In Episode 3, we told you about Jim's professional life and a little bit about what was going on in his life while he was also simultaneously physically and sexually abusing numerous victims. This week, it's all about the love, baby. Anyone who's ever fallen in love will tell you that falling in love can depend a lot on where you are in life, and what you've gone through and how you perceive yourself. Sure, it matters a lot what the other person is like, if you're attracted to them, and how you interact together. But if you're in a particularly emotional or vulnerable place in your life, like if you've just had a painful breakup, or a divorce, or if you've just lost someone--falling in love can make you vulnerable.

Resources:

•  You can find the court records and sources for this episode at https://panic-button-episode-3.tiiny.co/

• These cases serve as a reminder of the devastating consequences of domestic violence and the importance of seeking help if you or someone you know is a victim.

• If you are in immediate danger, please call 911 or your local emergency number.

• For confidential support and resources you can reach out to the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233.

• Support our work with a donation: https://okappleseed.kindful.com/

• Learn more about Oklahoma Appleseed at www.okappleseed.org/

• If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic abuse, use a safe computer and contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at www.thehotline.org or call 1-800-799-7233. You can also search for a local domestic violence shelter at www.domesticshelters.org/.

• If you have experienced sexual assault and need support, visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN) at www.rainn.org or call 1-800-656-HOPE.

• Have questions about consent? Take a look at this guide from RAINN at www.rainn.org/articles/what-is-consent.

• Follow the OKAppleseed on Instagram at @OKAppleseed and on facebook at facebook.org/okappleseedcenter.

 Transcript:

Speakers - Colleen McCarty, Karrah, Heather, Marci, Leslie Briggs, Christen

Leslie Briggs  00:00

This episode contains graphic accounts of domestic and sexual violence, violence against women in particular, and language that is not suitable for listeners under 18 years of age. Other themes that you may hear in the following episode deal with suicide and addiction. Please use caution when listening.  Finally, we've heard from some people who were at the high school at this time that Dawn and Jim were not really high school sweethearts, but they did end up having a son and getting married. We also want to make it clear that the two women who shared the conversations Jim had with them about necrophilia were doing just that, sharing topics of discussion that Jim brought up. No one has ever come forward to allege that Jim actually did have sex with a dead body and that they have some proof. As Colleen and I stated in episode three, we have no opinion on whether or not he ever committed necrophilia and we would rather not think about it now on to our regularly scheduled episode.

Karrah  01:38

Here also you didn't want to be like the others you wanted to be in the beginning was his big thing was he wanted you wanted to be his unicorn. It's like he had this.... one of the first things he asked me was, "Are you my unicorn?" and he, for some reason, you wanted to be his fucking unicorn, you wanted to be that cool girl that could hang out and be cool and watch him do his millionaire business deals. You know, you wanted to be that girl.

Leslie Briggs  02:14

Last week, we told you about Jim's professional life and a little bit about what was going on in his life. While he was also simultaneously physically and sexually abusing numerous victims. This week. It's all about the love, baby. Anyone who's ever fallen in love will tell you that falling in love can depend a lot on where you are in life, and what you've gone through and how you perceive yourself. Sure, it matters a lot what the other person is like, if you're attracted to them, and how you interact together. But if you're in a particularly emotional or vulnerable place in your life, like if you've just had a painful breakup, or a divorce, or if you've just lost someone falling in love can make you vulnerable, or if you've had a traumatic childhood, if you're abused or belittled as a child, or if you have particular insecurities about your body because people teased you. Each of these things, which happened to almost everyone can create the basis for future relationships. If you're in a healthy relationship, you can fall in love with someone who creates a healthy attachment. And that person can actually help you heal your past emotional wounds. You can become the best version of yourself when you fall in love with a healthy person. But when you fall in love with someone who is also hurt and damaged, or worse, someone who is actively cruel and pathological. They can use your pain and vulnerabilities against you. One of the questions we've had over and over again, as we researched the story is how someone like Jim Luman can get so many smart, dynamic professional women to fall in love with him and continue being hurt by him. His victims are lawyers, artists, realtors, nurses and musicians.

