Ellie was supposed to turn four last month but she didn’t. Her pre-school class received a delivery of pink sprinkle donuts, but she didn’t get to have one too. They were her favorite.

The rest of eternity is similarly filled with milestones that she has been denied. In the fall, it will be kindergarten. But after missing her first day of elementary school, she will miss the rest of it too. There will be no spelling tests. No best friends. No note passing or daydreaming or getting in trouble for talking in class. There will be no adolescence. No graduation. No dreaming about where life would take her next. Not for her, not for her mother.

I was so consumed by the events of July 12, I never really stopped to realize how soon the murder occurred after her birthday— May 16. A date I double checked by pulling up her missing poster, as macabre as that is. Ellie didn’t get to turn four this year, but she barely got to experience the joys of being three either. She looked older on account of her height and seemed older too on account of her intelligence. Ultimately though, she was just a baby.

Somehow it feels like I haven’t breathed in a whole year. I know I must have, or else I’d be dead too. But when I inhale, the air gets caught in my throat. In those moments, I no longer experience the passage of time. Just choking in suspended animation.

Before all this happened, I had been working to advocate for the rights and wellbeing of incarcerated teen girls experiencing dehumanization and degradation from both the institution and society at large. Before that, I worked with families affected by the foster care system. I care deeply about equipping children with the support needed to thrive, especially when the odds have been stacked against them. That really motivated me to advocate for Ellie’s safety through letters to the judge and interviews with the court’s social workers. I did it for work everyday. Of course I would do it for her.

After everything that’s happened, my values remain the same but my capacity to function has fluctuated wildly. Early on, I spent months in partial psychiatric hospitalization. There I went through hours of therapy a day, though I found the most solace in trying to make sense of things through the little comics I drew. Since then, I’ve been working on and off while trying not to be too hard on myself if I need to take a break.

Though the navigating the system is maddening as ever, I’m grateful that I have had access to short-term wage replacement benefits from my state. I attend a support group for people around the country who have lost loved ones to homicide. Many are even dealing with the same flavor of brokenness and confusion that comes when one family member kills another. But most live in states, or have specific circumstances, that leave them without a social safety net while they try to recover from this hell.

As I type this, there are currently two major national news stories competing for air time. In one, our lawmakers are giddily attempting to strip such a safety net even further, plunging vulnerable communities into even more precarious situations. Meanwhile, a powerful man was found not guilty of trafficking the woman who we saw him, on tape, nakedly and violently drag back into a hotel room for a non-consensual sexual encounter.

And so we have another wave of victim blaming towards the battered being added to the swirling hatred of the disabled and the poor. Because why didn’t Cassie leave earlier? Why didn’t she fight back harder? Why didn’t she do what you assume you’d do in a situation you’re lucky to have never experienced?

Well.

Sometimes you leave and he blows up your new boyfriend’s car or extorts your parents for tens of thousands of dollars that they don’t have. Sometimes you leave and he mercilessly beats you before you can make it to the elevator. Sometimes he doesn’t have a billion dollars at his disposal, just access to the person more important to you than anything else in the world.

Sometimes you leave and he murders your child.

And I don’t know what to do with that.

I don’t think anyone deserves to live in fear of the person they share a bed with. I’m not saying that what happened to Ellie is a cautionary tale of why you should stay with an abuser. Because if your partner is willing to killing their own child, they are capable of doing so for whatever perceived transgression they encounter. If it wasn’t after you left, it could have been after they lost their job or were caught in a lie. It could have just been a day where they felt especially sadistic.

I can say with absolute certainty that Ellie’s mom did the right thing by leaving my uncle. That act may have prolonged her child’s life to a degree we’ll never fully know. And him committing this atrocity is entirely his own fault. But we live in a world in which we cannot count on courts or judges to lead us to justice or protect us from violence. By the time they enter the picture, it’s often too late.

This happened even though so many steps were taken to prevent Ellie from restraining orders to relocation. So rather than just telling someone to leave a bad relationship, or shaming and judging for not doing it “fast enough,” what can be done societally instead?

That’s where I’m stuck.

Everything about this has me stuck.

Last month I found myself sobbing on the bathroom floor wishing I had killed myself long before I ever crossed Chrystal’s path, because maybe then Jared would have kept his mask on long enough for their daughter to live out their life. It had seemed as if calling him out publicly (or familially) might shame him out of nefariousness and wake up anyone believing the many lies he was spreading. I didn’t know what he was planning but I hoped that turning the light on might thwart it. Afterwards, I pulled back because I didn’t want my presence in Chrystal and Ellie’s life to provoke him further. I shrank into the shadows hoping that they were home free. That’s another regret right there. Not showering her with all my love.

But at one point, this madman treated me like a confidant. Was my letter to the court the wrong move? It didn’t keep Ellie safe. I urged the custody evaluators to implement supervised visitation, but it ended up getting taken away. Had I acted more secretively, could I have remained in contact and better gauged his state of mind?

I don’t know. These days I don’t feel like I know much at all. Just that it hurts.

Soon I start school again. I’m going to grad school to become a children’s therapist and it makes me happy that I feel strong enough to do so. There was a time where it felt too painful to be around children, as much as I love them and have dedicated my career to supporting them. I just couldn’t look at a toddler without thinking about Ellie and bursting into tears. I skipped baby showers, I went in the other room at work when coworkers brought their babies in. I just couldn’t do it.

But after a close friend had a baby, I was able to overcome my inner turmoil and show up for someone small once more. Watching him learn to crawl and work towards walking has been incredibly healing. I’m still angry and dismayed over what happened, but I can channel that into working to support him and his mom through the difficulties of single parenthood as best as I can.

There’s a small part of me that worries about this level of transparency being the first thing attached to my name in a digital landscape. I have my own therapist and could certainly keep this blog focused on the facts of the case, leaving my emotional state out of it. At the end of the day though, I don’t really care. Ellie was important and wanted and loved. She deserves to be remembered in entirety and that includes the devastation caused by her absence. In a world where one atrocity is quickly flashed at us after another, the reality is lost that these tragedies linger on for so much longer than a news cycle.

Are you reading this because you knew Jared? In depth or in passing? If so, email me at zinniamoreno@gmail.com. I would like to fill in some blanks with you and will anonymize your experience.

Referencing my decision to share this story, I was recently reminded that the internet is forever.

I only reshare the comment because I found the timing ironic. Little did they realize, I was just about to publish the following things that Jared chose to immortalize online.

It’s true. The internet is forever. But murder is too.

Just to recap:

Like the hallmark of many Cluster B Personality Disorders, my uncle Jared had an unstable sense of self. He was a chameleon who shuffled through identities, values, and personalities in what could be characterized into distinctive eras. These included:

• The World Traveler: The Jared who I had idolized as a child as he traversed Egypt, China, and many other countries utilizing his deceased father’s airline benefits.

• Mahalo Jared: The first of his ten siblings to graduate college at U of Hawaii. Guitar playing surfer by day, alcoholic gambling addict by night.

• Jared Christian Vegano: The Texas megachurch attending fruitarian who ran 115 mile ultramarathons and fancied himself a motivational speaker.

• The Future Faker: Molding himself into a marriageable man for whichever unlucky woman would be caught up in his web of lies.

• Jared Lorenzo: Husband, Father, MBA Student. Murderer.

Five months ago, Jared murdered his own three year old daughter in a show of great brutality. It was the culmination of a prolonged harassment and slander campaign against the woman who dared to leave him when she saw who he really was.

Fourteen years earlier, an online poker playing community rallied together to get him on television. The story he presented was an inspiring tale of redemption and perseverance. It was also less than accurate. And when it no longer suited his goals, he dropped this part of his life entirely and changed his last name to bury it.

TwoPlusTwo: RelaxedPrecision

I stumbled upon Jared’s 1,185 posts on the Two Plus Two poker forum while performing a perfunctory google search during his divorce. Though he utilized the username RelaxedPrecision, he also labeled each and every post with his real name: Jared Huggins. Reading them was an incredibly bizarre experience, as I could vividly remember the time we spent together during the period he was most active online. The internet had been presented with another version of him entirely.

Though this was my first time reading the posts, I remembered when some of his (now deleted) YouTube videos were found and passed around by relatives in the early 2010s. The result was an immediate indignation, followed by decades of whispers. “Remember when he was lying on us to the internet?”

One of the most glaring contradictions stemmed from Jared’s insistence that he had no family to turn to. At the same time, he was leeching off his mother in the way that many men in my family have perfected to an art form. And though he was indeed sleeping in his car, his fundraising efforts left out how many relatives were begging him to stop being so stubborn and take their spare rooms instead. It didn’t make any sense at the time why he was choosing to be homeless. I now realize it’s because being a housed man is not quite as lucrative when it comes to crowdfunding.

With this in mind, it is important to remember that Jared is not a fully reliable narrator. His rise to online poker fame was predicated upon a deliberate skewing of circumstance, and I can’t cherry pick out those lies while taking everything else at face value. But by ending his murderous act in suicide, he forced the rest of us to play detective, as to what was going through his mind. Rather than using them as a factual ledger, I find it most helpful to use these posts in order to decipher his outlook on the world.

When Jared graduated from college in 2008, it was a huge deal. I was among eleven of my family members who flew to Hawaii to watch him cross the stage and it really was a beautiful trip. This was before the various estrangements and betrayals, back when my family felt more like a family than a minefield.

During this trip, it felt like Jared was letting us all into his world. He took me out to learn how to surf. He showed my little brother how to strum on the guitar. We explored the island that had been his home for the past two years and did so without him showing any glaring signs of mental instability.

Jared had a wonderful girlfriend at the time who had transferred to the University of Hawaii with him, even though it wasn’t the best fit for her desired career path. After graduation, they moved back to Los Angeles together but it didn’t last long. Jared was soon living in his car, which had seemed like a surprising turn of events. However in a thread on the Two Plus Two poker forum about “degenerate” gambling moments, Jared bragged about the secret life he had maintained throughout college.

04-03-2009, 05:48 PM, RelaxedPrecision/Jared Huggins writes:

Here R some of my degen highlights.

-addicted 2 poker while in college, almost killed myself from sleep deprivation, missed countless classes to play, played while in class through Wifi...couldn't get myself to stop playing to study for finals/doing term papers so resorted to 4 tabling .5NL while doing ALL of my homework for my entire senior year. Alienated myself from the world to play poker for 1 year straight, lost countless friendships and relationships and work opportunities. ALL THIS WHILE BEING A BREAKEVEN PLAYER.

-Played so many hands without taking a break got carpal tunnel and my vision has suffered.

-Went pro after college on a $500 bankroll and for 6 months straight started month with $100 ended month with $700 to pay all my bills by 1st of the month, only to start all over again. Played 12-16 hours sessions mass multitable microstakes the last week of each of these months.

-Got addicted to poker forums... only way I could stop posting was to have a nervous break down and post porno pics in thread to get my account locked.

Though I was only 13 at the time, I was getting regular updates from Jared about the plight of ‘08 grads. Across phone calls, he took turns bemoaning the recession and detailing his recent job applications/interviews. However, in the same post above, Jared would go on to share:

-27 years old, been lying to my family for 10 months that I'm looking for a job...stil haven't sent out 1 job application.

People began asking follow-up questions within the same “degen” thread, especially after Jared revealed that he was homeless and teased a story of suicide.

11-11-2009, 08:32 PM, RelaxedPrecision, Jared Huggins:

I got a great update coming on my degening. Get ready folks. It’s a doozy. I gotta go to therapy now.

For now I’ll just let you know this… it’s about ME, it’s all true, I’m homeless, ad I almost killed myself. Tata

04-03-2009, 05:48 PM, RelaxedPrecision:

[I’m] At Starbucks with a laptop.

Got a DUI while sleeping in my car with the engine running, lost my job (was a driver), been living in my car the last 3 months. Came to find out the chick I was dating for 3 years had had incestual relationships with her brothers and her father. Found this out whe she started banging a bunch of guys and all kinds of crazy info about her came out.

Can't talk to my family cuz they're:

1. schizophrenic
2. drug abuser
3. drug dealer
4. hermit
5. cult member

I was getting stressed from the situation so I reluctantly got on some antidepressants. Side effects, I began to hear 3 voices. God, Satan, and me. God told me to do charity work, & Satan told me to kill myself. Despite being scared of heights my whole life, I found myself standing at the edge of an 8 story parking structure looking down thinking about jumping. Two security guards patrolling the property saw me and started to come up to me so I ran away.

At this point I had $2000 to my name .... so I LOADED $1500 INTO BODOG . My logic being..."I'm homeless and I have nothing to lose... I've already hit rock bottom and it can't get any worse."

I lost the $1500 in two days at .5-$1. I was right! Losing the $ didn't make me feel any worse.

I was going through withdrawal from alcohol & pills. I was no longer in control and I was either going to kill myself and get it over with or try REALLY hard to get my **** together one last time.

So I:

began to talk to god all day long like he was with me
a LOT of writing
AA regularly
listening to Matisyahu
doubling up on therapy visits

Today I GOT A JOB AT OLD NAVY AND I HAVEN'T HAD ANY PANIC ATTACKS OR HEARD ANY VOICES IN THREE WEEKS!!!

To which I’ll say, his girlfriend was not in an incestuous relationship with her male relatives, he was in contact with his family, and I wish he had just jumped then instead of after he murdered Ellie.

Advice began pouring in as an informal q&a session formed within the thread. When asked how he ended up in his car, Jared revealed:

12-05-2009, 03:15 AM, Jared Huggins:

I'm sorting this out now. I seem to have an addictive personality.

I go overboard at whatever I do and constantly do things that alter my mental state. It might have something to do with the fact that I had a crazy abusive childhood and doing basic things like dealing with people, and living life have been huge struggles for me. I pretty much raised myself. My addictions could also be a way for me to escape bad memories. It's probably partially genetic too.

Here are a couple of examples of my past addictions:

-I got addicted to starving myself. I wouldn't eat for a couple of days at a time. After the first day of starving I would get light headed and hallucinate. At 6'3' I went from a natural weight of 190-200 pounds to 160 pounds with all of my ribs protruding. This went on for a year. I would often have trouble breathing and my heart would be racing.

-I taught myself how to play classical guitar by practicing 8 hours a days for 3 months straight without leaving my room. I played through the pain. The end result is that my right wrist is permanently damaged.

Poker was no different than these other pursuits. As a break even player, poker came before eating, sleeping, brushing my teeth, showering, and school work. I had no friends. My school work suffered greatly.

By my senior year of college, I couldn't stop playing to the point where I had to 4 table $.25/$.5 or $.50/$1 as I did ALL of my school work, including my final projects. I could not get myself to close the poker tables no matter what. I missed countless classes because I was playing microstakes poker, or was too sleep deprived to go to class. When I was in class, I was on the wi-fi playing HU NL.

By the end of my senior I had given up on trying to control my poker addiction, instead I just tried to numb the daily pain. I'd roll out of bed in the morning and fill up a bottle of Gatorade 3/4 of the way with Vodka and sip it throughout the day while in class until I got back to the tables to help scratch the terrible itch of being away from the poker tables. The alcohol also killed the part of my brain that felt stressed by having to fabricate all school work at the last minute. I had some really interesting presentations that year. I learned that you can't play poker non stop and still prepare for group presentations. It didn't matter anymore, I had grown bold, "Jared, you ready to present your part?". I'd bust out the Gatorade bottle in the hallway before we went in, "Don't worry, a hit of my magical juice- vertical integration and Coca-Cola's competitive advantages will all make sense!"

The year after I graduated college, I played poker till I physically and mentally broke myself. Playing 10, 15, 20 hours of poker/day the year after I graduated college, I grinded out a small profit each month to survive, mostly from rakeback.

Eventually I began to physically deteriorate, my body just fell apart. My vision grew blurry, I had to get a new prescription. I suffered from chronic back pain. I used an old knee injury as an excuse to sit up for 2 months straight without leaving the house to "rest the knee" and play poker non stop. I was so engulfed in playing break even poker that I didn't notice that my left knee had atrophied to the point where it looked like a ****ing arm. It ended up taking me 6 months of knee therapy to get that knee back close to normal health.

As a 26 year old man I had no normal or healthy relationships with other humans.

For the 2 years that poker had it's grasp on me every facet of my life collapsed & was swallowed by the blackhole. Sadly, the years before my poker addiction were really terrible and traumatic to the point where being chewed to death slowly by the poker demon was an improvement. Nevertheless, it was a disgusting existence.

In the previous post, he claimed that his relationship ended after discovering a pattern of incest and cheating. But his admission here aligns more closely with what I’ve gathered from interviews, that his girlfriend left the relationship frustrated that he didn’t pull his own weight.

It’s also interesting that here he admits pretending to be too injured to work, as this would occur again in subsequent relationships. In one, he claimed to be recovering from a car accident with a story that didn’t quite add up. And with Ellie’s mom, he would claim that he was unable to work because of the severity of an autoimmune disease. But as a doctor, she was able to recognize that his test results and medical records did not match his purported conditions. If his disease was as far-gone as he stated, his scans and symptoms would look differently.

HU VS a drooler, lost my "roll" (the Jared Huggins story)

Early in 2010, Jared created a thread that altered the course of his life. It began as documentation of his most recent poker game results but a brief mention of homelessness led to great community intrigue. From there, Jared continued posting updates about his situation, not yet outright asking for money but lamenting in the specific way someone does when they want you to be the one who brings something up.

02-19-2010, 04:02 PM, Jared Huggins:

Getting dressed to go out and apply now [for jobs].

I’m 5 peanuts and 2 cups of water into my day. Finding some awesome links about food for broke people in LA.

In another, he writes:

Not sure if I'm going to go back to being homeless next week or not.

DUI program payment: $150
Cell phone/gym/storage: $150
Car registration: $75
Food/other expenses: ?

$That's $375 + Food/other. $500 to my name. Not sure how I'll be renting a place for next month. Gonna give it some thought.

oh and by food I mean, peanuts & water. Day 4 of peanuts, water, and begging diet.

Jared would continue pretending to live off of peanuts, even though we regularly congregated around my grandma’s dining table for large family meals.

It’s true he was poor. He no longer had a romantic partner to leech off of, and his mother could only fill in so many gaps in that regard. Still, she was committed to replenishing the male coffers for the long haul, sitting me down as a pre-teen to explain that she wouldn’t be leaving me anything in her will.

“I just want to explain it now, Zinny,” she said. “It’s not because I don’t love you. It’s because I have faith in your ability to provide for yourself. I know you’ll be able to find a successful career and be an independent adult. But I have to take care of my sons. I’m all they have.”

Though he’s done much worse, it’s for this reason that the peanut posts bother me so. Many people really are out here struggling with hunger and homelessness, specifically because they don’t have such a committed safety net. By cosplaying a chicken pecking at whatever he could scrounge off the floor, he was denigrating the woman who’d centered her life around keeping the umbilical cord intact.

Of course though, 2+2 poker forum lacked this insight into my family dynamics. They remained rapt towards the only source of information they had.

Multiple people asked how Jared became homeless, one poster remembering that he lived with a girlfriend not too long ago. That commentator may have remembered her existence from this earlier post in which Jared laughs about raping her as “payback” for laughing at him. As he is an unreliable narrator, I pray that was another lie.

Jared’s new version of the break up has no mention of the gambling addiction he addressed earlier. Instead, he piled on additional slanderous accusations:

That girl had a lot of daddy, uncle, & stranger next door issues. My 3 years with her ended with her acting out. Prey become predator type of thing. She found some married dude with a cute little daughter. So she banged the husband, started stalking him, hence messing everything up for the little girl. It was disgusting.

She had a lot of evil **** happen to her, I pray to God for her.

In a more comprehensive “cliff notes” on the subject, Jared provided the following account of his homelessness:

02-23-2010, 05:28 AM, Relaxed Precision/Jared Huggins:

Cliffnotes: How I Became Homeless

Poker poker poker poker -> money money money money

Aug '09: Stress->Stress Meds->Couple of Drinks-> What planet am I on? ->sleep in parked car engine running ->.09 DUI -> "DOH!" -> lost job -> no money -> homeless . No more poker.

pee in bottle -> shower at bally's -> no license -> no insurance -> stay on the backstreets! -> sleep in car -> "did that lady see me naked?" -> apply apply apply -> new job -> work work work -> harassed by cops -> "YAY, totally going to rent a room!" -> "slow this year" -> let go. -> more pee in bottle -> sleep in car -> note to self: don't park near schools, someone might think you're a pedophile -

New Job -> hours limited -> work work work -> sleep in car -> "I don't care if that lady sees me naked" -> harassed by cops -> sleep in car -> " can people tell that I'm homeless by looking at me" -> why does my boss hate me? -> work work work -> "Good news. You're killing it! You're the top salesperson for the entire holiday season! You are one of the salespeople of the month! Your picture shall be up in the break room for all to see! Everyone in the store seems to love you, employees & customers alike. So we won't fire you. But unfortunately there is one manager who is still not convinced. So you'll only be scheduled for 8 hours a week"

-> sleep in car -> piss in street -> apply apply apply -> gas pumper, change beggar, tire scrubber -> "PENNIES OK!" "NICKELS OK!" "DON"T BE SCARED!" -> fell on the ground food eater -> fast food chicken asker for -> apply apply apply -> sign waiver, street dancer,

2-2010 "OMG are they about to break into my car? Can't they see that I'm inside?!?!? -> nightmare -> nightmare -> nightmare -> "Jesus, please assist me" -> light shines -> place for 2 weeks -> thank you Jesus! -> warm in here -> wow, beds are awesome -> work work work-> apply apply apply -> peanuts water -> peanuts water-> OMG -> 6 days left before I'm back in my car

I don’t know why he chose a spoken word format for this personal history, but it’s really interesting to see the evolution from “did that lady see me naked” to “I don’t care if she sees me naked.” It’s just a glimpse, but adds to his inappropriate behavior towards women. We can see more about this from a later post about his life story:

If I liked a girl, I'd cut out newspaper clippings into a cryptic message, and mail it to her. I can’t remember how many girls I scared away with my bizarre behavior. And when I told people the truth about how I felt about life and what I was going through, they just thought I was a weirdo. I was 25 years old the first time I kissed a girl, went on a date, or had an intimate relationship with a woman who I was not paying money to.

