S2:E6 Plenty of Fishhooks in the Sea

Panic Button

Panic Button, Season 2 Episode 6: Plenty of Fishhooks in the Sea

The music in this episode is Wicked Games by Desi and Cody. Show notes and resources are available at https://www.panicbuttonpodcast.com/season-2-operation-wildfire/episode-6

Most true crime stories are about one of two things: solving a mystery, or learning about how you can avoid being killed. Women around the world have become consumed with true crime, to the point that some of our listeners have admitted to listening to true crime podcasts as they fall asleep–because it soothes them. Usually, you’re watching and listening to stories about killers who have either been killed or been put in prison–so they’re no longer an active threat. Killers like Jeffrey Dahmer or Jack the Ripper. We can pick apart their methods, study the psychology, and run scenarios in our minds of how we would get away, or how we would solve the crime.

In truth, these kinds of sensational crimes represent less than 1% of murder crimes committed in the US. Far more common are women killed in domestic partner offenses. And even more common than those are women hurt and assaulted in domestic assaults. Oklahoma is ranked number two in the nation for the number of women killed by men.

Twenty people per minute in the United States are physically assaulted by an intimate partner. Perhaps the reason we don’t tell these stories, and the reason they don’t make the true crime top 100 list is because these incidents are so common. They hit pretty close to home, especially in Oklahoma. It’s interesting that psychologically we would rather focus on the 1% of sensationalized murder cases than on the 99% of intimate partner violence cases that gum up every criminal docket in America.

This episode is going to be tough. In a way I think we’ve been trying to protect our listeners from the particularly intimate and horrific details of Jim’s abuse. But here we are, it’s Episode 6, and we have to dive into the details of the domestic violence assaults that form the basis of this podcast.

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TRANSCRIPT

SPEAKERS

Heather, Christen, Leslie Briggs, Rusty Shouse, Marci, Colleen McCarty, Karrah

Leslie Briggs 00:00

This episode contains graphic accounts of domestic and sexual violence, violence against women in particular, animal abuse, and language that is not suitable for listeners under 18 years of age. Please use caution when listening. So since starting this podcast, we have had lots of different people reach out to us with their thoughts, opinions, and just impressions about what we've done. Over the last five episodes, we've actually heard from a couple of people who I would call on Jim's side, people who believe that the things that we're saying are untrue, or not factual. And unfortunately, none of them are willing to go on the record, or provide us or they have yet to provide us with anything that we could look at to verify or even consider as something that would warrant us issuing a correction. But this is my message to everybody listening. If you have information that refutes the things that we're saying, if you can provide us with documentation or personal lived experience that we can corroborate or consider, we'll issue a correction if it's warranted, we've always been willing to do that. So you're a little frustrated.

Colleen McCarty 01:19

I'm a little frustrated that people who claim to have information that would refute any of the information in this podcast are not willing to provide us documentation or records, or messages. And I think it's worth like going through how much time and effort we have spent trying to gather the truth. We spent 1000s of hours ourselves personally going over court records documentation. We've spent financial funds getting records from courts, we've had two interns working on this from January until May gathering information and sources and talking to everybody that we could find.

Leslie Briggs 02:08

Yeah, yeah, we cast a really wide net.

Colleen McCarty 02:11

And people continue to come forward. And whenever someone comes forward and says they have information, we always talk to them.

Leslie Briggs 02:20

My whole day gets eaten up, I will walk into the office at you know, nine in the morning, and I'll get a message and it's like, I need to talk to you today about this. And then my whole fucking day centers around getting that information to us, that's happened to me multiple times during this process where I had no plan, I was going to work on some other project, you know, and suddenly, I, I've just spent four hours confirming information and discussing it with somebody. And, you know, like making sure that we consider that perspective or that data.

Colleen McCarty 02:53

And part of the reason we're doing that is because there's been so much hearsay, there's been so much rumor and there's been so much gossip about this, that I think from all sides, it's important to have the record straight. And it's difficult in a situation like this. And so we've really taken a lot of time to do that. And I feel like we've done that justice. And if there's information that you or anyone you know, has about this case, or any of these cases that you feel like adds to the story, or contradicts, or rebuts, any of the information we've provided. It will be helpful for us to have that.

Leslie Briggs 03:39

And let me be clear, if you have an opinion about us doing X, Y or Z, it's not the same as having some evidence to contradict, so that's fine, you can send us that opinion, it doesn't mean it's gonna make it on the pod. Now on to your regularly scheduled episode.

Marci 03:57

I don't remember the ambulance ride to the first hospital. But I remember I think they took me and did a CT and then that's when they decided to transfer me to the trauma hospital. And I remember that drive because every bump we hit I hurt. I didn't realize at the time that I had four buckle fractured ribs, and one that was broke all the way through on the other side. So every bump we hit, it was like excruciating pain. Plus I had to compression fractures in my spine, from what I'm assuming from when he tackled me. And I had a broken nose.

