Episode 7 “Didn’t Think It Could Get Worse” follows the survivors of Jim Luman after their breakups. Nails in your driveway? DHS showing up at your house? A professional complaint filed on you at the Board of Nursing? The abuse never seems to end, even when you leave.

Documents and Resources for this episode are available here.

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.

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• 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.

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• The song in this episode is Nightmares by Keyland.

 Transcript: 

Colleen McCarty  00:00

The contents of this episode includes topics that cover separation abuse and legal abuse as well as violence against women, and potentially bestiality. It's not suitable for children under 18.

Heather  00:21

So after I left him, he made a formal complaint to that I worked nursing. So I had to go and sit in front of the board and answer to everything that he said I did. There was a HIPAA concern, because I looked at his files, which I was consulting, so whatever, um, there was a, an accusation that I was guilty of Beast reality. There was, there's like six things. The number one thing that stands out is he said that I cut the GPS locator off of my state car. I left that office, I drove to our state garage, went to the mechanic and said, Tell me my GPS is working. He in fact, told me my GPS was gone. They looked back. My GPS was disabled in October. So he took that GPS off my car in October, I don't even know where the damping is, I wouldn't know how to take the thing off. So this was before we got married, that he cut this locator off.

Leslie Briggs  01:28

That was Heather, Jim's fourth wife. Extracting yourself from an abusive relationship is difficult, even when you have an incredible support system and everything falls in place. But with Jim, he makes every effort to interfere with manipulate and threaten other aspects of your life that make it much more difficult to leave. And with Heather, you can see he tried to get her nursing license taken away. It's a form of coercive control, post separation, abuse, Colleen Do you want to tell us what legal abuse and post separation abuse are?

Colleen McCarty  02:09

Yeah, so there are some kinds of abuse that are so covert and misunderstood even now that we're just as a society starting to build a language to even talk about them. And two of the types that are particularly prevalent in Jim's cases are legal abuse, also called litigation abuse, and the second one is post separation abuse or also called separation abuse. So firstly, legal abuse and domestic violence relationship refers to instances where the abuser is using the legal system to manipulate or exert control over their victim. And this can range from frivolous filings of lawsuits protective orders, falsely accusing the victim of crimes, manipulating custody agreements or arrangements and potentially withholding financial support. The abuser can use legal means to further isolate the victim from friends and family, such as by falsely obtaining protective orders, or making false complaints to government agencies like in our state, it's called DHS, like making child custody or saying that you're not parenting your child appropriately. Right. And then the second one host separation abuse is particularly in domestic violence relationship where the abuse continues after the victim leaves. And this can include harassing the victim through phone calls, text messages, social media, stalking, making face, sorry, making false accusations to friends, family, or law enforcement and using custody arrangements as a means of control. It's also like, using threats against someone's life, against their children's lives, threats or future violence to try to keep someone from leaving. Because we know that once someone does leave a relationship like this is the most dangerous time. Right. And we know he likes to also use suicide as a threat to live in who may be preparing to leave or or making an attempt to leave. Yes. And so it makes essentially for post for post separation abuse. It makes people stay in violent relationships, which is something a lot of people don't understand. It's like I hear this all the time. Like why do they stay? Why do they say in the such a trope for me? Because I've heard it so many times but also I feel like we kind of woke up to this as a society in like 2016 but people in Oklahoma are still asking me why did she stay and it's like post separation abuse is usually the answer. Because if they try to leave they I think in our first episode Kate waits Professor Kate waits describes this idea of like there are a lot of reasons why people say and situations they shouldn't stay in --  take all of those and then add the threat to your life.

Leslie Briggs  04:57

Right yeah.

Colleen McCarty  05:00

And then the fear of being alone to face this kind of abuse can just make leaving seem kind of like, insurmountable and daunting.

Leslie Briggs  05:09

Yeah, and, you know, I will just say that I go I find myself cycling through when we you know, not not just with some of the stories on this podcast, but with all a lots of our work on domestic abuse cycling through the "Why did she stay? Well, I wouldn't do it that way." And then remind, you know, it's like a, it's a it's so ingrained in our culture and society that those cycles play through my mind on occasion, and I have to catch myself and go, you know, why she stayed? Yeah, you know, the the having the ability to leave and leave successfully without dying is -- it's a monumental task and post separation abuse to your point is generally the reason that it's so so difficult.

Colleen McCarty  06:02

And the fear of the unknown to you, it's like that whole thing about the devil you know, is better than the devil you don't I think a lot of times, and we say this in season one that survivors know how to keep themselves safe. And oftentimes the ways that they keep themselves safe are staying

Leslie Briggs  06:18

right. And also to you know, Angela Beatty who's an expert on this issue to her point in season one as well that like, most times, people want want the abuse to stop, they want the person that they love to just do what you said, I think in the first episode is like be the person that they can see that they're capable of the potential potential to be a good person and to stop doing this is also a factor in leaving, but in case you didn't know, I'm Leslie Briggs,

Colleen McCarty  06:48

and I'm Colleen McCarty, this is panic button, season two, Operation Wildfire, you're listening to episode seven. Didn't think it could get worse.

Leslie Briggs  06:59

If you're just joining us, you'll want to go back and start listening from episode one.

Colleen McCarty  07:02

One of the most important things to remember about Jim is that he fancies himself a legal expert and works closely with attorneys. His sister was an attorney. And he, according to his friends, learned how to practice law from working with her. Through his work with PI and Associates, he is always connected to an attorney who could represent Him in exchange for his services, on the PI consulting work. So in all these cases we're looking at he was never short, any legal help if he wanted to file a lawsuit. Conversely, his victims or survivors don't have the money to hire lawyers don't know which lawyers would be good don't have access to just free legal help anytime they want. And so it ends up becoming a very huge imbalance of power for them. And anyone who's like embedded in the legal community in any ways that they're putting forward, can inherently be an intimidating for people who are not familiar with the courts or with legal processes. And his relationships with attorneys are also helpful in getting him favorable plea deals in some of these smaller counties where the attorneys that he has work with the judges and the prosecutors a lot. And it's just sort of this off the bat advantage that he has in any type of legal proceeding, I would say.

