Transcript of Manic Summer | 8

This is Unicorn Girl, an Apple original podcast, produced by Seven Hills, hosted and executive-produced by me, Charlie Webster. After starting 2023 with a huge partnership with the Department of Homeland Security, Candice was riding high. Exeter was now in its fourth year, and Candice was finally getting the recognition she felt she deserved. 2023 was going to be big for Candice, whether she knew it or not. Homeland Security was so impressed by her. They wanted to take their partnership even further by setting up an anti-human trafficking task force together. They even signed an official document to formalize the collaboration. At the same time, author and Candice's only paying client, Charlene, was getting nervous. She was on the phone with the founder of the nonprofit Holding Out Help.

She said, Candice is not who you think she is. And Sam Brower wants nothing to do with you because of your association with her. It's like, whoa, whoa, wait, wait, wait, wait. Can you convince him to please talk to me? She said, I don't know. You don't really convince Sam to do anything. I said, Please, I need to know what's going on. I'm into this woman thousands and thousands of dollars, and I owe my publisher for books, and I need to find out what's going on.

If you remember, Sam Brouwer was Charlene's hero who she was so excited to meet. Candice had told Charlene she'd known Sam for years and had taken Charlene to the gala to meet him. Sam is a private investigator who dedicated years of his life to bringing down the polygamous cult leader, Warren Jeffs, and putting him behind bars. There's two separate documentaries about it, prophets Pray and Keep Sweet, Pray and Obey. Sam works closely with Holding Out Help, who support people escaping polygamy in Utah.

I was at Holding Out Help event that was going on in Salt Lake, and that was the first time I met Charlene and Candice.

We were able to track Sam Brower down, and he agreed to speak with us at his office in Cedar City, about three hours drive from Salt Lake. His office is exactly what you'd expect from a private investigator. There's papers, research, and books everywhere. He just received a shipment of at least 20 GPS trackers that were piled up on his desk. One wall was dedicated to his work on Warren Jeffs. Sam arrived in a cap, no cowboy hat this day, chewing on a toothpick.

I was polite. After the event was closing up, Candice came by and just... She acted like we were long lost friends and giving me hugs and telling me all these things she's doing. I'm going to Uganda and I'm just back from the Middle East. All this stuff that just sounded so far fetched to me. And then she told me she was a physician. And I said, Oh, really? You're a physician? And she said, Yeah, I am. And I've got to do this in Lebanon. And I've got all these different things she's supposed is he doing? I said, Well, there's a friend of mine over there, and his wife's a pediatrician. You should talk to him. And she changed the subject. I could tell she got a little bit panicky. Right then, all these red flags are going Afterwards, I got a call from Candice. She was just dangling a carrot under my nose, wanting me to... She thought I would be... I'd buy it at... I've got a film crew that follows me around. We can video you. I do a podcast. Will you come and do the podcast with me? And all this stuff.

And I just shied away from all that. And she kept coming up with these things and events and stuff. Stuff she wanted me to do. I mean, I wasn't rude. I just avoided it, kept it at arm's length. But then Candice would call me. Her assistant, Aura, would call me. I mean, sometimes daily for a while. It was all getting really strange. I decided that I would start checking her out. And I started talking to people that had dealt with her in the past. And I just kept looking and looking. And the more I looked, the more I found out.

Eventually, with a bit of persuasion, Sam agreed to take a call from Charlene.

I called him, and I told him what had happened. Sam said, At the gala, when she introduced herself to me, as a physician. There was something wrong. I knew that there was something wrong. So I said, How did you know? Just in that short of time. I've been doing this for more than 40 years, Charlene. I can smell it. Then from there, I ended up talking to Sam quite a lot. And then I did something that I should have done at the very beginning. I should have checked her business licenses. So I looked up those business licenses and saw that she didn't have any. Even for Exodus, that license had lapsed.

Despite the fact that Candice said that she ran seven companies, turning over eight figures, the only business license she ever had was for her nonprofit, Exodus. And even that license expired at the end of 2022. Charlene was concerned that if Candice got wind of an investigation, Candice would be able to buy the licenses, backdate them, and try to legitimize her businesses.

You can backdate a business license. Because it says beginning date. You could back date it two years. No way was I going to let her legitimize her bastard businesses because there's just no way. So I bought them all. I owned seven of the businesses that she says that she owns.

