Sometimes, you see a phone call coming in and you just know that something bad has happened.
I remember back several years ago, when my dad was still alive. He was in pretty poor health. He could still walk around, sort of, but it was with a walker, and it was very slowly. I’m the oldest of three sons, and of the three, I live the closest. It’s only about a 5 or 6 minute drive for me to get to my parents’ place, so if something happened, I’d be the one to get that call. Lots of times my phone would ring, and it would be my mom calling, quite upset and worried, because my dad had fallen and she couldn’t get him up.
And you know, when a call comes in the middle of the night, it’s almost never going to be good news. We’ve had a few of those as well.
For my guest today, Bill, life was good. He and his wife had two children – David, in high school, and Kristin, who had just graduated from college and was about to start a career.
But then, Bill got a phone call. It was from a woman who identified herself as a police detective. And she was calling with news about Bill’s daughter.
Bill told this story on the podcast a little over 3 years ago, and it’s one of the episodes that had a big impact on people. Some of the elements of this story are just incredible. And you’ll also hear a recent conversation I had with Bill, about what’s happened since then.
If you’d like to contact Bill, you can do that through his website:
https://www.whendatinghurts.com/
Full show notes and pictures for this episode are here:
https://WhatWasThatLike.com/226
Graphics for this episode by Bob Bretz. Transcription was done by James Lai.
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Episode transcript (download transcript PDF):
Sometimes, you see a phone call coming in and you just know that something bad has happened.
I remember back several years ago, when my dad was still alive. He was in pretty poor health. He could still walk around, sort of, but it was with a walker, and it was very slowly. I’m the oldest of three sons, and of the three, I live the closest. It’s only about a 5 or 6 minute drive for me to get to my parents’ place, so if something happened, I’d be the one to get that call. Lots of times my phone would ring, and it would be my mom calling, quite upset and worried, because my dad had fallen and she couldn’t get him up.
And you know, when a call comes in the middle of the night, it’s almost never going to be good news. We’ve had a few of those as well.
For my guest today, Bill, life was good. He and his wife had two children – David, in high school, and Kristin, who had just graduated from college and was about to start a career.
But then, Bill got a phone call. It was from a woman who identified herself as a police detective. And she was calling with news about Bill’s daughter.
Bill told this story on the podcast a little over 3 years ago, and it’s one of the episodes that had a big impact on people. Some of the elements of this story are just incredible. And you’ll also hear a recent conversation I had with Bill, about what’s happened since then.
Scott
I’d like for those listening to this to have an idea of who Kristin was and what she was like. Can you just tell us about your daughter, Kristin?
Bill
She was 21 years old when she died – I hate to start at that spot. The first thing I think of is that she’s not physically with us. What kind of a person was she in life? She was very smart. She was extremely creative. She loves to write. She loves to make things. She likes to do photography. She loves to write poetry. She would write little stories and things like that. She wasn’t the type of person who would write a poem in high school or college, and then come running to us and say, “Hey, look what I wrote!” she would write it. Sometimes, you would just kind of find it later. She wrote something in high school and you would find it in the yearbook. So, sometimes, you would kind of trip upon these things. She was fun. She had a really nice sense of humor. She really freshens and brightens up people’s lives. Unfortunately, you’d find out how many people loved her after this had happened. She loved her family. She was loyal to her friends. She rode horses. She played the flute. She went to college on a scholarship. While she was there, she won a job at General Mills – she had not quite gotten to the point of starting there. She’s very cute and very attractive. She’s the full package, Scott. She was one of those people that, if I walked into a room that she was in, I’d say, “Wow! She really makes a statement!” And she was my daughter too.
Scott
When this happened, you were a family of 4, with your wife Michelle, your two kids, Kristin and David. Can you give us kind of an overview of what was going on in your lives at that time? How old were the kids?
Bill
At that time, Kristin was 21 and David was 17. They were always very good together. There was barely ever a hint of sibling rivalry. They were so great together and would have a lot of fun with each other especially during vacations. At that particular time, my son was finishing his junior year and had just gotten his junior high school ring. He was the most valuable player on his JV tennis team. So we’re celebrating that. There, she is right at the end of college and graduating soon. She’s going to start at General Mills in July. We were a family of 4. We had spent so much time emotionally and, in some cases, financially on these two children, and it was really paying off now, we are really seeing it. It’s like all those things that you tried to accomplish were coming true. Then, I got a call one evening. Kristin was going to college at St. Joseph University, just outside of Philadelphia. She was in food marketing, and she had won a job with General Mills. So, she was up there. We live just outside of Baltimore.
On the day of her graduation, we took a couple of cars because, after the graduation, my wife was going to get together with Kristin and go to the Atlantic Ocean or Ocean City, Maryland. We have a small house down there, so they were going to go there. My wife is a schoolteacher. She was out of school at that point. They were going there for, kind of, a long weekend. My son was still in high school, and I was working. Anyway, we took two cars up there and we went to the graduation. I remember when I first saw her, she was outside her apartment. It was just, kind of, like, a beautifully lit scene in a movie where it’s morning. She’s going to graduate in a few hours. When I pulled up in front of her apartment, I wasn’t sure if it was her. She had this beautiful dress on at that point. She had to put on the graduation gown, the mortarboard, and everything. I can’t put it into words, but she’s a person who never looked more radiant, happy, and so proud of what she had done. She was so ready.
Then, we kind of joined together and went over to the whole graduation part of it, which was under a great big white tent. We had to sit there for hours – it was May 14. Although it was only in the low 80s degrees Fahrenheit, it felt like the mid-to-high 90s degrees Fahrenheit – it was a really intense day. She graduated and came out for that. After that ceremony, she met with her best friend at the time, who’s a young woman named Samantha, and she also met her boyfriend. Now, she’s 21 years old and he’s 27 or 28 years old. So, that was kind of a new thing, but she introduced us. When I met him – I focused on him because I was focusing on her – I shook his hand, then these precise words ran through my mind: “Wow, I’d never want to tangle with this guy.” So here, I was just meeting him and picturing myself duking it out with this guy.
Scott
Not a good first impression.
Bill
No, no. I probably only had that feeling a few times in my life. That’s not a common thing for me to meet somebody at that place. I may say, “Wow, that guy’s strong, or tall, or dresses nicely, or whatever it is.” However, I pictured myself being in some kind of a confrontation with this guy. So that was a premonition I should have followed up somehow, I guess.
Scott
Yeah. It’s so easy to dismiss that and think, “I don’t even know this guy. Why would I think that?”
Bill
Oh, yeah, I’d be the first person to discount my feelings in a case like that. I wasn’t focused on what was wrong with him, but what was wrong with me. So, I kind of dismissed it, waited around in the parking lot, said ‘Hi’ to Samantha, then Christine’s other friend, Felicity – her best friend from high school who came up with this. We still keep in touch with both Samantha and Felicity. Even now, I’m still very close with them. We took a lot of digital pictures – all different combinations of Kristin and this guy. Then, he actually had a new digital camera. He took a picture of the 4 of us – my wife and I, Kristin, and David. In the following week, he and I sent emails to each other because we were exchanging the pictures I took and the pictures he took. But that was, kind of, just the graduation day. There was some tension going on between Kristin and this guy, but I had no idea what it was. I said to my wife and Kristin, “Look. If he wants to come with us after this to go get something to eat – McCormick and Schmick or someplace like that – maybe have him come.” But Kristin didn’t want to do that. So, I was actually okay with that. I’d rather it be the 4 of us to just be the core group.