Leslie Briggs  08:29

Yeah, I think, you know, there's like a running joke from folks like folks who, who practice mostly in federal courts then find themselves in a state court called Getting hometowned. You don't I mean, you're in front of the local judge who deals with the local bar, those attorneys are in that courthouse every single day. And it's not to say that, like judges are just not applying the law, although

Colleen McCarty  08:56

the other day said, Well, in federal court they care about the Constitution.

Leslie Briggs  09:01

Well, the truth hurts wake up, wake up Oklahoma do better. But I will say like so it's like these relationships, these relationships impact the proceedings for sure. Like it just not that the law doesn't get applied, but it can make, you know, if it's a close race, it can it can impact the final decision.

Colleen McCarty  09:20

Plus, it just makes it easier. It's like when your attorney goes in to talk to the prosecutor about your case about trying to get you a deal and it's a prosecutor they work with every day and they know you always bring them reasonable deals and they make recs to you because you know, I did five recs from yesterday I have to do a rec for him today like it's just it ends up as human nature does. It ends up being this like I'm familiar with this person and this is what I did for them yesterday and this is what I did for them the day before and so that's what I am expected to do for them today. And if yesterday I gave his guy a six month plea on deferred for or domestic assault? And today I'm gonna give his guy a six month deferred.

Leslie Briggs  10:04

Yeah, you like naturally people fall into patterns and those patterns play out in the courthouse. No lawyers are no different from regular humans.

Colleen McCarty  10:12

What What?

Leslie Briggs  10:14

No, but many survivors are afraid to leave violent situations, right, as we're just discussing that they know the system will struggle to separate them from their abuser, particularly if you're married, and particularly if you have minor children, that can just add to the difficulties. And oftentimes, the system, as we've seen throughout this podcast will fail to really hold their abuser to account or fail to stop that abuser from hurting them. Like, on the one hand, you have this idea of accountability that this person needs to answer for what they did. But on the other hand, you just have like immediate safety issues that need to be dealt with. And so it's like, this system is kind of shitty at both, unfortunately. And so but when abusers particularly abusers, like Jim continue to escape consequences, it continues to put survivors and future victims in danger. And something we hear a lot a lot from prosecutors and courts is that they can't prosecute cases where victims don't want to cooperate.

Christen  11:09

They told me that it was likely going to get a jury the assault charge. And they said, you know, we're not going to let him buy or we're not going to produce or whatever they were telling me, they weren't going to let him off or whatever. And then they called me on a Sunday, and said, Don't come to court tomorrow, we're not even going to hear the case. And then I got a call on Monday that said, we settled or whatever, and he pled not guilty. And or, you know, he pled guilty, and we reduced to, but like anger management or something, whatever. I just like collapsed, like right there, I can remember exactly where I was whenever I got that phone call.

Colleen McCarty  11:53

So go off girl,

Leslie Briggs  11:55

you know, I feel about this going. We've talked about this, in this case, particularly like let's take Christen's case, I have never met a woman more ready to get in front of a judge and a jury and take this man to task. She's ready to tell the story of what happened in that driveway. And you had a prosecutor who had a victim who would testify and what did that prosecutor do? offered a plea the night before the jury trial, and just told her not to show up? And what was the plea?

Colleen McCarty  12:26

At 90 days,

Leslie Briggs  12:28

so that the plea was 18 months? 18 months deferred. Now. He's on he's on that deferred sentence, when the shit happens with Heather and Iowa and he gets arrested. Oh, yeah. And so they then Christen being unwilling to give up, goes back to that prosecutor and says revoke, revoke that deferred sentence, because he's been arrested in Iowa, hold him to account in Oklahoma. And you know what happens?

Colleen McCarty  12:56

We're like, hey, you know what, and other states already doing that. So I don't really want to.

Leslie Briggs  13:01

 what we get, though, we do get we do get a revocation, we do get a revocation. But do you know what the court sent? sentences him to? Is it the 90 days, 90 days? So we've gone down from gone 18 months, 18 months to 90 days? And then and then and then you know how I feel about this?

Colleen McCarty  13:20

Oh, it's very bad.

Leslie Briggs  13:22

And then he actually So Jim, having access to those lawyers, allows him to do something that is pretty much unheard of, in a case like this, you get 90 days in jail, credit time served, buddy, credit time serve. So if he got arrested, he spent five nights in jail. It's only 85 days. He appealed that decision. I still have questions logistically about how all of this happened in 90 day. I think he probably isn't retroactive. I think he probably what probably happened was like a bond was posted in the desert, like the sentence was stayed pending appeal. But the he lost the appeal. However, however, in the interim, he goes to anger management for 52 weeks, at some point, he has little certificate of completion that he presents to the court. And he goes and he files a motion for judicial review. Okay, he's saying he goes back to the trial court loses on appeal, goes back to the trial court says, Hey, Judge, check out this certificate from 52 weeks of anger management. And and by the way, in the interim, they've started bullying me these women have started bullying me on the internet and calling me an abuser online. How That's so unfair. I deserve 30 days instead. And he gets it and he gets it and he fucking gets it.

Colleen McCarty  14:41

You know what's crazy about this, like we're putting all the pieces together for you and letting you build the puzzle yourself. But if you listen to episode two, you might feel like this is a little bit familiar because it's a pattern Jim's father throughout the 1970s and now 1980s and early 1990s had a lot of his sentences reduced through these types of post conviction filings. And I don't think that's a coincidence at all. Every prosecutor I talked to you about this, every single one of them, every single one. I mean, it's like they're trained to say says domestic violence victims need to cooperate and prosecute their abusers. They walk away, they drop everything, they dropped the POS, they want to get back together with him. This is a toxic relationship, and she needs to just balls up, and go sit in front of a jury and testify against him if she really wants him to get time. And I would like to proffer to our listeners that that is bullshit.

Leslie Briggs  15:47

This this, these cases prove it.