Do you own CR house and co? I do.

I have the licenses in my... Filed in my drawer. I have her tied up because at some point in time, Sam's going to turn over the information to the attorney general. If the attorney general takes it and she gets wind of it, she's going to go back and try to legitimize everything she's not going to be able to. That is one of my proudest moments in this whole thing.

Charlene bought all seven of Candice's business licenses. They cost $22 each. And Candice did try to buy and backdate her business licenses, but she found Charlene's name attached to all of them. Candice even threatened Charlene with legal action because of it. As for Sam Brower, he did exactly what Charlene thought he would do, went straight to the law.

Candice was never able to get licensed as as anything as a nurse or anything else. So I knew she was a liar. I went to the attorney general, gave him a call.

Sam asked if I would mind if he gave them my name when he turned in the stuff to the attorney general, and I said, I'm fine with that. June 2023, I was walking through Cole's in Logan, and I get this call, and it's a phone number I don't recognize. So I just let it go to voicemail. The walking down the aisle. I listened to the voicemail. It says, This is Utah attorney general special agent James Pettus looking for Charlene Paul. And I'm thinking, Man, somebody has got my number. I'm being scammed again. I texted Sam and said, This is the message I just got. Is this legit? And Sam doesn't always get back with you instantly. This was instant. It's legit with four exclamation points after it. So I called back, and it was about seven o'clock at night. I sat out in the parking lot in my car and I talked to Pettus for about 45 minutes. Told him what had happened, and he said that they wanted to open a criminal case, but they needed a victim because you can't open a criminal case without a victim. He said, I hate to call you a victim.

I said, You can call me whatever you want. I'm on board with this. And he said, You know you are probably never going to get a penny of your money back. I already know that. And he said, Why would How would you agree to this if you know that you're never going to get any money back? I said, Because I don't want her to do this to somebody else. And I'm sure that she has, and I will do everything that I can to help make sure that she is not allowed to do this to another person.

Charlene was told by Special Agent James Pettis, she couldn't breathe a word to anyone. Pettis, as everyone calls him, was concerned that if word got back to Candice, it would jeopardize the whole thing. And Charlene didn't know who she could trust or if anyone else was in on it anyway. So as summer of 2023 was starting, Charlene was the only person who knew that the police were opening a criminal investigation into Candice. Although, Candice might have caught wind anyway. Her behavior was...

She was weird.

Summer was definitely manic.

Alongside her two Escalades, Candice bought a white vintage 1977 Corvette convertible, a classic American sports car, and she wasn't shy about showing it off. She rolled up to philanthropist Mary Kraft house in her new wheels.

She wanted to take me for a ride.

And so I'm writing and I'm thinking, How does a woman who is running a nonprofit just go out and buy this Corvette? So I asked her. She goes, She said, Well, this is my birthday present. I've been saving for it for 10 years. And My friend, I knew she was going to sell it, and I asked her not to sell it until we could buy it.

It was a beautiful white Corvette with red leather interior and convertible.

Although the story she told Mary about how she was able to buy it was a little different to what she told Aura.

She said the Corvette was a gift from her ex-boyfriend.

And what she told her Mops bestie, Danielle, was different again.

She told us that she had a friend that was going to sell this Corvette because she's trying to save money to do an adoption. She tells us, Oh, I can actually help them with an adoption. We're basically going to trade the car. I'm going to give her legal services with my attorneys. We can really help them with an adoption. And so they're going to trade me the car for my services.

The Corvette was just the start of strange and erratic behavior for Candice that summer.

We were taking our dogs for a walk on time, and she said, Did you know it's a felony in Utah if you write a check for over $5,000 and it bounces? I said, No, I didn't know that. Why did you do that? She's like, Yeah. I was like, Oh, shit. You did? She's like, Well, I didn't mean to. It was to a vendor that I paid. I wrote him a check for eight grand for last fall's gala. He didn't try and cash it until now, and now my money is tied up in the house. I was like, Oh, shit. You should probably do something to make it right. I was like, Why don't you sell the Corvette? She's like, Well, I can't sell the Corvette. It doesn't really run well enough. I was like, Okay, then sell your Escalade. She's like, I can't because that one belongs to Exitus now. I'm like, Then get a renter your basement. No, I can't because it's a safe house for the girls. Okay, then I can't help you. So there's money trouble, and that's its own little circle. And then it's, I'm in trouble for using my maiden name and not my last name.