Karrah  04:03

At the time I met Jim Luman, I was working as a piano teacher for a music company and also as a graphic designer for that same music company. And I was teaching adult beginner recreational piano lessons and I absolutely adored my job.

Heather  04:25

I have been a nurse for 25 years. I am a nurse practitioner I currently practice as a family nurse practitioner. I work in my own practice and have my own established group of patients that I care for. Occasionally I fill in at the walking clinic and handle more acute situations. And then very infrequently, but I still do continue to work in the emergency room setting patients in that capacity.

Christen  04:51

I am a licensed real estate agent in the state of Oklahoma. I help people buy I am still home some lands, and I enjoy that greatly. So,

Marci  05:07

in 2009-2010, I was a 911 dispatcher. After that I worked in the medical field as a medical assistant. And when I met Jim, I was working for a chiropractor.

Leslie Briggs  05:22

These kinds of professions are taxing. They require empathy, technical knowledge and hustle. Most of us probably have some stereotype of a domestic violence victim in our mind. If we sat and thought about who we think these crimes happened to. Maybe your own preconceived notions make you think it's generally something that happens to people living in poverty, or people addicted to drugs. But we know the statistics show that is not true. In gyms, victims bear that out. They have a wide range of socio economic statuses. Some are multi degree professionals, and some are high school graduates. But all of them found themselves in abusive circumstances. Thanks to Jim. And here's where we're going to break the fourth wall for a minute. This kind of story is very difficult to tell there are so many victims so many tragedies both great and small, that weave in and out of so many people's lives. If we told you all of them in succession, you would begin to get desensitized and it would feel repetitive. So what we've decided to do is tell you each of the phases of Jim's relationships through all of his victims words, we want you to feel what they felt and understand their journeys into the relationships with him. This week's episode details falling in love with Jim over and over and over in almost the exact same way. Welcome to Panic Button. Operation Wildfire. This is Episode Four. "Not Hard to Fall in Love." I'm Leslie Briggs, and I'm Colleen McCarty. The best place to start is at the beginning. Jim usually meets his victims online, either on an online dating site like Plenty of Fish or on Facebook. He always uses messaging on platforms like this to flirt and arrange a meeting. For one of his victims. He knew her from his hometown. This is Christen talking about how Jim came back into her life

Christen  07:12

where my sister in law invited Jim to my brother's 40th birthday party because they were on you know, we're friends and played football together or whatever. So at that time he was dating. Christa, he brought her to the party at my brother's.

Leslie Briggs  07:31

After the party Jim posted to Facebook when I asked people to meet him at a local bar in Sand Springs called Torchy's.

Christen  07:38

And he was on Facebook talking about you know, everybody's here, some kind of maybe episodes divorce party or something like that. And I was under the impression like, there were a lot of our mutual friends there. But I get there and it's just him. I can't remember the girl's name now. Nikki, maybe that he was there with and then as soon as I walk in, she says well, I guess this is who you're waiting for. And then leaves. We had a few drinks and then went driving around Sand Springs back roads and talked and watched the sun come up or whatever. And he was trying to encourage me to pay let's go to Dallas for the weekend. Just like all of a sudden, you know,

Leslie Briggs  08:34

another one of Jim's victims. Karrah received a random message from him one day about her side business. Pumpkinbrainz.com. Karrah is an incredibly skilled pumpkin carving artist and she has carved pumpkins for oh you football coach Bob Stoops Peewee Herman and even one for William Shatner. So, pumpkinbrainz.com is kind of a big deal.