I also don’t know why the manager at REI would relegate Jared to only eight hours per week if he was the top salesman of the season. Maybe because they could tell he was a weirdo, maybe because it didn’t actually happen. In any case, Jared was using his time working at the store as a source of unrelated, supplementary income.

He writes:

02-26-2010, 04:38 AM, RelaxedPrecision/Jared Huggins:

Today, this big husky girl with linebacker shoulders came in2 my job today to buy shoes...size 11. She looks exactly like a man. She had this big lady with her who told me the size 11 girl liked me. So I gave her my digits. I hope she calls me soon. If she calls me I'm going to try & seduce her & go live with her. Wherever she lives, I'm sure there's plenty of food.

With a quick update a bit later:

The big lady I met at my camping store last night, called me up today. Said she wants me to help her "break in her hiking boots" this weekend.

I felt this tingling in my spine, this is not a person I want to see naked. I told myself in my head, "Shut up you little bitch! You wanna sleep in the streets. This woman is the love of your life." Beggars can't be choosers I guess. I'm gonna try to get to know her a little bit.

To not only do this but also shamelessly post about it online really speaks to how Jared viewed women. The subsequent relationships in which he bled women dry financially only solidifies that wanton disregard and disposability. It begs the question, did he give himself this same pep talk before lying through his teeth during his wedding vows?

Around this time, commenters began offering money for various video requests, including handing out money to people living on the streets:

And another dancing while wearing the mascot outfit from his sign twirling job.

Rather than addressing basic needs, he solicited these funds in order to replenish his online poker account and continue betting.

When one poster asked Jared to take a picture with a certain phrase painted on his forehead, he did so with an extra flourish by holding a knife between his teeth.

”This pic is disturbing,” one poster commented. “Mission accomplished,” he replied.

It’s at this same time that someone requested a video of Jared hugging strangers. An additional $10 was offered for him to grab a woman’s ass in the process, which Jared countered by asking how much extra he would get if he was arrested for said assault. Ultimately though, he decided to go in a more wholesome direction with the video. This decision panned out better than he ever could have expected.

02-25-2010, 03:30 AM, RelaxedPrecision/Jared Huggins:

4 days till I'm homeless again. "Homeless man eating" video will then come. "Free hug" video will come. "Day in Homeless Man's Life" or "Homeless Cribs" video will come. Any suggested stunt or bizarre act posted in this thread, I'll probably do in exchange for $. For money, most likely, I'd probably be willing drink my own piss.

Free Hugs Era:

I remember Jared sharing the following video with whoever happened to be congregated at my grandma’s hose that day. There was definitely some confusion on how one gets paid money from a stranger to make a video hugging other strangers. But overall it seemed to have made him happy, and aligned with the hippie dippy personality he’d cultivated.

Once the video started circulating online though, Jared’s story started garnering sympathy, attention, and money. I’ll post some of the many many positive online responses from the community below:

• “For what its worth, I bookmarked the hugs video as something to untilt me if I am ever in a bad mood. It is really inspiring for me.”

• “I have been following this thread for days now and have wanted to post but i just havnt known what to say. But here goes.
  
  You truly are an inspiration and i wish you nothing but the best in future! From everything i can gather you are talented on many levels and have so much going for you. Once you get yourself back on your feet please dont go back to punishing yourself because if anyone deserves to be happy, its you!”

• “i just read the entire thread, and i must say OP u are an inspiration, and a really shocking/heartwarming thread this is, im amazed by how people send money and all little bits probably helped and by your fighting spirit and how u keep ur head up and try to get through the "rough patch" i wish u many good things and much love...”

• “This is amazing. I really did not expect to ever see a story like this in BBV. Jared, the most incredible part is that instead of just gritting your teeth and faking your way through some dumb stunts for money, you took each challenge, embraced it completely, and spun it into something truly wonderful. That hug video is the stone cold nuts. Thank you for the smiles.
  
  You have a wonderful spark and an optimism about life that seems completely at odds with the experiences you've been through, and you've been generous enough to share that spark with us scumbags. You really are an inspiration. But I hope the inspiration is two-way. It's encouraging to see so many BBVers contributing to get you back up on your feet, but it sounds like you have many more hard miles to travel and demons to confront. Take this money, this experience, and these kind words from BBV and do what you've done with everything we've given you...
  
  Spin it into something wonderful.
  
  Stay positive, work hard, and good luck, sir.”

His next post in the thread wasn’t quite as uplifting, and I can’t really understand why anyone would share it attached to their real name, other than a perverted thrill of publicized sexual deviancy.

04-04-2010, 12:52 PM, RelaxedPrecision/Jared Huggins:

Sorry for not updating this thread the last 2 weeks. Been working everyday, I really want to change my life, and I don't want to be the type of person who talks about doing it, I want to do it.

Last two weeks worked everyday morning till night, double shifts when possible. Living off $1 McDoubles & McChickens, saving for a place.

Few nights ago, 12 AM, had just got off work & had showered at the gym, dark out, in my car getting ready to go to sleep, car is parked, engine/lights off. A few houses down the block, but my side of the street there's a park, car repair place, the street looks pretty deserted.

Figured I'd jack off, hey I worked hard all day I earned it right? I get er done, hands coverd in jizz, so I'm groping around in my car, looking for something to wipe down with, when what do I see creeping down the street towards me in the rearview? You guessed it... a F-ing cop car.

My seat is already allllllll the way back, so I just lay down, hoping the cops just go right by. They do. wheeeew. That was close. I sit up for a second to look and THE COP CAR IS PULLING A U AND COMING BACK TOWARDS ME.

"Oh, SHT".

So I lay back down and hope they pass by again, my hands are still totally covered in semen and man juice at this point. I'm laying down as low as possible, I can't even see what the hell is going on. Then this bright ass light just shines into my car. For a second at first, then there's another light and it's blinding ... my blanket in the back, my suits hung up in the back for interviews, the cops can see that my car is filled with homeless person crap, and other stuff I wasn't able to put away cuz it's so dark I can't even see what's in my own car. Damn... they know I'm in here.

I wipe some of the jizz on my fingers onto the passenger seat. Whatever happens I don't want them to think I'm some sort of pervert, I could get locked up for that sht.

Figuring it'll lessen my chances of getting shot, I slowly sit up in my seat with my hands in the air. The light is shing right in my face, I'm totally blind, all I can see are my own wet hands in front of my face. "Oh **** I still have cum on my fingers!" I reach my right hand down to quickly wipe it off, two cop voices scream:

"KEEP YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR!"

"DO NOT MOVE YOUR HANDS! ARE YOU A FKCING IDIOT! KEEP YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR!"

Two officers approached my car and interrogated me. I prayed that they didn't notice my man juice on my hands, and they didn't. Had to roll down the back window, lean back and answer their questions out of that one, cuz the driver's window doesn't roll down.

After 10 minutes of busting my balls and making me sweat, they let me off saying that someone from down the street had somehow noticed that I had parked in that neighborhood a few nights that week and called the cops. As long as I agree to never sleep homeless in the city of Torrance again I was let off with a warning this time.

And to think, I had seen one of those damn Neighborhood Watch signs on that block late one night and laughed at it, "Hahaha neighborhood watch, what a joke" I had said to myself.

But after this, Jared started really cleaning up his image, focusing on inspirational content, and leaning into Christianity. When he posted the next video, things really started taking off.

Jared showed off his new room rental while thanking community members profusely for their financial and emotional support. Additionally, he had positive updates about his DUI program and newfound sobriety.

Now that he was no longer living in his car, it seemed to inspire a strong sense of accomplishment amongst forum members and strengthen their parasocial relationship.

One person replied,

“Hey Jared, very moving video. On behalf of all of your supporters here, I would like to say THANK YOU! for doing what you have done for US!

Monetary donations only go so far, but you have been a true inspiration to everyone of us. I believe that you have taught a lot of us that when your world gets bad that circumstances can be perservered through with a good heart and a greatattitude.

You may or may not know but the days were you gave out hugs at venice beach, there were people who were probably having a rough day, a rough week, even a rough month, who you changed their entire course of emotions, through simple act of love.

There were days where I personally had thought about giving up and offing myself. There were days where I felt too depressed to do anything, and you, a total stranger was there to encourage me to make the best of my circumstances and situations. I am sure if it was not for your words of love and kidness that I would not be here today. You seemed to find what I needed to hear in order to perservere through my rough times the last few months. Thank you brotha, I really appreciate it.

You truly are one of the most amazing people I have ever spoken to. I hope to meet you some time in LA and spend some time with you.

Thank YOU for doing what you have done for us here at the forums through showing how much perservernce and a great attitude can do even in the worst of circumstances.

Great for you love man”

Another suggested banding together to get Jared cast on The Big Game, a poker television show that held one spot open for “Loose Cannons” (amateurs) to compete against professionals.

We’ll pick up there next time.

If you’re interested in receiving emails when new updates are posted, type in your email address below.

Are you reading this because you knew Jared? In depth or in passing? If so, email me at zinniamoreno@gmail.com. I would like to fill in some blanks with you and will anonymize your experience.

Any stranger could have surmised what happened from just the initial details. Amidst a “bitter” custody dispute, as many attempts to protect children are labeled, a father chooses to commit suicide. It’s his visitation day but there’s no sign of the child, dead or alive. Not only that, this is his first visitation since learning that the child and her mother have been granted permission to move out of state.

You don’t need to know about the previous restraining orders against Jared or his documented dangerous behavior to intuit that something sinister has happened. Even if this hadn’t have been my own family, my immediate reaction would have been the same— that child is dead and the father is to blame. In retrospect, I believe this is why Jared’s cause of death was originally omitted from broadcast. There was video of him jumping off the roof of the parking lot, alone, so suicide was not in question. Still, the police asked the community to search for a missing girl whose father had been “found deceased,” the ambiguity adding more urgency.

In some twisted sense, the general pieces of what happened fit together. That’s not to say that killing your own child is a logical decision for someone in Jared’s self-made position. It’s just an outcome that one could predict, or at least fear, because it’s a choice that many others as spiteful as him have opted for.

Six months later, I can’t say that this is still true. But right after Ellie’s death, her mother told me that her grieving tears paled in comparison to the amount she’d fearfully cried during the visitations leading up to the murder. Though it was still a great shock, she had known all along that something like this could and maybe even would happen.

At the same time, none of this makes any sense at all.

Why?

Why? Why? Why?

I’ve tried as hard as I can to answer this question by conducting hours of interviews, deeply diving into his digital footprint, and pouring over past texts, emails, and phone call recordings.

Trying to understand the autopsy, I’ve left my own google search history in a flurry of medical questions:

• What is a subgaleal hemhorrage?

• What are washerwoman’s hands? autopsy

• soft tissue edema

• skin slippage

• focal scleral hemhorrage

• why no rigor mortis

and on and on it goes.

Until I asked the court to supervise his visits with Ellie, Jared had a large presence in my life. When I was her age, I’d wrap myself around the bottom of his leg as he walked throughout my grandma’s house calling out my name and pretending to look for me. I’d just hold tight and laugh and laugh and laugh.

In elementary school I brought in the photos he sent back from world travels for show and tell. As I got older there were concerts and beach days and escape rooms. We went surfing and kayaking. Visited NASA and watched documentaries and practiced our language acquisition with one another.

He didn’t allow his daughter to experience a single one of those things.

He’d talked for so long about wanting to be a father. The universe gave him that gift.

So what the fuck happened?

Although Ellie and her mom were moving, the custody order was generous and actually allowed Jared to have significantly longer stretches of time with the baby. Also, the move wasn’t scheduled for several months later. That all rules out the heartbroken and desperate dad mental breakdown excuse. This wasn’t supposed to be the last time he saw his daughter, he turned it into that.

I’ve also learned that Jared was lying about the amount of time he already had with Ellie. He had told multiple people that being a full-time dad impeded his ability to work and was gathering donations under false pretenses. He was scamming his own mother. He was trying to scam his own church. And as we’ll get to in the next post, this was not the first time he pulled such a ruse.

Hours before the murder, Jared forwarded the letter he sent to the church to a friend. It read:

Good Afternoon Pastor [Redacted],

I’m in a dilemma and find myself $15,000 short in legal fees required to complete the final phase of my custody trial, in regards to my daughter Ellie.

My failure to come up with the funds prior to July 18th will result in having to represent myself in court, which is equivalent to losing the trial by forfeit, due to the nature of the case. Should that occur, my daughter Ellie will be relocated in the coming months, where she will be raised in a violent environment.

Prayer appreciated in regards to this situation having a positive outcome for Ellie. God has done so much for Ellie up to this point so I will continue to believe God sees us through the remainder of this process.

Do you know anyone who may be in a position to provide a short term loan of any amount? If so, I can be reached at [redacted phone number], or meet in person to discuss. I have $40,000 in retirement funds which have been set aside to repay anyone who lends funds, along with +25% interest, but I have no way to access these funds until after the trial is completed, 3 months from now.

I feel as though I’m in the final stretch of a marathon.

The first custody evaluation ended December 2022, they found in my favor. For the last two years I’ve consistently been granted more and more time with Ellie. After 18 months of home inspections, observations, interviews of friends and family, they have decided that it’s in Ellie’s best interests to have a significant amount of time with me, her Father. Ellie is in my care 55% of of all days and is currently thriving. The current relocation trial is an attempt to overturn the previous decisions which were all in my favor up to this point being the only stay at home parent Ellie has had. I’ve been working evenings/remote/hybrid.

I successfully came up with the first $85,000 on my own which I paid in legal costs to get to this point, but have exhausted all options available to me and am unable on short notice to come up with the final $15,000.

Again, more questions. And this time, more lies.

The move was approved two days earlier. An extra $15k wouldn’t change that. Would he have spared her if he got the money? Or was he determined to kill her because you can’t pretend to be your child’s primary caregiver when she lives in another state?

Was this an attempt to throw investigators off the trail?

This would track with him telling my grandma that he had “good news” while Ellie was in his trunk. Same with him telling another relative that he’d found a loophole in the case that would prevent Ellie and her mom from moving, right before delivering blow after blow.

“Look officer, I didn’t kill her! I was still fighting the case!”

But if so, what changed?

Taking out the trash used to be a routine chore. Any accompanying contemplation was limited to remembering which day of the week the truck would arrive. After Ellie was found in the landfill, the simple task became much heavier.

In those moments, “why” falls by the wayside. No matter the reason, how could you throw your own child in a dumpster?

Are you reading this because you knew Jared? In depth or in passing? If so, email me at zinniamoreno@gmail.com. I would like to fill in some blanks with you and will anonymize your experience.

Stationed by a lake, it stands two stories tall and beckons her towards the brand new playground in the backyard. The weather is muggy, but the nature that blooms from it is beautiful. Long grasses swaying in the wind. Bodies of water you can’t help but be tempted to skip stones on.

It would have been a good life.

Anything would have been a better life than such an early death.

Even though we were coming in from different cities, there was another group on the same flight as me headed to the funeral. In some way, it helped to know I wasn’t the only person shouldering such unbearable heaviness on this random Southwest Airlines 747. 

The only other time I went to Houston, it was to visit my uncle. This was a couple years before he met Chrystal and back before I knew he was someone to be scared of. It was a twisted sense of deja vu to be walking through the same terminal under such different circumstances.

My aunt picked me up from the airport and together we headed to Chrystal’s mom’s house. I remember Jared showing me photos of it before, how he had once been welcomed in by a large collage with pictures of our family members hanging up. Obviously, that was long gone. Now the walls were adorned by Ellie’s precious face over and over and over again. Though it too would have served as a welcome, it was now a memorial.

There’s nothing comforting to say to someone whose toddler was brutally killed, no laying of hands strong enough to bestow strength. Still, my aunt and I embraced both Chrystal and her mother with all our might. I thought back to what a family friend had poignantly said a few weeks earlier, right after Ellie’s body had been found. She had pledged us all to walk alongside Chrystal, carrying as much of the burden as we could shoulder, if it could even lighten her own load by a morsel.

Our brief visit ended when one of her dear friends arrived to drive Chrystal to the funeral home. Out of necessity, it was to be a closed casket and she wanted to say goodbye to her baby face-to-face one last time.

The next morning, I joined a large crowd in the same room of the same funeral parlor where Ellie’s grandfather was memorialized eight years earlier. I understood why and where we were all gathered. I saw the pink, child-sized casket in the front of the room. Still, my mind could not accept that it actually contained her body. That sense of disbelief would persist for some time. When they later lowered the casket into the ground I would think again, “But don’t you only do that when someone’s in there?”

Though he endured with the utmost professionalism, I noticed the gravedigger take a moment to weep quietly in between burial tasks. I had noticed the funeral home staff doing the same when I went into the back to ask if there were any extra programs. It would take a few more weeks for me to fully break down, an otherwise nondescript workday in which I suddenly started sobbing at my desk.

In addition to a local pastor, Ellie was eulogized by her mother, grandmother, uncle, and a small assortment of family friends. It took tremendous strength for each to speak and share their vulnerability along with their stories. The amount of love her surviving relatives shared was almost hard to reconcile with the level of hatred her own father had displayed against her. She was lucky to have them as counterweights.

What I remember most from Chrystal’s time at the podium was her story of taking Ellie strawberry picking. They had first went to a cherry orchard and, though Ellie was tall for her age, there wasn’t anything low enough that she could pick herself. The strawberry farm was round number two, and it was presented as a mistake of sorts— something that Chrystal would have changed to make sure that Ellie had a better experience. I just saw the effort that went into making sure that her daughter experienced joy and built her self-confidence.

Ellie’s grandmother had been confident that, at 78, her three-year-old grandbaby would outlive her. In preparation, she had written a beautiful letter for Ellie to read when she reached eighteen. We were the ones to hear it instead, absorbing both the love imbued into each word and the pain behind its early recitation.

Ellie’s relationship with her grandmother was truly something special. Mama Grandma woke up each morning and waited for Ellie to follow suit, though her time zone was two hours behind. They facetimed every single morning and every single night. Jared never gave permission for Ellie to visit Texas, so Mama Grandma flew out for frequent California visits. Ellie was her entire world.

Shopping for Ellie was one of Mama Grandma’s favorite pastimes, and she had eagerly pre-purchased cute shoes and clothes across the next four years of sizes. They talk about the saddest short story: “For Sale: Baby shoes, never worn.” I posit that it’s even sadder to donate unworn clothing from a child who almost grew big enough to fit them.

Ellie’s uncle had similarly found creative ways to spend time with her from across the country. He spoke of facetime hide-and-seek and, in true little brother fashion, teaming up with Ellie to play pranks on Chrystal. As a father himself, he also talked about the aspirations that siblings have for their children to have strong relationships with one another. There were many childhood memories that he had expected Ellie and his own son to have the chance to replicate, like causing backseat mischief during car rides.

I still think about one of the points he made frequently, that things like this either bring people closer to faith or pull people away. I don’t know where I stand with that. I don’t know what happens to us after we die. But something like this makes me desperately wish that there were at least two outcomes to siphon us all into, and that Ellie has been brought to a very different place than her father. Regardless of the afterlife, I at least know that to be the case in terms of memory.

I believe my uncle thought he could hide Ellie’s body so well that she’d never be found. He’d have the spectacle of a public suicide, but we would never be able to definitively prove that he killed her. His supporters would have just enough wiggle room to delude themselves into championing his innocence. The rest of us would know deep down what happened but never be able to fill in the blanks.

Jared forced Chrystal to work long hours by refusing to provide any financial support for their child, then tried to paint her as an uncaring and aloof mother. He said she felt no love for her daughter at all. It was all lies. He put that baby in a dumpster. He thought we would never know so he dropped the act of pretending to be human.

I don’t know who it was that found Ellie in the landfill, but I feel for them deeply. I see my brain’s depiction of her broken body in my dreams, but at least I get to wake up and return to a reality in which I didn’t. They were just going about the workday an hour away from where a young girl disappeared. They didn’t ask to be traumatized for life. I hope that along their own healing journey, they’re able to recognize that they gave us a great gift. Because Ellie was not meant to be found and we were not meant to have answers.

After she was discovered, her mother tried to beautify the landfill with flowers because she couldn’t bear the thought of her baby spending time in such a place. Her father thought it was sufficient as is.

Her mother laid her to rest in a beautiful pink and silver coffin encased in a glittering, engraved burial vault. Her father picked out a black garbage bag for the same purpose.

Heartless bastard.

Time move differently now and I sometimes have gaps when I try to place things and events. I know that some time has passed since the funeral. Whether it’s been weeks or months is beyond me. If I had written this right away I may have remembered more details, but I also would have ended this entry with the tone of utter despair. The takeaway would have been that babies don’t belong in dumpsters and they don’t belong in the ground either.

Since the service, I have found the smallest source of strength from its existence.

The funeral was an act of defiance.

The devaluation of Ellie was meticulously planned but it did. not. work. Her goodbye was filled with love, not hate. When someone laid their hands on her for the final time, it was the embrace of her mother and not the brutality of her father.

Ellie was laid to rest among her family. She’s not going to be alone or stuck in the city her father spitefully tried to trap her in. He said he’d found a loophole to prevent her from moving to Texas with her mother. Instead, she will never set foot in California again.

In the end, his manipulation and obfuscation fell flat. We are all left deal with the horrors of the truth, but also have the ability to share Ellie’s story. Her suffering will not be shrouded in secrecy. Her light will shine regardless.

Are you reading this because you knew Jared? In depth or in passing? If so, email me at zinniamoreno@gmail.com. I would like to fill in some blanks with you and will anonymize your experience.

The phone calls I started receiving after Jared and Chrystal moved to NorCal were very different. He was making bizarre allegations that I may have believed, had I not already walked alongside her though the precautions to avoid his abuse. In my interactions with her, she was genuinely scared. In my interactions with him, I honestly don’t even know how to describe his affect or understand why he displayed no emotions at all. I tried my best to capture it here, in my letter to the court.

