Transcript of The Welfare Check Body Cams | BONUS New

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What's up, everyone? I'm Ego Bodum. My next guest, it's Will Ferrell. Woo, woo, woo, woo, woo.

My dad gave me the best advice ever. He goes, just give it a shot. But if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspira— it would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat. Just hang in there.

Yeah.

It would not be—

right, it wouldn't be that.

There's a lot of lies.

Yeah.

Listen to Thanks, Dad on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

In 2023, Bachelor star Clayton Eckard was accused of fathering twins, but the pregnancy appeared to be a hoax.

You doctored this particular test twice, Miss Owens, correct?

I doctored the test once.

It took an army of internet detectives to uncover a disturbing pattern. 2 more men who'd been through the same thing.

Greg Gillespie and Michael Mancini.

My mind was blown. I'm Stephanie Young. This is Love Trapped.

Laura, Scottsdale Police.

As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences. Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist, they take matters into their own hands.

I vowed I will be his last target.

He is not going to get away with this. He's going to get what he deserves.

We always say that— trust your girlfriends.

Listen to The Girlfriends: Trust Me, Babe on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Readers, Katy's finalists, publicists, we have an incredible new episode this week for you guys. We have our girl Hilary Duff in here, and we can't wait for you to hear this episode. They put on Lizzie McGuire at 2 AM video on demand.

This guy's—

2 AM, whatever time it is, Lizzie McGuire.

And I'm like, a wild bachelor.

It was like a first like closet moment for me where I was like, you're like, I don't feel like she's hot like the rest of them. No, no, I was like, she's beautiful, but I'm appreciating her in a different way than these boys are. I'm not like, yeah, listen to Las Culturistas on the iHeartRadio radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey, it's Stephanie, 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 4 separate times. 2 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.

Hi there.

Is Laura here?

Yeah, she, um, is, is this— is somebody called in a welfare check about her?

Yes.

Yeah, it's a friend from New York. I don't know if you know who that might be.

No, I— 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, um, and he started posting all of this crazy stuff about her on Reddit, stuff that is Unbelievable, right? And so he has encouraged people to do, um, to call in the Scottsdale Police Department and do and ask for a welfare check.

Okay.

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, this is ridiculous. It's a prank. Okay, thing. Um, but I'm happy to go get her. She was, she was taking a nap. She— this has been devastating beyond belief.

Is she asleep now?

She's, she's taking a nap, but I, I can wake her up.

I don't think that would be necessary.

It's okay.

Yeah, we'll let—

so I don't— for some reason it wasn't in our notes for your address. I'm gonna put comments in there that says this is an ongoing prank, right? Um, 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. Um, but I would work on, um, trying to contact Reddit and, and let them know.

She has contacted them. They will not take it down. They will not take it down. And this guy, he's created uh, different fake accounts. He— I, I mean, it's, it's—

he's going to great lengths. Have you looked into an injunction against harassment?

She has against him. She's— this is part of his, part of his thing. She's had this against him for 2 years.

And, um, this is an old ex-boyfriend then?

Yeah, it's an, it's an old ex-boyfriend. And She had the injunction 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 going to stop unless he thinks he's got a win.

Okay.

And he had said to her, he texted her, "I will destroy your life. I will destroy your reputation." and that was 2 years ago, and he's just, he's just continued this.

Um, is he local here, or—

yeah, he's local.

What's his name?

He's local. His name is Greg Koleski.

Do you—

but he, he could have called from a fake number, or like I say, he's tried to, um, start stuff online. She had— 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 that they— if they would be able to get a conviction. So I think that one of his motives is to try to make it so that when his— 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 Yeah, well, and then especially for her, document it, get copies of it so then she can go right back to the judge and be like, this is what's going on, right?

And he's contacted a podcaster who, uh, has also been doing just relentless posts about her.

And, uh, that's so strange.

I know.

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, and, and, 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, my daughter finally did a big post on Medium the other day, um, explaining, you know, just the toll that all of this has, has taken on her and how it's just, it's just, it's crazy beyond belief.

Is that your neighbor?

I think there's probably somebody— our neighbor babysits dogs. Oh, daytime. So I think that This is like pickup.