Colleen McCarty  15:50

Not only that, but have you ever seen a murder victim testify at a trial? Oh, they can't. They're dead, they're dead. There's also an entire type of prosecution, which I know is now kind of happening in Tulsa County, at least, called Evidence Based prosecution, where you use all of the evidence, what a fucking concept, to prosecute the person, and you don't need that person's first hand testimony saying he hit me, you can actually just use the pictures and the medical records. And you can fucking get somebody prosecuted like that you don't have to force people to come back to the courthouse and go through this very traumatic process where they feel scared and in danger, right. And it's, it's also just this other form of victim blaming, we talked about in the last episode, but our whole system is this whole thing about not only are you a victim of violence, but you need to be the person that's solely responsible for doling out the consequences. And if you don't want to do that, and you don't have balls up, then you can just expect him to get out and hit you again. And that's your fault. Fuck yeah. I mean, yeah, that's what this is. That is what this is. That's been their approach for the whole history of time. Yeah, the whole history of of like the criminal justice system in the state of Oklahoma since we were first formed.

Leslie Briggs  17:07

But again, to reiterate, these women are ready, get them in front of a jury because they want to tell, they want to tell the public what happened. And there's evidence and there's evidence, lots of photos, lots of medical records, lots of voicemails, lots of text messages, lots of emails. The list goes on. But addition to the problems that we have with how prosecutors approach this often, many of the victims have tried to go to police to report what's happened in them. Only to be told, we're not here, not only are we like, not, you know, we're not only are we going to defer this person out, but we're not actually even going to make we're not going to charge them. We're not going to pursue this in any way.

Colleen McCarty  17:50

When Karrah tried to go to the police for her assault and rape. Her report what had happened to them. And to be fair, we'll talk about this in a later episode. It was several months after it happened because he threatened her only child and told her that if she told anyone he would kill her child. But she goes to law enforcement only to be told that the officers were not going to bring him in for questioning because he just didn't want to go.

Leslie Briggs  18:15

 Is that right?

Colleen McCarty  18:16

Yeah. They said he doesn't want to come in for questioning. So there's nothing we can do. That was from the police. And then she went to the district attorney. And now you'll get to hear some from that meeting.

Karrah  18:25

When I was dropping him off. I told him I was gonna go to the police station. And he said that he would kill if I did. He said, If I tell a soul, he will tell it will kill. And my only child and I 100% believed him because he was very much capable of killing. And so I didn't tell a soul. I say that. It turns out I did. I told my sister I told my boss. And other than that, I went on to teach piano and pretend like it never happened. After all of this happened with Luman, he told me he was going to kill ___. So I didn't come forward a few months later, I actually got he started reaching out to me. And I actually would reach out to him because I kind of wanted a little bit of closure a little bit like I wanted to, I didn't want to meet him in person at all. I just wanted to be like, Hey, I know. I know. You're an abusive motherfucker kind of thing. And so he he sent me a message one night that said What's up? And I said nothing. I'm just sitting in my parents attic. And he's, he sends me a picture of his new girlfriend that he's dating. And I said she's beautiful gem. I hope that you don't beat her. And he said she's not a cunt like me, so there was no beatings required. And I thought, Man, that's a good email, I need to hold on to that email. I feel like he's really confessing to something in this email, right. So a few months later, Christen, the girl that he kind of programmed me to hate, reach out to me on Facebook, and her words were, I got brave. And I my words to her where he hit me too. And that was the first person I'd ever told other than my sister and my boss, that he'd hurt me. And then I found out he had also hurt Amber's his wife that same week. So and by hurts, like, Christen was savagely attacked, those were the kinds of hurt that I was talking about. So when I went to the I got the courage to go to the St. Paul Police. I filled out a police report to the best of my ability. And looking back on it, it's pretty spot on. And it was the first police report that I'd ever filed in my entire life. At the time, I think I was 35 years old, 36, something like that. And I'd never filed one before. And I was really excited to get some justice against him. And it, you know, I couldn't wait to watch his face once he got some charges pressed against them. You know, I naively thought that's what happened. Because I guess I watch too much law and order. And that was and then I That same day, I was giving given information to go for the DVIS the Domestic Violence Intervention services counselor. And that's when I started going to group therapy with two other victims of his

Leslie Briggs  21:57

what happened after you filed the police report?

Karrah  22:02

Nothing. We continue to go to group therapy in Creek County. But after I I would contact the detective Amy Nichols, the one that was working on my case. I found out that Jim Luman did not agree to come in for questioning. And so eventually they just dropped the case because he didn't come in for questioning.

Leslie Briggs  22:35

Did they ever attempt to? I mean, do they ever follow up with you and ask you for what kind of evidence you might have or anything like that, like that email that you held on to like, did they ever do anything like that?

Karrah  22:45

No, they did not. We had a meeting with Laura Ferris, the assistant district attorney and Creek County. And by we I mean me, Christin and Amber. So we were all victims of the same guy in their county. Talking about the how he had hurt all three of us individually in the same county. And her response, we had an hour and a half interview with her a meeting with her. She basically said that there needed to be some sort of video evidence of him hurting us to get anything to stick. That was pretty that was pretty much what I got out of that whole conversation.

Leslie Briggs  23:27

So survivors are not only fighting against their abuser, but they're fighting against the system to get it to care. And all of this fighting is extremely difficult to continue, especially in the face of this post separation of views. Jim, like many abusers will set off on a crusade to ruin his survivors lives for threatening their jobs, to reporting them to their professional boards, and threatening to have them investigated by Child Protective Services.

Karrah  23:56

I tried to get a protective order that when I filed that I've tried several times. I tried the first time when I filed my original police report. I tried when he was the there were a bunch of all of a sudden things happening in front of my house like nails in my driveway and calls to da I was getting like reported to Department of Human Services for child neglect. So I kept trying to get a protective order and they kept would not give me one. Finally, he reached out to my piano teacher like the guy that owns the studio that I was teaching at and told them I was assuming a harm to small children and that I was serious drug use or a And that children shouldn't be around me and that he should fire me. But he said that from his own name, I got a call that I was at work and DHS had had a tip that I was that Chloe was neglected. And that DHS was going to have a mandatory home visit. And they were going to be there tomorrow. And I was like, oh, no, is going to be at the end of the day. I mean, like, I don't, I wasn't even like, in like, I wouldn't even like in the system. Like, I mean, like I had to like I had, obviously, this was my first report with the state with. So the DHS lady shows up to my house. And he and I were actually I had a bunch of clothes on the couch and including like snorkels, and we were packing for the Bahamas, and so I had to apologize for the clothes on my couch to the DHS lady because me and my neglected child, were getting ready to go on a cruise to the Bahamas. So like, within five seconds, she was like, okay, you know, and she actually separated me and asked us questions. She asked what my worst form of punishment was, I told her I, sometimes I take away her YouTube and the lady. She closed out her investigation. I mean, obviously, I didn't lose my kid, but

Heather  26:28

so his complaint to the board ultimately cost me my job with the state.