In July 2019, serial killer Lori Vallow arranged for her husband Charles Vallow to be killed after he repeatedly sought protection for himself and their children. When she spoke to him, she was open about her beliefs that he and their children had been replaced by demonic entitites. When he arranged for emergency psychiatric evaluation, she acted like he was making it all up and was able to talk her way out of the facility.

That same year, Lori and her cult leader husband, Chad Daybell, would go on to murder both of children and Chad’s wife. I had followed this case closely and been so angry at the multiple bodycam videos of Charles asking for Lori to receive help. He knew what Lori was capable of and nobody believed him. Her family didn’t listen to him. Would it have helped if he had recorded the things Lori was saying at home? Maybe, maybe not. But it made me want to get evidence of how crazy Jared was talking. That’s where the following phone call recordings come in, of which I have three.

Nobody asked me to make these recordings. I didn’t do so at Chrystal’s request or at the request of anyone else. I wasn’t playing them back for people either. I just felt like they were needed, just in case. Still, I felt like a bad person for betraying my uncle’s trust. He would ask me repeatedly to keep everything he said private and even if I wasn’t publicizing the recordings, making them in the first place meant I was lying when I agreed. I feel tinged with all kinds of guilt listening back, even though I have no love for the man at all anymore.

I was even more nervous to admit I even had the recordings as I didn’t want to get into legal trouble. Still, I offered them to the court’s custody evaluators to provide insight on his state of mind from his own words. They didn’t choose to listen or admit them, so they stayed on my computer until now.

There were so many blatant lies during these calls that I didn’t know how to respond. For a mild example, there’s a moment where Jared talks about how having untreated ADHD has impacted my studies. This same man updated me each and every step of the way on his ADHD treatment journey from diagnosis to trying different medications, the Pomodoro method, and receiving specialized coaching. He lied with ease as if we hadn’t had numerous conversations about this topic and the treatment he was receiving for it over the past 2-3 years.

I chose not to refute any of Jared’s claims. I just listened to what he had to say. This does not mean that any of the serious allegations he makes about his wife or his family have any merit. I now believe that his incredibly detailed rants were based on his own inner thoughts and workings. These recordings, and the things he claims Chrystal thinks or does, may be the closest we ever get to knowing exactly what was in his own mind when he did what he did. A lot of it would make sense that way.

On October 12, he’s so blasé about his longest list of allegations while also writing a letter to his teachers asking for an extension because he is a “victim of domestic abuse.” At a certain point, Chrystal had to let her job know what was happening because she moved out of the house during the workday so Jared wouldn’t find her. Her anxiety over doing so was in great contrast to Jared casually publicizing his accusations. He was devoid of the shame that an actual victim of abuse is fighting though. He was devoid of any emotion at all.

Something important to note is that when Chrystal did move out in early October, she did not break the lease and only took her own and the baby’s personal belongings. She left the furniture and she left all of Jared’s stuff. He had a place to live, though by that point it wasn’t a place he was used to coming home to. He was usually out for days at a time doing God know’s what. Anyway, he was not homeless. When he talks about being homeless in the phone calls, he’s lying because he doesn’t know I know the truth. He might have actually been sleeping in his car like he claimed, I don’t know. But if so, it was like the choice he had made to do so ten years ago while amassing internet fame for being a down-on-his-luck homeless man that secretly had plenty of free places to live at his disposal.

Additionally, I’d like to point out that by October, the relationship is beyond salvaging. However, these phone calls began before Chrystal had any inclinations to leave him whatsoever. Jared was not making weird phone calls because he was stressed with the divorce, as some people wrote them off as. There wasn’t one on the horizon whatsoever when he began.

A court ordered psychologist would later go on to diagnose Jared with a mixed Personality Disorder with Narcissistic and Obsessive traits, basically saying that he didn’t fit neatly in a specific box. On the October 12th call, Jared speaks so in depth about Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Knowing that he had been in therapy for years in college, it makes me wonder if this is information that he’s instead been able to parse about his own self and is projecting outward. The level of detail is just so specific. It may be that he has a strong understanding of himself and was able to make himself seem less unhinged in the meeting with the court psychologist, preventing an accurate diagnosis. Regardless, just because someone has narcissistic or obsessive compulsive tendencies doesn’t mean they’re capable of killing their own daughter.

I’ve written these transcripts myself and done my best to do so. I’m just not a professional transcriptionist so it took me many hours and there may be some small errors or parts I was unable to hear clearly.

I don’t expect you to read every word or listen to every minute. As I write this intro, I’m still working on transcribing and one of the calls is up to 19 single spaced pages. That’s a lot. But I feel compelled to share everything I have, even if it’s eventually turned into smaller pieces.

So here we are. Three phone calls across five days. For a summary of each call, read my letter to the judge:

Call #1: October 7, 2024

Note: The very beginning of this phone call was not captured.

Jared: It’s like if I spent all day going to museums, tourist sites, whatever. You know, if I lose something. If I ask myself, look, how many times in this entire day did I sort of just stop— even just stop for a second, so like, I use that to find a skateboard I lost at the ticket desk at the very base, a thousand people in line. I left a skateboard there at the Eiffel Tower and I came back like literally, the whole day I went traveling, whatever. And I’m like there’s no way (unintelligible) hours later, that was the best find. I don’t think I’ll ever top that.

And for me, obviously I was a kid and the skateboard meant so much to me. So for me, that was the most glorious, now I’ve lost like a thousand other things and I never found them. LIke that never really (laughs) now that’s funny. I think some people never really, might be more prone to lose stuff in certain places. Is there a science behind that? I have no idea.

Me: Right. But sorry, I interrupted you. You were saying something, sorry.

Jared: No, I mean its nothing. Look. In the midst of my cryptic calls and texts to you, I was trying to like, not say too much or whatever. One thing— I do remember at least on some level was like, “Hey. There’s gonna be some— I have reason to believe there’s gonna be like some weird accusations about me. And it’s going to be filtered though like maybe friends or family or whatever. I mean specifically from my wife. I’m being honest. So it was like hey, my wife, I know, is already starting to whisper here and there. And knowing her, if she does something once, she’ll do it a hundred times.

So I’m like, this must be meaning that she’s going to start amplifying this sort of thing, right? Saying I was somewhere I wasn’t. Saying this. Saying all this. Once someone’s saying something like ‘Hey Zinnia,’ like if I start telling people, “Zinnia is in Michigan right now. She ran off with this boyfriend she met on, in Hollywood. She’s been in Michigan.” And I kinda started telling a whole story for an hour to people and I started calling them, am I if I told it convincingly enough and it was something— I was sticking to it, you may get to a point where you think there’s something weird about this Jared guy. Why would he— I could prove I wasn’t in that state. That’s different than maybe he misunderstood.

This feels like it might be malicious. Let me, you know, I should probably keep a heads up. So anyway, she starts this smear campaign. I don’t need to share what she’s saying. I think it will be variations of I’m a bad, absentee husband or—

Me: That you ran off with someone from Tinder? Or that’s just a random example?

Jared: Yeah, definitely a random example. That’s like the good thing about me. That’s also the bad thing. Everyone always thinks my examples is like what— I’m like no, in my head I see ten different examples. So I wanna give you one of the random ones. So you can like see what I mean. And then people are like, “Wait, the example you gave is actually what happened though, right?”

Oh no no no, I never— uh, no no no. It’s more like uhhh, that I’m like physically abusive to my wife.

Me: Oh, wow.

Jared: She likes to leave it ambivalent— ambiguous. So she may say, “Jared was kind of like aggressive.” So she makes it— and the sad thing is that it depends who you’re talking to, right? So like, if you’re my direct family member, it’s not that you would or wouldn’t believe. But she actually would probe to see what you will or won’t believe. So she might say to you, or to somebody, see, the thing is that she doesn’t talk to you consistently anyways.

Me: Right, I don’t—

Jared: Yeah, it doesn’t matter. Whatever, I’m just saying. You might believe it. But obviously in general, people are not going to be as bold when they’re talking to someone who has known the person for 25 years. Cuz it’s just— they’re not as sure about if it would work or not. You know what I mean? So it’s— so she may say I was aggressive. I was aggressive. You know how men are. And then if you say, “Oh I know how men are, men can be this that and the other,” she’ll typically just say “Yes, Jared too.” So any bad experience you have ever had with any man, boyfriend, whatever, so that’s kind of how it typically works.

So if it’s someone who doesn’t really know me, isn’t related to me, is totally a friend of hers kind of thing, then she’ll tell the version where you know, maybe I chased her around the apartment and there’s a side of me they don’t realize. And then in the end of it, she has a victim narrative and it’s all about how it’s all my fault. Cause like for me, I don’t mind if people say, “I don’t want to be with you.” That’s fine. But when there’s more of a maliciousess behind it in the sense of, let’s see if I can try and get this person fired, that’s when you know— I’m going to try and get this person kicked out of school. I’m going to say things that are like totally fabricated to try and drive a wedge between this person and their family as best as I can just to cause chaos in their whole life, because I enjoy their suffering… That’s beyond the— that’s more than the typical like ‘Hey, I hate your guts, I’m breaking your heart, I’m leaving you.’ That’s more about like you really want to do damage and you kind of want to see that person hurting.

But the good news is that, I won’t say it’s good news, but the good news is that I— Because I think there might be more coming, but the good news is that like a few of her friends even called me. Like, ‘Hey, I don’t know what’s going on but like Chrystal kind of gave me this funny phone call. And—”

Me: Her friends??

Note: Jared now realizes he’s reached the limit of my apparent acceptance of this train of thought so he changes the subject.

Jared: Well, that’s the thing. Like no one’s perfect at this lying game. Even the master manipulators— like I’m no good at lying at all. My emotions, I wear them on my sleeve. Everybody is— I’m trying to think. I’m like honest to a fault. Right? I overly share. And that’s actually because— we can talk about that a different day, actually. I don’t want to get into some like why I’m like… you know.

But anyway, the good news is that uh, nature is taking its course to so speak. And, you know, some of the things I’m even telling you now, sometimes its good to just kind of be patient. Like let’s see what comes out more, you know? I think she’s pretty creative. I mean, she hacked all my phone. Hey Chrystal! She’s probably listening to this. She hacked all my like obviously all my communications, my phone, for like an extended period of time. And I’m pretty sure she’s hearing this right now. But, uh, that’s okay. At least there’s an awareness, and that’s fine. Like, life goes on.

Oh, oh, the good news.

Me: What?

Jared: The good news, Ellie— I know right? You really thought I was going to get into some dramatic stuff?

Me: Well, you started by saying there was some good news. And then it was like, nothing you’ve said so far sounds like it’s good, honestly.

Jared: No no no, the good news is because I talked to you already a month ago and I was like, “I don’t know how to phrase this.’ I don’t now feel compelled to make a big deal of what this thing that actually is transpiring. Because I already felt weird telling you about it three weeks ago. You think I was comfortable saying ‘Hey, you’re my niece. Just a heads up. I noticed my wife is making like, making these weird comments in the other room. Like making these stories up that really disturb me.’ I’m pretty sure if she’s doing that, it’s more of like, to filter it through. If someone’s going to do that, it wouldn’t be just one person. It’d be more like ok, let’s do the family now. Let’s do this. So just give it time.

Me: She’s telling people in our family that?

Note: Jared now realizes he’s reached the limit of my apparent acceptance of this train of thought so he changes the subject again.

Jared: Well, it doesn’t matter. Right. The thing about, the thing about lies sometimes, it’s better to just be patient. Cause like even talking about it gives it more power. So if I talk about all the different versions of the story, or if you and I start calling people in our family and alerting all of them, what it is is actually creating a confusion. “I heard there was this thing that I haven’t heard yet.” I heard the lie, the lie, the lie, the lie, it almost gives it like a, “Well maybe it is true.”

If I start calling everybody— like I might call you, cause you’re like, out of my entire family you’re probably one of the only people who I can say, I’m pretty sure that if I was like sick or something, you wouldn’t get any sort of satisfaction out of that. You’d probably be like, ‘That actually is kinda sad. I don’t want to see him sick.’

And I know that’s a small thing, but it’s actually kind of hard to find sometimes nowadays. I mean, there’s not that many people sometimes who actually feel kinda actually, like “I feel bad or I actually want this person to get well.”

Anyway, the good news. Ellie tried to crawl today. She did. She didn’t get the arms and the elbows and the knees right—

Me: Wait, how old is she?

Jared: Only 4 1/2 months! Oh my God! You have to come see this baby. I know you’re busy with work and stuff. But almost kinda like, if you’re ever interested— I told you months ago. If you’re ever interested in coming to check it out and visit, this chunky butt little baby, she’s like. God. She’s like literally— okay so like a week ago, she kinda started doing that thing where she like flipped herself over. I got that on tape. I thought I sent you a video of that.

See, this is— see like, I’m not saying I’m some perfect guy. I’m not saying I’m like some saint or something. I’m definitely not. Like I think I am a— I think I am a little— Now that I am realizing that I basically have been in an abusive relationship, and like been abused by my siblings for my whole life even recently, I’m starting to understand like— This narrative that I tell myself that I’m such an annoying person who talks so much and is so stressed out, part of that is because I’m being triggered by people who think it’s funny to see me getting stressed out. So we can talk about that later because I’m not as— so anyways, I’m not some saint either. I’m not just whatever whatever.

I really do love talking about Ellie’s stuff because Ellie’s awesome and she’s unique. And she’s like— so she flipped over today. I’m like— and the breastmilk. She’s getting chunky butt. And like she, she rolled over. I was, she rolled over kinda like fast. She rolled over, I saw it the first time it maybe a couple weeks ago, then she rolls over. She kinda stays. She just sits there. She can’t like crawl, she’s not really like upright upright. But you know, she’s kinda like, like you’re almost like “Oh my God! Is your face in the blanket? Like can she breathe?”

She’s not like lifting herself up like from the ground really. But she’s kinda like, she rolls over and her face is in the blanket. You’re kinda like oh my God, like what if she suffocates.

Note: After this call I asked, and Chrystal said that Ellie was not even close to rolling over at all.

She’s such a sweet kid. Oh my God. I love this baby so much. Yeah, I mean, I’m sorry if I act really weird on the phone. But you have to understand, it’s like, you know, if like somebody told me I’d never see Zinnia again, just, I’m not like— you’re an adult. You’re a grown woman. You could move away, like go and be happy. I would never want you to be around or in my state, country or something, if it was like any sort of umm— yeah, if it wasn’t something that was kind of healthy or positive for you. Like maybe you got an opportunity to go live in Japan. For two or five years. Maybe ten years. You know what I mean?

But if somebody told me, like, you’re never going to see Zinnia ever again, even though you’re like an adult, I would be really sad about that. For any reason. Even if it was like “Hey I’m moving, I’m never coming back,” and I knew for sure, you won’t see Zinnia for 30 years, I— again, you’re an adult. I’ve already had a chance to like get to know you, on some level.

Me: Wait. Can I ask for one clarification? Because I know you’ve just said how you give examples and people think they’re literal. I don’t want to do that on accident.

Jared: Oh

Me: So are you being told that you’ll never see Ellie again? I mean obviously that’s where my brain goes when I hear this hypothetical.

Jared: Let me say something. When I’m calling you being cryptic, that’s me as a father calling you. And I don’t feel comfortable. See, that’s what’s different about me as a father versus me as a guy that didn’t have any kids. If I’m a father, I’m still a guy who tends to overshare. I’m still the guy whose a little bit sensitive. But the difference is, uh, now that I have a child, I am having to learn how to say, “I can’t share that.” If I share that information, that’s like sensitive information about the health or the safety or the status of my child. And even if— it’s like, so it’s like— if you’re dealing with your own kids, and they’re the ones involved in any sort of situation, you feel like obligated to like only share what you have to or share what is relevant to something that needs to get done.

Like “Hey, Zinnia. Ellie’s in trouble. I need you to do xyz.” And it would be like kinda if I knew that you would do it. But I wouldn’t necessarily like share like throw stuff out there. “Hey, Ellie is sick, blah blah blah.” Like I wouldn’t— but if it’s me. “Hey Zinnia, I’m sick, can you help me get this medicine?”

You might say, “Well, no. I can’t. I’m sorry.” And I’d be like oh, okay. No big deal. And if people find out I’m sick, it’s whatever. It’s embarrassing but it’s not a huge deal. Versus some legal situation with like an infant or something.

Me: Right. I just want to say though— because like I know I’m not going anywhere. So in my head it’s like, well why is he saying this hypothetical? And then—

Jared: Well obviously. When I have a daughter. That’s exactly why I’d say something like that. For me, I’m trying to be like— I think that’s kind of a pretty clear analogy. I’m a new dad. I love my daughter. We’re talking about her. But yeah. I think she’s a funny baby. I will do think this though, she smiles a lot. I read her— I read her books like all the time.

What’s funny is I’m like… are all babies funny babies? I don’t remember. I have no idea. But I’m like, I think she’s kinda, I don’t know. I get the sense that she may have a good sense of humor. Cause she’s kinda like, she likes, I don’t know. She’s kinda like, I don’t know. I’m so biased, right? But she’s like, she’s smiley. She’s like very… you’ll see her when, or uhh, are all babies the same personality?

Me: No

Jared: How different are their personalities?

Me: Well, I don’t really know how different their personalities are but I know that they’re different.

Jared: Sure.

Me: Some, like… you’ll hear parents talk about how this kid was laughing and energetic but this other kid was so quiet and never cried. There are different things. So I guess we’ll see.

Jared: Right.

Me: Oh, I’m curious. Since she’s doing the crawling, soon hopefully she’ll be mobile, but um, is she like still doing the younger baby thing of “Oh my God, I’m not getting any sleep?” Or is she starting to sleep through the night? How has that been?

Note: By this point I was so annoyed that he kept trying to manipulate me, I was just curious how he would answer a question I already knew he had no idea what the answer was. The man wasn’t home during the nights. He wasn’t helping with the baby. And no, the divorce wasn’t filed yet either.

Jared: It depends who you ask. I mean, I’m there every day. Umm. So she’s definitely much more consistent with her sleeping. If you ask Chrystal, she’ll tell you, “This baby keeps me up every single night.” The narrative is kinda more centered— Chrystal is the center of it every single time, no matter— like even if we have a live in nanny around the clock. Or TWO live in nannies—

Me: You have two?

Jared: No. Well, now there’s the mother-in-law. And the there’s the nanny full times. Even if there’s two people full time, two people doing nothing but taking care of Ellie, somehow Chrystal’s narrative has to still have her at the center of it. Where it’s like, ‘It’s just so crazy having a daughter.’ And then that’s kind of a common theme. So any topic about “How’s your marriage Chrystal? How’s our life?” Everything involves her being in this kind of victim narrative. And that’s a conversation for a different day.

But yeah, from my perspective, babies wake up. And definitely breastfeeding our kid’s really hard. So I think Ellie wakes up once or twice. Uh, but it’s not like before where it’s just erratic. I mean, she will sleep five hours a night. I know that because, like there’s like six nights in a row where like, okay, she’s asleep at midnight. Okay? But she may wake up at 2. She wants a little bit of milk, she goes back to sleep. So it’s yeah, it’s not like she’s up. Before she was up, from like 11pm to 5am every night for the first two months. I know, because that was my shift. It was one of my shifts, right? Like I, I’m kind of a night owl. I didn’t mind it, it was nice getting that time with her, honestly.

But yeah. She’s doing really really good. But yeah, I don’t really have that much more to share. I just wanted to call you. I don’t want to always call you on some kind of like weirdo stuff, over some like “Oh my God,” like— that’s, like I’m not saying that’s not my reality at times. But it’s not my identity. I don’t relate to that. I don’t have a desire. But uh, yeah. I’ll try to send you some uh, photos of Ellie.

Oh, wait a minute! Is it dumb if, when Ellie’s with— when I’m with her, she smiles. Unlike when she’s with some people who smile at her, she doesn’t smile as much I’ve noticed. Which is kind of really, which really troubles me a little bit. But I didn’t want to overthink that. That’s a different, again that’s a different conversation. But, um, I don’t know. The book I read was saying that you should smile at the baby. Because then it helps them learn how to use their facial features, and their sense of self.

Me: Yes. That is true.

Jared: And I have somebody that looks at the baby for like three hours and never smiles at the baby once. To me, I’m saying that this goes against what the book is saying. They have to see your smile and then they can mirror back your emotions. Versus being like, you’re staring at them. That’s creepy to me. So that’s kind of like a source of conflict in my life. It doesn’t matter. And no one’s going to believe me anyways if I say that. And they’re going to say it’s because of some other reason, they’re not going to say no, it’s some other thing.

But look, uh, if a baby smiles, like consistently? Is it almost kind of naive to be like, oh, this is a happy baby? Or this baby is like more funny or smiley? Because I almost am like— I think some babies might be more chill and not smile as much. And I think they might be more curious or explore or whatever. And I do feel like maybe some babies are just smiling a lot because they like to smile back. Or in other words, I don’t know if I should take that to mean like, oh Ellie’s really happy today because every time I smile, she smiles back, she’s happy all day! Versus me being like, you know, let me look at— because normally, she takes naps at noon for example. Maybe it’s better not to think like that. Maybe she smiles because she doesn’t even know what she’s doing and it’s better to look at how much sleep she got and maybe keep an eye on that. Or her feeding. But more looking at little changes in her routine.

That’s another way to look at a kid in terms of ok, that’s how much weight they have put on. Yeah, Is there— are they seeming irritated? There’s little apps and stuff and you can focus on that. Or she’s smiling a lot today! I’m a great dad!

Me: Ok, I’m not trying to burst your bubble but I think sometimes younger babies smile when they’re a little gassy.

Jared: Exactly. That’s what I’m saying.

Me: I think around like 6 months is when they start moreso smiling or laughing because they’re happy or because especially that they find something funny. But I think that before that, i’m not too sure. Something that I found out that’s interesting is that babies don’t have perfect eyesight. Their eyesight is still developing after they’ve been bored, so that’s something interesting too. I don’t know how that factors in. But hey, I gotta get going I have to get back to work.