Scott
That time is about her anyway. You’re celebrating her accomplishment.
Bill
Yeah. She was in Philadelphia, so it wasn’t like we were seeing her constantly. So, it was a real catch-up time. Michelle was going to continue on with Kristin to Ocean City, Maryland. Then, David and I would, kind of, say goodnight with hugs, kisses and all. We were heading back to the Baltimore area and, kind of, going back to what we were used to. A couple of days after the graduation, Kristin had left me this one voicemail – just talking and going on and on – about a camera which she had also received but didn’t really use that day. She was using it and downloading pictures. It was new for her to have a digital camera, so that was her favorite graduation present. She took a lot of pictures over the next 3 weeks or so. The key to this is: exactly 20 days after that graduation day – on a rainy Friday, on June 3, 2005 – I was with my parents that evening at a restaurant in the Baltimore area. My wife and son were closer to Washington at a graduation party for some friend’s son who just graduated from high school.
After I left my parents at this restaurant, we said ‘Good night’ and went home. Then, I got a call from a detective who handled the call very professionally. She needed to tell me something but could not tell me over the phone. I didn’t believe her, so I asked, “What’s this all about? Who are you?” Well, they’ve already been to the house but no one was there. They had to tell me something in-person. That was a lot to swallow while driving along in the rain with the wipers going, so I pulled off, got this detective’s number, and said “I need to call you back.” I called my wife who was at this graduation party and told her what was going on. She asked me, “Is this about Kristin?” And I said, “What on earth? Why would this be about Kristin? These are local policemen, detectives and all.” I wound up meeting them at a giant grocery store near home. I didn’t want to meet them at my front door because I can’t be sure who it is going to be in a situation like that. That’s kind of when I was handed a parent’s worst nightmare.
This main detective was a woman. She wanted me to sit in her car and tell me this thing that she couldn’t tell me over the phone, but I said, “No, let’s do it here by the automatic doors, with my back up against a Gatorade container, right by the big windows with all the sale signs and stuff at the grocery store. Just tell it to me here.” She said, “Your daughter Kristin was murdered today by her boyfriend.” That sets us off on a whole new trajectory in life, never to recognize most parts of our lives again from that point. So, it was really on me. Once I got the gist of that – which I understood immediately – I just pictured my life from that point on all the things that we were counting on that would just never happen – her birthdays, the Christmas holidays, get-togethers, her getting married to some great guy and having kids, etc. I just felt like I was watching a circuit box with the switches being snapped off.
Then, while I was back in my own car driving home, which was a short distance, my wife who’s still at this party called me back and said, “Well, what did you find out from this detective?” Somehow, I didn’t give her any details. She said that they’re coming home right now, and I said, “Well, yeah. You probably should.” My son and my wife came to the house. I called my parents whom I had just seen at the restaurant, asked them to come to the house, and found a way to say, “I’ll tell you what’s going on when you get there.” Then, I got them seated in the living room. That’s when I had to, kind of, send their lives off to the same place – mine had been for about 45-60 minutes.
Scott
I can’t imagine being tasked with telling the family that news.
Bill
Yeah. I’ve looked back on that many, many times, Scott. I really think I was really chosen for that job. The fact that my wife and son were not home and the detective somehow managed to contact me – I still don’t know to this day how they got my cell phone number – I have no doubt it was put on me to pass the word to everybody else. I’m not complaining at all – I was the right person to carry that. I mean, I’ve carried the story from June 3 until now. There I was, kind of, on a cool June 3 evening, in the rain. Knowing that I’ll be facing a whole different life when that sun comes up tomorrow – and it came up strong. It was a hot, hot, June 4 Saturday morning. Somehow, we had the clarity to start pushing through all kinds of phone calls, whether it’d be telling people what’s going on or making appointments for funeral homes and cemeteries. We were in the car and – the 3 of us, Michelle, David, and I – just being in complete disbelief, stress, pressure, horror, anger, and shock. We just saw her 21 days ago! On top of that, we were seriously praying for guidance: “Don’t let me forget something. Don’t let me miss something. Somebody out there, please tell me what to do.” We just had thoughts coming into our minds to act upon.
Scott
It’s not like you had any practice in how to do all of this.
Bill
Yeah. We didn’t have any cemetery plots ready to go. At that very same time, my parents had their plots in the military section of this one cemetery – they were all paid for – and all you have to do now is pass away or something… I mean, not everybody’s ready to die – definitely, not my daughter who just graduated from college… Those first days, we’re just all about getting ready for the funeral, this flow of people calling, showing up, and bringing food – more people brought more food. Every time you open the door, it was a ham or something.
Scott
That’s what people know how to do, right?
Bill
Yeah, God bless them. I mean, they were doing everything they could to help bring comfort. I’m not complaining, but it became, like, “Well, where will we put that? Why am I thinking about that?” In the meantime – it’s not like somebody had a heart attack, died, and was brought here to the funeral home – in this case, my daughter’s body is in the Philadelphia area held as evidence to track down the guy who did it and to connect what he actually, literally, did to the person because he got to be very careful. I mean, he stabbed her to death. What he did was pretty obvious, but they want to be sure this doesn’t go sideways in case he turns this into a different story. The medical examiner who examined her is the same person who examined him, by the way, which is kind of interesting. On June 3, he attacked her around 3.00 AM in the morning, but he presented himself at a hospital around 9.00 AM claiming that he was in a fight with his girlfriend. He was there because he had a number of injuries himself. Now, from the point of view of the medical examiner and detectives working on the case, he did all of this to himself. He wanted to make it look like she attacked him, and he did it out of self-defense. That was what he was pushing for. That’s why it took 3.00 AM until 9.00 AM for him to get to a hospital – because he was trying to work on his story. He was inflicting injuries on himself with a knife at the same time.
We went to 3 different funeral homes first. The first two, frankly, looked and smelled – funeral homes do have that, kind of, I guess, lilacs or something in there. It has that kind of heavy smell. I mean, you could be blindfolded and, most of the time, know that you’re in a funeral home. They were just so dreary. Now, the circumstances were dreary, of course, but this just made it worse. The salespeople were just either cold or handled it just like another job number on a job jacket or something – they just didn’t give you anything. When we got to the third one, it was completely different. The place, at least, felt neutral or positive. The guy who was the funeral director there handled all of our needs – he totally got it. I mean, he understood the circumstances, showed us the different rooms, and told us, “You’re going to need a big room because somebody of that age will have high school and college friends here. If they’re in Philadelphia, they’ll come down.” And they did. They had a book where people were signing in, and I guess the book ran out after 500 names, families, or whatever were filled in. We stood in the wake for over 4 hours – I think we went into the 5th hour – until, finally, at one point, they said, “We have to close this place.”
Scott
That’s the kind of person that you want to work with.