So everybody's saying I'm a fraud and I'm not legit because I'm using Rivera instead of Lierd. And I'm like, Are you kidding me? She's like, Yeah, that's why I keep telling everybody. But it's apparently a big... Everybody's coming after me for it. At the AG's office is this, this, this. If I'm arrested, I'm like, What are you She's like, But they might... I don't know. I might get arrested. She starts talking about, They're going to come after me.

It seemed like Candice was feeling the heat.

That was Manic Summer.

As the weeks went by, Candice's behavior was getting stranger, and people were starting to talk. They were seeing a different side of Candice. The polished façade that she spent years perfecting was starting to crack. Starly, who'd worked on Candice's branding company, Sears House & Co, was no longer feeling the Candice magic and decided to quit. She let Candice know and Candice was not happy about it.

Candice calls, and she's furious at me, and she just started yelling. And I usually keep my cool, but I told her on that call as she was yelling at me. I'm like, You know what? I have a Candice filter. I only believe about a quarter of what comes out of your mouth because she was just attacking me and I've never had anyone attack me like that. She's like, I have been an amazing friend to you, and how can you betray me like this? And she's like, I bet you didn't even know that my cancer has come back. And I'm just like, Girl. And she was just calling me a bad friend and betrayer. The few hours and day that followed, it's like I was at peace because I'm like, Good riddance. Good riddance. It shook me. I was glad she was out of my life and I was no longer associated with that business or anything there. Just disgusted by what she was, and it just confirmed my growing distrust of her.

Candice seemed to be getting paranoid about something. She was trying to get ahead of the rumors that were flying around. She arranged to meet up with survivor Felicia. As luck would have it, Felicia also had something to tell Candice.

That day was just weird because we were supposed to meet in the morning, and then she said that her car was acting up, and then she said that I had to meet her at her friend Danielle's house.

So we went from trying to meet at 11: 00 in the morning to almost five o'clock at night.

And I was like, I really, really have something I need to tell you.

I met the most amazing man who had already been in my life. And so I went to Danielle's house because the Corvette she was driving was acting up. So I picked her up, and then she said she lost her wallet. So I paid for the slurpies at 711 down the street, and we went over to the garden.

When we sat down She said, Oh, my gosh, it's so good to see you. And I hugged her, and I was like, I have the best news to tell you.

But what's going on?

Let's catch up first. And she goes, Oh, I've just been really busy with meetings and my new businesses. And I'm like, Oh, that's awesome. She goes, Oh, and by the way, you're going to hear some things here soon. A lot of people are talking and saying some things about me that are not true. And I just don't want you to get caught up in the drama. And I'm like, Candice, I'm not going to believe anything anybody says about you because you know I love you. You're like a mom to me or my mentor. I said, I know you. I know you. And she was, Okay, good. I just don't want you to listen to their lies. And there's just a lot going on right now.

And I'm like, It's fine.

It's going to be fine.

Candice's assistant, Aura, was also feeling the manic energy. Six of her paychecks had bounced, and the money she was owed was racking up.

Tuesdays were set aside for our cadence meetings, and she owed me a lot of money.

Tuesdays were also the day that Candice had set aside in her calendar for chemotherapy.

So these meetings kept getting canceled because she was so sick from chemo. And so I'd be like, Well, I really need to come over and get a paycheck. And then she would start crying because she'd been throwing up. And I'd be like, Okay, let's just do it over the phone. I'll come get it later. How can I sit there listening to my friend cry and cry and be so sick and ask for money. So I rarely ask for money to pay checks after that because she was so sick. Candice would call me crying and say, I was up all night with my son because I had to tell him that his aunt was going to raise him when I die. And just devastated that he would have to hear that, that she would have to say that. And how can I schedule meetings right now when you just told your son you were going to die? How can I go after she's been puking all morning and ask for money? Candice told me that she wanted me to get a new Exodus debit card and credit card. She said, We're switching over to Chase Bank.

As soon as this new account is set up, your direct deposits will start coming through.

