of me on YouTube.

Speaker 3:
[19:32] And she has simply asked him to stop. She's filed a cease and desist, asking him to stop. And they haven't stopped it. And so she thought that it needs to go to some kind of cyber crimes unit. And she had said in there that the harassment...

Speaker 5:
[19:53] I can say it. I had told the guy specifically that creating these daily videos about me had made me feel borderline suicidal. I was like, last month, I messaged him and he continued to make videos about me, but I'm fine.

Speaker 3:
[20:06] He's been like, this guy has made like 40.

Speaker 5:
[20:08] He's made 50.

Speaker 3:
[20:10] 50, yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's just...

Speaker 7:
[20:14] Somebody at the upgrade actually saw your play thing.

Speaker 5:
[20:17] Yeah, right.

Speaker 7:
[20:17] And saw that where it's like these videos making for one, two, side on, they're like...

Speaker 5:
[20:22] Right.

Speaker 7:
[20:22] They're like, oh, we better call Scottsdale and make sure you're not actually going to hurt yourself.

Speaker 5:
[20:27] Right, no.

Speaker 7:
[20:27] And you're not.

Speaker 5:
[20:28] No, I'm not.

Speaker 6:
[20:28] You don't need any assistance from us, or...

Speaker 5:
[20:32] No, I'm good.

Speaker 3:
[20:32] No, unless you could get the guy to stop. But I mean, it's been horrific, absolutely.

Speaker 7:
[20:40] Well, it sounds like somebody at the FBI got your plane, so hopefully...

Speaker 5:
[20:43] Hopefully they did something, yeah. That's what I'm probably hearing.

Speaker 6:
[20:45] And mom, you're aware of everything going on, right? So you're here...

Speaker 3:
[20:48] I'm aware of everything that's going on. No, it's been three months.

Speaker 6:
[20:53] And if you do start feeling like... You can always call us because we can get you help, too.

Speaker 5:
[20:59] No, I really appreciate that. I mean, what would be great is just for this guy to stop. It's just very scary.

Speaker 3:
[21:04] But it's just that he's just really tried to incite online hatred of her. And she has protective orders against two prior boyfriends. And one of them is a real stalker kind of a nut and has done every... He swore that he was going to ruin her life. And he was able to hack into her computer. He had her passwords. He had all this kind of stuff. And it's just... He did contact with this YouTube guy and he was just trying to do... You know, just to ruin her, to come up with all these fake stories, this craziness, and post it online about her. And so, you know, she was finally thinking like, if a cease and desist didn't work, and she's trying to get a temporary restraining order against this guy, he lives in LA.

Speaker 7:
[22:09] Yeah, and that's what makes it tough.

Speaker 5:
[22:11] Different states, exactly. And that's why I figured I had to contact her.

Speaker 3:
[22:16] And he's claiming he's got a right to post stuff, but he doesn't have a right to post lies. But anyway, but so Laura was saying, well, maybe, you know, he has violated these cyber stalking and cyber crime stuff. This guy posted a map of...

Speaker 5:
[22:32] To my house. I have another house, so he posted a map.

Speaker 3:
[22:35] No, we have an Airbnb. He posted a thing showing how to get to our house with pictures of the house. I mean, he had that on his computer up in the background when he was posting one of these the other day. So Laura was thinking, you know, maybe if we contacted the cyber crime, the cyber stalking unit, that maybe that...

Speaker 5:
[22:57] Yeah, I mean, people have said, like, they hope I'm an organ donor, because then something good would come from my pathetic existence, like I'm a waste of skin. Like, they've been, they're very mean. So I'm hoping to stop this guy and, you know.

Speaker 3:
[23:11] Yeah, we just, you know, because it's like, where do we even turn? If they won't respect the court system. And, you know, they've just tried to do everything to hurt us, to hurt, you know, the family too. I mean, they've, it's just, it's just been an absolute nightmare.

Speaker 6:
[23:34] As long as you're okay. That's why we're here to make sure.

Speaker 5:
[23:38] Really appreciate that.

Speaker 3:
[23:39] No problem.

Speaker 7:
[23:39] Good luck with everything. Like I said, someone hit the FI.

Speaker 1:
[23:56] Thank you so much for listening. Stay tuned for new episodes and bonus content on the Love Trapped feed.