Bill
He was great. I guess it just comes with practice and also the type of person handling it. He knew how to do some hand-holding. When the sun came up that day, we went to these other funeral homes, we went to this guy, and we talked about things. One of the most bizarre things is this flight of steps downstairs to the casket showroom. I mean, that’s really what it was like – a new car showroom, for caskets. My wife had said, “Well, I don’t think Kristin would like a white one. I don’t think she would want one of these dark ones or a dark wooden one.” I remember thinking that it’s so bizarre to have a conversation about what kind of casket my daughter would like. That first day was really, like, playing pinball because I was making or getting calls from the apartment complex where it happened, and speaking with law enforcement officers who were trying to pick through some pieces. They were very forthcoming. They were helpful. I called and told relatives, co-workers, friends, and very soon after that were the newspaper reporters. I think this tends to happen to dads more than anybody else in the family – we just want as many details as possible of what led up to this and what actually happened, where’s this guy now, and what is his story. Maybe, you just wanted it to make sense at some point, but you’re just kind of, “No, it really can’t make sense.” As the days went by, I was actually surprised at how well we were handling it because we were all going at it very, very hard, but we never really felt exhausted. I mean, we’ve been there every day for, maybe, 10-11 hours since Sunday or Monday night, and the funeral didn’t happen until Thursday. We kept our minds pretty clear. We seem to have this sense of, “Now, we need to do this. Oh, we need to call this person. We need to phrase it this way.” All these things kept going on. The other thing that I just wanted to insert for a second is something we didn’t really notice until sometime later when we were talking about it with a friend. We had a lot of strange occurrences that week. We had as many as 9 light bulbs that blew out in the house from the time and day she was killed, for the next seven days. I kept thinking, “I gotta go get another light bulb and put it in that lamp over there.” Then, a few hours later, we would go into some other room and the light would blow out. It was ridiculous. There was, like, some electrical thing going, and 3 of our four cars wouldn’t start for a day. Then, the next day they’d start. So, there was a lot going on.
Scott
After the funeral is over, you’re just back to living life and you actually have to go back to work.
Bill
Yeah, I did. Yeah. So I was out of there, I guess, really, in just two full weeks. It doesn’t sound very long, but I think it was actually pretty long. I was out of there for a couple of weeks. When I came back, there was one person who said to me that a lot of people there thought I’d never come back to work. I guessed they thought that I’d be so shattered by what took place and I’d be dysfunctional. I guessed they presumed the rest of my life. That was eye-opening. I said, “Well, I can’t say I’m fine, but it never occurred to me that I’m going to quit the business.” I was in advertising as a creative guy. So, you don’t really know me very well if you think that. This was a big tragedy, but I still have a lot of life ahead of me. I just have this other major side project that my mind is working on which, in that case, is dealing with the loss of your older child. When some people lost a child and had to bury them, it’s horrible and they have to figure out their own path on how to get through grieving, time-passing, denials, anger, and all the things you go through. In our case, it wasn’t like that at all. It was, “Well, we still have to, at least, get this guy into prison as much as we can.” We didn’t have any playbook in our hands when she was killed. I didn’t know what would happen next that led to a preliminary hearing, formal arraignment, all of these other phone calls, twists and turns.
Scott
Fortunately, you had someone who was very experienced and very invested in your case to take that through the whole process. We’re not going to cover all the details of the court case and everything that’s in your book, which I’ll talk about shortly. You mentioned that you’ve had some pretty vivid dreams that included Kristin. What kind of effect did that have on you?
Bill
For me, no matter what I’m dreaming about, they’re always very real. I mean, I’m really there not thinking, “Oh, I’m sleeping and having the story playing along.” I’m really there – I’m really in that place that’s very 3 dimensional and very colorful. In this one instance, I was at what you would probably call a county fairground which was kind of eerie. The county fair seems to be taking place all day. Now it’s the evening – maybe we’re talking at 10 or 11 o’clock in the evening – but there’s no one else around. There are bare bulbs strung in different places, maybe from building to building, or poles, or something like that, with a little breeze going and crickets and things. There’s a little bit of dust blowing around your feet. I see this young woman walking towards me, kind of, flowing with a white summer dress, and it’s Kristin. She came up and we didn’t say anything very much because it’s, kind of, understood. “Wow, it’s so great under the circumstances to see you” is what I was trying to put out to her, and she gets it.
I slowly but surely realized what was going on, that this is a dream. Even though it’s wonderful – I looked at her and her blonde hair was blowing, her dress is kind of moving, and we’re there together – as soon as I realize that it’s a dream, it starts to fade and she becomes transparent. It was just wonderful. It felt so real to me, like it really did happen. It almost felt like she came and visited me at night, in my own place where I was sleeping. When it’s kind of over, she kind of smiled, turned, and walked off from where she came from. It was wonderful. I mean, it was a great feeling – spending time with someone you cared so much about and knowing that she was okay. Honestly, that was a big part of it. When you lose somebody like that, no matter where they are, whether they’re whether she’s in this room with me right now talking to you, which is possible in some way she could be, you want to know that they’re not uncomfortable, they’re not in pain. I really do believe that she is okay and that dream really, kind of, assured me of that.
I don’t know how many dreams I’ve had about her. I’ve had some other ones that were, kind of, quick – she was there and she was very 3 dimensional. When she visited my wife and me at a motel or someplace and spent time with us, there’s not a whole lot of dialogue, but there’s still a really strong connection. A year and a half ago, I was in some kind of marketplace – it was pretty amazing. It was sunny, the wind was blowing, there were a lot of people hustling and bustling around. In the midst of it, I see somebody – like in an Indiana Jones movie or something where all of these people are crossing the camera, but you see one particular person coming right to you – who looks a lot like Kristin. When she got to me, it was Kristin. It wasn’t the teenager Kristin. It wasn’t the 21-year-old Kristin. It was a representation of Kristin if she had lived. She’s like the 36 or 37 years old Kristin. It was amazing. I mean, it’s like some screenwriter rewrote her storyline, that she didn’t die that night, that she had been saved by a fast-acting detective in the Philadelphia area. Now, this is all created in my mind. In the Philadelphia area, there was a team of doctors – who were always on standby for people who were near death, who had died and slightly came back – who saved her but she was in such rough shape from what this guy had done to her that it had taken all this time for her to rehab to the point where she could physically and emotionally return to life with people around. It was amazing. At the end of the dream, all I wanted to do was to get her back and reintroduce her to her mother and David. I mean, that was seriously as real as me sitting talking to you right now.
Scott
Sometimes, I think vivid dreams can be almost cruel when it comes to something that we want so badly, but then we have to wake up and it’s not there anymore. When you’re talking about that, it reminded me of the lyrics to a Tom Petty song. I don’t know if you’ve heard of this, but one of the lines is, “God, it’s so painful when something that’s so close is still so far out of reach.”
Bill
Wow, yeah. You can almost touch it. There’s no doubt that this is a big and tough tease.