Karrah  08:55

And then I met Jim Luman, I met him on Facebook. He found me on Facebook where he, my my niece and his son went to school together. So we had something in common kind of thing. And he was really so confident and so cocky that I liked it. And I'm not used to people like talking to me like they own the place, you know, and I liked that. But I also was kind of put off by him and I was kind of weary of him at first as well. But we talked for about a week before our first date. I'm also a professional pumpkin Carver. You can see my work at pumpkin brains.com No, I am a professional pumpkin Carver and yes, that is a thing. I've I've been I've carved pumpkins for ComiCon I have carved William Shatner for William Shatner. That was one of my cool Learn wins. Pee Wee Herman actually I've carved Pee Wee Herman once on a pumpkin entered it in a concept contest for TMZ Pee Wee Herman ended up like getting all of his followers to vote for me and I won the contest because of BB urban and then and then he kind of became my like weird online friend in it's my pumpkins have gotten me in weird situations, including Jim Luman. Jim Luman actually, he was all about my my pumpkins. They're all about my gourds, y'all. I know that he was really big into my pumpkins at first and was was like, Oh my gosh, we can you can sell these everywhere. And I found out later on. He was taking pictures of my pumpkins and telling women that he was carving them. Like, literally Clank I can't make this. I carved Bob Stoops on a pumpkin. And he sent it into Oh, you and said he did it. That was one fun thing. Yeah. And the other one. They're like, Thanks, Jim Luman for sending this and I'm like me, but okay.

Leslie Briggs  11:10

Heather, a more recent one of Jim's victims who went on to marry him in 2016 met him on a dating site called Plenty of Fish.

Heather  11:20

So I was coming out of a 20 year marriage, which didn't really know how to do his dating thing and ended up on the dating site, plenty of fish came across Jim's profile, and just started talking to him through there, um, I was kind of seeing somebody else at the time. But that really wasn't gonna go anywhere. And I figured that I thoroughly enjoyed the aspect of being a wife. Um, not that I was quick to, to jump on that wagon per se, but, um, I liked that role in my life. And I wanted somebody who wanted a wife down the line. And Jim kind of took that and ran with it once he figured that out.

Leslie Briggs  12:09

There's nothing inherently nefarious about meeting someone online. Especially if you're dating and you want to meet people, it's one of the easiest ways to find new people. Here's Heather again, talking about one of Jim's favorite things to do with a new flame.

Heather  12:23

So it was he lived in an apartment in Hubbard, Iowa. And it's just outside of Hubbard. It's this little gravel circle. And it's literally like the same probably five, six mile trip. And it's just in the middle of nowhere. It's kind of an idle thing. We got nothing else to do up here, but drive around, look at stuff. And he he really likes deer. So the route that we would take is just covered in deer like we would go out a lot of times at night and just count how many deer we could see while we were out.

Leslie Briggs  12:58

And Christen.

Christen  13:00

So Emporia Kansas was just another like I picked him up from his mom's house. And we had no like reservations or plans or anything. And it was pick him up and then take him to go get beer and then a highway 99 We went into Kansas, he had a whole list of songs and song lists for different things. But he you know, there was a song called Jolene by Ray...

Leslie Briggs  13:37

Oh, Ray LaMontagne.

Christen  13:40

And I would sing sometimes and he, you know, liked for me to sing. And he told me that he was a that he managed a band or helped like cowrite a song. But yeah, I had a certain you know, set sunless and stuff like that, that that was important to him. Sometimes he would bring even like a USB speaker thing to, to play it better wherever we were going.

Leslie Briggs  14:08

Karrah also got to experience the thrill of driving with no real schedule or destination in mind.