Or as one condition when joining Exitus was that she would have nothing to do with the money. Even having an Exitus credit card made her feel uncomfortable. But not having a credit card had previously caused problems when trying to rent a car for an operation. Plus, Candice promised her that changing banks would mean the problem that stopped Aura from getting paid would be fixed.

I said, I am okay getting a credit card on the condition that it is just used for rental cars. I was so desperate for my months of paychecks that I said, Okay, well, if it's going to make it so my paychecks are coming through and it's just for rental cars, then I'm okay having a credit card just as long as for that.

The credit card was taking a while to set up, so Candice got on a three-way phone call with Aura and the bank to get it set up once and for all.

I was in IKEA shopping for my son's birthday. I sit on an IKEA bed and I have a Chase Bank employee, Candice and myself, on the phone. He said, I have to send Candice the cards because she is the CEO of Exodus. They have to be sent to her, not to you. Is that okay? And I was like, Okay, that makes sense. We hang up and then I stay on the phone with Candice for a little bit. She kept thanking me for being such a good assistant. And then she said, So you might get a phone call. There's an investigator looking into my bank accounts. She said, And if he calls you, This is what you need to tell him that my ex-husband has emptied out my bank accounts. And so if you get a phone call, this is what you say. And I was like, Okay.

Candice's ex-husband, Patrick, Eric didn't have access to her bank accounts. Candice's summer was getting more manic. Along with everything else, she was busy preparing to be the keynote speaker at the first ever Commonwealth Human Trafficking Summit in Virginia. And there was a congressman's roundtable coming up in Utah, which featured Homeland Security's partnership with Exitus. It might seem a lot, but all this was true and was going on at the same time. Right in the middle of all this, the For the Love Book Group had an urgent request.

A For the Love sister messaged me yesterday morning. She said, My best friend's sister was lifelighted to Salt Lake with their four-year-old, and he died, and she is alone.

Candice was the only person in the group who was based in Utah. She dropped everything to help.

I immediately texted her and made plans to meet her at the hospital.

Here's Brandy from the book group.

Candice allowed the parents whom she'd never met to come and stay with her for a few days while she organized for the body to be flown back to wherever this family lived. I remember at the time thinking, I would have no idea how to do that. I would not have the ability, the finances, the networking, to pull that off.

Candice kept the For the Love women updated with how things were going.

I have the perfect house for anyone needing refuge. I had two friends come over, and we made dinner, then finally picked her husband up from the airport at about 9: 00 PM. I have cried so many tears, held her tight, brushed her hair, held her hand, and this morning made them coffee and eggs, cried lots more, and just, I'm around when they want to talk. I told them they can stay at my house as long as they need.

One of the two friends Candice called was nonprofit leader Kate, who had been part of the MBA operation.

It was a farming accident that happened on their ranch, and this mother was grieving alone in Utah with her child, and her husband was trying to get to Utah. Candice went to be there with her as she said her goodbye to her little boy. Then the husband came into town, and these people stayed with Candice as they were grieving and waiting for their son's body to be ready to go back home. Candice knew that I had lost my husband and that I have experienced grief. She related with me with her twin daughters dying. She said her twins died when they were two in a drunk driving accident. Candice called me and just said, Hey, you've experienced grief. I'm just trying to find people that can be there for this family. When your husband died, you had a community of people that were there for you. And we need to find a community to be there for her. I would really love to get a group of us to take them to the airport. She said that she's been able to get a private plane for this family to take the body back and was somehow able to shut down an airport.

I don't know how a person can do that. I know I couldn't do that. And so we went over to Candice's house. I introduced myself. We all got in Candice's bed and cuddled up. We were doing whatever we could to be there for this woman in this hard time. This was a matter of days of her son passing. And so after we spent some time and just loved on each other and we were there for each other, we got in our cars and we went to the airport. Candice had gotten the plane. The family was going to get on the plane with her son and fly home to where they lived. Candice said, Hey, I'm going to have somebody take pictures. Can you video this? Because this family may want this video as a memory. And I thought that was a little odd, but I didn't know if they had talked, and maybe that's what she wanted. And I don't like to judge people when they're in their grief. I was like, Okay. So I go out and they're opening up the hearst. And in my mind, they would be pulling out the coffin. But they pulled out, and it was a girney with the little boy on it.

He was just laying there. And that was so traumatic.