Colleen McCarty 04:52

Most true crime stories are about one of two things, solving a mystery or learning about how you can avoid being killed. And women around the world have become consumed with true crime to the point that some of our listeners have admitted to listening to True Crime podcasts as they fall asleep. Because it Soothes them. Usually are watching and listening to stories about killers who have either been killed or been put in prison, so they're no longer an active threat. killers like Jeffrey Dahmer and Jack the Ripper. We pick apart their methods and study the psychology and run scenarios in our minds of how we would get away or how we would solve the crime. In truth, these kinds of sensational crimes represent less than 1% of murder crimes committed in the US. Far more common are women killed by domestic partners. And even more common than that are women hurt and assaulted in domestic assaults. Oklahoma is ranked number two in the nation for the number of women killed by men. 20 people per minute in the United States are physically assaulted by an intimate partner. Perhaps the reason we don't tell these stories. And the reason they don't make the true crime 100 list is because these incidents are so common. They hit pretty close to home, especially here in Oklahoma. It's interesting, that psychologically we would rather focus on the 1% of sensationalized murder cases than on the 99% of intimate partner violence cases that come up every criminal docket in America. I'm Colleen McCarty,

Leslie Briggs 06:30

and I'm Leslie Briggs,

Colleen McCarty 06:32

and you're listening to panic button Operation Wildfire. This is Episode Six, plenty of fish hooks in the sea. If you're just joining us, we recommend you go back and start listening to the story by starting with Episode One. Leslie, this episode is going to be tough. In a way, I think we've been trying to protect our listeners from the particularly intimate and horrific details of Jim's abuses. But here we are, it's episode six. And we have to dive into the details of these incidents.

Leslie Briggs 07:06

Yeah, it is disturbing. And so what we've decided to do is to allow these survivors to tell their stories uninterrupted by us as best we can. In this episode, we're going to hear straight from four different survivors' mouths about what they experienced with Jim. On one hand, it is tough to hear it all in one episode. On the other hand, if we string each story out across the season, we're worried our listeners will become desensitized to the violence. Another benefit of doing it this way is if you're sensitive to this kind of content, and you want to skip the worst of it, but still hear the rest of the story. You can skip this episode. So go ahead. We'll pause right now if you want to turn us off and go do something fun instead.

Colleen McCarty 07:51

So let's rip the band aid off and get started.

Leslie Briggs 07:55

First, we're going to hear from Christen. Christen is one of the survivors that you've heard a little bit throughout this podcast so far, episodes two, four and five. She was dating and talking to Jim around the time that he was also dating and eventually married Amber, and was he was dating one of our other survivors Karrah. Christen grew up in Cleveland and has known Jim since they were little kids. Christen and Jim started hanging out when they were both going through difficult periods in their lives as adults. Christen liked Jim, she wanted to be close to him. But Jim always seemed to be keeping Christen on the side. Christen grew up in Cleveland and has no gym since they were little kids. And Christen is well respected in that town even today. She's a realtor. When we visited the Cleveland lounge, some of the characters there spoke extremely fondly of her. I think if you ask anyone about Christen, they'll tell you that she's a good woman. Reliable, steady. least that's how she seems to me.

Colleen McCarty 08:59

She seems like she's got a good head on her shoulders. You know, she runs a business. She's responsible. She shows up when she says she's gonna show up. She's not like you would assume how a lot of victims of these situations are like I think a lot of people think these kinds of victims are like drug addicts or extremely impoverished, or they're just kind of desperate. I don't get that kind of a vibe from Christen.

Leslie Briggs 09:25

No, no, I think that those stereotypes. I mean, those stereotypes obviously are not the reality. And we know that but I definitely like Christen certainly doesn't fit the stereotype. As you heard in episodes four and five, Jim would take Christen on road trips, they would hang out together sometimes all night. Here's Christen's account of the last time she saw Jim, outside of a courtroom.