Jared: Love you, bye! (click)

Me: okay, bye. bye.

Call #2: October 8, 2021

Jared: “I can’t really say everything I could. But uh, she’s doing this big smear campaign. And she like calls— she thinks its funny actually. It’s really kind of a sick and twisted kind of thing. She’ll be in the other room calling these people. Like purposefully— like hey. Just showing you that this is what I do when you’re not around. It’s not like ‘he’s an asshole.’ It’s trying to get other people to look at me differently […] Sometimes to talk to you for just five minutes is good. Because I did talk to you like a month ago and say hey, my wife’s gonna be making calls. Cuz I kind of have seen her do it. I have to think pretty hard but I’ve seen her doing that a few times here or there. And I got this intuition like it seems like they’re practicing, this person is practicing for a future time when they’re going to call 30, 40, 50, 60 people and do this.

She’s saying stories in front of me that are factually not even— a place we didn’t go. Or things that never happened. Or actually you know what it was? I think it was in the marriage therapy, it was so creepy and scary. We’re in the therapy and she starts telling these stories about you know, and then Jared did this and did that. And I’m like… actually, that was you…

She really believes it though. It’s really kind of sad. But uh, anyway, yeah. Sometimes I need to check in because it’s like. That’s kind of a big like unexpected thing that’s emotionally draining so sometimes it’s good to talk to family for like five minutes. But I don’t want to feel like I’m dumping or draining– but I did like spend three, the last three, four hours with Ellie, and she’s– I think she’s sixteen and a half–

Me: Pounds? Or what?

Jared: Yeah, pounds. She seems tall but now I kinda want to double check the records because she’s been kind of fifteen sixteen pounds around for a while. Since she’s coming up on five months. So I’m sure she’s fine. I want to say maybe at four or five months they go from being more kind of like stubby chunky to being like a little bit longer and skinny. That could definitely be her. She’s– lIke her arms, so anyway.

We had a good time. I read her another book. I try to read one book a day even if its like ten minutes and uh, she’s really into peek-a-boo right now. Because like if you interact with her in certain ways, she can’t really create the interaction but you can sorta ‘Hey, peek-a-boo’ and she gets so excited. She’s laughing, she’s giggling. But if you just sorta let her sit there, she can’t– she just kinda sits there, so. It’s– and then she’ll take her nap. But she has so much energy lately. I’m like— wow. That breastmilk is really going right to her brain, it’s really cool. I feel like before, she was kinda sleeping more. I don’t know. Maybe. I hope she’s sleeping enough.

But yeah, I just wanted to call you really quick. I think for five minutes. But yeah. I’m glad I could listen to you. I’m not just here to talk about myself. I actually really prefer talking about other people or about Ellie or something to be honest but yeah. How’s everything with you? Are you doing okay?

Note: The rest of the call is pure small talk. But I’m uploading the whole thing as I had already missed recording the beginning of it. If anything, his affect and how it changes over the next four days is interesting even if the rest of the content is not.

Call #3: October 12, 2021

Me: Hey, can you hear me?

Jared: How is your day going today?

Me: Oh I’m good. Pretty good. Went to trader joe’s this morning, got some of my favorite snacks.

Jared: Funny. Yeah, I was in Trader Joe’s. I went to (??)

Me: Oh, that’s really funny. You still sound a little bit muffled. I know you said that the phone is wonky but–

Jared: Really? Interesting. Muffled. Ok, maybe now is better? I don’t– just let me know if it gets better because it’s kind of a new— now? Now is better.

Me: Yeah. You sound good now. 

Jared: Oh, ok. Cool. 

Me: So yeah, we got interrupted earlier but you were telling me that you’ve been talking to the academic advisor at Berkeley?

Jared: Yeah, I’m just checking in with you because sometimes, I don’t know about you, but dealing with really like a really stressful severe situation involving my kid… I mean,  it’s pretty intense, so. And it’s hard. Sometimes there’s not really a way to talk about it [unintelligible] but talking to someone it can help a lot and even just chit chat. Yeah, I did, I talked to them and yeah, they’re gonna— I’m downloading these letters they gave me. Huh. Weird format. Weird. Strange format. Tdf? But yeah I’m downloading these letters right now.

I have final exams tomorrow and they gave me some letters to send to my professors to ask if they had any alternate dates because my family situation was destabilized by a person with very bad mental illness.

Me: Wait, it cut out a little bit. You said my family, what?

Jared: Yeah, to you know. The school counselors gave me some letters to–

Me: To give to your teachers.

Jared: Yeah. That doesn’t mean they’ll guarantee it, I mean, this is the day before the final exams. They might not even see the email. But they gave these to me last night and they said just send them off. You never know. Two exams. One’s Thursday, one’s Friday.

And yeah. It’s really tough, you know? I almost called you last night but I was like eh, probably better not to. It’s too emotional. Because it’s like, it’s one thing if there’s something that can be done. If not, sometimes it’s better to just keep it casual because that’s more helpful for me than me being like emotional drained and pouring my heart out because I’m already like really stressed out so if the conversation is sort of gut wrenching and all this stuff, and I’m being like super open but then if at the end of it I’m feeling like so emotionally drained that I need to lay down for two hours, instead of take care of my things that are more urgent (sniffs), it’s probably not the best thing, so. Yeah, I’m trying to download these letters.  I don’t know what’s up with the weird format. They didn’t do .pdf

Me: It’s not a .pdf? What is it?

Jared: It’s like an rf? I guess I have to go to print. So if I save it, it’s not good. But if I print. Print as pdf? Yes. I think it’s ok. So yeah, I need to get these off.

Yeah, it’s really tough. It’s tough being married to someone who sort of has bad intentions and doesn’t care about their own child. It’s almost unbelievable. And no one would believe me. But yeah I mean. Am I safe to assume that when I’m sharing things with you, that it would be pretty discreet? Because all it would take would be for you to share with your mom some of the things I’m saying, and it could potentially do a lot of harm to my kid (sniffs) because yeah, my wife is preparing this legal action based upon false accusations. She’s trying to estrange me from my kid. She’s doing it because she’s just very malicious and uh, she doesn’t really care about her own kid, which is sick.

But the more information— like if you share with your mom, because this already happened two or three different times where I’ve shared. And you’re basically one of the only people I talk to in this moment because when I share something like ‘Hey, my wife is telling me she’s going to put these false charges on me, she’s multiple times telling me she’s going to call the cops screaming out the window and she’s going to kind of call the cops and lie and try to get me in jail.’

And if I’m sharing that with family members, they think it’s funny actually. I’m realizing that in our family we have a lot of sadistic people who are pretending be very caring. And one of the tell tale signs of these people I’m realizing finally is whenever you share something with these people that’s a little more personal or sensitive or vulnerable, that could kind of compromise you, they always insist you share more details every time and they say they need more details because it will help them, give them the chance to help you more. But the reality is that they enjoy your suffering (sniffs). I didn’t know that your mom was like that, [redacted], or a lot of other people. But it’s ok. I’m not judging them. Sometimes people have dealt with abuse and that's how the cycle is perpetuated is that they take on traits of the abuser where they themselves pretend to have a narrative where they’re the victim. But the reality is actually they ended up taking on more traits of all sorts of the abuser mentality actually, which is kind of sad.

But anyway, yeah. I’m assuming that when I share something with you, your mom doesn’t get the message. Because two or three times already, different siblings of mine have shared little details like oh, I’m going to talk to a lawyer. They immediately shared it with my wife and compromised my ability to defend my freedom in court because they thought it was funny. They immediately called her, texted her saying, Oh Jared says he is going to talk to a lawyer too. Jared is saying that he knows that you’re violent or whatever. And every single time, it’s hurt my ability to defend myself. 

Does what I’m saying make some logical sense to you? Like if you told me someone did something to you, and I called that person, and shared what you told me, You may feel like wow. That’s really hurtful. Because maybe you were trying to take it to court. Maybe you had a lawyer ready. Maybe you were trying to defend yourself from an abusive workplace or school or whatever environment (sniffs), and now you’re sort of giving the person abusing you this information that they can now use to get their case ready or do whatever they’re going to do next to you. Does that make any kind of sense what I’m saying? Or not really?

Me: I could definitely see how that’s hurtful, especially if you believe that you can confide in somebody. I think that hearing that different people in our family would be laughing, that’s something kind of difficult to hear I guess because it contradicts my personal experience but I’m not saying it didn’t happen to you. Does that make sense?

Him: Yeah. That’s what’s different  with me now is that I have a kid too. So before, I didn’t mind if everyone has this narrative of hold on, what you’re saying isn’t a big deal. It didn’t matter as much. But if I’m sharing something that’s very sensitive and has to do with my child’s safety, as a parent I not have a different expectation. So when your mom tells me and I say “Hey, there’s this thing about Ellie. Please be discreet about it. I’m just calling because I’m in a city I’m not familiar with, and I need some support of some kind. Not emotional support. Maybe I need help. Can someone google something for me? I need you to be really discreet. I don’t have access to a computer. I’m some miles from my home and I don’t know this area. I’m trying to do it on my cell phone but I need you to search something for me, that kind of thing.” Basic stuff. And then um that person is saying yeah, can you keep that discreet? “For sure, yeah, no worries.”And they’re sharing it with my wife or with other people.

As a parent, see before it wouldn't matter as much, but as a parent it’s like I have to look out for my kid’s best interest. And that’s when everything transformed for me. When I became a parent was like hey, [Redacted] I can’t sort of talk about you and how hard your life is, because I usually do that, and every single time I talk to you, I’m supportive. And every time I talk to her (sniffs) you know, I just have the same little script. “You’re like a supermom. Being a mom is the hardest.” 

Even if I say something about me being in business school, the next word out of my mouth is “Yeah, but just so we’re clear, being a mom is the hardest job on the planet.” You know, I’m always saying this stuff to her every single time., a thousand times in a row that I talk to her. And we never have any disagreement, haven’t in years, because every time I’m in sort of this younger brother adulating and praising his sister who can do no wrong sort of thing (sniffs). Which I don’t mind doing. I mean, but then she says, “Oh it’s so hard having kids. I’m so stressed out, but you know me, I’m fighting through it.” This story narrative where she’s at the center of everything (sniffs). 

And I told her hey, you know, I’ve called and asked you how your kids are doing a hundred times, you know, a thousand times over the last fifteen years. I’m a parent too finally and I’m dealing with some things with my kid, I’ve got a question to ask, there’s this thing about Ellie, and her immediate response is “Hold on, I still want to talk about me.” 

“No no no, this is really urgent. I need to help Ellie. There’s some stuff going on. After all these years, this is just the one time where I need to be able to talk for five minutes about my own child. Just to have the same conversation I’ve had with you a thousand times, I want to have that.”

Cuz it’s like as a parent, you have limited time. You have to pick this up, email, do this. Hey, my kid’s sick. My kid’s in danger. My kid’s this. You don’t have an hour to feed the other person’s ego or listen to them go, ‘Oh, hold on. I don’t really want to hear about Ellie. I kind of still want to talk about me.’ Yeah, it goes a lot deeper and we don’t have to get into that. 

Okay, let’s see. I have one letter… Two letters. So yeah. I have to email the school (sniffs). The reason I’m calling is– so yeah. Don’t tell your her anything, [Redacted], or [Redacted] if you can believe it. I have a lot more examples but I’d have to sit for hours to explain. 

Me: [Redacted]? I always found [Redacted] to be a very caring person.

Jared: As a general– well, yeah. Everybody can be bribed. My wife loves giving expensive gifts. 

Me: Oh wow.

Jared: She’ll give someone $3000 cash just to have that person sort of maybe share information with her. Like if you knew certain things about me, she happily, Chrystal happily would send you 15, 2500 car repair. ‘Girl, I got the engine for you.’ You’ll never feel so– She’ll make you feel so special, like you never have felt so special and then next thing you know she’ll say bad stuff about me. And you’ll feel conflicted. This person is so nice to me. And that’s more important than my friendship with them, my uncle’s ability to see his kid. Even if you knew she was saying lies about me. Even if you knew she was breaking apart my family, you still would– most people would still be conflicted.

Like oh my God, this person, she’s promising me, like if she promised you… Like for you, let’s say you’re at some job where you really wish you had $3,000 to invest in some new start up. Or maybe you need $5,000 to you know, if you had that money you could go to New York for some big interview at some organization and you always dreamed of working there, you know what I mean? She’ll find out very quickly what your desire and  your wish is. And some of it will come true. She’ll help you in the short term, but then in a year or two, once she’s done using you for whatever reason, information, or she may use people just to hurt me. Sadly, she does that kind of thing a lot too. She thinks that kind of thing is funny. Like, watch. I’m gonna have your family members spend more time with your own kid than you are. She thinks that’s— that’s sadism. It’ a different kind of thing. And then when she’s done though, you won’t hear from her for five years. You’re like wait what happened, I thought you were going to… That’s the difference between someone who really cares for somebody and somebody who has this uh…

But anyway, so look, I’m downloading these three letters. I’m gonna send them out. I’m gonna send them out and I’m gonna request (sniffs)… I’m gonna let the professors know I have some things going on. I have a letter from the school’s therapist. I’m going to let them know, I’m going to ask them, say hey, I’m reaching out… Ehmmm…

[Typing an email draft]: Good afternoon. Um. Is there an alternate test date which I could take the final exam?

Yeah. She’s nothing like you know. The person you think you met? Totally different in private. 100,000%. I don’t even care about it for my sake. The problem is the way she treats my kid (sniffs). And uh, if I share with you, you won’t believe it. I wouldn’t believe it either. It took me three years to see the other side of this person. But yeah. She doesn’t feel. She’s uhh— I have to be really careful what I share with people, what I do because the problem is that I didn’t mind if she treated me some kind of way. She has this narrative that she wants to put out there how it’s me and her and how we get along. Actually, it has nothing to do with that.

The conflict really is (sniffs) how she treats our kid. And it’s really important that no one knows that. Because what she’s doing right now is that she’s kind of calling 50, 100 different people, mutual friends. And eventually she’ll message some family (sniffs). She pushes it as far as she can go so if you told her that you believed I was malicious or something, she would say ‘Yeah, he is.’ As much as you would believe is how much she’ll say I said or did. The story is for whoever she’s talking to (sniffs).

And then the narrative about it being me and her, that’s just to distract from the reality. The reality is that this person didn’t have any issues with me. I do whatever they said. I’m pretty much a doormat. I say ‘Yes honey’ and then do it (sniffs). I’m a pretty easygoing person. I’m not the kind of person where you would wake up one day and just be like “oh, I hate this person. I’m so unhappy. It’s all his fault.” That doesn’t even make sense (sniffs). Because I’m pretty easygoing and you know, if someone wants to do something, okay yeah let’s do that or I’ll support that, or whatever. Or, I’ll take the baby. You don’t need to take care of the kid. I love to take care of the kid because she’s my kid.

The thing with her narrative that’s going to come out eventually, and again, please don’t share this with anybody because it would really destroy my legal case, but it’s also hard for me if I can’t tell a single person (sniffs). So I’m not speaking to mostly anybody in our whole entire family. I just can’t. I can’t. I already got burned several times (sniffs). But yeah, the reality is that she doesn’t care about our kid. And so by her sort of running off, it’s not about her running from me. It’s her running– um (sniffs), basically, I wasn’t where the problem was…

It’s one thing if someone’s yelling and screaming, but it’s another thing if she’s ignoring our own kid. So she doesn’t smile at our baby. She just stares at our kid and whines about our kid. The problem with that is that Ellie’s only five months old, her brain is developing. So it’s important for her ability to formulate– hold on one second. I think I might be getting a call about a medicine or… 

Me: Oh, you want to call me back? Or should I wait on hold? It’s me, Zinnia. I’m still here.

Jared: Okay. Well yeah, that’s the reality. That basically neglecting a kid at that young an age 5 months can do a lot of– there’s a good chance it’ll do a lot of developmental damage to them. Ellie’s smiling, she wants to interact, and (sniffs) Chrystal has some really deep psychological (sniffs) issues (pauses). Can you still hear me?

And so um, you know, having a 5 month old around strangers. She wants to take the kid away from me and leave it with a full time nanny. She doesn’t like spending time with Ellie. That’s the dirty secret. That’s the reason I can’t say– I’m not saying anything (sniffs). Because it’s the best thing I need to do. And again, don’t talk to anyone, please for the love of God, if you care about my daughter don’t do that (sniffs), umm… the best thing I can let her do is let her keep trying to— she must have called 50 different friends or something.

Telling them about how I mistreated her and it’s all just lies. She retells stories where she was actually the aggressor and it’s really sad and it’s almost like with her mental illness she really needs the story partially which is really sad but it is convincing (sniffs). But she’ll describe how I chased her around the house from room to room, which has never happened one time, but she’s done that to me countless times and I got to the point where I was like ‘Hey, this is really crazy’ (sniffs) but um, but yeah. It’s all an act. It’s all a charade.

The smiling person in public, totally different in private. Once the guest leaves, her face goes blank. She shows no emotions. And when you meet her for those two hours, she’s smiling and she mirrors emotions back. But she doesn’t feel emotions for anybody. So if you tell her ‘Oh my God, hey it’s me Zinnia, I’m working on an art project,” she’ll smile at you. She practices how to do this. She’ll mirror whatever you say back to you and she’ll make you feel special. ‘Oh, art is so awesome! It’s amazing that you’re trying to do this artwork, wow Zinnia.’ Whatever you’re sharing, she’ll affirm that in a way that will make you feel like you’re so special. And the moment you leave the room, she is emotionless, expressionless for hours (sniff). And it’s scary. And I’ve seen it in movies and I’ve never thought I’d see it in real life.

And so the problem is her treating our child like that can do a lot of different damage to Ellie’s development, to her brain development, because when Ellie is learning how to do facial expressions. Ellie’s doing (sniffs) umm she’s reaching out, she needs someone to reach back. She needs someone to smile at her because that eye contact is how she learns about the idea of like herself and who she is. And also who other people are. I am here, Daddy’s there. This is my arm, this is Mommy’s arm. And that’s a process that’s like really critical right now that she gets a chance to experience. And so a baby that’s just left in a cradle or whatever, a baby that’s held by their mom but the mom never says a single word to the baby or smiles, or never makes eye contact with the baby, but does hold the baby on their chest like a purse or like an accessory, it actually does do irreversible damage.

And that’s the scary reality about why, one of these I have to send this letter [to my professors] to say I’ve been dealing with some urgent family matters and so yeah, I’m going to ask them if they have an alternate date [for the final]. And we’ll see. Maybe one or two of them do. Maybe some don’t. But yeah, it’s really time consuming but yeah it’ll be fine. It’ll be fine. It’s slowly coming around the corner.

Even talking about it has me so emotional that the last three weeks I wasn’t even able to talk about it. I mean it’s just my kid. It’s a very sensitive– Ellie’s a very sensitive topic but I’m slowly coming to the point where even now I can feel the stress and emotions right. So

Me: Are you thinking about what the academic advisor said? Are you kind of considering taking a little break? I know you want this so bad with school. I’m not just saying you give it up, but is that something that you think might be helpful or you’re not really thinking about that?

Jared: So, can you just confirm what I asked earlier though? Is this a private conversation? Or is this like… I’m not judging you. For a lot of people they almost can’t resist the urge. Because you’re talking to your mom or some other… who knows. “[Redacted], [Redacted] whoever, it’s like Jared shared with me x, y, and z.” Most people can’t resist that to be honest with you. But I’m hoping you’re the exception to that.

Me: I… don’t… If you’re asking about it, I don’t really think that I’m as close to different family members as you might think. I mean, I don’t know the last time I talked to you know [Redacted]. Obviously I talk to my mom, or I see her at least when uh, I go visit the kids, but—

Jared: I’m going to take that as a yes. But yeah. I’m not talking to any cousin, brother, sister. Even my own mom. I can’t. I need a chance to kind of gather myself for a few weeks and talk to my lawyers and stuff. And it’s critical that I have that time because I didn’t know, I didn’t know that when we got to this new city (sniffs), that Chrystal would look at me and say all these nasty things and say, “Hey. Pack your stuff. Get out of here. I don’t want to see you finish your graduate program because I need you to understand that you’ll never be a doctor like me.” And I don’t care about that stuff. That was like really unexpected and really toxic and sort of malicious (sniffs). But yeah, the idea that, you know, when I smile at my kid, she finds it disturbing because she’s mentally ill, that’s something that is different.

So, like, if someone’s depressed, a depressed person might just say hey, that person’s depressed. That’s not something that’s like– that can be different reasons. That person is still um, uh, that person shouldn’t be like judged necessarily. Like they’re in the other room, they’re depressed. It goes on. You figure it out, no one’s perfect.

But um, when I’m at the heart of the issue, it’s like we have a new baby. We’re in a new city. Everything’s seeming to be just like we said. Just like she said she wanted for years. And then I’m holding the baby and she says “Hey, you’re not allowed to compliment the baby.” That’s something– I thought she was joking. I’m not allowed to compliment the baby?

Me: What??

Jared: Well. This is the mental illness part. This is the part where usually I have to calm down because I’m a parent and most people? It’s too much to believe it (sniffs). So, this is the part where I have to calm myself down.

Because it’s really sensitive to share this kind of thing. But when she’s telling me (sniffs)… This is not about me and her. This is not about our relationship. This is not about how she treats me. Really she’ll try to tell you that (sniffs), but really it’s about how she treats our kid. That’s the only thing it’s really about (sniffs), well yeah. She told me she doesn’t really like me complimenting Ellie. She goes into a rage when I step outside because I complimented our daughter. This person is really a really sick person and she’s really good at pretending not to be. So I just really need some time to gather myself and just keep what I’m sharing with you very private.

Me: Ok. I understand.

Jared: But yeah, it was scary. I thought she was kidding. I thought she was joking. Of course, right. It’s like if someone told me if I can’t smile when I’m seeing my niece Zinnia. Can you imagine? And you’re an adult. Imagine if– my actual daughter is only four months old. RIght?