Scott
I want to hear the story of the locket. Can you take us through what happened in
Bill
The locket story – if somebody were to go to my website, or if somebody were to get the book, they’ll see immediately how I liberally use a golden locket as the main visual. When you see the book, you’ll see the words, “When dating hurts.” You’ll see the locket there and you won’t get it – you couldn’t possibly get it – until you read the book. Of course, you’ll get it now just by listening to the story. So what happens is this: if you go to the night of Kristin’s wake – some people call it a visitation, but it’s the opportunity to come and see the family and offer condolences, say a few words, and do things like that – that night, there were hundreds of people that me, my wife, my son, and my grandparents received. She was made very presentable in an open casket situation, so people could see her that night – it was not a closed casket.
One of my daughter’s high school teacher’s names is Patricia. Unbeknownst to any of us, Patricia came there that night from home. Instead of standing in a receiving line, she actually came to the back of the funeral home and somehow came in. Somebody let her in. She was kind of on a mission to seek out my wife, Michelle’s closest friend because she wanted to share something with her. Patricia then caught up with Donna who is one of my wife’s very close friends. She wanted to tell her a story of something that had happened to her. Patricia had lost two daughters 4 years earlier. This is just a horrible thing. She lost her two daughters at the same time when – their car which was at the University of Maryland – a storm or hurricane was kind of rolling in. Sometimes, hurricanes have tornadoes in the middle of them. The car that these two young women were in – one was a senior, I think the other was either a freshman or sophomore – was literally picked up while driving, and flung over an 8-storey dormitory onto a highway down below. Obviously, both of them were instantly killed. So, she lost both of her daughters.
Friends and family had the presence of mind to present her with a locket on each one of the girl’s birthdays as they came along. So, she had these 2 precious lockets and the lockets had pictures of the girls in them. In each case, one locket would have a picture and hair of the daughter who was killed. She had a gold one and a silver one. She came with these two lockets and she showed them to Donna, Michelle’s friend, and said, “I know that tomorrow is the funeral and burial, so I needed to get here because it’s either tonight or never. If you want to have a locket created, this is the only opportunity for you to snip some hair, save it, and then get a locket made.” Once she delivered that, Pat was out of there. That was that for her – that’s the way that went.
Donna waited till the end of the evening when people were busy looking at other things, then she snipped some of Kristin’s hair, put it in an envelope, put it in her handbag, and held on to it. A month later, she went to a jeweler – his name is Kevin Welsh. She told him about this story of her friend’s daughter, Kristin – about how she was attacked one night while breaking up with her boyfriend and was stabbed to death. As he was listening to the story, he became particularly emotional about this abusive relationship and this girl who got killed. In the meantime, Donna didn’t know that Kevin was dating someone. He was kind of ending the relationship with this person. He is a 41-year-old guy, he never married, he’s a handsome guy. It turned out that he’s also in an abusive relationship – the woman that he was dating was abusive and threatening to him. At one time, before Donna showed up that day, he said, “I’ll tell you one thing. If you ever break up with me, I’ll probably stab you to death.” When he heard about the story from Donna – he eventually made the locket as she wanted – he’s like, “Oh my god. This girl’s story is here to warn me about what can happen to me.” So, he thought of Kristin as his ‘angel protector’ – that’s what he referred to her as – trying to warn him, “You better be careful because what happened to me may happen to you.” He’s trying to deal with his girlfriend and she has already threatened him. Sometimes, they’d get together and be okay. However, there’s just something off about her and it seems to be getting worse. She is texting and calling him pretty much incessantly. He’s trying to figure out what to do because if he breaks up with her, she’s going to show up at some point and get to him. So, he’s pretty doggone worried.
He goes ahead and works on the locket. He’s got photos of Kristin and her mother Michelle. He goes to put one on each side of the locket as it opens. In the middle, there’s a little glass oval window where he puts Kristin’s hair. So, he’s kind of working on it for about two months. He’s got plenty of time until Kristin’s birthday coming along on August 24 of that year.
He kept getting these phone calls and text messages. He kept getting harassed by this woman. He doesn’t want to change his phone number because it’s his personal and business phone number, but he’s at the point where he has no choice because this woman won’t stop although he kept telling her, “We’re kind of done here. I don’t know if we can go on seeing each other or any of that stuff.” He keeps trying to be out of town and miss her and everything else.
Anyway, he got the locket done. It’s almost August 24. He told Donna, “It is finished.” She said, “I’ll come over and pick it up, or my husband will pick it up. One of us will pick it up.” He said, “Look, let’s do this. I need to drive towards your house anyway. I also need to stop at a Verizon store because I need to do something there.” She goes, “Well, look, I’ll have Brad just meet you there.” So, they met at noon at the Verizon store. He handed the locket over to Brad, the husband. He loves the locket and everything. He left to bring it to Donna.
Kevin Welsh went into the Verizon store and found out that if you want to change your phone number, you don’t do it in the store – you just call this number and they’ll take care of it. He goes, “Oh, great!” He drove back to his jewelry store, sat down, called Verizon, and went through it. They say, “Okay. We can do that right here.” So, he got his number changed and wrote down his new number. After a month has passed – I don’t want to go into all the technical parts of it – I was curious – having Kristin’s physical cell phone in my possession – about any last voicemail messages or anything that was on there. I did manage to download any voicemail messages and record them all just for posterity. Once I did that, my wife and I realized we no longer needed this line – we don’t need her phone number. So way back in June, we had her number retired, so to speak. I had asked them at the time, “When they retire a number, what actually happens?” They said, “As soon as we get off the phone, that number is shut down, retired, or suspended for two months, so to speak. But then, roughly 2 months from now, it’ll kind of come back out. Someone else will get it.” So, it’s like, “Okay, well. That’s fine.”
Anyway, I was able to discover that Kristin’s number was retired or suspended in late June of 2005, and came back out in late August of 2005. When Kevin Welsh got his number changed, purely and coincidentally, he wound up with Kristin’s phone number. Here’s the guy who has this abusive relationship going on, needs to get his number changed, and of all the numbers that could possibly go back out that day around that time, the guy – who had such a connection to this girl who was murdered by her boyfriend – wound up with her number. I don’t even know if you’d call it a coincidence. I mean, it’s just what it was.
Scott
How did you realize – or eventually come to realize – that he got her number?
Bill
Yeah, that’s a really good question. Let me do the chronology quickly. She was killed in June. Donna went to Kevin Welsh at the jewelry store to get the locket done in July of 2005. In August of 2005, the locket was given to Donna who, then, gave it to Michelle on Kris’s birthday – August 24. A month after that, there’s something called a formal arraignment – my wife and I were in Philadelphia for that. That’s when they brought in the murderer, told him, “Here’s literally what you’re charged with: first-degree murder, third-degree murder, possession of an instrument, crime of killing somebody, and different things like that.” There were two voicemails on my phone – they were both from Kristin. When we were leaving, one of the things I did was I would listen to them from time to time.
I was able to see some phone numbers that seemed very different between 2005 and now. In those days, by hitting a series of buttons, you could get the information as to when the call happened, how long the call was, who it was from, and different things like that. I’d listened to Christine’s messages. I’d also hit the buttons that would tell me when these were just to reinforce So I sort of already know, but this one time I hit it, instead of saying that the call was made from Kristin’s phone. It said the call was made from a phone owned by a guy named Kevin Welsh. I didn’t know who that was. You can call back whoever left the voicemail. So, I called back and got his voicemail message, “This is Kevin Welsh. Sorry, I’m not here right now.” Things like that. I left a message and I said, “My name is Bill Mitchell. My daughter’s name is Kristin. I know you don’t know me, but you might know my daughter. I’m wondering if, somehow, she may have left a message from your phone. Please call me back. If you get a chance.”