Christen 09:50

So I had been like on a little holiday with my sister and my mother. We rode that Heartland flyer. I think that's what it's called it a train from the city to Fort Worth, we did a day trip. And we'd actually stayed the night the night before we boarded then and drove back, whatever. And he saw my Facebook posts and sent me a message about, you know, where I was at or whatever. And then I think there was an ask for me to come by, and I was coming through Cleveland on my way home anyway, so I thought I'll stop in. And when I got there, his brother in law Gene was parked in the driveway at Patsy's and, and he gets out there drinking beer all day, or whatever. And he gets out of his truck and gets into my car. And I can just kind of tell like, he's had too much to drink, so not going to be any fun. And he gets in my car, and we're just sitting next to each other. And before he had done like a buddy punch like this, what he would call it, where you punch in the arm just to kind of get you started, you know, to see if you want to fight back or gripe about it, or whatever, I guess. And I was like, Don't do that. And he did it again. Don't do that. And so I took a drink of my cup, and he flips the cup. And the drink spills down me. And I got out of the car and walked back to the trunk to get I think it was a blanket or something to dry off with. And then I walked to the passenger side where he was sitting, I opened the door, scared as hell and asked him, you know, I said, you know, maybe I can come back and see you another time. And what are you trying to kick me out of your car? And I said, no, no. And he like, very casually, like goes for a mint in my console first. And then punches me in the nose twice. Yeah, helping like by by the hair on the head back here. Like he took him in, stepped out of the car, I had the car door open now. There it was being nice, like maybe I can come another time, right. And he just pops him in and then starts kicking my ass. So punched in the face twice. And then I think it was immediately He takes my head like I he still has me by the hair. And he's pulling my pulling my head down like this way. So it's like almost like my chin is like so far into my chest like I can't, like I can't, you know. And so he goes from that position on down to the ground. And I'm right by the back wheels of my car. And it's in the gravel. And he's smashing my whole, like he saw this the back of my head and he's smashing my whole face into the gravel. And I can hear like things breaking in my face or whatever. And I can't speak because he still has me in that like locked in the fight, my mouth is closed still, you know, too, and I'm smushed down there. And he's kicking me in the ribs. So he pulls me back up, then I can speak again, I think I'm screaming. And we struggle. And he kind of stumbles down the ditch. And that's when I get free of him a little bit. I think that's when I went across the street. And then I changed my mind about waking those folks up. And I came back. And when he gets a hold of me the second time, he's we're somehow near like, he's in the driver's seat of my car. And he's holding my head again, in my hair, pushing it against the steering wheel of my car and the horn is honking and as mothers in the house and I'm thinking she's gonna hear this and see this and come out, not. And she's even up at that time getting ready for work or whatever. So this is whenever he does the fish hooking, which is what I call it, where he pulls, puts his fingers in my mouth and then pulls the skin away from the gum line and rips it. And so he does that. And then I think while he's doing that he's he beat me in the show on the farm. And he dropped his phone I think right about that time. Or he noticed that his phone was in the passenger side floor, so he must have dropped it previously. And that like catches his, you know, distracts him. He's got to get that phone. So he lets me go. It gets out of the driver's side, walks around the front of the car and I was like I'm out of here and I hopped in and I think it was already running. And I put it in reverse. And he was like, I think he grabbed his phone. And enough time. And I backed out. It's like, all at the same time, I almost ran over him. And then he threw a full beer. But like he was stumbling from, like, we're almost ran over him. And as he's falling down, he grabs a full beer and pitches it and throws it and I'm back. I'm like, going like this driving out from the driveway. And the beer hits the back of my trunk. Like, that's how crazy he's being. So I drove. I was in shock. I thought, Well, I'm gonna go to the police station, at the time the police station, and like they had just moved it from one location to the next. And when I drove by and saw that it wasn't at the place, I was like, oh, yeah, it's another place. And I was like, well, maybe I should just go home down to the park. So I went to the park, and was sitting there, and then the police drive by. And like, but this is the same street, but I mean, just three blocks up, where I couldn't use the police just moments earlier. So but anyway, they come in, they're like, you know, they see me with the blood. And they take my picture. Sure, I didn't even know they meant to say, hey, we're gonna take your picture, you know, they just took my picture. And I still haven't seen that, but not that I want to, but it didn't get brought to our hearing for some reason. Yeah. But, um, so then they asked me, you know, who did this to and the officer. I felt comfortable with him because he knew Jim. And he knew me, we don't go to school together. So I just told him it took it took me a little bit to want to say you know who it was, but I told him when they asked me if I wanted an ambulance and suggested I get one and I I refused. And then it was the next day that I went to emergency the emergency room rental.

Leslie Briggs 17:10

What do you think about that? The most like horrifying part of that to me. I just was sitting here she was describing him like smashing her chin into her chest. I just put a little bit of pressure on the back of my head and it was like really painful. So I really that just is horrifying.

Colleen McCarty 17:27

The weirdest thing about this assault to me is how just blatant it is like outside in front of the neighbors not even thinking about it. And also how casual of the relationship it is with him and Christen like it's just like a thing where we're highschool buddies and we go driving around you show me frog rock, we do it sometimes. It's not like this heavy sheet of passion. Like I'm beating you because I found I'm deeply in love with you like that's not what this is. It's just so like it's such a casual just violence for the sake of violence

Leslie Briggs 18:04

right and to be clear, like not that like I'm beating you because I love you is a better excuse. But like like there's something so insidious about him doing this to someone who is casually dating I mean

Colleen McCarty 18:17

there's a whole like whole jurisprudence about heat of passion murders and...