This is my chance. I’m a dad, I waited all those years. Ellie’s a little kid. Now I’m just holding the baby (sniffs) and she says “No, you’re not allowed to compliment the baby. You need to be giving those compliments to me.”

Me: (quiet uncomfortable laughter)

Jared: So now, what I’m describing to you, most people would assume that’s just a one-time thing, maybe that person’s having a bad day. That’s not what I’m saying. This happened day after day after day (sniffs) and she proceeded to throw my things outside. She proceeded to tell me that because I’m giving this attention, any attention to the baby, “Hey Ellie, you’re a beautiful baby. Hey mom, I love you too. Chrystal you’re doing great sweetie. I love you too. But hey Ellie, how you doing sweetie? I love you. You’re gonna be good one day.”

She went into a rage every time. She started throwing my things out day after day. Throwing my things outside. She told me I’m not allowed to study in the house. It was very confusing. It took me a couple months online to figure out what the fuck’s going on with this person (sniffs) like what kind of person, what kind of a sane person would do that? And this is so different from the same person I thought I was married to. And so I’m smiling at the baby, that makes her go into a rage as well.

But she’s really— can you see why it’s very important that I‘m really kind of discreet about this and so that your mom doesn’t share? Because your mom already told her, or it was [Redacted] or somebody. [Redacted], [Redacted], your mom, I tried to tell them that she attacked me five different times. Physically, I was unconscious, and the baby was right there. and I said “Hey, I’m in a new city (sniffs) and I need you guys not to share this because I’m scared for my kid. I don’t care about her hitting me, I’m scared for what kind of person is that violent. How much danger is my kid in? I just need some basic help. She’s just tracking my phone calls, my credit cards, my texts. I’m on a different phone now so now I can be a little more open but I’m scared. I’m telling you this right now but I’m scared to tell you this right now and it may be a small mistake.” 

But yeah, then [Redacted], [Redacted] or whoever it was (sniffs) they hung up the phone with me, they called Chrystal and said “Hey, Jared said that you were violent. And he’s trying to get you on videotape the next time you do it because you assaulted him like four or five times and he’s scared for the kid.”

And that was a very big moment in my life where I realized that a lot of people in our family, they act like they’re your friend but they’re very malicious. Because by them telling my wife that I thought my kid was in danger, she told me. She named who it was. I’m not saying that your mom was necessarily her, but [Redacted] or [Redacted]. I’ll talk to them a year down the road. But I never ever want to talk to them– Please never share anything about me with anyone— any of these people. Even [Redacted], whoever, or [Redacted] Share nothing about me (sniffs).

You never talked to me. They ask how I’m doing? I’m begging you, for the sake of my kid. Just say, “Jared? I have not talked to him in months. If you want to talk to him, you should reach out to him.” Because what happened is I went in the house and Chrystal turned to me and said “[Redacted] and [Redacted] told me about that conversation you had with them  where you said that I hit you and you’re trying to get me on videotape. Look at the ceiling. Look around. Do you see that? (sniffs)” We were standing in the kitchen and she said, “I’ve installed four surveillance cameras. Large ones. Now that I know you’re recording, I’m recording too.” She told me, “I’m a doctor. You’re not. I’m letting you know. You’re a man. Who do you think is going to believe you? It’s my word against yours.”

So that’s the actual nature of what, who I’m dealing with. But she’s very charismatic if you meet her in person. She’ll buy you gifts. She’ll tell you, “Zinnia, you’re the best ever.” And because of that, people can’t imagine. What I’m saying is that people are laughing so that they can share with her, and my kid’s in danger. To me it’s like a really serious topic. I don’t care about what she did to me but um it happened multiple times. 

Does what I’m sharing maybe shine a little light on why maybe when we talked before I was really trying to—

Me: Definitely.

Jared: Oh, also too, she hacked my phone. The phone I was using, she was listening to calls.

Me: How could you tell? Because that’s something—-

Jared: (Keeps interrupting me, will not let me talk) Let me answer that later. Because once I go down this rabbit hole, I’ll sit for two hours, but–

Me: I was just going to say that I feel like that’s something I see in movies but haven’t personally thought could be done to me so that’s why I asked. But that’s not important.

Jared: Yeah, we’ll get into that. There’s a lot of other things. But um, yeah. So I’m sending these emails today to let the (sniffs) (deep breath) professors know. And there’s no guarantee. But if I just email them out, the therapist was like, “Hey, a lot of people experiencing what you are, they would have just dropped and taken a year off of the program.”

 And I think you mentioned that. Well why don’t you take some time off? But here’s the trick. One of the reasons that she’s sabotaging my schooling specifically, is that she told me. Whenever I had a job interview for grad school (sniffs), and even when I started my first day, she just threw my stuff out. I was so confused. What do you mean? She’s messaging me threateningly, like at my first day of Berkeley.

“When you come home, your stuff will be— Me and Ellie will have left the state. I’m taking her to Texas. I’m getting a divorce. I’ve decided I don’t like being around this. I don’t like being around you.”

Out of the blue. This is not like something she was talking about three months ago or something at all (sniffs) or six months ago, whatever. She waited until she had my first day of class and part of that is a control thing. And that’s when you get into the controlling, abusive relationship, where the person wants to control what you wear, what you do. They isolate you from your family. And you are scared, for good reason. And you can’t share what you’re going through. And so if I take a time off from the program, one of the reasons she’s attacking my schooling and also my ability to um— like when I had my interviews she woke me up at two in the morning, three in the morning, yelling at me.

“Why are you yelling at me? I’m laying in the bed. I have an interview, at 7am I have an interview for a job that pays $130,000. For the past two years, you kept telling me I’m not doing enough and I felt guilty. But I told you yeah, I do want to do more. I do want to do grad school one day.”

She told me, “You gotta get a Master’s degree.” Kinda that kinda thing. But under the guise of kind of pushing me. “I’m just pushing you to do better.” And I thought well, you’re over the top a little bit. If you’re saying well, you need to have a Master’s degree. You don’t have a job. That kind of stuff again and again is a little bit much. But I’m not like a sensitive person in terms of that stuff. I’m a people pleaser. So I’m like well, yeah, I do want to get a Master’s degree one day. You know, it’s fine, whatever. 

And then when I was showing up to the interview, when I was showing to get my Master’s degree, I had an interview for a $130,000 job. On that day, two or three different interviews, every day I had an interview, she’d wake me up the night before at two or three in the morning. She’d just be yelling, standing over me until I woke up. Basically starting my day by throwing my stuff outside. My first day, one of my first days at Berkeley she actually grabbed my car keys and hid them.

She said ‘I’m going to make you two hours late.’ I was so confused. But one of the reasons why me stepping away for a year isn’t the best solution is that all of these things like me doing well on my finals (sniffs), me getting these interviews and jobs, they actually make me able to do better to protect Ellie and it’s one of the things I can do to ensure that Ellie isn’t basically a victim of abuse.

Because from their perspective, Ellie is like a house servant. Ellie is something that sits around like (sniffs) their whole thing is that she has no individuality. So they kind of want to break her— she’s five months old. They kind of want to break down her independence. Normally for kids it’s like hey look, my kid’s a little different. They smile, they’re maybe kind of more of a funny baby or sometimes there are babies who like to read books. Their personality starts to come out.

But her mental illness is about her stripping Ellie of any individuality because Ellie’s main purpose is to serve as a sort of a, uh— her job is to give mom attention. That’s the main focus of the kid. Her whole existence is based on her sort of, even as a baby, Ellie’s supposed to— it’s all really scary stuff. Another day we’ll go more in depth. It’s almost unbelievable. It’s almost like it’s better if I don’t even share more. I could go on and on about this. But yeah, basically it’ll be irreversible damage to Ellie. Like for example, Ellie’s crying, she’ll be like “Let her cry.” Ellie’s tired? “Well, Ellie’s tired but it makes me feel good after work so I’m going to hold her anyways.” Ellie’s smiling? “Well, I don’t like when smiles because I don’t feel those emotions. So Ellie, don’t smile. No one’s smiling today.”

These are subtle things but if you kind of have seen Ellie or if you’ve recently held a baby in your arms, you see how responsive they are. Every day, they’re learning something. Everyday they’re learning about something. Like how to like grab something, how to interact with their environment. They’re learning how to make different sounds. They might learn a vowel. They can’t talk but they’re learning maybe how to laugh.

So if you actually purposefully are blocking the child from having that experience, it’s much closer to what you expect from a child that was maybe abandoned or in an abandoned building, or the parent is a drug addict. Because even if people have a drug problem, they still might not, might at least do the drugs in the other room. They might go check on the kid and spend time with the kid. But I’d say those first couple years— I need to go and do some more research about it. The first like three years… at least the first six months to a year, having that kid kind of not in fear. So Ellie’s in fear because mom’s yelling all the time and she’s only five months, that’s actually going to do more damage than if she’s five years old. If your parents argued in the other room and you’re five, that’s different than someone yelling at you and you’re five months old. 

Me: That’s true. I learned about that in– I don’t know if I ever told you how I did domestic violence advocate training last year. But yeah, that was something they did discuss with us.

Jared: Oh really? What did they share about that?

Me: Just that babies are a little bit more of a sponge than we might think. Because a lot of times people think that babies aren’t going to remember early stuff, but that when it comes to child development, babies are more aware than we might automatically assume.

Jared: Yeah. That’s partially why Chrystal’s family— you know, mental illness where the person has depression or anxiety, part of that’s just genetic. Part of that’s by chance, you know what I mean? I don’t judge people. The issue with Chrystal’s brand of mental illness and her family members’ its based in this sort of infant age neglect of children and the problem is the issues it causes are beyond therapy.

So one thing that her, her mother, and her brother all have in common, is that they all sort of in public (sniffs)— I don’t want to get into the whole long version of it but basically, you know, there’s a lot of um like personality instability from dealing with this sort of early, newborn abuse. So that person, in public, can kind of smile, they can be really charismatic for two hours, three hours. Then each night, with someone very unusual let’s say Chrystal or her mom, who is very similar in that way even though it’s a little different, is they’ll sit there on the couch by themself and just be crying.

Like their actual– there’s something about the root, the core of their person like who they are and like their identity and how they see themselves, they’re very broken. That even like I’m thinking from my perspective, I have this PTSD, this upbringing that I had (sniffs) well at least I have memories of experiencing certain things and I can try to talk to a therapist and there’s treatments and things like that.

But this is a little different. This is sort of like sort of more close to someone who has like two different personalities. And so the Cobi persona is the one that I met and I thought was real, and I found out later that Cobi is not a real person. Chrystal is a real person and Chrystal is very different than anybody realized. So when she’s alone, she like (unintelligible), she’s someone who jumps back and forth. It’s scary. It’s almost like a person who, I don’t want to label her bipolar, but imagine a person who you can leave her alone in a room and they’ll start crying and shaking uncontrollably for no reason. Maybe saying things out loud that are very negative, very toxic about themself or whatever’s around them.

And it’s a person who you would think wow, this person is uh— you know, it’s  like– really strange. I think I’m going a little bit too off topic for this conversation. But um. Yeah. So the problem is that those people are very abusive to small children. So that’s basically the heart of the issue. Because um, they lack empathy. They lack empathy. And the problem with people whose quote, unquote ‘condition’ involves them having no empathy, is they enjoy– they get satisfaction and a  sense of purpose like on a deep level from seeing people around them in pain.

That’s what makes them so, that’s what makes it so don’t share anything I’m telling you. That’s what makes it so– it’s hard. I shouldn’t be sharing too much. I shouldn’t talk about this too much because like the lawyer has to figure this out down the road (sniffs). But even if like, God forbid, imagine if you were babysitting [Redacted] or something like that. Imagine you were sort of in a deep state of you know what they call it, like a fugue state or whatever. When people have a detachment from reality.

Imagine if you were detached from reality and the only thing that made you feel like you were in this dimension, on planet Earth, was hurting [Redacted]. Hurting him. That’s the danger. Maybe that will give you like the actual danger level and why we need to be discreet and a hush hush thing. I’m just tired of saying that because it’s not really (sniffs)--- but yeah I don’t mind you knowing but you’re the only person I trust. Maybe [Redacted]. But aside from the two of you, a lot of people in our family are numb. And they would actually maybe tell my wife and the only thing I have– didn’t know she had all this issue– the only thing I have in my favor is that she doesn’t totally know the full extent of what I know. That’s the only thing that might buy me an extra few weeks, and extra month, until I meet with the lawyers. Um, (sniffs) is she doesn’t totally know. Which is my only advantage, one of the only things that I can use.

But yeah. Imagine now, [Redacted], imagine [Redacted] is under your care. And you know, maybe you guys are kids or whatever. And you know, you’re just constantly harassing him around the clock and you’re getting joy out of that. So you’re smiling. [Redacted] is crying and saying “Why are you doing this to me?” And you’re saying, “I’m doing this to you because I like to see you suffer.” (sniffs). You’re pushing him around, you’re screaming at him. Maybe you find something he’s insecure about because he’s five years old, whatever. Maybe he’s fifteen like he is now. You just keep saying that again and again. “Yeah [Redacted], you are right. You are ugly. Your nose is ugly. Your face is ugly.”

And that is part of not just like a choice once in a while (sniffs), but imagine if that was something that was so fundamental to who you are. That’s like getting into the broken ego thing and the broken sense of self, it’s very different from other mental illnesses. Because other mental illness is like, yeah I had this brother, he abused me, or whatever. And it’s like well once a week, he said this bad thing to me.

That’s different from a person whose identity is tied to this sadistic piece. So now, everyday, ten times a day, you’re harassing this person [Redacted] to the point that he loses his sense of self. And ends up with permanent damage versus saying hey, I had a really shitty childhood.

Is anything I’m saying make any sense? And just in a– just so— in a logical (sniffs). Assuming what I‘m saying has some truth to it. Assuming I’m not just lying, making up all these things. Assuming there’s some truth to it, is some of the things I’ve shared or sharing make some sense? Assuming that I’m— assuming that it’s truthful. Does it fit together in a way? Does it paint a picture in a way? Is it something that your mind can relate on more of an intellectual level? Like I kind of understand that. I understand what that means.

Me: I think on an intellectual level I’m thinking things you know on a more, “Oh imagine if you felt this or that.” That’s so far from how I ever have felt that that was difficult to put myself in shoes like that. But, um. I’m listening. I’m listening intently. I’m on pins and needles.

Jared: Well I’ll, I’ll just say this and then I’ll go. Can you promi– I hate to do this for the fifth time. Can you just promise me that what I’m sharing to you, you’re not going to tell your mom or anyone in our family? Because– can you do that? Or you’re  not going to– at least for now. Give me time to get the lawyer a few more times.

Me: Yes.

Jared: Okay. Okay. I’ll trust you with that. But, um. There’s some people in our family– I used to think… I don’t really want to get all off topic here because again, I have finals tomorrow, I’m trying to do these emails and all this stuff. But it is important to do a check in. These things I’m sharing with you, are on like a really deep level, and for me to hold this inside for like the last eight weeks, it’s been really painful for me. And it’s not my goal here to share what I’m feeling to make you feel bad. It’s a lot for me to just carry by myself. In terms of, it’s really sad.

I tried to share a certain piece of this with family members and uh (sniffs), you know basically what I’m getting at is that basically [Redacted], or certain people, I had thought it was apathy. When I talk to [Redacted]. I’m not saying [Redacted] is the same as my wife. I’m not saying [Redacted] is the same as [Redacted]. Everyone is different in their own way. But I used to think that it was kind of like an apathy, right? Like hey, my family doesn’t really celebrate each other that much. They don’t care that much (sniffs). But what I realized, is that uh, it’s actually called Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

And there’s a reason why when I met my wife, there was a familiarity there. So, in other words, I used to think that [Redacted] was this sort of really cruel person because, you know, the drugs made him like that or something. What I learned just in the last two years from my marriage is, there’s a really good chance that actually whatever drugs [Redacted] was using, actually was’t what made him cruel. And there was an apathy. Like people in our family who are like kind of apathetic. LIke it’s your birthday and nobody messages you, (sniffs) that’s not apathy. I know. It’s actually like a–basically, it’s sadistic. It’s that me– it’s like not even uh. That’s why you don’t know this too. You might graduate college and a lot of people in our family, you don’t talk to them. It’s not like they’ll tell you, “Oh I hate your guts” or “I’m jealous.” It’s that they’ll say, “Oh, well that’s kinda cool. I don’t know. I mean, have you decided what you’re going to do next? Or do you still not really know? Are you still undecided? I mean, I guess the school you went to is okay but it’s not that great.” Or, “You still don’t have any money though, huh?”

These little negative comments, it’s really harding a much darker, deeper aspect, in my view, of our family which is that (sniffs) the narcissistic personality disorder is something that has a sadistic element. So the comments, the negativity, it actually makes the other person happy. But the person will never tell you that. And years and years will go by and you’ll always wonder (sniffs), why does this family member, I don’t want to bring [Redacted] into the conversation, but the [Redacted]s of the world and all these different people, they’ll call you and then only talk about themselves. And if you share something and you’re a little bit vulnerable, they’ll also ask you questions about it.

Tell me a little bit more about that time you were depressed. Tell me more.

Like they’ll pretend that they’re an advocate for you and they care, but the reality is that the narcissistic people, they actually don’t feel empathy. They’re pretending. So… they’re actually enjoying the um– you’re sharing with you and you think they have your back and are supporting but they’re actually enjoying hearing about the more deeper, darker you go about what didn’t work out or what you’re stressed out about or why you have anxiety. And that same reason is why certain people in our family, specific people in our family have this really high anxiety level where they feel like when they talk to other people in our family, they feel drained of their energy. So, um (sniffs), anyways. I’m kinda getting off topic here.

So I have the letter [asking my teacher for an extension] typed out here. I guess I should keep it short, right?

So I say, ‘Dear Professor Whatever. Is there an alternate test date I can take the final exam? I was a victim of this whole situation.’ Sigh. (typing noises) (sniffs)

And what else? Uhhh. I think I should keep it shorter, the better, right? So basically just say "Dear Professor Whatever, is there an alternate test date which I can take the final exam? And then I could say, “I've been dealing with family issues concerning abuse.” Not highlighting more specifics. And just leave it at that right? Send it out, right? And then, I’ll let you hop off in a second. Send out three of these emails (sniffs), actually at least two. For sure two of them. Send out two emails, then spend the rest of the day studying for the one tomorrow, assuming I might not hear back. And then that’s it. And then just plan to take it tomorrow, if I hear back that there’s an alternate date, that would be great.

What do you think? Sound like a good plan? I’m trying not to blow this. Because um, if I sort of fail the test or fail out of the program, or if I kinda step away, it would just make my life more miserable. Because Chrystal says she wants to put me back in the gutter where I was before I met her and all this crazy stuff that makes no sense. It’s sick. I’m telling you, she’s sick. But uh, you know, this is my way to help Ellie. Doing good on these tests. Then next week I can talk to some companies again and try to get the job search going (sniffs). And if I can do all that, I should be able to help Ellie. I have to get through like basically like three days.

But what do you think about that? That email? Short and simple. 

Dear Professor Whatever. Is there an alternate test date which I could take the final exam? Scheduled for blah blah blah? Recently, I have experienced blah blah blah, which has been interruptive to my studies.

Me: I mean, I think it depends on what is the ‘blah blah blah’ that you type.

Jared: Yeah. The therapist told me what to write. He gave me a letter. Basically it will say you know, “Recently, I’ve been a victim of domestic abuse.” I mean, there’s no way I’d tolerate this if I didn’t have a kid with this person, but whatever. 

“Recently, I’ve been a victim of domestic abuse which has had the following negative effect…”

I see what you mean. This is a lot to do by myself. So if you can just take some time and stay on the line with me, it really is a lot to deal with at one time. Like for one person. It’s a lot. It’s really a lot.

“Recently, I’ve been a victim of domestic abuse which has had the following negative effects: unstable housing? Not having a place to live has forced me to study out of coffee shops.”

I don’t know how much I have to share… it’s kind of embarrassing. But the guy told me I just have to tell the truth and see what he [the professor] says.

“Had to study out of coffee shops.”

Uh…. Then I could say I have ADHD, untreated. Sigh. ADHD untreated.

Me: You said UNtreated? Or that you have treated?

Jared: Well, in terms of the school, they were supposed to give me accommodations. I contacted them I’d say in early September, and so they were like– they have a six or seven week backlog.

Me: Oh wow.

Jared: Yeah.

Hello?

Me: I’m here.

Jared: Ok. I’m trying to see… how do I word this? I feel bad taking up your time but honestly this is like a really important day for me because if I blow this, I could lose my entire scholarship. I could lose access to my kid. I don’t really have anyone else to talk to, so I really appreciate that.

Me: Is your scholarship like you have to maintain a certain grade point?

Jared: (not answering the question) If I took it right now, I’d get an F on the final. I’d get an F. I have three final exams. There’s one Monday, Thursday, Friday. Tomorrow, Thursday Friday. If I had to take the test now, I fail both the Wednesday and the Friday exam with a grade of an F. Guaranteed, 100% And I could tell you more at a later time to really explain like what my life has been like the last six weeks since she told me– but that would be a lot. I have to focus on getting this letter written.

But yeah, um. Just Chrystal is a compulsive liar. So that is the reason I ask you to be discreet. Because if you called her right now and even shared what I’m saying, she not only would deny a lot of the things I’m saying even though I have proof, evidence. Like I can show you actual video evidence of it or whatever. She actually would use that and she would actually create more lies, more (sniffs)-- it’s really sick to do that to somebody. But my wife’s not a normal person. She would make up even more extreme lies about me than she already has. Which is– that’s why I’m like oh my God. She’s crazy. But yeah. She told me, “No one would believe you. I’m a female doctor. No one would believe you. I know how to handle, I know how to keep my mask on.” So yeah. Pretty stressful stuff when I have a child.