As we were driving back from the courthouse in the Philadelphia area to Baltimore, my phone started ringing. In 2005, you could assign a ringtone to specific people – a siren, birds chirping, or anything. When my phone started ringing, it was giving Kristin’s ringtone, as if Kristin was calling me. I was driving the car at that time and my wife was saying, “Why aren’t you answering the phone?” I said, “Because that’s Kristin’s ringtone. If I answered that phone, it could have been Kristin on the other end. I didn’t know what was going to happen. It could be some cruel trick.”
All of a sudden, I heard this deep-sounding voice from a guy named Kevin Welsh. I was like, “What is this?” So he described who he was. He said that he was a jeweler in the Baltimore area and told me where his shop was. Then, I realized, “Wait a minute. I think I’ve been to your shop one time based upon a recommendation from Donna. Did you make a locket for a young woman who was killed? Did you make a locket for Donna?” He said, “Yeah, I just gave it to her 3-4 weeks ago.” I said, “Oh my God. Somehow, you got my daughter’s cell phone number.” We had shockwaves gone through our system. I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t even know the story of the girlfriend at that time. When we finally caught up with him, we found out about the ‘girlfriend’ situation which was why he changed the number and everything. He got Kristin’s phone number. He and I are friends for life. I call him brother Kevin, and I’m brother Bill to him. When I call Kevin – I still see him and talk to him a lot, he participated in a lot of parts of our life – it actually still says ‘Kristin’ next to the phone number. I never changed it to Kevin, but I know it’s Kevin’s number. It’s pretty incredible.
Scott
It is completely incredible. Well, you mentioned Kristin’s voicemail that you had kept and listened to – that’s one of the ways you stayed connected with, in some way.
Kristin
Hey, guys. Kristin here. I got your message. It is a transforming experience on Wednesday morning. I’m at the new apartment. It’s beautiful here. There’s a lot of stuff that he put away. There’s a lot of stuff to be done. I did get your message last night. Obviously, things are a little hectic. I was really tired from trying to put stuff away and whatnot. Moving is quite an adventure, but the movers are great. Everything went really really well – nothing got broken. They packed and wrapped everything with paper and boxes, which is crazy. They did a really good job. Can you call back? I love you. I guess you’re at work. I’ll talk to you soon.
Scott
What goes through your mind when you listen to that voicemail message?
Bill
It’s a connection to better times. Obviously, it’s a connection to the living Kristin. It’s a connection to her whole life from August 24, 1983, when she was born and all through her life. I mean, I just see all those pictures all lined up, all those moments, and all those different things. I never felt bad listening to them. I feel good listening to them. She’s talking about being in this new apartment of hers and she was just very happy. She was about ready to start her job and she still had lots of friends. We didn’t know or appreciate that she was having all kinds of difficulty with this overly-controlling and dominant boyfriend – she didn’t tell us about that. Her friends were aware of it but we didn’t know. For the most part, I feel very good. I mean, my wife had a number of voicemail messages on her phone. She was very good at listening to them, getting the gist, and then kind of taking them off because, in those days, you kind of had limited storage. So, I might get rid of every other one – I had, but I didn’t get rid of those, and I eventually recorded them, of course, so that they would never get away.
Scott
Right now, you’ve got him forever, right?
Bill
Sure.
Scott
Kristin’s brother, David, is 4 years younger, right? This happened when he was just a young teenager. I know he and Kristin had a very special and close relationship. For a lot of kids, it seems like this could be something that would just break them for life. However, David doesn’t feel the pain of losing his sister, but his perspective on this is really inspiring. I want to take a minute here and hear from David. We should tell people you’ve written a book about this whole experience, which is about to be an audiobook. As a matter of fact, by the time this episode gets released, it may be out in audiobook form.
Bill
Yes. It should be.
Scott
What we’re about to hear is the chapter that David wrote on how he responded to what happened.
David
I’m David, Kristin’s brother. On the morning of June 4, 2005 – the day after I found out that my sister had been suddenly torn from our lives in an unthinkable manner – I experienced a moment of personal revelation that was critical in shaping my outlook on both my family’s tragedy and on life itself. I decided to share it in this book in the hopes that it may help others who are coping with their own personal crises and tragedies, in whatever form they may come.
My parents were in the funeral director’s office attempting to iron out the details of the wake funeral and burial. The news was still fresh. Our emotions were still raw and unpredictable. Our grasp on the reality of the situation was shaky. In the meeting, the funeral director asked us, “Do you think she would prefer a casket made of wood or metal?” I don’t mean this as a criticism of the funeral director – he was truly a compassionate professional and did an excellent job for us – but subjectively, at that moment, the question felt utterly absurd and unanswerable to me. It was like your house had just burned down and the cleanup crew was asking if you prefer that they send a red truck or a blue truck to haul away the wreckage. I think the contrast of what seemed like such a trivial decision against the backdrop of a life-altering new reality really struck a chord in me. The emotional feeling from the collapse of my house of cards was imminent.
I walked out of the room, left the building, and landed on a concrete bench outside. The emotional release that followed was intense, and it was complete. I cried for my sister. I cried for my family. I struggled through involuntary gasps for air in-between outpourings of sorrow and pain. I don’t know if this went on for 1, 5, or 10 minutes, but a new horrifying thought gradually crept over me. I wasn’t worried about Kristin. I believe she still existed, but just in a different way now. The pain she endured at the very end was over, but what about my parents and me? For the first time, I began to realize that this is a turning point in our lives – things would never be the same. Was this the end of any semblance of a happy, fulfilling life? Was this the beginning of a dark new reality or life would be nothing but a sad, empty, deformed version of what it once was – a life that my parents would have to live for another 30-40 years, that I would have to live from the age of 17 until the end of my miserable life?
As soon as those thoughts filled my head with a future of misery and hopelessness, they were met with equal and opposing force by a new thought that formed. It was my decision whether or not this event would bring about such a future. The darkness and hopelessness are not certainties. They are only certain if I settle for the nearest and most obvious interpretation I could grasp of the event – namely, this is the beginning of the end. At that moment, I decided not to settle for that. It was up to me to interpret what this event would mean for my life, going forward. Furthermore, it was up to me to decide if I would be controlled by it, or if I would find a way to become stronger as a result of it. Maybe, I could even go a step further and find a way to harness its power, kind of, like jujitsu, become a better person, and live a more intentional life than I otherwise would have. I don’t know if those thoughts came to me from Kristin from a higher power or from a lucky firing of neurons at just the right time in my brain, but they’ve been critical in shaping the trajectory of my life since then.