It was overwhelming for Kate, given her own trauma from the loss of her husband.

I saw the father greet his son for the first time. The last time he saw him, he was alive, and he sees him and he's passed. And then Candice going in the plane, hugging the mom. It was a beautiful moment in the sense of like, we were there for that family. They needed that support.

Candice did arrange a private plane and did shut down one of the runways of a local airport. She did get the boy and his parents back home. Candice posted multiple pictures to the For the Love group, including candid photos of the family grieving. She also posted a reel to her public Instagram, which had photos and video showing the boy's dead body, including his face.

I'm in an apartment building, and the front desk called me and said, There's two police officers here to talk to you.

The investigation into Candice was well underway, but it was still under the radar. Those who were closest to Candice had no idea what was going on, but that didn't mean other people weren't being questioned. This is Sarah. She was a part of Exitus when it first started, but back to way early on.

I've lived by myself in this apartment. I just said, I'll come down and meet you.

I was shaking and I had no idea, no idea.

And so I walked outside and there was a little table right outside the door.

So we sat there and he said, So do you know Candice Laird?

And my heart dropped.

It was one of those moments that just didn't feel real.

Candice told everyone Sarah was the Chief Financial Officer of Exeter's, but she wasn't. She helped Candice set up payroll in the beginning and volunteered for a while, but left after only a year.

He showed up and pulled out some checks with my name signed on them. They were made out to Candice Laird. My signature, and in the memo line, it said payroll. And my first reaction was, That is not my signature.

So he had me sign some papers. I showed him my license with my signature on it. It was obviously my signature.

Were the checks for significant amounts?

Yeah. I mean, thousands.

There were six checks that Candice forged Sarah's signature on, five that Candice wrote to herself as payroll for a total of $37,500, and one for $2,055 for a deposit on the Casino Royale Gala.

I was nervous because he was asking me to do all these things.

And then at the end, he said, I want you know that you're a victim in this. And he made me feel better. And then I do have to say he did go back to the front desk and say, We just want to let you know she's in any trouble. We were just trying to talk to her about someone else's case.

Everything in Candice's life was falling apart. The police investigation was going on behind the scenes, and at the same time, exitus was imploding. Candice's nursing school bestie, Danny Remington, had been getting suspicious of why Candice kept palming her off when she asked about her nursing license. In the end, she decided that she couldn't ignore the red flags any longer. Danny finished off her resignation letter and sent it, cited her concerns over misinformation and misuse of money. Danny's resignation sparked a mass exodus from exitus. Psychiatrist Marisha then resigned, along with all of the nurses, the Community Outreach Director, and Jason from the Ukraine operation. Only a few weeks later, Danny got a call from Special Agent James Pettus about the investigation into Candice. As soon as she got off the phone, she called Aura.

I got a call from Danny Remington, and she said, Hey, I just got a phone call from the attorney general's office, and they asked me some questions about Candice. She said, Do know anything about a Corvette and how that was paid for? I know she has a Corvette. She told me that her boyfriend bought it for her. And she's like, Well, I don't know. They were just asking me questions. What if it was bought with Exodus's money. And I was like, Oh, I don't think so. But of course, my stomach just dropped. What is going on here? And the fact that she was questioned. And then she's like, I just want to give you a heads up that they have called me, and I think they've called someone else. And so I was super grateful for it. I thought, I'm just going to keep working and be really cautious, and I'm just going to wait for my phone call. So she owed me a lot of money. I was still trying to help people, but I was just waiting for the call from the investigator so that I would know what was going on so that I could make my next move or resign.

Candice became super erratic and weird and just crazier and crazier, always crying. Anytime I was with her, we weren't ever doing work because it was always her talking about how she was such a good person. And it was just like, Why is this happening to me? When I have helped the world so much, I'm such a good person. Why isn't stuff like this happening to my ex-husband? Candice would have me power off my phone in her car so she could tell me, People are asking questions about me. Have you gotten a phone call? I knew something was going on. I didn't know what. And I was like, Okay. Just knowing any day I would get my phone call, and it never came. I never got a call.

Aura never got a phone call. She wasn't sure what to make of what Danny Remington had told her. Aura was Candice's assistant, but she was also her friend, and had been by her side almost every day for years. So things carried on. Business as usual, at least for those closest to Candice. It was now August, and Candice's birthday was the next thing on the calendar. Kim had the task of organizing Candice's party.