Karrah  14:13

So he, we ended up he's like, let's just go drive around and we'll go, we'll go I'll go show you some stuff. So we ended up driving to his home town area. And he takes me to a place called Frog rock, which is this big rock that looks like a frog. I know. It's a surprise. It's a big green rock. But he eventually took me to another place and I think it was called Sandy Point. It was just this little beach area that he took me to. Then he took me to a place called Boston All rode. We were going to go to my mom's house and see if we were gonna go stay the night at my parents house. Because my, my parents actually had a big, nice house, they just built kind of close to where he lived. And we're kind of close to where his mom lived. And my mom was dying of Alzheimer's. And we were like, let's just go see her while we're out. And he's like, okay, that's fine. But first, let's go do some a couple more things. So we went to Boston Pool Road, where he showed we, it's basically this eight mile road where you drive around in circle, and he drinks beer. We only went around three, three times. And then he wanted to show me where his sister lived. And so one thing at Boston Paul road that he did point out to me, was this place that he wanted to buy, was right across like this body of water from my where my mom lived. And like this place that he wanted to buy, was a stone's throw from where my dying mother was. And so I'm like, he wants to live out here by my mom, you know, I mean, that was something also that I was like, Yeah,

Leslie Briggs  16:18

so you're hearing something that's important for a number of reasons. One is because these folks live in very rural areas in both Oklahoma and Iowa, something rural places all have in common is there's not a lot to do. In a more urban area, you might go to a park or a bar, or a restaurant or a gym, or go to an event that's happening nearby. On any one evening in Cleveland, or Sao Paulo, Oklahoma, there just isn't a lot to do. Plus, driving has become one of the common threads of living in a rural community. Anyone based in a rural town house to get really comfortable spending hours in the car?

Colleen McCarty  17:09

Good job

17:26

Wow, loud draw.

Leslie Briggs  17:49

There's something else interesting about spending so much time in the car with someone you don't know very much about. After looking into this a little I believe there is a method to this. Being in a car with someone is a fast way to create intimacy. You're physically proximate, but you don't have to look into each other's eyes, you share a destination and are prone to reveal things about yourself and a long drive conversation that you might not if the date were in a restaurant or coffee shop. Here's the thing about my theory, it seems to bear fruit for Jim, his partner starts to feel some type of way about him really fast.

Christen  18:58

Well, it was fairly, you know, the familiarity of him knowing as many people that I know, and a lot of history of, you know, things that are funny, like teachers that we knew, and, you know, it was very captivating, and familiar to be with him during that time. And of course, he's telling me all these things like that he's doing all these things where he's successful in business. And I think at that time, he had just sold gripe with me.com or something like that. And he showed me something about the the news did a segment on him selling that or whatever. And then then he hadn't like, I think it was beloved voices he had going on or it was just something about what was going on. It He had something going on in his mind all the time. So it wasn't a boring conversation, I guess it's all was always there, you know,

Heather  20:11

for that first, probably four to six weeks that we talked, I would come up after the kids would either go to bed, or there were no kids there. So it was usually like 10 o'clock at night. So I'd go up and I would spend three days just wrapped up with him in bed, like, we'd just be in bed for three days, he'd wake up, and he'd go make me something for breakfast, he'd bring it into me, we'd lay there and talk and just cuddle and it was just something just out of this world,

Christen  20:42

intrigued by him. And when we kissed it felt like you know, was passionate.

Heather  20:52

And I'd been in a marriage where I was responsible for all the finances, every decision that ever had to be made was mine. And suddenly, I have this man who's cooking for me who's saying, hey, pack a bag, we're gonna go for a trip this weekend. Like, like, and he's the lawyer so he makes money. So I had all this security in one man. And then it just derailed.

Leslie Briggs  21:17

By all accounts, Jim makes the women in his life feel comfortable and listened to. Here's his most recent wife, Marci.

Marci  21:25

I felt comfortable. He had shared some of those trauma with me. So, you know, it was just a conversation. Yeah. And yeah, I mean, I felt very comfortable talking to him. Well, I remember talking about some traumas from my life. And he was just so understanding and, and will talk to me about it and try to help me work through it and get over it, which is very empathetic. He was very, very funny. very compassionate, very caring. We had talked all day, for about a month. Yeah. Maybe a little over.