That day actually only occurred to me now as I write this. What seemed like an absurd trivial decision that I couldn’t comprehend in the funeral director’s office directly led to making, perhaps, the most important decision of my life in only a few moments later. We live in a world rife with judgment, narratives, and other noises. Maybe, it’s not so different than it’s ever been in human history. I tend to think that the deluge of entertainment media and the life-enveloping nature of social media has made it much more difficult for us to think for ourselves and interpret the world independently. We’re surrounded by simple narratives that are too easy to adopt for assessing our own lives. Bob got a new car – smiley plus celebration emojis. Patty broke up with her boyfriend – sad plus crying emoji. It’s all too easy to view life through the lens which you think the rest of the world sees – like, something terrible happened to me, so my life must be terrible now. Resist that interpretation. I don’t pretend to think that every person facing a tragedy or a crisis can avoid pain and suffering. My family and I have suffered greatly. That being said, if you’re one of these people, I urge you to believe that you have the authority to decide what it means in your life – to simply decide if it will destroy you or not. That decision can have a powerful impact on the long-term severity of your suffering and the degree to which you can find happiness and fulfillment again one day. It did for me.
Scott
David seems to have wisdom – that was beyond his years – to have a great outlook on that.
Bill
When David was even a little kid – I mean, like, 3-5 years old – he was what some people refer to as an old spirit, if you’ve ever heard about that before. When you’ve got somebody who is 3 years old, who is having these deep conversations with a priest about God– I mean, I have pictures of him – when he was, maybe, I think, 10-11 years old – sitting in a hammock with a minister after one of my cousins was married. They’re there in this swinging hammock. They must have been there for the better part of an hour. This man had been a believer, then he kind of became a minister of some description, and then he became like a high priest or minister – I’m not sure what they call them with that. So, David was just fascinated that this man had, kind of, moved from one thing to the next. I mean, they’re having this great conversation. At one point, I walked up and said to this man, “I know David’s been here a long time. Do you need a break or something like that?” He said “No, no, we’re good” and, kind of, waved me off – like, “Get out of here. This is not about you.”
He’s always been a deep guy. When he was 17 years old, he looked at the situation and thought, “This can crush me. This may or may not change me in really detrimental ways. I have to make a decision that I won’t get swallowed up in this.” Four years after Kristin was killed, he and I talked about it. I said, “It felt like you distanced yourself from some of it.” He said, “Well, you and mom were doing such a good job of grieving and handling it all. I was still 17-18 years old when it happened. Back then, I still wanted to be a high school junior and senior. I wanted to go to college and have a college life. I didn’t want to carry that – I didn’t want to be known as the brother of a murdered sister – all the time. I wanted to be me.
Scott
Yeah, he needs to have his own identity for sure. So, your book is already out. As I said, the audiobook version might be out by now. We’ll have links to that in the episode notes. You also have a podcast where you talk to people and try to bring awareness to something that a lot of people aren’t even familiar with, which is dating violence. Some of the episodes are done with those who have actually survived this and are willing to tell their story. Can you talk a little bit about the podcast?
Bill
What happened was this: I put the book out and that was a big lift. It took over four years to, kind of, piece it together and it only really got done in the last year, I believe. It kind of started out as short articles. At one point, somebody had the wisdom to say, “Why don’t you stop writing these articles and just write the book?” So, I made a book that really consists of a bunch of short chapters. Any one of them could be considered an article, but they all kind of string together. The book tells our journey from the night of the call from the detective up until about the time the book came out.
One of the key things about the book is the book, at the end of it – meaning, like, the last 30 pages – it really goes into the warning signs of an unhealthy relationship, and the template that all abusers follow. I’ve never seen something like that before, but it gives all these insights into how to detect if this is going on, how to take action, how to be safe, how to live through it, and all of those types of things. Of course, we know that not everybody lives through it, like my daughter. Once I got the book out, quite frankly, I felt like I had shipped my best friend away on an airliner. It was like, “Oh, I kind of missed the challenge in putting all of it all together.” Then I thought about podcasts. I thought, “I can record a podcast this morning, edit it this afternoon, and upload it tonight. I’d like to take some of the characters in the book and bring them to life so that people can hear from them, which then led to bringing on domestic violence counselors, getting some of the law enforcement people who were involved in the case, getting mothers and fathers of victims and survivors, and bringing actual survivors on. So I have male and female survivors on the podcast. I’ve got other people in the pipeline.
These people are just such real and great people. The survivors are so courageous. When I’m listening to these people, all I can do is breathe, sometimes, while listening to how horrifically they were handled by someone who claimed to love them at some point in time, how they work their way through it, how they found ways to cope, how they found ways to get out of that relationship and get behind them. My imagination would never have taken me to the places that a lot of these podcast episodes do. I would say that this podcast is a lot like yours, Scott. I mean, some of the stories that you have are just spellbinding and so compelling. I really have the greatest admiration for people who deal with domestic and dating violence for a living, but they don’t get into it for the money. One thing I can guarantee is domestic violence counselors and professionals never get rich, but they’re actively bettering, saving lives, and bringing comfort.
Scott
Yeah. Sometimes, the rewards of work are not just financial. Well, we’re gonna have links to everything that we’ve talked about here – your book and your podcast. If anyone goes to your website, which is ‘whendatinghurts.com’, the links to everything are there as well. And you’re right, I’ve done a few episodes that have kind of dealt with this subject.
Bill
Yes, you have, and you did it well. It was interesting listening to some of yours, because you would start down a path and present a problem. I was wondering how you’d handle it, and you really went right where I would have gone. So yeah, you really do understand this whole issue.
Scott
Thank you. I appreciate that.
Bill
I mean that sincerely.
Scott
Bill, thanks for coming on. Thanks for sharing your story and I hope your work continues because it’s doing a lot of good.
Bill
Thank you. I found out a long time ago that the best way to help me or to help us is by helping other people. I wouldn’t say I figured that out – I just kind of experienced that. So, get up and give a talk. I have a list of every speech and interview I’ve given on the website. You may feel a little bit tired from answering questions at all and you’re just about to get out of there. Inevitably, someone will come up and say, “Thank you so much because I went through one of these.” ‘I’ve had people come up and say, “I heard you speak here 4 years ago. I just want to tell you that here’s what I’ve done over the last 4 years since I heard you speak.” Then, you hear these stories of how they were in rough shape or in a bad marriage. Now, the sun is out, the clouds are gone, they’re happy, they’re with someone else or they’re remarried, or they’re with nobody but they’re happy. That’s the big jackpot for me.
Scott
Bill, it’s good to see you again!
Bill
It’s very good to be back. I have fond memories of you from three years ago, and I’ve seen you even since then.
Scott
I know, yeah. We’ve kept in touch pretty often since then. Now, I’m curious about your podcast. When we spoke last, it was a little over three years ago. Your podcast “When Dating Hurts” has accumulated around 20,000 total downloads.
Bill
Yes. That sounds right.
Scott
Where are you at these days with that?
Bill
Interesting. At this point, probably 2,100,000.
Scott
Over 2 million downloads, man. What do you attribute that to? To me, it seems like it’s your subject matter. So many people can identify with it.
Bill
That’s a great question. I read an article a couple years ago that said – and I’m not saying I have this – to have the perfect podcast, you have to have a subject that people are very much interested in. You have to have compelling guests. You have to make your way through the story. You have to understand that the conversation and the conversation is actually between the guest and the listener, it’s not with me. So I have to learn to say less or at least edit out myself more and more. But besides that, there is something that this person in the article said that your podcast has to have a certain vibe. It’s just one of those things like when you come out of a movie and say, “That hit me just perfectly,” or some song you say, “Oh my God, that just touches me.” And I’m told that the “When Dating Hurts” podcast has a vibe. So I’m looking at it like, “Well, I’m glad I’m part of it.” It’s not me, but it’s the whole thing. It has to be the whole package.