She had told me she was turning 39. Two nights before the birthday party, Aura, Kate, and I were invited to go with Candice to an event for a different nonprofit. I was sitting next to Aura, and we're just small talking. And I had sent out a text earlier that day inviting a bunch of people to a surprise birthday party for Candice. Aura leans over and she goes, Thank you so much for taking on Candice's birthday. That'll be so nice. I just didn't have the bandwidth this year. I felt so bad, and especially with it being her 40th. And I was like, 40th? It's her 39. And Aura goes, No, it's her 40th. I'm positive. I've known her a long time. It's her 40th. I was like, It's her 39th. I literally texted her today and wrote it down because I was worried about forgetting what it was. It's her 39. She goes, I'm positive it's her 40th.

I was like, No, she's definitely turning 40 because we've been talking about this birthday for years.

We go off to the side, and I was like, When I was just planning a small little something, and if it's her 40th, we need to do something much bigger, and I only have a day to do it.

And I was like, Well, I could check. I have her ID.

Aura had a copy of Candice's driver's license and her passport on her phone, so she pulled them both up.

I had I've never noticed the dates on these IDs before. Why would I try and compare the two birthdays? And so that's when I noticed they were both different.

We pull up both of those with the driver's license being 1985, which would make her 38, and then the other one, which was '86, which would make her turning 37. And we look at each other and we go, That's neither of those ages. That's not '39 or '40. What the heck? And then, Ora immediately goes, There are certain things about Candice's life that have just never quite added up. I'm looking at Ora, she's telling me this, and I go, No, you can't say that because the things that I thought didn't add up, I thought, You knew how they added up. And now I'm realizing you don't know how they add up, and you've been with her longer. So what does this mean? We're just looking at each other, just, I don't know. In shock, she tells me about her balanced paychecks. And then we get a call from Candice. Where are you guys? It's time to go. So we get in the car with Candice driving.

Candice drove everyone home from the event. Aura jumped in the front seat of Candice's champagne-colored Escalade while Kate and Kim sat in the back.

And the whole drive home, I'm like, my mind is running a million miles per hour. I'm just like, what alternate universe have I just stepped into? Worst case scenarios, but then also trying to balance them out with things like, well, I know she has special clearance at the airport, and she worked with the UN, and she does all this other stuff. Is it possible that she needs a separate identity to protect herself because of the line of work that she's in? And that's why certain things don't add up. Trying to make sense of it. Suddenly, somehow, the conversation that they all were having, because I clearly was in another world, turns to this story of Candice's twin baby girls. I learned early on when working with Candice that she had twin baby girls who were two years old who passed away when she got in a car accident and was hit by a drunk driver.

Candice had previously told Kim and Kate the same story that her twins were two years old when they passed away. But now in the car on the way home, Candice said something very different.

She said that she was six months pregnant when they were hit by the drunk driver.

There was a moment of confused silence in the car as Kate and Kim looked at each other. Six months pregnant? That's almost an entirely different story to losing two-year old twin girls.

And I'm thinking in my head, wow, that's a really different detail. No way, no way somebody would lie about that. Wow, that's a really different detail. No way somebody would lie about that. Literally as the thoughts in my head are thinking that, Kate goes.

I said, Wait, Candice, you were six months pregnant? I thought they were two years old.

It was like everything stopped, and my heart just sunk. And I knew she's lying, and she has probably lied about far more than I can even imagine.

Candice wasn't faced by the question at all. She simply palmed it off as if Kate and Kim had mixed it up.

Candice's response was simply just, No, you missed it. No. Just so matter of fact and convincing. I was so consumed. Like, this is somebody who, if we weren't with each other during the day, she would call me on the phone, and we'd be talking 2-3 hours every day. It was like, Well, crap. How do I navigate this? I come home that night and I walk into my bedroom and my husband's laying on our bed, just on his phone, and I go, Well, I'm pretty sure that I'm in bed with a con artist.

While Kim was convinced Candice was lying about something, her and Aura had no idea what was really going on. And even though it was coming to the end of the summer, Candice's manic behavior was only ramping up. That same week, Candice bought her son a car, a Toyota 4-runner SUV that she wrapped in a big red bow for his 16th birthday. He just got his driver's license. As Candice's son took it for a ride, Aura was getting a phone call. It wasn't from the police, though.