If I didn’t have a kid, I’d just walk away and it would have been a funny story or whatever. But Ellie’s in that house. She told me I’m a good dad. She really did. I’ve got her on– she told me multiple times. I told her, “I’m a good dad. I’m here.” She told me, “You are a good dad. I don’t care. I do not care. You’re a good dad. You’re very attentive. I do not care at all if Ellie has a good time with you. I’m going to purposefully try to alienate you from your own child. Because that’s just the kind of person I am.” And it’s really sad for my daughter.

It’s one thing if she was a good mom and then took the kid. Like oh man, she broke my heart. This isn’t about me. This is strictly about her mistreating my daughter and she wants to leave my baby with the nanny (sniffs). She doesn’t like spending time with Ellie. She hates that Ellie gets attention. That’s her mental illness. But Ellie gets too much attention. She’s a newborn baby. She needs attention to make sure she’s okay. She can’t talk yet. She can’t even crawl yet (sniffs). But Chrystal is a sick person and she’s actually angry that Ellie is getting so much attention. When I share photos, “Here’s Ellie! Look at the photo!” It drives her nuts. Like actually angry. She’s mentally retrograde or whatever like in a really sick way. So, by taking the kid from me, well now you guys don’t get to see– you know, Ellie doesn’t get that attention. And it’s to hurt me. She’ll do that to hurt me. And to hurt Ellie. And she can now have a narrative based on her.

‘No, no, no guys. Put the attention back on me. I’m a wronged woman. Jared has mistreated me.’

So for her, getting that attention, that’s what makes her day everyday and it’s really disgusting. I don’t know (unintelligible). She’s willing to actually ruin Ellie’s chance to even spend a single minute with her dad and my time with her. Total psychopath. Not a care. I never met one in my real life. I had never really had close interactions. I’d seen them in movies.

Do you know any psychopaths?

Me: No. I mean– I don’t think I’ve met one.

Jared: I’ve seen them in movies. And I always thought it was unbelievable.

Me: Me too. Seen them in movies.

Jared: Where it’s like, ‘It was me all along! I really did the crime. The cheerleader was…’ And I always thought that was so corny, so unrealistic. There’s no way someone could really be like that. It would be so easy to spot that person. And also too, why would somebody go through all that effort just to have this whole life be a lie? LIke it doesn’t make sense. I thought it was too unrealistic.

But then you know, even when you come to visit– you come to visit. And let’s say you came to visit. Chrystal is so charismatic and the whole two hours you’re visiting, “Yeah you guys, Girl let me tell you. Being a doctor, oh my god.” If you tell Chrystal your grandma is sick, she’ll probably tell you (unintelligible), “Let me make a phone call.”

She’ll go out of her way to make you feel like you’re the most special person in the world. But then, anytime a guest would leave her house, she would go from being a smiling, charismatic person to having no emotions on her face for a few hours. Like a blank face. Like, I’d say, “Hey, are you okay? You changed drastically once the family members left.” And she says, “Well, I’m a doctor. Doctors work hard and get really tired.” So she has these excuses that she works a lot and is a doctor and is just tired. “That’s why I’m not going to show this emotion like this.” (sniffs)

She doesn’t feel anything. The smiling is fake. All the times she told you how awesome you are, she doesn’t care. She doesn’t care at all. She doesn’t have any happiness or longing to spend time with family members or whatever. It bothers her to have that. But the narrative being back off her is what gives her the fuel. They call it narcissistic fuel. That’s what gives her fuel. So you call her talking about Ellie, “Well hold on, let me talk to you about how hard it is to be a mom. Let me talk to you about how Jared is a bad person.”

It doesn’t matter if it destroys– she destroyed my life and she said that wherever Ellie is doesn’t mater. But as long as you call her, every conversation will end up being a victim narrative. And that’s what got me scary. I’m like “Hey, let’s talk about Ellie’s development. Ellie’s gotten bigger. She’s put on some weight. Let’s talk about what books we should read her.” Because she used talk about that. When you have a kid, let’s talk about what kind of college (?) because that’s what parents usually do. You kind of paint this picture in your head. You get this idea (sniffs) even if doesn’t all come true, right? You should have a vision for your kid. She’ll say, “Let’s talk about Ellie next month.” Chrystal does not do that. That’s offensive to her. Ellie does not have individuality. 

Ellie doesn’t have– she doesn’t feel love towards her own child. Ellie, for her, is just something that is used like an inanimate object that’s part of a narrative. But she has lied for years. She told me, “No, we’re going to have our baby soon. This should give you a chance to have the experience you never had growing up because your dad passed away. You’re going to be a dad in the house, while I’m working, laughing with our kid all day. Thank God I’m pregnant.”

Up until two, three months ago, she was saying that everyday. She was acting. Which is scary. And she’s very convincing at that (sniffs). And then the baby came and for her, Ellie is just part of a narrative. So she can have Ellie and leave her with a stranger, leave her with the nanny. And then she can tell people all the time everyday how hard it is being a mom. And talk about how (sniffs) Jared left me or, I’ve heard her tell a lot of different lies. And when I talk about them, it just gives her more power. Her lies are like so opposite of the reality, just change it to be the opposite. Whatever she says, usually whatever she says other people do, to her, is typically what she is doing or has done. That’s the typical rule. And that’s you know (snifs)

And then, um, okay. I think I should hop off in a second. But that letter sounds pretty good, right?

“Dear Professor, is there an alternate test date which I could take the final? It’s currently scheduled for Thursday, whatever, is currently scheduled— ” Thank you for being on the phone. This is really stressful and emotional. It’s a lot to be just doing it on my own (sniffs)

“Recently I’ve been a victim of domestic abuse and had the following effects. Not having a place to live, forcing me to study in coffee shops and the car. Uh– late at night or whatever (sniffs). Um. It’s been a significant investment of daily research figuring out my rights in order to see my daughter. ADHD Treatment.”

That should be it, right? I’m planning to show up tomorrow— what should I say after that? I’ll say “Please let me know—” Hello?

Me: I’m laying down next to the phone because honestly I’ve been given so much information. I’m listening but I’m laying down here and I don’t even know what to say next about the letter.

Jared: It’s emotional. It’s so emotionally draining it cripple– You know, Chrystal told me I decided— after the second time she sabotaged my job interview. I was like “This is it! This job pays $130,000 and it took me a year to even get in front of this company.” And that was one of the first times she threw my stuff out of the house. The day I got the interview. And when I came back in from the interview, she started screaming at me. And I was so confused. You know, the narrative she’ll tell you? That’s the mental illness right there. The narrative is, this guy Jared doesn’t do enough. Whatever you believe, she’ll tell you. She’ll tell you that I’m lazy, she’ll tell you that I don’t have any money. She’ll tell you that I don’t help her around the house, which is a lie. I cleaned for the past 90 days straight. I cooked. I cleaned. I swept. I took out the trash everyday. I even took (?) But, um, after the third–first two jobs, I was so confused because I noticed that pattern (sniffs). Every time I had interviews, sabotaging. Waking me up at three in the morning, four in the morning, yelling at me the night before. Eventually she admitted it to me. She said, “You know (sniffs), I never thought the sch— I used to always tell you I would give you the time to have a grad school degree. And I told you that you should get a grad degree or you should go to a top program. I never thought that you would actually– I never thought they would actually let you in. And, um.” She says, “I decided–” It was kind of a vindictive move. She says, “I decided that I don’t want you to get a job. To work, to support Ellie. Even a family friendly job, whatever the hours. You are not allowed to accept any job. Go there, get your degree for two years and then you work for me. You are my employee.”

The narci— you hear what I’m saying to you?

Me: I’m hearing it. I’m just also like… getting overwhelmed a little bit honestly. A lot of bit honestly.

Jared: Well we’ll cut the conversation in a second. But narcissistic personality disorder, basically, to say this last thing. At some point maybe I’ll send you a video to watch. It’s almost better if you hear this from someone else. But basically the person experiences horrific child abuse. Usually like a relaly (sniffs) and it actually prevents them from developing a normal sense of themself. So they have a split personality. They have two personalities. And that’s where the Cobi personality comes in. Such a strange mental health– strange mental health stuff. Because usually something about a person, you can kinda tell offright. This one is very unusual because a person– the new person– ego, the new identity that they take on, lacks the ability to feel.

The person never experiences like joy, happiness, things like that. Or they see someone suffering, they don’t feel anything. And so, they take on a persona and the persona they take on it takes a lot of work for them to mentally– like the Cobi persona, right? I’m this super confident person. I’m a person doing a lot, a doctor, whatever.

They take on this persona but it’s very mentally draining for them to take on this persona all day. Imagine if you had to pretend to be somebody who was a famous actor or a host of a tv show. And for everyday, to go so far outside of your actual truth. And so the way they offset this, they have to find either a child or a spouse or someone near them. It could even be a sibling or something. ANd what they do is during the day, they go out and act. They call it masking. They act out as this sort of personality and kind of hold it together. And at night, they offload all their negative emotions into a vessel, which can be actually a human being. But in their mind, every person is just an extension of themself.

So that’s why for Chrystal, she looks at Ellie saying, ‘I don’t know why you’re such a headache. I don’t know why you’re such a problem.’ She may try to tell you it’s cultural. ‘Oh yeah, that’s the Nigerian way.’ There are reasons why she is who she is.

So she’ll say, ‘Oh, in Nigeria we just are tough on our kids.’ But actually, that’s not true. But that, that’s not true. That type of abuse is not a cultural thing. So when she said, ‘Ellie’s such a headache. I can’t believe I had to carry you,’ you’re basically damaging that person. And every interaction with that person is a negative one where you share negative things. And uh, yeah.

Chrystal told me, “After your grad school, you’re not allowed to get a job. You’re going to work for me.” So she’s basically projecting all of her childhood abuse onto me. There’s no treatment. There’s no therapy that works. There’s no medication that works. It’s totally irreversible and it’s one of the hardest mental illnesses to find. LIke 1% of people maybe. But it can be different on a scale. A lot of people have narcissistic traits. A narcissistic trait, normally you think of it as that outgoing person. This is a covert—”

Me: Jared, I need to take a break from this call. I’m getting really anxious. I feel like I might have a panic attack, honestly. So I’m gonna go.”

Jared: Ok, thanks for your help—

Me: I heard everything you said but I have to go. I have to go. (I hung up on him). 

Are you reading this because you knew Jared? In depth or in passing? If so, email me at zinniamoreno@gmail.com. I would like to fill in some blanks with you and will anonymize your experience.

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“The slander against my uncle is crazy and the facts the cops are being cagey about what happen to my uncle and his daughter. Like what the news is doing is gathering bits and pieces from a mother who yes, lost a daughter, but slandering the father who isn’t here to stand up for himself so stop thinking you know the true story when its not your business. Believe me, the things I could say about the mother but I won’t slander a grieving mother.”

This was part of Jared’s pattern. Every time he brought a new woman around our family we all oooh’d and and ahhh’d about how amazing she was in contrast. He was able to maintain an aura of desirability towards the beginning before slowly but surely revealing his true colors as a manipulator and a liar. Oftentimes this included some sort of elaborate ruse as to why he suddenly was unable to provide for himself and had to rely solely on his partner financially. And when things didn’t work out, he ran her name into the mud with untrue accusations of cheating, incest, or worse.

When Jared started slandering Chrystal, it was a little different this time. He was painting himself as the victim, but had zero intentions of leaving her. This wasn’t him trying to control the narrative after a break up. He was trying to isolate her from anyone who might be able to label his behavior for what it was— abuse.

Chrystal never even saw it coming. And how could she?

The first round of calls went something like, “Look, I know you think my wife is a good person, but she’s not. Behind closed doors, she’s demented. She’s planning to call every figure in my life and tell lies about me abusing her. One of the things she’s trying to tell people is that I chased her around the bedroom, put my hands on her, then locked her out the house. Please please, if you care about me at all, block her. Don’t let her get to you. Don’t tell anyone I said this.”

You can hear three of these phone calls at the link below, though they took place a bit further down his unraveling.

He was so specific in some of the stories he claimed Chrystal would be coming to us with that it seemed more like he was just trying to get ahead of something that had actually happened. And if Chrystal was actually planning a widespread campaign to publicly slander Jared’s character, why would she tell him first?

She hadn’t actually called anyone. So we were to believe that he had been provided with advance notice of what was yet to come?

He was calling plenty of people and certainly hadn’t given her a heads up that he was going to do that.

Jared was the one on a smear campaign. He would go on to reach out to his mother, brothers and sisters, cousins, nieces and nephews, teachers, classmates, his exes, siblings’ exes, church members, social media friends, and more all with the same narrative. He was messaging people he hadn’t spoken to in years, people who had never even met Chrystal, telling them that she was a bad person, a negligent mother, and that his child was not safe from her.

This was the foundation for him to later double back and ask for thousands and thousands of dollars in order to “protect Ellie” from Chrystal. Though he only saw Ellie a few hours a week, he told everyone that he was a single father, Ellie’s primary caregiver, and that Chrystal was an abusive mother who would harm the baby if allowed additional visitation. It was quite the projection.

I was immediately suspicious of Jared’s phone calls because I’d already been alarmed by his behavior when I visited him in person a couple weeks earlier. It had also been a few weeks since he tried to accuse Chrystal of physically attacking him, when I’d seen for myself that she was in no condition to execute his claims.

It would have been one thing if he was just venting about his spouse. But the allegations Jared was making were extremely serious and there was a defenseless infant involved. While he wasn’t experiencing postpartum psychosis, I was able to think of several times a newborn died at the hands of a parent with psychosis. If that was what Jared was experiencing with his paranoia, Ellie was not safe. And if Jared was saying these things without actually believing them, that was scary for its own reasons.

People in my family were straight up blocking Chrystal without telling her. She was also abruptly removed from our family group chat. Chrystal hadn’t reached out to my larger family for help with Jared’s behavior, but he was making sure she would never be able to. Some people didn’t want to be involved in “drama.” Others thought it improper to intervene in the relationship of a married couple, though Jared had already dragged us into it. One person told me they hoped they were doing the right thing by removing themself from the situation entirely, and that hoped they didn’t see on the news the next day that Jared had done something to Chrystal.

My relationship with Chrystal had always been positive, but she wasn’t the person that Jared was making her out to be. As his niece, there was absolutely no way she would have ever reached out to me to talk about her relationship problems with my uncle. I was an adult, but there were still lines there that normally neither her or I would cross. Still I felt compelled to reach out, hoping that I could get to the bottom of what was happening and offer any help that she and Ellie might need.

That first call to Chrystal was so incredibly awkward. It was on August 29th or 30th, 2021 and completely out the blue. After some light small talk, I just dove right in and asked Chrystal how she was really doing. There was no outpour of personal details, so I was forced to explain what Jared had been up to.

Chrystal didn’t even believe me at first. Yes, Jared was acting an ass at home. He was not helping to take care of the baby, punishing Chrystal with the silent treatment for trivial things, and disappearing for days on end without telling her where he was or when he was coming back. When he got angry, he’d lock her out the bedroom or wake her up in the middle of the night. But she hadn’t made the threats he was accusing her of, nor had she witnessed any of the clandestine efforts to leave her that he was telling people about. And Chrystal may have noticed that she hadn’t heard back from any of Jared’s relatives in a while, but she had no suspicions that it was a permanent shift.

There are many reasons why people in unhealthy/abusive relationships keep quiet about what they’re experiencing. For one, they may have faith that their abusive partner will change for the better. They most likely also love their partner, even if that love is causing them pain. Another reason might be the very real fear of what their partner would do next if the secret is not kept. I asked during this conversation and Chrystal was adamant that he had not put his hands on her. But, even after he eventually did, it would take a while for her to actually admit it.

In assuming that Chrystal would publicize his behavior, Jared made a huge misstep. Her sense of normalcy had already been twisted into something unrecognizable. Abusive partners are calculated in chipping away at their victim’s sense of self. They will make you believe that you are to blame for their actions and that things would be better if only you tried harder in the relationship, if only you didn’t set them off. They’ll make you feel like a fear-filled life is all you deserve and all that the world has to offer you.

I didn’t have any concrete proof about Jared’s phone calls yet, but there was already had plenty of proof that something wasn’t right. Chrystal ended up showing me text messages that I will never ever forget, in which Jared lashed out in unbelievable ways. In one thread, he warned her that he planned to start a big fight before she went to work on Monday of the following week to “see how she liked it” followed by smiley emojis. Sometimes he would send her paragraphs of text accusing her of hiding his car keys or rooting for his downfall, vowing to get payback. He always littered these threats with passive aggressive smiley faces and thumbs up emojis, which was incredibly eerie. I was scared enough to read through them with my own therapist.

When Chrystal sent me the texts, she asked, “This isn’t normal?”

“Absolutely not!” I replied. “My partner has never scheduled an argument. If we have an issue, we just talk about it. Telling you four days in advance that he plans to start a fight before you go to work on Monday is psychological abuse. He has you living in fear for the next few days, and is purposefully causing conflict in order to sabotage your work performance. He doesn’t have to “see how you like it.” Nobody would like it. He’s showing you in advance that he plans to get pleasure from your pain.”

It was very unsettling seeing how frequently Jared gaslit Chrystal, even over basic geography. If he texted her around 10pm that he was leaving the library and on his way home, he may not have arrived back from that 30 minute drive by the time she woke up at 8am. When she asked where he had went last night, he’d pretend he did go home or act like that was just how long the drive was. Even though he was the one who had announced he was done studying for the night, he would then accuse Chrystal of being unsupportive of his education and interrupting his focus.

Another time, he got mad at Chrystal for not asking where he had been all night, as she had been asleep. He claimed that his car had broken down, he was forced to sleep in it, and she had put him in danger by not checking to see if he was okay or sending help.

Damned if she did, damned if she didn’t.

Chrystal supported that man ten billion times more than he ever deserved. She changed her entire life in accordance with his every whim. For him to go to grad school, she packed up their entire SoCal apartment by herself so that they were ready for the move, even though she was recovering from a C-section. He kept her from being able to make concrete plans for her future because even two days before moving day he hadn’t officially decided which state he would be going to school in. She had jobs pending in both. First he confirmed that they were moving to North Carolina, then a day later yanked it away and decided upon Northern California. He wasn’t a partner, he was ruling by decree.

By moving to Berkeley, Chrystal took a 75% pay cut but thought it was a small price to pay for his dreams. Chrystal also gave Jared a car and paid off $80,000 of his undergrad student loans so he could start fresh. She spent thousands of dollars on his career coaching and ADHD coaching and academic tutoring because he said he needed it. The man never had to pay a single bill in his marriage. He still had the nerve to say she was sabotaging his education out of jealousy. While Chrystal was wondering when he would come home, Jared was telling his mother that he needed to stay out all hours of the night to study because Chrystal wanted him to fail school and didn’t allow him to use the internet. He said he was too scared of Chrystal to sneak and use the home internet anyways. Meanwhile, she had set up an office area for him that remained unused.

I remember asking Chrystal if Jared might be drinking again and she had no idea what I meant by “again.” He had never told her about his past alcoholism, which seemed bizarre. At one point he was so proud of his sobriety, he had a (now privatized) YouTube channel about it. It wasn’t a secret or, I guess, it wasn’t from anyone else but her. There were many other secrets and lies in her understanding of who he was, but that one stood out the most. She kept asking, “Why didn’t anyone tell me this?” and there were two answers. First, no one could have imagined how much Jared had lied to her about basic facts. Secondly, she may have felt ingratiated into our family, but it really wasn’t genuine.

My family has not always been close in the traditional sense. The religion we grew up in had a lot to do with that, as it prevented us from having the types of celebrations that bind family members closer to one another than to any church. There was also a strict adherence to religious shunning policies that fractured the believers and separated us from the secular. Deeper than that, our family featured untreated mental illness and rampant abuse. I have many fond memories of my family, but my love for them does not overshadow my acknowledgement of the sickness in our blood.

We weren’t the family that Jared hoped to sell Chrystal, so he focused heavily on cloaking us all with the air of presentability. Before we met her, we were prepped about various topics that were off limits. The degree to which he took it seemed condescending, as if he really thought we’d introduce ourselves and then bring up the darkest of topics if we weren’t warned otherwise. Other requests were just weird. My family never celebrated Christmas, but Jared was insistent that nobody let Chrystal find out that he had grown up Christmas-less. Jared was perfectly free to celebrate it now as an adult, so what difference did it make if he had experienced it growing up or not? Why hide that part of himself? But Christmas was important to Chrystal, so he had to make sure it looked like it was important to him too. The man had never celebrated Christmas in his life and we were forbidden from acknowledging this simple truth whatsoever. Same with birthdays.

I had innocently interpreted his nervousness as a sign that he had good intentions and wanted to make a good impression. But in unraveling his countless lies, it seems more like he was working hard to mold himself into whoever he needed to be to achieve his goals, at any cost.

Thanksgiving was the only holiday my family did celebrate, though its onset had been nontraditional. Fifteen years ago or so, one of Jared’s siblings was getting out of jail around the holiday time. My grandma had asked them what they wanted to eat for their first meal, and they chose a Thanksgiving dinner. Once we started, it became a tradition and we all gathered at my grandma’s house on that day yearly.

Jared did not want Chrystal to meet the brother whose request started the annual meal so, when Thanksgiving of 2017 came around, he asked my grandma to ban him from her home. She refused. Jared was incredibly upset about this and threatened to not attend at all. Ultimately a compromise was struck in which all the typical Thanksgiving attendees met up at another relative’s house, minus my grandma and other uncle. Jared brought Chrystal and we all ate around the elephant in the room. Later on, the rest of us went to my grandma’s house for the real Thanksgiving.

That was just one example of how my family was not what it seemed like to Chrystal. She was lulled into the belief that she could count on us and that we cared about her and her daughter. Time after time, she would be disappointed.

Chrystal was frazzled by my initial call, which contrasted so much of her perception of her marriage. Jared was a difficult person to be tethered to, but most of his complaints had no basis in reality. She had no idea what a warped version of events he was sharing with anyone who would listen. For example, when he had been admitted to business school, her mother had taken him shopping for some expensive suits. They spent the day together where he tried many pieces on, left with anything he liked, and was overcome with emotion thanking her for her kind gesture. Chrystal could barely believe it when I revealed that behind their back, Jared had been telling people that his mother-in-law was crazy and had thrown out all his clothes to replace them with what she thought he should wear because she was controlling and abusive.