Oh, okay. Okay.

So we're like, uh, I know, I know. I'm always kind of like that too. Um, get online.

I also try to get online. Um, you can contact Google at different places and have her information removed from online, like house, phone number, things like that.

Uh-huh.

Work on doing that too. Um, try to get as much information as you can offline.

Uh-huh.

I know it's hard. Uh, we 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 and 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.

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?

It's a 415 area code. It's out of New York.

415 is, is San Francisco because we're from San Francisco.

Our numbers are 415. The 415 one that the person that called us gave us, that phone number to contact her. So whoever called doesn't have—

is getting old information online.

Okay, do you have—

do you—

because I just like this.

Give me, give me a I can all walk out and go grab it.

Oh, that would be great.

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?

He has gone into her email. He— they, they dated very briefly and she became pregnant by him.

Okay.

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.

Okay.

Which really ticked him off. Yeah. She didn't ask for any money for her. She asked for a charitable donation for abortion coercion. Did you get it?

Yeah, it's for— I'm going to actually give them a call to follow up with them.

Okay.

What does Greg drive? Do you know?

I don't.

I don't.

She didn't— he's made lies. I mean, Absolute— he's made crazy things. He's posted online stuff saying that, uh, that he went to high school with her, which he never did. I mean, he's posted on these fake accounts saying that he knew her in high school and that, um, that she, uh, 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 just like— it's to really— I I think tried to discredit her again so that when her order against him comes up, yeah, that it'll look like, oh wow, you look at this stuff online, man, you know.

So, so there is a current order of protection against him?

Yes, yes, there is. And like I said, Scottsdale County.

Okay, okay.

Yeah, and I mean, and the guy is, the guy is unhinged. I mean, I had no— sounds like I had no clue when, you know, 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 sleeping dogs 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, you know, 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, um, I appreciate it. And no problem.

Oh, look, and definitely look into trying to get any information you can removed online because they had your name too.

They did? What did they have?

Elizabeth.

Okay, that's my— yeah, that's my given name. Jam is my nickname.

Robert.

What was it?

Well, I took a picture of it.

Oh, okay. Yeah, they had your husband's name Okay, Ron.

Ron.

Ron.

Okay, so, um, and this address. So I would, I would definitely try to see whatever you can remove from online.

Yeah, no, they've, they've been trying to post on our social media stuff, they've posted on her social media stuff, they've, uh, and, and this guy, as I say, um, when she was going out with him, he said like, you know, well, I'm really suspicious of people, so, um, you know, would you give me your passwords? Because I wouldn't want to think, you know, I want everything to be private, you know, to just, I want We wanted to trust each other. So he— she gave it. She was like, oh, okay, sure, no problem. So he's gone into her emails from years and years ago and, and doctored emails and sent them as though they were from her. He's doctored letterhead. Um, he did come here one time, uh, when she was dating him, and, and the first thing he said is he said, hey, 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 a—

yeah.

Um, if, uh, later when you speak to Laura, like I said, I won't necessarily want to wake her up, but 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 the, like, the third time in about the last week or so, right?

And she had talked with Detective Reedy, I think, had, had— he had come up with, uh, 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. To have her reach out to Detective Reedy again and let him know what's going on with this now, um, that may be able to kind of help maybe refile 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. Yeah, but I mean, we pretty, you know, there's nobody else who would have the motive to do this.

Yeah, it is difficult to prove it.

Yeah, it's, it's a proven because he goes under fake names. He, like I say, he obviously, you know, doctor— that— did they say what their concern was when they called?

Suicidal comments.

Okay, well, because she had— when she posted this thing on Medium, she, she had written in there that it— that this unrelenting— this has gone on for months, uh, that this had made her feel borderline suicidal. Okay, so, you know, but she, she, she said the borderline suicidal thing, but that's not, you know, Yeah, right, right. It's like she, she had said to me, like, oh my God, how much more of this can I take?

Right.

Does she have any friends in New York?

My daughter lives in New York. My other daughter lives in New York, but she's, she's well aware of what, what's going on. She, she would—

and she would contact you directly?