Leslie Briggs  26:34

You tried to get justice for it? I mean, how does it feel?

Christen  26:37

 Oh, like a never ending process where no one gives a shit.

Colleen McCarty  26:42

Post separation abuse is difficult to process because your abuser continues to remind you that you're not safe. But another tactic Jim uses when post separation abuse is not successful, is legal abuse. Jim files protective orders on his own victims. He fabricates testimony and generally runs up legal fees in any proceeding. He's a part of which causes his survivors to run out of money and run out of patience trying to fight him in a court of law. Jim tried to file a protective order against me and retaliation several times, but never was granted. One.

Leslie Briggs  27:22

Did you have to go to a hearing for that protective order?

Karrah  27:24

Yes, I did. By myself.

Leslie Briggs  27:24

Tell us about that.

Karrah  27:25

I had to go in there and I saved by myself one of the DVIS ladies walked over there with me. But I did not have an attorney. I had to the judge basically told me basically told me that I should not act so obsessive and crazy. But he's gonna go ahead and grant me the protective order. And so they did they did give me the year protective order, but they told me basically stay away from him. Stay out in his county, don't don't be trying to. It was basically like, don't bother him.

Heather  28:19

He when I found the restraining order on him, he lawyered up, which caused me the lawyer of our restraining order hearing lasted three hours. The judge is finally like, listen, we're I'm shutting this down this ridiculous, because he kept coming up with thing after thing after thing. And the judge finally asked him one question, like, Did this happen or something? And he's like, Well, yeah, and judge was like, Okay, you just wasted the court's time. But what he's doing is charging me $479 an hour for my attorney, which is when you start looking at the discoveries and stuff in my divorce, same thing. I was tortured the entire day. That's the day that he laid on top of me and bit me over and over and over again on the left, shoulder, down arm. That is ultimately what got my charges in Hardin County filed. Um, it was like three weeks. Three weeks after that, two or three weeks that Jim was emailing me. And I'm like, listen, just pay for your phone. I'll sign divorce papers. I don't have a problem with this because I think he's an attorney. So why would I file Bernie will file the papers you can do it. And he would not he's like, No, I'm not gonna do it and you're gonna have to pay for it and I'm like, well then fuck you. I'm not doing nothing you're paying for his damn phone. He ended up calling deputy Rahm and Hardin county saying that I was harassing him and then went in and showed him text messages and emails of me harassing him. So deputy Rahm calls me while I'm on a consultation, and I'm like, listen, I will be there tomorrow. And I'm going to show you the full emails and text messages. So you can see them in content. Because this is what he does. He'll give you a little excerpt. And then I'm the bad guy. So we I went and talked to Deputy Rahm and it started more conversation. By the end of the time, I by the time I left there, Deputy Rahm was like, Can I photograph your injuries, and that's what got the ball rolling in Hardin County. Until that point, I, when I left him, I just wanted to be gone. I just wanted to be gone. I wanted to shut up. I didn't want to talk to anybody. Just let me walk away and be done with this. And then it was one thing after another that he kept doing and then Karrah, and Christen and Christen, were reaching out to me like, Hey, we're here. If you need help, we'll help you through this. And I'm like, Oh, you're just jealous bitches. So you just want him? And at first, it's hard because you do you think these are the other women that want your man because that's all you've heard. They don't want him at all. They want to help you deal with what you're about to hit because it's a hard solid law.

Leslie Briggs  31:18

At the time, that you and Jim were together, he was engaged in a lawsuit against Karrah, right. Can you tell us about all of that.

Heather  31:34

So remember, when I said we'd spend days wrapped up in Ben, like part of it was he told me about these crazy pitches that wanted him he'd show me the messages between him and Karrah and the emails and all this stuff to prove how she was the crazy one. So really priming that pump. And then he asked me to come down and go to court to testify against her. And my sole responsibility was just to say how this is affecting him emotionally and mentally. And that it's consuming so much of his life, and he can't function because she's so distracting and harassing. So that was my purpose for going down there. When I was down there. It was interesting to me because I got up in the middle of night and he was in the living room with topes. Two huge totes of evidence against her. So we go to court, I end up not testifying. I don't think they can see me at that time. But the whole murdering Karrah thing came prior to the Oklahoma State Fair. Which now I think back and I'm like, oh, okay, this makes more sense. His thing was, he had been telling you that, you know, he's scared of what she's gonna do. She's gonna hire somebody to kill me blah, blah. He's like, so like, what do I do if if we're at the fair and she's walking towards me? How do I know she's not going to kill me first like priming that pump. So his suggestion was that we carry and that way if we run into her at the fair, we can shoot her first and by we means I, not him. So he planted that little, this is how we should do it. This is when we're going to do it. To make it go away.

Leslie Briggs  33:18

Did you think when you went to the fair with him that you might wind up having to shoot somebody that day?

Heather  33:24

Nope. So I didn't have a gun. Until Until I asked him I had no firearms. I have no firearm training. Nothing and the Ankenny police officer that came and took the report the initial light when he threatened to come and bleed me out and kill me. He's the one that told me I should consider carrying. And then my divorce attorney for my first acts. He's like, Listen, you need to carry here's where you get your gun.

Colleen McCarty  33:52

We know he did this with Ember, because she filed her protective order. And then two weeks later, he filed a protective order on her and he used the burn mark that he gave himself with the cigarette lighter in the car. That's right. So that's not pattern started decades ago.