Leslie Briggs  22:24

Something else our listeners might find familiar from season one is this idea of whisking your new romantic partner away on a weekend or a quick trip early on in the relationship. Jim and Christen went on a few weekends away in the early days of dating. Here's the story of one of those.

Christen  22:40

Alright, picked him up from a parking lot. He had his bag with him and we just took off for the night or the weekend maybe. And we went to the river, which is in town near Tahlequah. And we sat there and talked and I think that was where we kissed and where he talked about the 51% where he believes that the man is you know, it's like it's not exactly equal in a relationship. He was explaining that the man has more of a responsibility to how the finances and how everything goes because whenever everything falls apart, everyone looks at the man like oh, it's his fault or whatever. So he is really trying to sell that he was the 51%

Leslie Briggs  23:31

tight. In fact, Karrah's first date was a trip to Branson, and if you live anywhere within five hours of driving time to Branson, Missouri, and you haven't been it's time to fix that, because Branson is like Vegas, but if you're a fundamentalist Christian, and it caters to an average age of 55 but there is a very fun amusement park there called Silver Dollar City, which is a frontier themed Park. That's got great rollercoasters.

Karrah  23:57

Our first date was out of state, our first date we go all the way to Missouri I picked him up in his driveway of his big beautiful home that was down the street for me. He had an he owned it well, he said he owned it. It was a big two story home with several beds, bedrooms, several bathrooms It was big and impressive for for a single man to have you know and it was really clean. So our first date we go all the way to Missouri where he starts to already crossed kind of boundaries with me that first night. He definitely was not we got a room with two we got the same room and I was I was trying to be like, I don't I'm not gonna sleep with you, dude. I got a five date role. And but you know, I wanted to get to know him. So I was like, Let's go Got a room with two beds. And so we got a room with two beds. And he didn't respect me on my my bed boundary at all. So he definitely, we have sex that first night with me definitely not saying yes, but I did not consider that like an conceptual I just felt it. Me saying yes because I didn't want to deal with the fallout of saying no. And now looking back, I think I was already scared of him kind of thing. The next day we go have a wonderful time at Silver Dollar City. He is he's saying things like, he's like, look how these these people are looking at us. They think we're married. They think we're they think we're an old married couple already. And, and he was really trying to put that in my head, like, look what a great couple we make. And he was also being gross, touchy to, like, just, I couldn't go anywhere without him having his hands on my butt or my boobs or just something and it was just kind of like, you know, and he tried to play it off. Like he was just like, kidding. And, you know, for a lot of those times I was strapped in, in a on a roller coaster with something over me that was fun. We rode rides until I was sick that day. And then the first he actually took my aisle. Now, one thing that sticks out to me, when we were at Silver Dollar City, there was this cow, a wooden cow that you could go pretend milk and it had like these little fake cow Teddy's. And so he said, Go milk that cow. And I was like, No, I'm not gonna go milk that cow. And he took my phone from me. And he said, Go milk the cow. And so like, you know, I grew up with a big sister and like cousins that teased me. So I it was making me laugh. And I didn't I don't mind people teasing me. And if he looking back he was it was the first time he took my phone from me and I and I was forced to do something to get my phone back kind of thing. And that happened later on. But it was a lot more serious.

Leslie Briggs  27:28

When Jim was together with his partners, he wasn't just listening to their stories and learning about them. He was also sharing interesting stories about his own life and experiences. And here are some of the examples that he gave some of the survivors like

Karrah  27:41

he was a pilot. He actually had passed the bar exam, but didn't become an attorney. Or no, he got to eat leave. I'm sorry. He got his law degree, but never took the bar exam. One of the I can't remember there was some specific reason why his sister was the attorney. And he wasn't. And then he later would tell me that he was also a mortician. His degree was in mortuary science. And so I was kind of impressed with all of his abilities. Like the fact that he was also an a pilot. I was thinking, you know, they don't let just anyone be pilots, right? I don't know. I think I was wrong on that. But and then he was he had a baby with a country singer Sarah Evans, who's this famous country singer, and he had friends that were country singers. And I was I was very impressed by that.