Oh, of course, of course. And, and Laura talks to her like twice, like 2 hours a day. They're on the phone. So, and I was just with my daughter in there like 5 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, for a little bit. Yeah.

When did she post that?

When did she post the Medium thing?

So yesterday?

Yesterday? No, it was before. Yeah, I mean, it was, it was on there yesterday, but I want to say it was maybe, uh, Today's Tuesday, maybe Friday night or Saturday.

That kind of goes with the timeline. I'm gonna 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 that they have resources that we don't even know exist.

Oh really?

Reach out, they might be able to help you guys in a good direction. Okay, okay.

Um, and also reach out to Detective Reagan and, and, and just, yeah, what's been going on.

Yeah, let him know what's been happening. And yeah, that way he, he's kind of apprised of it too. So it might, it might be able to help kind of open a different door, a different direction. But reach out to him again. These guys have a lot of, lot of resources that we don't even know exist. So give them a call.

Okay, okay. Yeah, it can't hurt because, no, I mean, because like she had said, she had tried to be anonymous with this whole thing initially with the, the pregnancy with the Bachelor guy. And then, and then people were saying, oh wait, you can— or 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, um, and we've done it for, uh, I guess since 2017. And iTunes named us one of the top 25 most downloaded new podcasts in 2018. So we've had, we've had success with it. But I mean, this is just, you know, she, she really had wanted to stay under, under the radar on this, and then she finally decided like, hey, you know, this guy is controlling the narrative, and, 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, from anybody, because she didn't really want to go tell her friends and everything like that, that this was all going on.

Yeah.

So it's just, it's a nightmare. I don't know, nightmare. But I really appreciate it.

No problem.

Yeah, we'll put comments in there so they know.

Okay. Officer Granick was the guy who, who, uh, contacted her the other night. Like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

We'll put comments in there with the address and then it'll come up in the history and 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.

Okay. Yeah, no, I really appreciate it. Anything. No problem. Hey, wait, I've got something for you guys. Hang on one sec.

At the end of the video, Jan hands a candy bar to one of the officers. He takes it and thanks Jan.

I hope this isn't bribing, bribing the cops.

Well, thank you.

I never say no to chocolate, so.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Have a good day.

Another welfare check happened a week earlier on December 4th, 2023, and this time Laura joins the conversation.

Hey, are you looking for Laura?

Laura's my daughter. Okay, is she here?

Yeah. What's, what's going on?

Uh, she called the FBI. And the FBI called us to come check and make sure she's okay.

Oh, she was reporting something to him, but she was upset and sounded like she made some statements. They just wanted to make sure she's okay.

Oh, was this a— was this a long time?

No, this was supposedly this morning.

Okay, hang on a second. Can I just make sure I can see your car?

They said she's back here, but she was going to come out.

Where's your police car?

Huh?

Over there, the police car. I just— we've had some really strange things. Where's your police car?

There's two of them sitting right here.

Okay, okay, okay. All right, well, come on here.

Um, but she lives in the back, in the little casita.

You want—

why don't you come on in?

Okay.

Yeah, and sit down.

Hey, puppy, it's okay.

Yeah, it's okay. She's had some, uh, real issues with, um, uh, an ex-boyfriend who— it is the most complicated, bizarre story ever. But, um, well, our main—

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.

Okay.

All right, that's all we need.

Hang on one second, let me just go gather them. Hang on. Hi. Hi there.

Morning.

Good morning.

Did you contact the FBI this morning?

Cyber Crimes Unit, yeah.

Um, did you talk to somebody or—

No, nobody contacted me. I like just submitted it like an hour ago. If it's the same thing she helped me with, the report.

So the information we got was that you submitted something to the FBI. It didn't say whether you talked somebody on the phone or electronically, like made an online complaint. Yeah, they said some— something you said was borderline suicidal, right?

That was from the guy, but that was also from—

so the FBI called us to come check on you to make sure you're okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, that was like—

so you weren't— were you talking about whatever you said?

Were you talking about yourself or Yeah, but it was like from a couple months ago.

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.

Yeah, and he's like, 50 videos of me on YouTube.