Leslie Briggs  34:11

So we mentioned also, Amber's filed for protective order against Jim back in 2014. And again in 2015. Also in 2015, Jim filed a protective order against Amber. Here's what Jim wrote in his protective order. Amber lumen filed for appeal against me. She has continued stalking and harassing me since on April 1 2015. She appeared in court on a matter not related to her. She was subpoenaed. She had been subpoenaed by the court, Jim, on April 10 2015. She called from grandfather's phone I did not answer. On April 15 2015. She was in court again in a matter not related to her. If you remember from episode three, we discussed how Amber was repeatedly called back because there were many continuances because Jim was filing frivolous pleadings, and dragging out that custody battle. So here we even have him using his legal abuse in one case, using it in a separate legal abuse from a frivolous PO and another case, complaining that she's showing up to a case that is not related to her. She's under subpoena. You know what a subpoena is. It's an after show up, you better show up or I will hold you in contempt. And I will arrest you and have you jailed. The court can do that. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. For 16 2015 calls me from her phone did not answer on April 30 of 2015. Jim lumen is saying in his protective order that she left the courtroom after being dismissed from the PO hearing, and then came back in the courtroom. This is somehow fodder for him to get a protective order. On May 5 of 2015 appeared in court in an unrelated matter again, isn't she also being she's also coming to Kristin and Karrah's Pio hearings to she made that may be what he's referencing as well, because she's getting she's offering testimony in that at this point. Now, these women have met one another and they have offered emotional support to each other. And there they are willing to come and testify about separate incidences of abuse on May 6 2015. She is outside my house in her vehicle at approximately 520 on May 14 2015. At approximately 7:15pm Amber lumen and Christen Norris were parked in the elementary school parking lot adjacent from my mother's house it then he lists the address. They were in Christen's black Dodge Charger. I had been running errands with a friend of mine Shannon summers, and I had stopped back at my mother's home to pick up a few items. When we pulled into the drive, I noticed the ladies in the car and upon leaving the residence Amber and Christen began following us. They followed us down Gilbert Street, then followed us left on Cato by the way there's like five streets in Cleveland so it's kind of hard not to follow someone. We drove to the Conoco gas station where Amber and Christen continued to circle and drive by upon leaving the gas station Amber and Christen were parked in the nearby parking lot and began following us again. We stopped at a stoplight at Broadway in Kato and at which time Amber lumen took pictures of Miss summers license plate. After turning at the light we turned back east where Amber and Christen continued to follow. After some time we lost them and they were no longer in view. Amber and Christen's friend Brett contacted Shannon via Facebook and began making numerous allegations about me claiming I was an attempted murderer and continued to harass Mrs. Summers. Later that evening, Amber and Christen's friend Karrah began contacting Miss summers via Facebook and began harassing her making outlandish allegations and continued and continued pages and pages of harassing comments for hours.

Colleen McCarty  38:31

Is this Jim's Po or Shannon's PO?

Leslie Briggs  38:34

Right I know. Preach sister. Due to these actions by Amber lumen and Christen Norris, I felt and still feel harassed, annoyed, intimidated, and feel that these actions are performed partly in an attempt to lure me into violating a protective order. Therefore, I'm requesting a protective order be issued to the parties to prevent further stalking and harassment are the signs that Jim C lumen. So again, I so that's Jim's version of those events, I think that we should hear it from Christen as she experienced it.

Christen  39:10

So I walk along and ask the clerk about it, I guess. And she hands me a slip of paper and then says if I have, you know, I can attach another paper and she sends me over to the little area. It's got all the ball like books in it and I start to fill it out. So I fill it out. I think you guys have read the contents of that. And I brought it back over to the clerk to file it and I had I had not put a relationship in there because I'm like, like no one knew he and I were dating. You know, we were friends. And I really didn't think that I needed to share that. So I left it Mike Well, she must have knew because She grabbed it and wrote the relationship in there that I was, I think it says girlfriend or ex girlfriend or something like that on there. I didn't write that. It's not my handwriting. But so that, you know, was my first clue like, something's off about what how this was working for me here. But anyway, filed that, and then I think I can't remember if I came with the attorney on my first hearing or not, to be honest. So I don't know if I came about when the first time and then it was just, you know, it was just a day where they said, Oh, come back later anyway. So then, then all of that started. So I don't know how many continuances there were. I don't know how many, you know. And then during that time, that I was, I don't even know if I had been granted, perhaps I had been granted mine. And or at least the emergency one, I guess. And then Amber and I are together out in Cleveland, and he violates the protective order. But when we go and report it to or we reported it to the police, and they took his side of the incident in our side, and then they just decided to believe him instead of us and allowed him to have then a protective order in place against us. After we already had one. Like from what I understand and Tulsa County. It doesn't work like that. But in Pawnee County, it does. So my Tulsa attorney was telling me, you know, but that's not how it works in Tulsa, like if there's already a protective order in place, they don't allow the other party to file one. But he they did. And so you're there's like more coordinates. You know, how have you violated your protective order. So Amber and I were together and then in Cleveland, and we had driven by his house because it was on the way back from going up to the high school and down. And then we went and parked in town. And he saw us and pulled into where we were parked. And he parked like, right next to us, and took a picture, and then drove to the police station. And we drove right behind him took a picture of their tailgate or their license tag to report but he just pulled up right next to us. And he can't do that. So that's what we are. They're saying. And I guess he filed a report to say that. We were following him. And that's how he got his picture. So because we both had pictures, I guess. They the police officer and there's an affidavit of the police officer statement that speaks to what he believed about, you know, Jim, saying that we approached him, I guess. So please, just went with Jim's side of story. Yeah, it's in you know, and it's all hearsay and we both have pictures. But yeah, they allowed him to that protective order. And then there's our new set of court dates.

Leslie Briggs  43:43

What was that like?

Christen  43:46

Oh, it was it was surprising. And to be in the middle of everything that I was already on it for that to come along. It was just that, you know, I just wanted to stop going to court. Like I was just tired of it. It was like more but it seemed like kids game like and he was winning, you know, so it was exhausting.

Colleen McCarty  45:00

There's no question Jim put survivors through a lot emotionally, physically and legally. These women a lot of times would find themselves losing a battle, even though they were the victims of heinous violence. The turning of the tide only happens for them when they begin to discover the power in organizing themselves. A lot of this podcast is about the idea of whether or not survivors of abuse should band together to stop an abuser. For many of these women banding together had negative impacts on their cases. However, there's no question that starting to talk to each other and getting organized, helped them when they were in the most vulnerable positions against Jim. When's the first time you met Amber?