I get a phone call from Chase Bank Fraud Department, and I was on a walk with my brother and sister and Bayly, and I just sat on the sidewalk, and she said, There has been $17,000 charged on a credit card in your name. Do you know anything about this? And instantly I knew. It was her. I just knew. And I knew that we had just set up a card. And I was like, I think that was probably my boss. And she's like, Are you aware of a car purchased at AC Auto? And I was like, Absolutely not. And I was like, I never got a card. I said, I never signed for a card. I never got one in the mail. I've never gotten a statement. I've never even gotten a phone call from you guys verifying these purchases, especially a car. My sons are very close to her sons. I knew that car was bought for her son as a gift. And so I had to go to the police station and file a police report about that purchase, about that car. It wrecked me because was, yes, because of what she had done to me.

But I thought I was going to destroy her son. He had just gotten this gift from his mom, and I sat on the couch and I couldn't focus on anything. Luckily, my brother and sister were there, and they took my laptop and just started saving everything and just downloading all of my information onto another device. Candice was becoming more and more frantic, and she was showing her gun to everyone. So I was really scared of Candice. And I told Chase Bank Fraud Department, I said, I am scared of this woman. If she finds out about this conversation, I'm afraid she will come after me. And they said, Don't worry. Anytime this account is pulled up, there will be basically an alert that they cannot discuss this with anyone. And when she went to the bank, they told her about the phone call. So she texted me, furious. She just kept going on and on and on in the text, teaching me about how a credit card works, basically telling me how stupid I was. Don't you know anything about a business credit card? This This is how it works. And then just really pressuring me to reopen the account because I didn't understand business cards.

So I refused. And she's like, There's a person here that can help me fix all of this. And she's like, I think I know what to do now. Chase Bank called me. They said, This account got reopened. And then the charges went up to just under $24,000.

Aura ended up calling me, tells me the whole thing with the Chase credit card, and I could I can't believe it. And then she's like, I've decided I'm going to go to the AG's office.

The credit card fraud was the final straw for Aura. If the police weren't going to call her, she was going to go to them. She reached out to Danny Remington and got the number of the lead investigator, Special Agent James Pettus, and set up a meeting at his office.

I was terrified because I had no idea what was going on other than she was breaking the law somehow and did that to me. Agent Pettus had me come in a room with him for an interview, and he started asking me questions. He said, We have a lot of gaps that need to be filled. So on his screen, he pulled up images of exodus checks, loads and loads of exodus checks that Candice forged to herself. I was stunned because I had no idea she was keeping all the money. All of that money, she was keeping it for herself. And then he said, Do you know anything about Bank of Baghdad? And he mentioned a few hundred thousand dollars. I was like, No, I don't. I know she has international connections. I genuinely don't know. And so he started asking me her international connections, country she had been to, people she was working with. And he just starts telling me stuff that they have found and just asking me a lot of questions or evidence that they could get from me. And I said, I have a laptop with three years of evidence on it. I can hand it over to you right now.

I said, Take my phone. I don't care. Take everything I have. Get all the evidence you can.

Kim went with Aura. She wanted to speak with Agent Pettus, too. But Aura was with him for so long that by the time she finished, there was no time left for Kim.

He ended up not having time to talk to me, which was totally fine with me. But before Aura and I left, they briefly updated me on some of the things he told Aura, some of which were things I never could have even imagined. I thought it was bad and was prepared for it to possibly be bad. I didn't think it was this bad.

Since that moment in the car, when Kim realized Candice had told her a different story about losing her twin girls, Kim had been trying to speak to Candice about it. She'd finally locked in a time to confront her, and it just so happened to be right after she went with Aura to meet with Agent Pettus. Kim drove straight to Candice's house from the attorney general's office.