Leslie Briggs  28:46

Another interesting thing that the women who've been with Jim discussed was his beautiful and enigmatic personal assistant, Vikki Brochan. Jim hired Vikki to work in one of his businesses. And she had 1000s of connections on LinkedIn. Frequently, Vikki would post on LinkedIn and Facebook about going for flights with Jim and his plane. And he even bought her a chihuahua and a red Corvette.

Christen  29:10

She would say how fun it was to watch a football game together with him over the weekend or thanks for the plane ride or you know thanks for the new ad or something you know like it was really so great to be his boyfriend. Vicki thought he was so great

Karrah  29:26

looking back he had like he was getting all these you had this assistant that was working for him Vicki brush and that was doing all this work for my pumpkins and getting all of these fans for my pumpkin page. Which I didn't really it funny enough I'm not big into like having a lot of like fans. I don't have time to be carving a lot of pumpkins in October like it's not like something that I do because I want fans you know, I mean, he wanted the fans for Me and so he all of a sudden, like my my Pinterest page, and I'm like who uses Pinterest but he he's got like 1000s of followers on my Pinterest page. My Facebook page has 1000s of followers all because Vicki brush in his assistant is really helping me out. And I was like, Well, this is great. You know, she's, she's at least awesome. And then he his, his business savvy impressed me like he was always making deals like he was buying semis full of stuff. And like, in making millions of dollars at once. And it was just fascinating to me, you know, and as a single mother, sure I'm, what a what a cheap as I was, but I'm just like, Dude, you're like a millionaire. And this is really weird that you're even hanging out with me, you know, I make 13 bucks an hour.

Leslie Briggs  30:58

So we know that one of the attractions to Jim was his exotic lifestyle, his money and his business savvy. Heather, who you heard from a bit ago was one of the women who went on to marry Jim. We know from episode one with ember that marriage was one of Jim's goals from the very early on. He always wanted to be married and often push his partners towards marriage very quickly. Heather and Jim were together for a mere four months before they got married in Hot Springs, Arkansas.

Heather  31:26

So we like I said, we're our first date. This was probably like July 4, or fifth, we got married. I know I'm terrible. But I've kind of blocked it out, I want to say October 11. of that same year. And there was so much that happened in that amount of time.

Leslie Briggs  31:47

You might remember from a previous clip that Heather had just recently divorced her ex husband of 20 years, only five months prior to marrying Jim, she realized that one of the things she really liked about being married was being a wife, and having someone to take care of. So the first marriage actually appealed to her in a way.

Heather  32:06

So he started kind of priming me in September, he was sending me pictures of wedding rings saying like, which one would you prefer and things like that. And then he just suggested that we go to Arkansas, after the it's at the Oklahoma State Fair was in Tulsa. So he had this plan to go to the Oklahoma State Fair. And then he wanted me to come down there and go to Tulsa with him. Or to excuse me, hotsprings any loan? Which, at that time, I'm like, uh, yeah, of course. So we had arranged with a wedding planner in Hot Springs. I'd found them before we went down there on the dates. And they did all of the photography. They officiated the ceremony. They had the ceremony locations. So it was absolutely it was a beautiful trail, tree lined. And it was just the three of us. Um, I thought at the time, he seemed very into it, looking back and almost like it was a burden that we had to stop and do this. But he never, you know, he took the pictures, he smiled. He told me he loved me and i don't know i It wasn't this big, beautiful grandiose wedding that women dream of. But it was pretty intimate. And I didn't have on a wedding dress I had on just a regular dress that I normally would wear. So it's nothing fancy. Um, he had not bought me a ring, we went to Walmart and got a ring, a fake ring to use for the ceremony. And then he was going to buy something when we got back to Iowa, which he never did.