Christen  45:43

I met her I think it was April 1, the day of my protective order hearing. She drove up. We met somewhere and she got in the car with me. And she rode with me to my first EPO hearing, following the assault. And that's, that's the first time that I met her. And then he also saw the two of us together there, and was very shocked. You meet Karrah. And then you when did you meet for the first time? I think it was I think her and Amber were able to have lunch, but I wasn't able to join. And then they came over to my apartment afterwards. That's when I met her.

Colleen McCarty  46:33

Your initial impression.

Christen  46:35

Oh, my gosh, both of these women just so you know, when they're just beautiful, kind, loving women. That was my first impression.

Heather  46:49

So it was interesting, because after he and I broke up, I didn't know. Like what story he was telling like why this happened. He ended up meeting with another girl who had reached out to us as a threesome. Like, right when we broke up Karrah, Christen and Christen and I. So she was kind of getting his side of the story. And he was talking about how nasty it was. And I want to have sex with the dog and blah, blah. Well, pretty soon it came to light. She's like, that was the moment I knew that he was lying about everything. Because he had the exact same fantasy with me that he told her that. So that moment she's like, Aha. So tell us about the process of deciding to make that report what it was like, you know, why did you decide to make the report because once I finally realized that this wasn't a man lost trust, trying to love a good woman and that this was a methodical and coniving pattern of behavior from him. It became very apparent but no, he needed to be held accountable for everything that he had done. When I did the reports and stuff my life from this time I left him until probably April was a complete whirlwind. My kitchen table was full of papers, trying to figure out how to stop him from getting to the next one. It wasn't about jealousy. It wasn't about loving him. It wasn't about who was going to be in his life. This was about how do I make him accountable so that he can't get to the next one.

Karrah  48:33

I know that he called me a cunt a lot. I know that he called me a crazy bitch a lot. And other than that, I don't remember his words, because I just was done hearing him.

Colleen McCarty  48:52

Then there's Marci. What happens with Marci is particularly insidious. In my opinion, we see a certain type of manipulation that is the most dangerous kind of gaslighting. Marci recalls the Jim senior who she cared deeply about. And Jim himself, began selling her on the idea that she was wrong about having been beaten. Rather, she hit herself in the face with her own car door. And Jim, who has a very large man fell on her while trying to get her into the house. Here's Marci talking about the aftermath of her final assault, and how doubt crept in, when Jim his family began to converge on her with a narrative that differed from her blurry memory. And so he, I know that at some point, this story about you hit your face on a frozen car door and he accidentally fell on you getting you into the house became like, a narrative that Jim was pushing.

Marci  49:57

I think he told me that when When I talked to him in the hospital, but I mean, I remember trying to get my car door open, but I don't remember if I ever got it open. So I don't know if I did it myself, because I had four cuts on my face. That could have happened. I don't know, I don't know if that actually took place or not. Because the only thing I can come up with is the cuts that were on my forehead. And then I had to find my eyes. Maybe for my keys. And I don't know.

Leslie Briggs  50:37

And so well, can you tell me about what you remember from the hospital and Jim calling you and trying to talk to you?

Marci  50:48

I remember him just telling me that. You know, he had bailed out of jail, and then telling me what happened. And I was like, okay, yeah, yeah. Okay, maybe that did happen. Because I remember putting my key in the car and you know, it not opening. So that that again, plus I'm, I'm still they had me so drugged, and that I coded twice in the hospital. So what he was telling me and what? Everything's just boggled. Yeah.

Leslie Briggs  51:35

And so was did you change your statement at some point, like, like an official statement to say that he had not beaten you?

Marci  51:44

Or, at that time, when, when we were to try out, I didn't think that he had after I was able to remove myself from his dad, and his son, everybody pushing that and pushing that, nope, this is what happened. This is what you told me. No, I don't think that's what actually happened. Because I have memories of laying on the floor. I have memories of going in the bathroom, and being scared. So I think it was I wouldn't say that they knew how to get to me, because I don't know if anybody knows how to manipulate anybody, but I think they manipulated my memory.

Leslie Briggs  52:50

And it was it was all three of them. It was Jim himself his dad and we're all calling you and telling you this is how it went down.

Marci  52:59

Yes.

Leslie Briggs  53:01

Tell me about his dad's effort to influence you

Marci  53:09

Rather not.

Leslie Briggs  53:11

you don't want to talk about that?

Marci  53:13

No.

Leslie Briggs  53:14

Okay. Do you would you mind do you wondering about __ or?

Marci  53:23

I think __ is a good guy. But I think gonna do anything that his father tells him to do. And who's going to back up anything that his father says and push that narrative I believe that I text from the ambulance

Leslie Briggs  53:54

is that when he told you like Sorry, go ahead.

Marci  53:59

I think I texted him a picture of my face from the ambulance I'm almost positive

Leslie Briggs  54:07

and so what was saying to you as far as like, like, what what had happened? Like what was what was he saying to you?

Marci  54:16

Basically the same thing that Jim was saying, "Well, this is what I was told." I'm saying same story that Jim was telling

Leslie Briggs  54:28

did say anything you like you told me this is what happened

Marci  54:47

but I don't remember which part it was about if it was about the car door or if it was about falling at the sketch which we may have--Oh, one or two steps. I don't know. I don't remember going in the house if you look at the pictures from the crime scene on the front door, it almost looks like I had leaned up against it and my blood was dripping down. It was literally up against the door.

Leslie Briggs  55:29

Yeah. Well, on top of this being an extremely traumatic event you were drinking for the first time in nine years, right?

Marci  55:38

Yes.

Leslie Briggs  55:39

Which just like I mean, just I say that to say that this makes it hard. That makes it harder to remember every single detail.

Marci  55:46

Well, on my blood alcohol when they tested it at the hospital, it was almost three times.

Leslie Briggs  55:53

What like, what prompted you to decide to drink that night?

Marci  55:59

I don't even remember. Yeah, I think it was just let's go celebrate. I have control of this. I can, I can stop at any time and I didn't. I haven't drink since then. I can drink a beer and be done. Or drink two beers and be done. I don't have a problem with it anymore. Like I had nine, you know, or however many years ago, 10 years ago, 11 years ago. When I couldn't stop. Yeah. I'm able to, I'm able to control it now.

Leslie Briggs  56:40

Good. That's awesome. That's awesome.