Scott
Yeah. But you created it. I know you’re not one to take credit for your own accomplishments, but this is big. And it’s really international too, right? I mean, for me, most of my listeners are in the US. There’s some in a bunch of other countries. But for you, it seems like it’s more international. What’s the breakdown?
Bill
That’s on my list of things I never expected, man. I was just happy that I got 100 downloads in one day. At that point, I saw, “Oh my God, a hundred.” I ran down and told my wife, “Can you imagine? A hundred different people downloaded.” Again, the podcast has to be compelling all the way through, and one of the things is you have to keep the story going, so you have to reward the listener for listening. You can’t get boring. I mean, like anything, a TV show gets boring. You get up, leave or find something else to do. One of the things that was a wonderful surprise was that I was getting downloads from Argentina, from Australia, from Brazil, from Canada, from Denmark, from England. So I’ve got those letters, but then it jumps around. There’s Ireland. Of course, the US. At this point in time, in terms of what could be thousands of downloads or even seriously one download, it’s 104 countries total. So they’re not always loaded as the ones I just told you about, which are, of course, these are English speaking too, which makes perfect sense.
Scott
Are most of your guests from the US?
Bill
I never went back and really added them up, but I would say, at this point in time, it might be 60-40 US citizens and then the rest of the world. Talking with my guests– a lot of them get around. A lot of people in Australia bounce around the world on vacations – they probably do that more than we do here in the US – but the Australian women specifically who I’ve talked with have just said it’s much worse than the US. I couldn’t give you percentages or things like that. I’ve never trusted all the percentages anyway because I keep asking myself, how many people who are abused by a partner go running off to a statistician someplace and say, “Okay, I’m another one. Put another tote on the board” and more and more. Even scarier – just staying on that path for a second – is that a number of people don’t want to go to the police because they don’t think they’re going to get any satisfaction anyway.
Scott
Yeah. What’s the point of going through all that?
Bill
What did you do? What would you do to provoke this? What were if some women gets raped and the first thing she hears is, “Well, what were you wearing?”
Scott
That just makes my blood boil.
Bill
Yeah. Doesn’t do me any good either.
Scott
I know one of the things that’s happened since we last spoke is the 20th anniversary of Kristin’s passing. What did you do to observe that?
Bill
We’ve had a standing thing where, every anniversary, every June 3rd – now 20 of them – we have something called Pasta for the Angels. It’s a wonderful dish that my wife puts together, and my daughter learned to do it when she was in college. So, on her birthday, which is August 24th, we always have steamed crabs, which is a big deal in Maryland anyway. So we do those types of things. But it’s a trip to the graveyard. I mean, anytime you want to visit your daughter, you have to go to the graveyard, so that’s not good. It’s a solemn day, very solemn.
Scott
What’s going on with Nick? Is he still coming up for parole sometimes? What’s the status of that?
Bill
The thing with Nick is that he received– it was third degree murder in Pennsylvania, which comes automatically with a 15 to 30 year term, which means you must do 15 and you might do all the way up to 30. So that means that, at the 15 year mark, there was a parole hearing. After that one, they said, “Okay, well you’re going to do at least another year.” So a year later, we did another one, meaning everybody who wants to participate, including the guy. In the first one, they said another year. In the second one, they said another year and a half. At the last one, they actually said another three years. They actually kept lengthening the time. So the last one that took place was about a month ago.
Scott
Wow. And you attend each one of these, I assume?
Bill
Yeah, we do. We have to. I mean, we don’t have to. There’s a number of ways to do it. You could send in a letter. You can do audio or video, send it in. We participate by Zoom nowadays. So, right where I’m sitting here right now, my wife, my son and I participate. We do it and we get one hour to tell our story.
Scott
Have you heard Nick speak at one of these?
Bill
Now the way it works is one or two of five parole board members will go visit him in prison, typically in his cell and sit down with him for about a half an hour or so. I don’t know what he says at those. The system, for the most part, doesn’t tell you just about anything about his behavior or anything while he’s in prison, which I think is ridiculous. I think they can at least give us that, but that’s the way that works. So I’ll assume that he probably sat down and told them what a good guy he was and he’s learned his lesson.
Scott
I would be conflicted about that. I mean, just wanting to be involved, I’d want to know how he is doing in prison. But on the other hand, I can imagine not wanting to know or be involved in any way. Right? Do both of those make sense in some way?
Bill
It does make sense because you don’t want to humanize him. You know him for the act that he performed on June 3rd when he stabbed my daughter with a number of kitchen knives. I don’t really want to know if he worked out this morning and he’s reading a book this afternoon. He represents a horrible thing that came through and took my daughter away forever. That’s pretty much what he represents.
Scott
And as long as you know that, he is still sitting there incarcerated. That’s probably the most important thing.
Bill
Yeah. I mean, the thing is, after 20 years, you find yourself talking and – it’s in my own head – I feel like I’m running a recording but, under the right circumstances, he’s proven he can kill someone. So you don’t want to let that out on the street.
Scott
I’ve seen the stuff that you post on Facebook and other social media and people that talk about your podcast, people who have been personally involved with domestic and violence. I like to say my show is doing some good and raising awareness and things like that. Your show and you are literally saving lives. What higher calling could there be than that?
Bill
I hope that’s the case. I think that’s the case. I’ve been told enough times– when it really rings true is when you have somebody that says, “I read your book, which is called When Dating Hurts, or listened to your podcast.” I mean, I’ve had some people say, “I have run the full rack of 250 at the time, maybe, episodes. I’ve listened to every last one. When’s the next one coming out?” But some people have said, “It’s given me the courage to face the problem I have.” Some people will say, “I didn’t know it was abuse until I listened to these other people.” Some people say, “I felt so alone until I heard these other people and I realized my story’s worse than theirs.” So it’s doing an incredible amount of good. I never really would’ve guessed it would do as well as it’s doing, and I’m glad that – I said this before – I’m part of it because I feel a little like a guy that had a child or something and the child’s growing up and it’s getting out there in the world and doing stuff. I look at it like, “I got it going, but look what it’s doing on its own.” I’m happy to be part of it, but it’s like watching a phenomenon.
Scott
It is, yeah. I’ve experienced the same thing with my show. In the beginning, it’s like starting to move a big rock. You’ve got no audience to start with. But then, some people start listening and you start to get a little bit of progress. But now, your show– I mean, you’re benefiting from the momentum.
Bill
That’s true. I mean, it’s really like a wave and I feel like I have this responsibility. Now that I know what I am doing with survivors and other people that come on and what I’m doing with them, I’m part of their team or they’re part of my team, and then it’s like, “Wow, what a wonderful opportunity and responsibility we have here.”
Scott
And a great way to honor Kristin’s memory too.
Bill
It is. And I do feel, before I’ve ever given a speech or I do podcast recordings or interviews, I feel like I do it with her. There’s plenty of pictures around me as I sit here, so I feel very close to her.