Leslie Briggs  33:54

During the four months that Heather and Jim were dating, they started to experiment with more of what she would call the s&m or like 50 Shades of Grey types of sexual behaviors. To her at the time, it was exciting and new.

Heather  34:07

And everything just escalated. It started so innocent and so playfully fun and different for me. And then it just there was like the beginning hot wax, and then you you know, kind of peel it off with a sharp knife. So I think that we used to do that I absolutely loved was he would hit me in the butt with a belt, a leather belt. And it was weird because he would lay on a sign I would lay right up to him. So our faces were right at each other like I and he told me pick a number and I'd be like, okay, so if I picked a three that would be like a, you know, just a little SWOT if I picked a 10 That was like a Whap and it was it was kind of like this. And he got off on my reaction to the severity of it.

Leslie Briggs  35:01

These kinds of behavior were part of what Heather loved about Jim. He was exciting and unpredictable. After coming from a marriage, where she felt she had to always make decisions and run the household. She found it refreshing and thrilling to enter into a new phase of life and try new things in the bedroom. The thing about Jim is that he often appears spontaneous and charming at first, but his particular brand of abuse is gradual demoralisation. And it causes you to call into question your very essence as a person of use is so confusing to the victim. Because at so many parts in the relationship, you can feel so good. You can feel so much love for this person that is hurting you. But we can draw a distinction between someone who hurts their partner gets therapy and works hard to change, versus a person who has a method, an intention, and continues to escalate their violence over and over and over again.

Heather  35:57

He is a creature of habit. And if you he made the comment to me one time, he's like, all you bitches are the same. All I have to do is do the same thing from day one. So that's like when Marcy and him first split up. And I was trying to get to Marcy to make her understand. It was like I said, I bet you got pictures of rings. I wonder if they're the same rings I got. I wonder if you did this. We've all been to this damn tree, this frog rock, whatever the fuck that is. We've all been on Boston pool row. We've, you know, everybody up here has been to Omaha, everybody appears on this. We've all cruised the same background. And I'm trying to ask Marcy, did you look at this house, you know, what do you think of it? You know, he approaches every one of us

Karrah  36:41

systematically. I was completely done with them. And I'm not going to be the kind of girl that goes back. Unfortunately, I can now empathize with why women do go back to their abusers. A few days later, his apologies really started. And I and I didn't want to be back with him. I didn't. I knew I didn't want to be back with him. But I also wanted to not be wrong about either, in a way. Like, I just, I wanted him to be sorry. I wanted to hear how sorry. He was like, oh, like how self righteous Have you like, you're gonna say you're sorry. You know, if you can also you didn't want to be like the others you wanted to. You wanted to be his unicorn. But I went on a third weekend with him. Third weekend, we we drove around Boston pool road and he ended up stopped, we stopped he put a gun to my head.

Leslie Briggs  37:48

Next week on panic button, we'll hear how things in Jim's relationship started to shift. And that visceral fear that hits you when you realize you're out in the middle of nowhere, alone in a car with someone who's twice your size, who wants to hurt you. You can find links to pictures, documents, and all our sources in the show notes of this episode. These cases serve as a reminder of the devastating consequences of domestic violence and the importance of seeking help if you or someone you know, as a victim. If you are in immediate danger, please call 911 or your local emergency number. For confidential support and resources you can reach out to the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233. Thank you for listening to panic button Operation Wildfire and for joining us and shedding light on the importance of ending domestic violence for good. I'm Colleen McCarty, and I'm Leslie Briggs. Panic Button is a production of Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice. were recorded at Bison and Bean studios in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Our theme music is by GYOM. Additional editing is provided by The Wave Podcasting. Our music supervisor is Rusty Rowe. Special thanks to our interns, Kat and Allison. To learn more about Oklahoma Appleseed or donate to keep our mission of fighting for the rights and opportunities of every Oklahoman reality go to OkAppleseed.org.