Colleen McCarty  56:45

This gaslighting is so effective that Marcy goes on to tell the court that Jim never beat her. The problem is her injuries in her initial statements to first responders simply do not align with a narrative that includes smacking herself with her own car door. And Jim falling on her once.

Leslie Briggs  57:03

When I was interviewing Marcy about her final assault, which you heard in Episode Six, I actually had an email pulled up on my own laptop, which was written by the District Attorney in her case. In that email, there was a list of statements Marcy had made to different first responders on the scene. Marcy did not know I was looking at it while she recounted her assault to me. And the email was not sent to the DA did not send that email to Marcy, that I do not know if she has it. But Marcy's account to me matched those statements to first responders nearly exactly. And then, as you heard, at the end of her recounting, she sort of begins to pivot to a discussion over the confusion as to whether Jim did foul on her or whether the cardboard did hit her in the face. And the reason I think this email is so significant is that it corroborates in real time contemporaneous to the events what Marcy initially said happened. And her story only changes after the lumen boys began calling her and harassing her while she's in the hospital bed. And I don't know Colleen, do you have? Do you have some reactions to any of that?

Colleen McCarty  58:07

Yeah, when you first told me that this happened that they all went to the hospital and I think I remember hearing it in her interview, but then we talked about it again. It reminds me of a really famous case that everyone's talking about right now, which is the Murdaugh murders. So right yeah. I don't know if our listeners listen to or have watched any of the documentaries about Alex Murdaugh. There's a case it's a case in South Carolina and live in the Lowcountry is what they call it, and many cases actually, of a high powered lawyer there that has sort of a lot of suspicion and deaths, suspicious deaths floating around him in this family. The first one of those will not the first one second one of those was a young woman named Mallory Beach, who was in the in a boat crash with Alec Murdoch's son. And I think 2018 or 2019. And she flew off the boat, he was drunk driving the boat, and she never came back to the surface again, right. And the kids call first responders, they come to the scene, everyone needs to go to the hospital. There's a lot of injuries. And there are like three other passengers and Alex, two other passengers with Alex's sons. There are four of them. So three kids that are that were drinking, that were on a boat in the middle of the night, are now in a hospital after a huge trauma. And the first thing that this lawyer family does is they show up at the hospital, right they start talking to the police at the hospital and that everybody who's in their own hospital room about don't say anything, they start going into the rooms of the teenagers and get you out of this and implanting facts. Yeah, so they actually tell the one boy you are driving the boat and they They start manipulating the situation very early on. Yeah. And they figured out that this is a really easy way to skew an investigation because everyone's memories are so pliable in these kinds of situations. It's very easy to just inject certain things. Yeah. Because your memory during trauma is so shocked that it's really easy to tell somebody something happened during that period of time. And then just like remember that that happened. And so I don't know if they're consciously doing it, or they're just lawyers that have been working for a long time. And they know they need to start getting to the scene as soon as possible so that they can start figuring out the facts. But this is exactly what Luman Sr, Luman II and Luman III do.

Leslie Briggs  1:00:50

So Luman three, actually did not participate in the implantation of the Okay, the initial story, as I understand it. Okay, so we know, lumen Sr, who Marcy, this is the part that is so it's difficult. It's difficult, because I mean, we can just let you hear how Marcy reacted when I when I brought up, Jim senior. But I know you don't want to talk about like Jim's dad's efforts to influence you. But I did want to go back to you know, you had mentioned that you were really close to him. Throughout your all's relationship, and I was wondering if you would just share some of that with us if you're feeling comfortable with it.

Marci  1:01:33

I mean, he didn't come up and visit. And I just felt a bond become almost like a father figure. We would like I said he would call and check on me every other day. At least once or twice a week. You know, he would text me or call me and asked me if I was okay if I was good. And this is after Jim had been arrested and we weren't allowed to be in the same house or whatever. mean he felt close to him. I can honestly say I love that man.

Leslie Briggs  1:02:19

Yeah.

Marci  1:02:22

And I just I hate that understand that to son for a man to support a man that does something like that repeatedly to women. So it's been it's been hard on me. Because I truly, truly cared about him.

Leslie Briggs  1:02:55

Yeah.

Marci  1:02:57

I mean, I still haven't programmed and my phone is dad fuzzy wuzzy this. That's what the girls called in. To me. I called him dad.

Leslie Briggs  1:03:07

So yeah, like lots of high emotion around that

Colleen McCarty  1:03:10

considers she considered him like a father.

Leslie Briggs  1:03:13

Yeah.

Colleen McCarty  1:03:14

And for him to show up the hospital under the guise of a doting father in law,

Leslie Briggs  1:03:20

or I think probably the phone more than physical presence

Colleen McCarty  1:03:23

or via phone.

Leslie Briggs  1:03:24

Yeah. He's he is talking to her. He was in the immediate aftermath.

Colleen McCarty  1:03:29

And he was to her as somebody who's attached to him now as a father figure. He's trying to be consoling, trying to make sure she's okay.

Leslie Briggs  1:03:43

But let me just talk about the extent of her injuries real quick, because this idea that it was so the narrative sort of becomes well, Marcy was trying to open her car door and it's a dead of winter in Iowa. And she pulls on the car door, it's stuck with ice and she's pulling with such great force, it hits her in the face, causes these lacerations like all of her face and breaks her nose. And then Jim's trying to help her in the house and they slip and fall and he falls on top of her and that's how all those ribs get broken. But she has four separate lacerations in a cross, there's like a cheek one, there's several on the forehead. And then on the other side of the face, her nose is broken. One of her cuts is so deep that it has perforated the epidermis and is down to the connective tissue between the muscle and skin, which will take a lot of force. Having spoken to a couple of folks that work in trauma ers, about these injuries. It's my understanding would take some serious force to get through that that like your get through all of your skin layer down to your connective tissue. And, like I said, broken nose and she has four buckle fractures, which are fractures where the bone doesn't crack all the way through but sort of the kind of buckles out on one side and then she has one completely A displaced rib that snapped off broken off. Yeah, she has three bulging discs in her back. And she has a compression fracture in her thoracic spine, which are all, one of the trauma nurses I spoke to actually said that sounds like somebody who was in a car wreck. More than, you know, she her exact words to me were like the force it would take from opening the car door, on one event, like on one hit, would be just, you wouldn't be able to do that to yourself.