It was all a lot of information to take in, and a lot of information to dole out.

Divorce is an overwhelming concept for anyone, let alone weeks after making a 300 mile move with a four month old baby. And the more established Chrystal got in her new home, the more difficult it would be to pack up everything once more and move across the country where her family lived. She had already gotten her medical license in California, was practicing as a physician, and, as bad as things were at home, at least she knew where she was going to lay her head each night. All of that would be up in the air if she left.

Jared was also acting so (seemingly) uncharacteristically that there was the hope that whatever was happening with him could be remedied. There would be no going back from a divorce, which Chrystal had never imagined might happen less than two years into her marriage. Additionally, there were social and religious considerations to grapple with. Chrystal did not take the vows she made before God lightly or the decision to sever them. Even though divorce was not a common outcome in her culture, Chrystal believed her family would be supportive of her decision to leave under these conditions. She wasn’t like Jared though. As Ellie’s father, she wanted to preserve his reputation amongst her family and there wouldn’t be a way to do that if she moved forward.

I was really grateful for the small group of women came together during this time to provide support, which included a couple from my family plus Chrystal’s friends across the country. Several of them had been divorced themselves or had stories to share about life on the other side of a toxic relationship. Some had recent interactions with Jared that mirrored my own. Others had had no contact with him but were still able to serve as additional sounding boards. There were many more calls between us all over those next few days as Chrystal reconciled with the reality that she could not trust the man she married. As she learned more information about various people in Jared’s life she’d willingly brought her baby around, she became resolute that something had to give.

The following is a brief clip speaking to a family friend about Chrystal’s decision to divorce:

Transcript:

Me: Are you able to recount kind of our initial interactions with Cobi and how— do you remember the part where she really really felt like a divorce was not an option? And kind of talking her through that?

Friend: Not an option?

Me: At first. At first.

Friend: No.

Me: You came in after that.

Friend: I came in at the point that— because I think she saw the horror on our faces when she said — she was close to divorce but this pushed her over the line. When she told us the story of when he snatched the baby from her and then started backing up towards the window, and we said that is a no go—

Me: The balcony.

Friend: The balcony. That that was a no go, you gotta go moment. Like she at that point was like, “you’re right.” Like I hate that this is coming to an end. I’m so embarrassed. This is like a different person. And I think that she truly, and especially because of her background as a doctor, I think she truly thought there was a possibility that he had like a brain tumor or some sort of mental thing.

Me: Something treatable that would bring him back to normal.

Friend: Exactly. And Chrystal at first was thinking about… Okay this isn’t the person that I know. And, it’s like no. This is the person you have seen flashes of but you don’t know him. You don’t know him that well.

And women have been getting bad advice for years on what a good man is and all the things that you should stay through. And I’m glad that we’re not our mothers and our grandmothers who stayed even though he gambled the house away. Who stayed even though he blackened your eye. Who stayed even though he touched your kid. And you kept the secrets.

And it was like no. Chrystal was not doing that. And I’m so proud of her for leaving. And honestly, that’s the reason why Ellie had as long of a life as she did. If she had stayed, Jared would have killed her, the nanny, and the baby in some big stunt. And he would have probably left a letter or done suicide by police or gone and did what he did in the city because he’s a coward, and he would not want to face the consequences.

There were a lot of variables in the air as Chrystal figured out how she wanted to move forward. Even though she was an extremely capable woman, Jared had spent the past few years turning her life upside down and draining her energy and finances. So on September 5, 2021, I joined a conference call with Chrystal, one of her close friends, and a local domestic violence organization. These types of organizations practice motivational interviewing, helping each client determine their own path forward. Rather than wrestling Jared for control of her decisions, they offered some options and validated her agency. Having a neutral third party to talk to was extremely useful.

I took as many notes as I could during the call so that Chrystal could go back and reflect on them. I wish I had gotten the counselor’s name, because I’d love to thank her for the insights she shared. Instead, I just have her quote, which sliced through the fog of trying to ascertain why Jared was behaving erratically and focused us all towards the future:

“When there is a big life change like getting married, moving in together, a pregnancy, etc, things with an abusive partner escalate. We can try to figure out why, why why, but it doesn’t really matter.

Chances are, he is not going to make any changes in his behavior. Now people CAN change and we believe that to be true. But for him to change, he needs to realize that his behavior is causing problems for the people he loves and he doesn’t want to be that way anymore. So most of the time people like him don’t end up changing because their way of thinking is distorted. In his mind, everything is your fault anyway. Since it is, he has no reason to change.

Instead of trying to figure out why he does what he does, you want to put that energy into healing yourself, trying to move on and taking care of your baby. A lot of times abusive partners aren't all that interested in the baby. But if you try to take the baby away, they will use it as a pawn to control you. Especially because the courts nowadays want to have the father involved. He can end up with a lot of say so and will probably fight for visitation.

Try to act as normal as you can. I don’t know how they know, but from doing this for so many years, I can tell you that a lot of times abusive partners catch wind of a plan to leave. Maybe it’s a change in your attitude, maybe you start to react differently without noticing it. They just seem to know somehow and we don’t want that.

You have to be really careful because if things are turned upside down in his world, if he feels like he is losing power and control over you, it tends to make him more dangerous.”

We couldn’t predict how Jared would react after losing control, so we talked through several possible contingencies. The following list was created to weigh the two main options of finding a new place to live locally or fleeing the state into the arms of Chrystal’s mom.

Bay Area:

Pros:

• May be in my favor custody wise to be in the same state, not sure yet

• I have a job here and it’s already started.

• All my physical things are here as well as the baby’s things.

• California Medical License

• Jared is here but I can take steps to prevent him from having my address

• Nanny coming in from Jamaica to help.

• Jared might change.

Cons:

• Jared is here and knows where I work. It’s a small area and he can still find me.

• I am isolated from my support system.

• Apartments go for $4,000 a month and I took a big pay cut.

• It would be easier to make a clean break in Texas.

• Nanny coming will make me feel more guilty about leaving.

• Jared might not change/may only change on his own accord and not because of me pushing for it.

• Jared is poisoning his California family against me and I can’t count on them.

Texas:

Pros:

• My mom is there, my brother is there. I have a support system.

• I know myself and I am capable of finding a new job/sorting out medical license.

• I can live with my mom in the meantime, don’t have to find place immediately.

• Rent overall is cheaper. Won’t have to worry as much about money.

• Space from Jared can help me regain my barometer for normalcy. I can leave the pot of slowly boiling water. Having this strength will help me coparent with appropriate boundaries.

Cons:

• I don’t know yet if legally I can leave immediately. Custody is a big deal.

• I feel that telling my mom is the nuclear option. Part of me hopes things will improve. Going to Texas feels very final and would be admitting in part that there is no hope.

• I’m not like Jared, I do not want to poison my family against him even if we do divorce.

• I don’t have a job or place to live lined up. Uncertainty is scary!

• I value my reputation as a physician and am worried that abruptly quitting the fellowship will hurt my career.

In concluding the call, we gathered some emergency resources in case things took a turn for the dangerous. Jared had a trip to Chicago coming up for some school program he was involved in. If needed, that could provide a good window to get away.

The domestic violence counselor had not been able to weigh in on how the courts might view Chrystal leaving the state, so the next step was to find legal representation. I had known a woman who took her kids away from a bad situation with their father in the dead of night. The father pursued her legally and the judge was not on her side. She ended up losing custody and was only able to see her kids on assorted weekends, even though she had been their primary caregiver until that point.

The morning after the call, I sent the following message to Chrystal:

If you noticed, there was a reason the domestic violence counselor didn’t immediately come in and say “Pack your shit, leave tonight, do this, do that.” She more so gave you the opportunity to work through what moves you would like to make while being supportive.

And it’s on purpose because the first approach doesn’t work. Like [Redacted] being well meaning but insistent, that doesn’t really work.

It is a huge life change you are embarking upon with a lot of ramificationsnot only based in the future, but like you mentioned to the therapist, your past as well.

You need to be fully committed to whatever it is you choose because ultimately it is your life. I’m glad you’ve been working through a lot of different options. Don’t feel like I’m going to judge you for the plan you’ve made!!

I am so proud of you for taking charge of your life. I agree that a physical separation is the best first move no matter how this all ends up. You need to be confident in your decision and if these six months of separation can help build your strength back up after being in the slowly simmering pot of water, I support it.

I would be very wary of the change Jared might present to you once you leave because it isn’t being initiated by him to go do soul searching. And he clearly doesn’t see what the problem is with his behavior. He can’t even admit he’s being passive aggressive. To him, it’s all about you and how you are causing nonexistent problems. You’re the one hopeful he will change. That’s not a personal goal for himself, and if it becomes one it will most likely be just because it may bring you back to him.

I still do not support couples counseling, for the reasons we’ve talked about, but as the divorce solidifies itself and it is time to figure out custody, it is a great idea to have a neutral third party there to help.

I know you love this man and I do not want to take your vows for granted. And I know you love your daughter so so so much. Just make sure you are working towards loving yourself and giving yourself the consideration and support you give to others. Keep working on that in therapy separate from Chrystal the wife or Chrystal the mother. Find out what makes you happy and what you need.

Please still talk to the lawyer to understand your rights with moving out of state. Just in case things escalate and you found yourself in an emergency situation. You don’t want to again have to wait until business hours of a lawyer to get that info. Put it in your back pocket. Also talk to them about custody and about spousal support. Even if that’s not your immediate move, it should help your anxiety to have a lawyer break it all down. Ask all the questions you can think of.

On average, it takes someone multiple, multiple tries to end an abusive relationship. Chrystal’s fortitude in providing her daughter with a healthy life was incredibly admirable and aided by a couple things working in her favor:

1. She was the breadwinner and didn’t rely on Jared financially whatsoever.

2. She had a supportive family she could stay with, if she could only get to Texas.

3. She was well educated and had a career that would be able to sustain her post-divorce.

In the end though, none of those mattered.

Chrystal never relied on Jared, but he never planned to rely on himself either. He would end up draining her bank account and maxing out her credit cards. The judge would order her to pay off the tens of thousands of dollars he maliciously charged to her name. He would try to stake a claim onto every single penny, even though the divorce lasted longer than the marriage. This, plus his mother’s advice to ‘take her for everything,’ would drag out the divorce.

Jared lied to everyone he came across in order to garner sympathy as a self-proclaimed single father. He had his mother paying his rent because he claimed he was unable to work while taking care of Ellie (for one fucking day a week). He was caught trying to fraudulently obtain welfare benefits as a household of two, though Ellie did not live with him. While he was still in school, he was able to move in parental housing though, again, Ellie did not live there. He fundraised on Ellie’s behalf and spent the money on who knows what. He never contributed to Ellie’s care financially, but definitely saw her as an income stream. This made it harder for him to let go.

Jared refused to give Chrystal permission to take Ellie to Texas under any circumstances. She was never allowed to even meet the majority of Chrystal’s family. The Bay area was not the home base for either parent, but Jared was willing to stay there forever just to prevent Chrystal from moving. Jared would go on to make heinous accusations about Chrystal’s entire family to the courts, trying to keep her from accessing her support system.

Jared also tried to destroy her career by dragging her job into the divorce. He tried to publicly embarrass Chrystal by sending subpoenas out to both places that she had and hadn’t worked at. Though she worked in pediatrics and championed for children daily, he would make false allegations about her to Child Protective Services again and again and again under fake names. That might have felt like a bridge too far for him though, as he would then call back to try and cancel the investigations.

Jared was an incredibly controlling man. He was exacting and he was cruel, but he was not the first of his kind to appear before the Santa Clara court system. Or any court system! Back in 2021, the domestic violence advocate called it:

You have to be really careful because if things are turned upside down in his world, if he feels like he is losing power and control over you, it tends to make him more dangerous.”

The loss of control is a threat to the ego and those with patterns of abusive behavior are known to lash out violently in response. Killing one’s one children to punish the other parent is a very real possibility, one that Chrystal feared of for years. There’s decades of literature to back this up, countless victims for us all to learn from. Jared disguised his true nature to most of the people in his life, but the courts saw the pages and pages of emails and texts he sent harassing Chrystal. They read his pages and pages of handwritten manifestos. They knew he was obsessed. They were the ones who had authorized two restraining orders against him.

Regardless of the lies Jared told his social circle about Chrystal, the courts had the evidence to come to the foreseeable conclusion that this child was in danger from him. A court appointed psychologist said as much! They took away the supervised visitation anyways.

On July 9, 2024, the Santa Clara county court sentenced Ellie to die. They told an unhinged man that his ex-wife would be able to give their daughter a beautiful life in another state, that his single dad persona would be disproven, and that he was no longer allowed to control either of them. He killed Ellie at the very next opportunity he could.

It may make some people feel better to believe that Jared was overcome with emotion at the thought of “losing his daughter” and snapped. I don’t have a big enough ego to think I can deflate delusion, but I will still label that as false. This was someone filled with ANGER, not anguish. He beat a baby to death and I can’t even say he did it with his bare hands. He did it with a steel toed boot and broke her neck, her spine, and her skull.

This wasn’t the last time that he was going to see his daughter either. It was just the first time since the final court ruling that she could move. Chrystal and Ellie weren’t moving for months. It’s been three months since he killed her and they wouldn’t have even left yet. The final custody agreement was also extremely generous. He had holidays, birthdays. Rather than his current one day a week and one weekend a month, he was going to have a full week with her every five weeks.

Ellie was not going to be taken away from Jared. He could have given her the chance to live out the rest of her life and been her father throughout it. He’d rather she die at three years old. That was his choice.

Are you reading this because you knew Jared? In depth or in passing? If so, email me at zinniamoreno@gmail.com. I would like to fill in some blanks with you and will anonymize your experience.

Jared’s actions were horrific and unbelievable, but not unpredictable. That’s why Ellie’s mother fought so hard to protect her from him. Still, he was given the benefit of the doubt by his family and the courts for each and every red flag leading up to his crime.

Monsters like Jared are among us, men who see their offspring as a pawns to control their partners with and who would rather kill than coparent. Imposing our own sense of morality upon what they are or are not capable of is a dangerous gambit. 

At the same time, I’m really not doing okay. And I feel guilty to admit it because this wasn’t my baby, I’m not the party that’s been most impacted, and I would never want to make this about me.

I don’t sleep anymore. I close my eyes and am awakened by violent images of rape, torture, and death. I watch children dying as I fail to save them from drowning or house fires or bombings or whatever other horrors my mind conjectures. Sometimes I’m kidnapped or sex trafficked. Sometimes I find Ellie’s body in the dumpster. I find myself kicking and punching the air or the walls or my partner. I’ve been lucky enough not to picture Jared’s face In my dreams, because I don’t know if my fragmented psyche is even up for it. 

I’m scared of sleep and I’m scared to sleep. Sometimes I have intense in-bed panic attacks that if I give in to slumber, I won’t wake up at all, which is ironic given the number of times I end up waking during the night. But the intense feeling that sleep equals death is hard to rationalize away in those moments and I’m not ready to die yet. I’m not. 

I’m on multiple medications to help combat the night terrors, and they’re better than nothing but also have their impact on my energy levels during the day. Moving through the world, I’m mostly numb but there are moments where I completely lose my composure even though nothing going on around me beckons back to what happened. I’ve looked it up and each human eyeball weighs an ounce, but each of mine feel so much heavier. I feel the weight of every little movement they make and they bore into my skull whether opened or closed. I’ve lived in this body for twenty eight years and suddenly it feels foreign.

I’ve tried taking time off from work and pouring myself into work, and both have their own pros and cons. I work in the juvenile legal system as a youth advocate. It is a job that I value deeply and that I’m very good at. I love my job, but can’t help it from reminding me of the court’s decisions regarding Ellie and the ultimate outcome.

Through this, I’ve been really pushing myself to write this story. I’ve been doing interviews, combing through online archives, re-reading documents, and trying to do Chrystal’s story justice. I’ve just also been really hard on myself because I was not expecting this many people to tune in so quickly. So I’m writing this update to release myself from the internal pressure to be productive on any specific timetable. It will all come out in time.

Are you reading this because you knew Jared? In depth or in passing? If so, email me at zinniamoreno@gmail.com. I would like to fill in some blanks with you and will anonymize your experience.

It was around 3 a.m. and Chrystal was sitting in bed breastfeeding Ellie. Jared insisted on taking her blood pressure even though she had asked him multiple times to wait until she finished so that the reading would be accurate. He stood over her and tried to force the cuff on her arm anyways so she pushed his arm off of her. She saw something change in him as soon as she did it.

Jared snatched the baby out of her arms and started yelling at her for “attacking” him. As he backed towards the balcony with Ellie, she pleaded with him to give the baby back but he said he couldn’t. “You’re abusive,” he yelled at her. “I don’t trust you with the baby. You just hit me. You might bash her head in.”

Chrystal couldn’t walk, but she fell out of bed crawling towards him on hands and knees as he kept backing up with a smirk on his face. She cried and pleaded as he held the baby up high out of her reach and continued to berate her. Suddenly he ran into the other room and woke up Chrystal’s mom, who had been staying over to help. He asked her to keep the baby away from Chrystal because she was dangerous, repeating over and over that he was worried that Chrystal was going to bash the baby’s head in.

Jared later recounted this story to myself and several other relative. Each time, the acts of violence he alleged that Chrystal committed against him got more and more severe. He told one version to my mom over the phone, which I overheard because we were sheltering in place together in a relatively small home. She responded with absolute incredulity and anger at him, not believing his story that Chrystal had attacked him at all. She had visited recently and seen the condition that Chrystal was in so his claims didn’t seem possible. During that visit, my mom had also witnessed the manic behavior that I wrote about here. Her generous interpretation of events was that Jared was sleep-deprived and possibly even leaning into paranoia. She encouraged him to get some sleep and told him that it was unacceptable to terrify his mother-in-law like that.

When I heard the story from him, it had escalated to Chrystal punching him in the face again and again and again. In another instance, it had turned into her beating him up five separate times. I didn’t buy it at all. I had already talked to Chrystal about the stories he was sharing and gotten her version of events. I had also seen that she could barely stand up on her own at that time. She was completely horrified, especially as he had left out the psychological torture of even hinting that he might drop the baby over the edge.

Jared’s choice of words had always been unsettling.

“Bash the baby’s head in.”

Even when most afraid that Jared would hurt the baby, Chrystal had never spoken like that. It was so graphic, so needlessly crass.

Chrystal had always extended the invitation for me to come visit her and I never took her up on the offer. I acted like I didn’t come because I was swamped with work or busy with life. Really, I was scared of Jared’s reaction if he found out. Since this was the outcome anyway, I wish I had showed up.

I knew that invitation was still open, but not how to navigate the social norms surrounding visiting in such a situation. I wanted to be there for her but not in any way that would be an imposition or make her feel like she was required to support me because I couldn’t keep it together. There was still so much we didn’t know and I was so scared to find out more.

I decided to fly up there and get settled in first before announcing my arrival. I could then take some time to process my own emotions but also be available on much shorter notice if needed. Even if Chrystal didn’t want company, I’d be able to drop off food.

It seemed like a good plan but it almost didn’t happen. A few minutes before boarding started, Chrystal called. Of course I answered.

A breakdown in the bathroom ensued.

It absolutely wrecked me when she said that she was grateful to me for the three years that she got to spend with her daughter. That she might not have even had that much time if I hadn’t helped her leave. I felt no joy or pride in how things went down or my role in the matter. All I could think about was what had been taken from Chrystal, what had been taken from Ellie. It was so sad that she could even conceptualize things like that in that moment.

Having Chrystal on the phone with me, it was hard to resist the temptation of asking what I wanted to know most. I was hesitant but curiosity got the best of me.

“Do they know if she suffered?”

I didn’t have great service in the airport so I misheard her response. She said that they didn’t know the cause of death yet, but that they didn’t think it was violent. I thought she said that they did think it was violent, and started to cry harder before she corrected me.

It feels silly to admit, but every step of the way I had been hoping for the best. When she was still missing, it was that she would be found safely. That he had handed her to a stranger, left her on the doorstep even.When her body was found, it was that he had killed her peacefully, as if such a thing is even possible. That she had been asleep. That he had given her some medicine. That she didn’t die scared and never found out about her father’s betrayal.

This revelation brought enough comfort for me to regulate my emotions long enough to make it back to the plane. I was the second to last person to board, though my group had been called much earlier.

After a few days of gathering my strength, I congregated with other supportive figures at Chrystal’s home. She had not been able to spend time in the actual apartment among Ellie’s belongings, so instead we all shuffled around the various common areas in the building. Chrystal was in a daze, cycling between denial, rage, and devastation. I’d never seen a human being so broken. She shared that she was existing, not living, and would spend each moment of the rest of her life just waiting to die.

This was my second time meeting many of the people in the room. The first time had either been at Chrystal’s wedding or baby shower. It sent my head spinning trying to match the same faces to such different emotions.

Chrystal reflected on the smirk on Jared’s face when he walked away with Ellie for the last time. She had even turned to the nanny and remarked about it, saying she hoped he wasn’t planning something. Now she shared that she had only seen him make that face one other time, when she was on her hands and knees those years before begging him to give the baby back.

“Bash the baby’s head in.”

Why was that even on his mind?

I started to have a creeping fear that that moment was more telling than we’d realized. Chrystal certainly wasn’t capable of anything like that. Was he?

So many of his stories had been projection. So many of his motives were attributed to Chrystal. The day before he died, he tried to con his church out of $15,000 and said that if he didn’t get it, Ellie would be subject to violence. Then he killed her.

I was able to stop ruminating because the police had said her death was not violent. I imagined that meant she was in relatively good condition, instead of the opposite— that she was so banged up, they couldn’t tell what had happened when. That the violence inflicted upon her tiny body could not be attributed to man or machine. At the time we still thought Jared had dumped her directly in the landfill, hiding her under trash. In reality, she’d been thrown in a dumpster and subjected to all sorts of transportation-related mashing that makes sense for garbage bags but not for babies.