It just so happened to work out that way. I was already nervous to confront Candice. She had joked about slashing my tires if I quit. But after hearing everything I heard, I was like, who knows what this woman is capable of? Is this even safe or smart for me to confront her? But I was so dead set for my own closure. I was shaking. So I get to her house. She has me just come in. She's on the phone with her accountant, no less, trying to get her finances in order. And then she gets off the phone and she's like, Sorry about that. And then she can tell. She's like, You okay? And I was like, Yeah, I'm fine. I'm quivering everywhere. I'm like, I'm fine. She's like, You seem nervous or something. It's like, No, I'm good. There's something I want to talk to you about, but it's not a big deal. She's gathering her stuff. She throws on the table this little square box and slides it over to me. And I'm like, What's this? And she goes, Oh, it's a gift to you to say thank you for my birthday. I open the box, and it's a chain link necklace.

She goes, I meant to write a card with it, but it's supposed to say that it's link necklace because it represents our friendship and how you're stuck with me forever. I was like, She knows. She knows. I just put the lid back on and scooted it off to the side. And she goes, So what do you want to talk about? So I'm really nervous, but I don't want to make it a big thing. I just love you and care about you. And I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt. There are a couple of things I've been just a little bit concerned about. And she's looking at me like, judging every single word and analyzing every single movement and facial expression of mine. And I can just see her just waiting for it. She goes, Okay, you can tell me anything. What's up? I said someone and I had a conversation about your birthday, and they thought you were turning 40. And she goes, No, of course not. You know I turned 39. And I was like, Yeah, yeah. And I'm trying to get through this, but she's trying to explain as I'm going.

I was like, Well, anyways, I wanted to make sure you were actually only turning 39 and not 40. So you've given me your driver's license before. And she looks at me just so straight-face, just not reacting. And she goes, Yeah, well, it's Because as I was born on Navajo reservation, what they put on my birth certificate, they messed up the date on my birth certificate. And I've always asked my mom to change it. It's just we never did. I tried to be very calm and collected throughout it all. I was like, Okay, this part's really uncomfortable, and I want to tread lightly because I know how sensitive this is. But the story about your girls. And I asked her about it, and She pretty much just does what she did in the car, which just stands by that she always said that she was six months pregnant, and she doesn't know what else to tell me. I must have misheard. And then she goes, So what can we do to fix our relationship, Kim? And I was like, Well, okay, here's the thing. Regardless, I do need to step back from CR House & Co.

And it's been six months now, and I've I've had no pay for work, and just my family's struggling, and I need to be able to get paid. And now she's getting more, slowly more aggressive and more angry. And then she keeps going back to like, Well, how can Let me fix this? Because now she realizes that the only way to keep everything I've done for her is to keep me. And then she goes, Found her was my idea. She starts crying. It was my idea. It was my passion. It was my baby. You're trying to steal my work. And then she goes, You need to leave. And she points to the door. She goes, Go. You need to leave now. And I was like, Okay, I'll leave. I was like, I really am sorry. And I really do hope you can make the right choices for you and your family. And I walk out the door and she's standing at the door as I'm leaving. I turn around one more time, and I'm shaking. And I'm like, I I'm sorry. And she goes, So am I. And she shut the door.

Then Kim's phone started blowing up. Candice was bombarding her with hundreds of essay long messages. Kim sat and read us the last text that she got from Candice.

This is the last text. If you truly didn't want to leave on a bad note, you would have allowed me to address all the things you said behind my back and the dishonesty you have had with me the last couple of weeks. Sometimes you can be wrong, Kim, and your witch hunt in need to make something malicious turns out not to be. I'm not your Anna Delvey TV show. This is September 14th. She sends this text message at 04: 13 PM, unbeknownst to any of us, the following day. Developing tonight, the CEO of a Utah nonprofit group dedicated to helping the victims of human trafficking arrested on more than 30 charges. Matt called me. He's like, Hey, it's about Candice. It's code red. Hello. This is a free call from... Candice Laird.

An incarcerated individual at Utah County Jail. Now, this call is subject to recording and monitoring.

To accept this free call, press one. You may start the conversation now. Hello?

This has been Unicorn Girl, an Apple original podcast, produced by Seven Hills and hosted and executive, produced by me, Charlie Webster. Unicorn Girl is produced by me, Charlie Webster, and Jackson McLennon. Original score and theme music by Ryan Sorenson. Editing and sound design by Nico Pallela. Assistant producer and fact check-in by Emy Jory. Candice's social media posts are also read by Emy Jory. Mixed by Little Big Room. Additional production support by FunMeter. Follow and listen on Apple Podcasts.