Colleen McCarty  1:05:35

It's not possible.

Leslie Briggs  1:05:37

And you know that we have to talk about the fact that they were drunk. And Marcy was drunk for the first time in nine years. And you get you might be listening this and saying, Well, she changed her story and she was drunk, how can we possibly trust her? I guess I would just go back to her statements to EMSA. And the police when they got there, and her recounting to me, I mean, that's the story that came out of her naturally. And it's not until the end that she gets to this idea of like, but then this kind of gets brought up about so far, just say like, kudos to the Iowa district attorney that like pushed through this because, you know, on face value, if you have a heavy caseload, and you're just kind of like making it,

Colleen McCarty  1:06:22

it would be easy to just say, yeah, she fell. Right here.

Leslie Briggs  1:06:27

You have a victim who sort of starts to recant kind of, in a way. I mean, she does tell the court look, he didn't beat me.

Colleen McCarty  1:06:34

And then she says she doesn't want them to go to prison. On the stand. Does she say that the sentencing hearing? Yeah. So I mean, still clearly very under his spell right at that time, but like, this is kind of what we keep hearing from DAs is, is it's like, I don't want to bring these charges. Because I don't want to put that person up on the stand. They're not going to be reliable because they were drunk, or they're not going to be reliable because of this, but also, they still like him right now.

Leslie Briggs  1:07:02

Yeah, or at least they're supporting him. Right?

Colleen McCarty  1:07:05

Yeah. Yeah. And so what am I going to risk putting them on the stand and have them like, take his side or flip on me?

Leslie Briggs  1:07:11

Yeah. And luckily, in this case, he pled. Yeah.

Colleen McCarty  1:07:14

Let's also make sure we tell everybody that he did plead guilty to this assault.

Leslie Briggs  1:07:18

Yeah. And got a 10 year sentence for which he served 15 months?

Colleen McCarty  1:07:24

Yeah, I think it's we keep hearing between 13 and 15.

Leslie Briggs  1:07:28

 It was September to December of the following year. So that's 15. Yeah. But I guess what I want to say is the reason drunkeness. Sorry, real quick, the reason that drunkenness also comes into play as I was also talking to a trauma nurse that I know. And she was like, when we see people who have had a traumatic physical event, and they've been drunk, usually, their injuries, generally speaking, the injuries aren't super severe, because when you're drunk, your body doesn't tense up before the force of an impact. So you would expect to see not from a single from him falling on her a single time. You have four buccal fractures and a completely displaced rib, three bulging discs and a thoracic spine injury. It's like, that's heavy, heavy, heavy trauma. A couple of drunken people falling on each other in the snow. wouldn't cause that. No, you know, no.

Colleen McCarty  1:08:25

Also just one more remark. And you can put this wherever you want. But the only people saying that she had multiple stories are the people who were implanting multiple stories in her mind at the time, right. So when you're the cause of somebody recounting or somebody having multiple stories, you don't get to say they're not credible anymore.

Leslie Briggs  1:08:46

Right. Like that's the that is the other thing that's so insidious about this is that this is like the ultimate manipulation, emotional manipulation. by Jim Wright. It's an effort to get her to be very confused about what happened to her, and to recant and make her less credible and then say, Look, she's not credible, you know, and that's just like, uncool man.

Colleen McCarty  1:09:06

Yeah, I think it's like also part of like, the legal abuse that nobody sees. Yeah. Yeah. He knows what impact this inconsistent testimony or inconsistent statements will have on her case,

Leslie Briggs  1:09:18

right. It's definitely a version of the legal abuse. Yeah. That's a very good point. So in any event, I mean, you guys have to make up your own mind about what you think happened to Marcy, but the medical records Actually, I'll just end on this note, the medical records. Note that the EMSA tech who arrived who brought Marcy to the hospital said the scene looked like a quote, murder scene. There was so much blood that was in the notes of the paramedic that responded to the scene. And I read that yesterday and I remember just being like, lots of blood, and the blood was outside and inside. Yeah, I'm sure because he complains that she's bleeding on the carpet at one point, and it's all over the front door. Okay, and I guess if, if we're following with his story, the bleeding started when she fell, and he fell on her outside and then continued when she gets walked inside. Or it happened when she hit herself in the face of the car door, broke her nose and put four different lacerations on her face.

Colleen McCarty  1:10:17

She did that to herself.

Leslie Briggs  1:10:19

Yeah, the narrative, as I understand it, is and please reach out to me if I'm wrong. But the narrative as I understand it, is that she was trying to get that car door open to her car, and it was icy, and then it popped open and hit her in the face. For lacerations, one that perforated the connective tissue, down to the connective tissue, and then a broken nose. I mean, that would take a lot of force.

Colleen McCarty  1:10:43

Well, this like, Look, if you you can believe us or not believe us, whatever. But the system in Iowa certainly didn't believe that that was possible. Right? That's true. They prosecuted him for inflicting severe injury.

Leslie Briggs  1:10:57

That's right. And so that they look guilty, he pled guilty to a lesser charge, of course, that's the story of Marci's assault. But you can see that the legal abuse aspect of it is really very insidious. These survivors have gone through so much. We aren't going to be able to capture it all in this podcast. But you can see why we decided to focus on Jim's cases to educate the broader public about abuse. His tactics hit all of the buckets of the most common behaviors that abusers use to control their victims. Legal abuse is one of the most difficult behaviors to curb because as citizens of US, we all need to have free and equal access to the courts. It will be difficult for a judge to know the motivation behind a particular filing or case. This issue highlights particularly why the court system may not be the best venue in which to cure and heal the harm caused by domestic and family violence. Next week on panic button. We bring on four experts in the fields of restorative justice and law enforcement discuss what can be done about these types of offenders and what can society do to reduce the harms and trauma created by domestic violence.

Colleen McCarty  1:12:16

After we hear from the experts, we'll dive back into the story and hear how the survivors came together in the name of justice. But were broken apart by Jim's constant manipulations and promises. When you join a quest to take down a monster. Can you avoid becoming a monster yourself? 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, 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. 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 Alison .to learn more about Oklahoma Appleseed or donate to keep our mission of fighting for the rights and opportunities of every Oklahoman a reality go to Okappleseed.org.