Scott
Well, I know, last time we saw each other, we were having dinner in Orlando with some other podcasting friends, and I’ll put a picture of that in the show notes for this episode so people can see. That was a great memory and maybe we’ll connect again at some other conference at some point in the future.
Bill
Boy, I hope so. I really do. And I just want to mention, if I could, Scott, that when I was going along and we were word of mouth, which is really the key thing with these podcasts– I learned that when I saw you at the convention. A lot of speakers got up and said, “Look, it’s word of mouth. You got to put in the work.” And if you’ve got the vibe or you’ve got the stuff, if you are interesting and you reward people for listening, then you might do well.” So, that was a big thing. And being on your podcast is – what I wanted to say three years ago– that gave me such a boost because, at the end of it, I said to people, “Look, if you are a survivor and you want to tell your story on the When Dating Hurts podcast, please email me at billmitchell@whendatinghurts.com and we’ll get you on and you tell your story, whether it’s your story or a friend of yours or your child has gone through this or is going through this. I’ll take victims and survivors anytime.
Scott
Every story deserves to be heard.
Bill
It does, and every story helps the person telling it, and it also helps the people hearing it. And people have to get over the fact that, well, that doesn’t happen around here, and that’s some rough part of town, I think, and that would never happen to me. That would never happen to our kids. We raised them right. Got to put all that out of your mind. It can happen to anybody.
Scott
Bill, you’re doing a great job. Keep up the great work.
Bill
I appreciate that. It means a lot and I love your show too. I listen to you every week.
Scott
I love connecting with Bill. And not just because we are both podcasters and can talk all day and all night about that, but because he is just a genuinely good man. And he’s doing great work. You can see a recent picture of Bill, and also the picture of when we had dinner with a couple of other podcaster friends a couple of years ago, in the episode notes at WhatWasThatLike.com/226.
And if you’re in the Dallas area – we’re having a listener meetup next week! I’d love to meet you in person! All the details are in the Facebook group, but if you’re not in there, email me and I’ll fill you in on date and time. Scott@WhatWasThatLike.com
If you have a spouse, or a partner, consider this question – what does that person do that’s weird? We all do weird things of course – but what weird things does your person do? We want to hear about it! That’s the question this week in the Facebook group. Come over and join the weirdness – WhatWasThatLike.com/facebook
Graphics for this episode were created by Bob Bretz. Full episode transcription was created by James Lai.
And once again, we’re about to hear this week’s Listener Story. Every regular episode ends with a story that’s around 5-10 minutes long, sent in by a listener. So why haven’t you sent YOUR story in yet? We’re waiting to hear it! Just record it on your phone and email it to Scott@WhatWasThatLike.com.
This listener talks about having an emergency involving a train, and a cat.
Stay safe, and next week we’ll be back with new episodes on Tuesday AND Friday – and I hope to see you in Dallas!
(Listener story)
In 2001, my boyfriend’s best friend was getting married and my boyfriend was the best man. We lived in Manhattan. The wedding was scheduled on a Saturday night at a venue about 90 minutes from where we lived. Luckily, my mom lived about 15 minutes away from the venue, and we planned to stay there for the weekend with her. We made a plan that, on Friday, the day before the wedding, my boyfriend would take everything we needed for the wedding and drive to my mom’s house in our car. He needed to be there a day early to help with the wedding plans and rehearsal dinner because I couldn’t take the day off of work that Friday. My plan was to take the Long Island Railroad to my mom’s house on Saturday morning, along with our cat, and we would meet up at the wedding venue Saturday night.
Saturday morning, I woke up early, put our cat in the cat carrier, and took the subway to Penn Station to catch the train to Long Island. Just as I was leaving our apartment, I noticed a pair of pajama pants I forgot to pack and threw them into my bag. The train ride is about 1 hour and 20 minutes, which I had taken many times. I boarded the train to Penn, switched trains to Jamaica without incident. It was Saturday morning and the train was pretty empty, so I was able to get a seat for my cat and for me.
About three stops away from my final destination, completely out of nowhere, I felt that gurgling, churning, crampy feeling in my stomach that we’ve all experienced as our body is warning us that something bad is about to happen. The feeling went away pretty quickly, and I thought I would easily make it another 15 minutes to my final destination. However, about two minutes later, the cramping and gurgling ramped up, but now it was a hundred times worse. At this point, I started using LAMA’s breathing and positioning myself horizontally across the seats to stop the inevitable, but it was too late.
Just as we pulled into the Cold Spring Harbor Station, which is one stop before my final destination, there was an explosion into my low-rise boot cut jeans. I immediately grabbed my bag, the cat, and ran off the train as soon as the doors opened. I have since learned that there is usually one bathroom on the train, but there definitely was not one located in my train car, and there was no way I would’ve found it in time. No one else got off the train at that station and it was completely empty.
I stood on the train platform trying to gather my thoughts. I knew I needed to get these poopy pants off ASAP, but didn’t know what to do, and my cat was going crazy in the carrier meowing. When I remembered that I had pajama pants that I threw in my bag just before I left my apartment, I was so happy, and as luck would have it, I also had a half full packet of dried out wet wipes in my bag. I ran down under the train trestle and thankfully I’m really small, so I was able to fit standing up. I peeled off the poopy jeans, threw them under the trestle. Cleaned up using the dried out wet wipes and put the pajama pants on.
Once I was changed, I pulled out my flip phone to call my mom, who was waiting for me at the final destination, but got very worried when I didn’t get off the train. I then had the privilege of telling her that her adult daughter pooped her pants on the train and was standing under the trestle with her cat in pajama pants. We then faced another challenge. She had no idea where Cold Spring Harbor train station was or how to get there, and I also had no idea where I was. This was before smartphones and GPS. So, the only way to get somewhere was to get directions or to use a map. I told my mom that I would call my dad, who was kind of like the Vasco da Gama of the tri-state area and basically could navigate anywhere. Unfortunately, my dad had no idea where the station was. As an aside, he happened to be walking into a movie theater with my brother who was out of state and had to walk outside of the theater because he was laughing so hard about what happened to me.
My next idea was to call 411 – remember that? – to get a phone number for a taxi to pick me up. I called the taxi company and, for reasons I still don’t understand, they told me that taxis do not do train pickups on weekends in Cold Spring Harbor. I thought they were joking, but they really would not pick me up. My only option at that point was to wait for the next train to arrive, which I learned would not be for another hour. It was early spring and pretty cold outside, and I was not dressed appropriately. Plus, I was feeling pretty gross because I just pooped in my pants.
As I was about to walk up to the train platform and wait for the next train, a cab pulled into the station. The driver needed to use the payphone. I ran over and begged him to take me to the station where my mom was waiting. He refused at first, but he finally relented. He asked me why I was there in the first place, and I lied and told him that my cat got sick on the train. He put a blanket down in the backseat under my cat’s carrier just in case.
I met my mom. She took me to her house. I showered, got dressed for the wedding and never told anyone. I’ve since moved out of New York and haven’t taken a train in years. I now have two teenage children and wherever we’re flying somewhere, I always bring an extra pair of underwear for all of us in our carry-on just in case.