So yeah, she has, she has simply asked him to stop. She's filed a cease and desist asking him to stop, and they're not— they haven't stopped. And so she thought that, you know, it needs to go to some kind of cyber crimes unit. And she had said in there that the harassment— I had—

well, I can say it. I had told the guy specifically that like 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.

And he's made like— this guy has made like 40, 50, 50. Yeah, I mean, it's just— it's insane.

So somebody at the FBI actually saw your— yeah, right, and saw that where it's like these videos making you suicidal, and they're like, right, they were like, oh, we better call Scottsdale, make sure you're not actually gonna hurt yourself, right?

No.

And you're not?

No, no, you don't need any assistance from us or—

okay.

No, I'm good. No, yeah, unless you could get the guy to stop. But I mean, it's been horrific.

Absolutely. Well, it sounds like somebody at the FBI got your complaint, so hopefully—

Hopefully they do something. Yeah, that's what I'm hoping.

And Mom, you're aware of everything going on, right? So you're here.

More than— I'm aware of everything that's going on. No, it's been—

Well, and if you do start feeling like—

Yeah.

You can always call us because we can get you help too.

Oh, no, I really appreciate that. I mean, what would would be great is just for this guy to stop. It's just very scary.

But it's just that he's, he's just really tried to incite online hatred of her. And he, he was— she has protective orders against two prior boyfriends, and one of them is, is a real, 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, uh, it's just— he then contacted this YouTube guy, and he's just tried to do, you know, just to ruin her, to come up with all these fake stories, this craziness. And posted online about her. And so, you know, she was finally thinking like if a cease and desist didn't work, and she's tried to get a temporary restraining order against this guy, um, he lives in LA.

First Amendment.

Yeah, that's what makes it tough is, yeah, different states.

Different states.

Exactly. Right, right.

And that's why I figured I had to contact—

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, but so Laura was saying, well, maybe it, you know, he has violated these cyber stalking and cyber crime stuff. This guy posted a map of, uh, to my house.

I have another house, so he posted them out.

Yeah, we have a, yeah, 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 the other day. Yeah. So, so Laura was thinking, you know, maybe if we contacted the cybercrime, cyberstalking unit, that maybe that—

yeah, I mean, people have said like they hope I'm an organ donor because then something good would come from my pathetic existence, and like I'm a waste of skin. Like, they've been— they're very mean.

So I'm hoping to send this guy and, you know, yeah, we, 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 been an absolute nightmare.

As long as you're okay, that's why we're here to make sure.

Really appreciate that.

Okay, no problem. Good luck with everything.

Thank you so much for listening. Stay tuned for new episodes and bonus content on the Love Trapped feed.

What's up everyone? I'm Ego Mode. My next guest, it's Will Ferrell. Woo! Woo!

Woo!

Woo!

Woo!

My dad gave me the best advice ever. He goes, just give it a shot. But if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspira— it would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat, just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be right.

It wouldn't be that.

There's a lot of life.

Yeah. Listen to Thanks, Dad on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

In 2023, Bachelor star Clayton Eckard was accused of fathering twins, but the pregnancy appeared to be a hoax.

You doctored this particular test twice, Ms. Owens, correct?

I doctored the test once.

It took an army of internet detectives to uncover a disturbing pattern. 2 more men who'd been through the same thing.

Greg Gillespie and Michael Mancini.

My mind was blown. I'm Stephanie Young. This is Love Trapped.

Laura, Scottsdale Police.

As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences. Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist, they take matters into their own hands.

I vowed I will be his last target.

He is not going to get away with this. He's going to get what he deserves.

We always say that— trust your girlfriends.

Listen to The Girlfriends: Trust Me, Babe on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

You know the famous author Roald Dahl. He thought up Willy Wonka and the BFG. But did you know he was a spy? Neither did I. You can hear all about his wild life story in the podcast The Secret World of Roald Dahl. All episodes are out now.

Was this before he wrote his stories?

It must have been.

What?

Okay, I don't think that's true.

I'm telling you, the guy was a spy. Binge all 10 episodes of The Secret World of Roald Dahl. Now on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

This is an iHeartRadio podcast.

Guaranteed Human.