I was in a Target grabbing a pink dress for the memorial when the cause of death was announced.

Those motherfuckers.

Whoever had told Chrystal that the cause of death was not violent was wrong. The trauma to Ellie’s body had been caused when she was still alive. They should have waited for the autopsy. Instead they yanked away the only thing she had to cling to. Her baby had not only been taken, she had been made to suffer and died a violent death.

I spent the next two hours pacing back and forth through the clothing aisle. They don’t make medication to stop the amount of rumination I was stuck in.

Bash the baby’s head in. Bash the baby’s head in. Bash the baby’s head in.

Why was that what he said?

Why was that what he did?

Did he know then?

Should we have?

Are you reading this because you knew Jared? In depth or in passing? If so, email me at zinniamoreno@gmail.com. I would like to fill in some blanks with you and will anonymize your experience.

Even though I was staring straight at the My Little Pony decorations, my brain could not accept that I was actually at a memorial service for a three-year-old. Part of me believed that at any moment Ellie would run into her mother’s arms and we’d all go home happy to have been wrong about her death. That just never happened.

This wasn’t the official funeral, which was to come later. It was a space of story gathering, where those who knew Ellie could come together and share memories of her. As guests, we’d been tasked with maintaining a joyful atmosphere in which we focused on the celebration of her life rather than the circumstances of her death. I tried my best to oblige by arriving in a brightly colored dress and hoping I’d already ran out of tears for the day. The circumstances were sad enough, but the love and care put into making this event something that Ellie herself would have enjoyed attending felt like its own separate gut punch. The pastel decorations were matched by a wall of pink sprinkle donuts, the food table offering an array of chicken nuggets and juice boxes.

I managed to keep it together only until I saw the printed photo of the first and only time I held her, the sweet memory marred by Jared’s behavior that day.

I had made the long trek out to Rancho Cucamonga with my grandmother. It was Chrystal’s birthday, but the universe had already given her everything she wanted. We brought a cake and plenty of love to shower Ellie with.

Most babies her age look like blobs, if we’re being honest. But at three weeks old, Ellie already looked like herself, just perfect. When I held her, I knew I would do anything for her.

Jared was off the walls— that’s really the only way to describe it. Words like “mania” already exist, but they fall short. I felt incredibly uncomfortable but also angry on Chrystal’s behalf that he would not shut the fuck up for two seconds. He was here, he was there. Banging around in the kitchen, changing the channel on the tv every ten seconds because he frantically wanted to show me something else. It was like he had a personal grievance against silence and was determined not to let it collect in the air for a second.

That was a thirty second whirlwind right there. And then after all that about showing us the wedding footage, he abruptly changed the channel after a few seconds and started ranting about something else. We never finished the wedding video! Now he wanted us to all watch a YouTube video about meditation and talk about how much meditation has helped his anxiety, whether or not we’ve ever had anxiety, and so on. When he tried to go back to the wedding video ten minutes later, I told him I wasn’t in the mood to watch tv.

Ellie’s delivery had been incredibly complicated. The cord was wrapped around her neck twice, and it was as if Chrystal’s body could tell because after an inordinate amount of time in active labor she was actually getting less dilated. Ultimately she had a C-section, after laboring for over a day if I remember correctly. Shortly after getting home, she had a hypertension emergency and had to return to the hospital. Ellie had already gone home, so she didn’t even have the comfort of holding her baby.

This would have been a great time for Jared to step up but he fell short once again. Luckily Ellie had her devoted grandma to take care of her. My aunt Jamie also came to help by transporting breast milk home from the hospital and taking shifts with Mama Obi to take care of Ellie. Jared was off doing whatever the hell he was doing, gone from the apartment all day. It was during this time that Chrystal’s mother told Jamie that if he had still been alive, Chrystal’s dad would not have allowed Jared to marry her.

Chrystal hadn’t been back from the hospital for very long so my grandma and I wanted her to be able to get some rest as we tended to whatever tasks. Having given birth seven times herself, my grandmother understood that people usually wanted to come over to “see” the baby, but that there were more helpful things they could be doing than sitting there looking at a drained mother. She told me as much on the drive over there. I remember her getting up to wash the dishes, which was the activity Jared was midway through before going on the remote control spiel.

Even though she was tired, Chrystal was happy to see some new faces and wanted the company. Jared turned his focus onto badgering her to sleep anyway, as if anyone could fall asleep to the noise of nonsense. He was loudly telling her over and over to go to bed, waking her up further more than anything else. She did end up laying down, and he continued talking.

The apartment was covered in boxes because they were planning to move in the next two days. Jared just hadn’t settled on where yet. He was deciding between graduate school in North Carolina or Berkeley, and Chrystal was just along for the ride. It struck me as odd how much he was exerting control over this decision. She was established in her career as a radiologist and the Berkeley option would result in a massive pay cut. I remember my mom telling her not to sacrifice her career for his whims, and to make sure she was prioritizing herself too. But really, any huge move with a baby that small was wild.

It was shocking that Jared wasn’t deferring his acceptance to either program and I told him as much multiple times. It wasn’t like this was some sacrifice he was making to better his child’s future. Chrystal was already making plenty of money and would be taking a huge pay cut to follow him off to whichever school he picked.

For years he had talked about his desire to be a father, even using photos of himself with his nieces and nephews on his dating app profile back in the day to make sure women could picture him in a favorably paternal light. Before Chrystal was pregnant, he’d talked so much about his dreams of fatherhood and the things he wanted to focus on when he became a dad. When she was actually pregnant, it was like he hated the light being off of him. I got the impression that he felt overshadowed. Now that the baby was here, he was surprisingly unengaged and completely focused on school.

When Jared’s phone alarm went off, he explained it was time for his meditation. When he wouldn’t be quiet long enough for anyone to have a thought, there was nothing anyone else could have done about it. Now that he wanted some quiet, he shushed us all incredibly rudely and mandated our silence for the next ten minutes.

When he had insisted that Chrystal go take a nap, even though she wanted to catch up, he tried to usher her to the bedroom. Now he decided to take his meditation, which he also described as a power nap, right on the living room couch where we’d all been socializing. Multiple people asked him to hand any of us the baby so he could take this nap, but he held on to her defiantly. Grandma asked him to do his meditation in the other room and he didn’t listen.

I’d seen this type of passive aggression before. Years earlier, my cousin and I were visiting a different uncle up north. If this was in present times, we would have both prioritized our well-being over his feelings and not attended at all. It was the holidays and setting a boundary with him in advance that we would only be visiting for a short time, not staying overnight, was a big step.

He wanted us to cook him a turkey/holiday dinner but was told that we would not be doing that as our attendance at his house would not last that long. When we arrived, surprise! There was no food prepared as he expected us to cook for him. The piece de resistance was a frozen, uncooked turkey waiting for us to take the helm.

We re-iterated that we had other obligations and would not be there long enough to cook the turkey. We wouldn’t be there long enough for it to thaw! Really, the only other obligations we had were to our own self-determination. We had made a plan, and we’re sticking to it. If he wanted female relatives to willingly spend time with him, he shouldn’t have been a sexual predator.

But while we were still in the kitchen, he was quietly pushing the couches out the front door. We returned to a living room completely devoid of seating. I’d never seen a clearer sign that my company was no longer welcome. But he insisted that he’d just been meaning to put the couches on the curb and it had nothing to do with us. When we left shortly after, he acted dumbfounded. Like us standing in the living room, since sitting was no longer an option, would have been perfectly normal.

This reminded me of that. We’d all told Jared he was too loud. We asked him to be quieter for the sake of the baby and, honestly, the adults too. He had tried to make Chrystal go lay down in bed, but she told him that she wanted to talk to us in the living room. We were all having a pleasant time but it wasn’t in accordance with Jared’s design. So in a fit of passive aggression, he turned it against us.

You want quiet? Here, have silence. Yours included.

You want to socialize in the common area? I’m commandeering it for personal use.

You wouldn’t miss my presence if I went to nap in the other room? Fine. I’ll hold the baby myself, since that’s all you care about.

Oh no. The scowl on my face doesn’t mean I’m mad. This is all perfectly normal.

Before I left, Jared showed me the business center of the apartment building, the place where he’d send me pages and pages of emails from. We talked about the move and during that conversation he said he’d officially decided to move them to North Carolina. I was so confused the next day when he announced that they were instead moving to Northern California. Chrystal couldn’t tell one day from the next what type of day she was going to have.

On the way home, my grandma told me that she was so frustrated with Jared’s incessant talking that she’d been tempted to hit him just to shut him up. She had already tried to explain to him verbally that he was being too loud but he hadn’t cared. He reminded her of my grandpa, which was usually said about people in an exhausted way.

This visit was when my concern about the situation started, though I was still privy to very little. I didn’t know that Jared was duct taping the lights on or how he spoke to Chrystal behind closed doors. I didn’t know that he’s forced Chrystal to pack up the apartment while still recovering from her C-section or how often he was disappearing with no explanation. There was a lot more to come.

Jared sometimes exuded this overly fake considerateness. Like when we went to a vegan restaurant and with full smugness he said he could ask if they had any lard in the kitchen for my salad if eating healthy was too much of a change for me. I eat salad the regular way, thank you very much. I’m not even fully sure what lard is but I was still offended.

He would often ask in the beginning of phone or text conversations if you had the time to talk. Sometimes he would admit his lack of self awareness and request that you let him know if he was blathering too much or if the topic made you uncomfortable. But then regardless of if you told him you actually didn’t have much time or that no, you didn’t think you wanted to see the up close photos of his biking accident, he would blow past the requested feedback.

These requests increased after he went on the ADHD deep dive and made his adult diagnosis his entire personality for a couple months. He said that he realized he was sometimes hyper fixating, so he started setting a phone call conversation timer, and then just continuing to talk through that when it ran out. Because I also have ADHD, he would ask me to be his reminder of the social norms he might be inadvertently overstepping if he was too excited.

So in text messages I had no reason to think we’re worth documenting at the time, I reached out to him when I got home. I reminded him of his requests for feedback and told him that I had something to say out of love and nothing else. I told him that I was concerned that he may be manic, which can happen from sleep deprivation. I asked him to please get some sleep and to recognize the importance of sleep for everyone else in the house by trying to stop bouncing off the walls. I also encouraged him to talk to his doctor or a therapist about his energy levels. I packaged this message with many caveats around how it had been nice to see him and how happy I was to meet the baby, hoping he would see I was coming from a good place and actually listen. But in my conversations with other relatives about the matter, my demeanor was much more frightened.

Back at the memorial, I’d excused myself to a hallway to cry and accidentally locked myself out of the event space. It at least made me feel like nobody else was going to see my grief so I could let go before I figured out how to get back inside. I was caught off guard when Chrystal and her immediate family members walked down this very hallway and tried to wipe my face quickly. This was a celebration, after all.

She didn’t need to, but Chrystal grabbed my hand and we walked into the community room together. It meant a lot that she gave that reassurance while going through her own hell.

Ellie’s preschool teacher read a beautiful but devastating poem at the microphone. I thought about how she was yet another casualty of Jared’s rampage. I couldn’t imagine being her and trying to show up for the rest of that pre-k class knowing that one of the toddlers was missing because she’d been murdered. Every single day, Ellie’s peers would develop new skills and reach new milestones that she wouldn’t have the chance to.

Other friends shared sweet stories of playdates and fancy tea parties. I learned how much Ellie loved Twilight Sparkle, and that she was the “Beyonce” of My Little Pony.

Chrystal explained once more that she was still in a state of disconnect between what happened and the fact that it happened. Bringing flowers to try and beautify the landfill she was found in didn’t make it feel real. Seeing her lifeless body at the morgue didn’t do it either. She was still in shock, numb to all feelings except for the fear of what it would be like once reality set in.

She described herself being in a place beyond sadness, thanked us all for helping to raise Ellie, and we all cried together.

Are you reading this because you knew Jared? In depth or in passing? If so, email me at zinniamoreno@gmail.com. I would like to fill in some blanks with you and will anonymize your experience.

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The second went to my family (excluding those who weren’t really in contact with Jared and those too young to understand the situation). I shared it on November 8, 2021, when Ellie was almost six months old. There were over 20 people in the group chat.

Other people in my family were getting calls from Jared saying all sorts of crazy things. That he thought Chrystal was poisoning him. That she was putting cameras in the walls. That she would hurt the baby. That she was out to get him. His claims didn’t hold up in a single one-on-one conversation with him, but hearing tidbits of the lunacy he shared from relative to relative was even more troubling. He wasn’t even consistent in his claims, contradicting himself left and right and swearing each person to secrecy so we couldn’t compare notes. They hadn’t reacted the same was as I had and being an outlier within a dysfunctional family system is scary.

By this point, interacting with the man had made me incredibly anxious. I knew he was triangulating family members and that Chrystal was not the only person he was smearing. On calls with me, there were other family members he lambasted as narcissistic and sadistic. He accused his siblings of all sorts of sick things, spurned by his fear that they hadn’t fallen in line and cut off Chrystal completely. Meanwhile I knew that I was the one who had helped her leave him.

As soon as I submitted my first letter to the court, I knew Jared had access to it and that terrified me. I had no idea how he would react. I feared violence against Chrystal, lashing out against the baby, or even him popping up at my house. I had no idea how the rest of my family would react either. We had been trained by our religion of origin to disown over less, but there are worse things you can do to a person than disown them.

I couldn’t sleep and I began having panic attacks again, though it had been years since that happened. I was so, so scared that the brunt of his ire over my betrayal would be redirected towards me, Chrystal, or Ellie in ways I couldn’t imagine.

I didn’t regret writing the letter, but you have to understand that I was a different person back then. This fight changed me. I grew up meek and shy, and though I have always been fiercely protective of those who were vulnerable, I lacked the confidence to stand up for my own self. Years of therapy had helped me to quell my panic attacks and social anxiety but my enmeshed and dysfunctional family dynamic affected me in ways I couldn’t even identify yet. Professionals wouldn’t fully identify it until they diagnosed me with C-PTSD two years later. In 2021 I still felt immense guilt over setting small boundaries and starting to live my own life. I felt like my own well-being was overridden by obligation, and I was unable to talk about things I’d experienced without worrying how it would affect the people listening.

In order to move forward, I had to come to the decision that if my family didn’t want anything to do with me after speaking up, I didn’t want anything to do with them. So I chose to go out on my own terms, just in case this was goodbye.

It wasn’t the most skillful method of raising the alarm, but I created the group chat “Setting The Truth Free” to get my perspective out there first before Jared could retaliate. I thought it might protect me in some way. There was already a family group chat, but I needed to make sure I couldn’t be removed. Chrystal had actually just been removed from it the day before.

I needed everyone to be aware of his mental state and why I’d made the decision to speak against him. I needed them to know everything, or at least what I had domain over sharing. It had taken me years to get to the point of being willing to blow it all up, but I understood that anyone else in the family with similar stories (or worse) was on their own journey.

I’ll be copying and pasting the text below for readability.

Hello.

Taking a deep breath as I write this, but here goes nothing.

This family has a sick history of sweeping bad behavior under the rug. Collectively, we’ve ignored blatant sexual predation and perversion and various other abuses in the name of maintaining the status quo.

Still, I have never been as disappointed in this family as I have been watching its enabling of Jared’s psychological and emotional abuse towards his wife.

None of you are stupid, though if you insist on feigning ignorance, I’m willing to label you as such at your own insistence.

Yes, undergoing training for domestic violence advocacy helped me suss out the correct label for the atrocious lies Jared has been spreading about his wife, and the premeditation required to first reach out to each of you and ask that you ignore her subsequent calls for help in finding clarity from his gaslighting.

Still, Jared has claimed that Chrystal is a malicious psychopath hellbent on sabotaging his career, spreading false accusations of abuse, and even poisoning him.

You can read further claims in my statement to the court, though there’s many more that you all can fill in the blanks on. The things you’ve been told, without finding the decency in your own heart to reach out to the vulnerable party in this scenario with support.

I’m honestly giving the benefit of the doubt to a couple of you in this group chat. Surely you don’t believe Jared’s claims that Chrystal has been slowly poisoning him, right? Right? Right???

If ignorance is bliss, gullibility must be an orgasm and a slice of pie. I just wouldn’t know myself, having at least a modicum of critical thinking capability.

I don’t usually insert myself into the personal business of married couples. So why am I doing this?

Why am I not burying my head in the sand or helplessly shaking my head from the sidelines at the destructive actions of yet another abusive Huggins?

I’m doing this for Ellie, who I name in singularity because Chrystal has made the difficult choice required to protect her daughter.

Whether or not this information protects YOUR children is honestly up to you.

By speaking out, Ellie will be protected from the erratic antics of her father, who is at best going through a drug addiction fueled psychosis and at worst, a narcissistic psychopath. She will in part be spared from Jared’s pathological and compulsive lying, and the very real repercussions he’s attempting to throw at her mother because he is a coward unable to accept responsibility for his own shortcomings. Maybe he wouldn’t be failing school if he wasn’t spending ten hours a day on the phone with you all in hopes of isolating his wife from social support and turning you against her.

By finally acknowledging it publicly, Ellie will be kept safe from [Redacted Uncle #1]’s incestuous eye. From all the reasons I never post in the family chat anyways, because I was willing to wait for him to die off before I ever did. The remarks he can’t wait to say about her body as soon as she is a little bit older. The invitations for her to watch pornography with him that he’s giddily waiting to extend. [Redacted Uncle #1] will never get the chance to lust over her body and tell her how much she looks like the type of woman he’s like to fuck.

For years, the girls in this family have been warned not to let [Redacted Uncle #1] get them in a room alone. Told this moments before their parents give him a big hug and a warm smile at the family function. It’s always struck me as odd, that such a burden could so easily be placed upon the shoulders of children. But I’m not a parent myself, so maybe I just don’t understand.

Is it worth the risk? Is there a thrill in gambling over whether or not the pants you told your daughter to put on since [Redacted Uncle #1] is coming over or the words of warning you whispered in her ear will be enough shield her from molestation?

By speaking out, Ellie will be shielded by [Redacted Uncle #2]’s predilections towards attempting sexual and romantic relations with his niece. Both the years of grooming and instant absolution of it all.

The next time you all get a phone call from Grandma saying [Redacted Uncle #2] is suicidal and begging you to tell him how much you love him, it won’t be because Ellie is in the position I was in. It won’t be because [Redacted Uncle #2]’s attempt to whisk her away and have his way with her failed, and now he needs your complacent tongue to help lick his wounds.

Finally, Ellie will not have to deal with the apathy, nonchalance, and/or lack of concern for her well-being that each of you has displayed in this situation.

To internally acknowledge that Jared is a liar, crazy, deranged, and so on, isn’t enough. To not even do that is truly pathetic.

For all of you being asked to write a character statement in support of Jared getting custody (even though he spent months telling me how much you all disgust him) feel free to check out mine as a reference.

For so long, I’ve sacrificed truth and transparency because I felt it a necessary measure to preserve our family; to love and be loved. But I’ve come to realize and be sickened by my own complacency.

If you want to ostracize me from your good graces for telling the truth, it’s to be expected and I accept it. But I refuse to ignore abuse any longer and I am so, so sorry I ever did.

Sincerely,

Zinnia

Then I attached my letter to the court. Though Jared himself wasn’t in the chat, the other two uncles I referenced were.

I braced myself as I went back and forth between wanting to bite the bullet and read what people were replying and wanting to throw my phone in the toilet so that I couldn’t.

Initial replies were mixed. There were calls to speak in person or on the phone and people who were confused because this was A LOT of information dropped on them on a random Monday. There were people who said we shouldn’t take sides, those that were upset, and those that thought this was an inappropriate conversation. One said:

We should stay out of it. Jared isn’t going to harm the baby. Ppl that are broken hearted behave and speak irrationally. Hopefully they will learn to coexist peacefully. We should support that. Zinnia, you need to excuse yourself from their business.

It’s now a chilling comment in retrospect.

I really appreciated the response from my aunt Jamie, so much so that I’m pasting it here. She said.

Well, certain members of this family have made their minds on where they stand... thank you for making yourselves known.

Zinnia, I believe you. It wasn't YOUR decision to be asked by [Redacted Uncle #1] if you wanted to view his porn collection when you visited him when you were a minor.

And it's not your fault that you were being groomed by [Redacted Uncle #2] and put in the most awkward situation between needing protection and protecting the predator.

The problem lies in those who don't take the "allegations" serious, turn a blind eye and finally, straight out call the innocent ones a liar. The problem is when family members see the pattern and do or at least say something about it.

Good for you Zinnia!!! 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽 Hiding behind Bible verses get the innocent ones no where. We need to build up, encourage and make strong our innocent ones... so that it does not perpetuate to the next generation so forth. It STOPS HERE! #not Ellie

As for Jared, don't believe the hype, I saw right though the procrastination and excuses, he needed something and someone to blame for not doing well in business school. And, I hope y'all aren't giving him money, he has money, he drained his & Chrystal's bank account... we're talking upwards of thousands & thousands of dollars... gone! 💸 Plus charging whatever he wants on that Amex everyday, including 20K for his lawyer... Chrystal has to pay that back. She finally had to cut the card off. Jared, you are not homeless, you stay in the apartment Chrystal moved out of so that she can have some sense of peace. It's the psychological gaslighting for me. She pays on two apartments, aren't you driving the car her family gave you? What kind of man takes excess money he did not earn... it's taking food out of Ellie's mouth... not cool.

Yes, Jared loves his daughter, he takes pictures and videos for the 20min stints (on average) he spends with her... and posts it for... what? ... probably appearances is my guess.

Why would he buy outfits (when Ellie has mounds of clothes) on his last visit and take 6 different pictures with different outfits & toys at once. And of course take the outfits with him. When he videos [Redacted] with Ellie, she asks, "Jared" where are you?... Repeatedly. He says nothing, because he's in the lobby of the home he stays in, Chrystal pays for... is that a wife who wants to destroy you??

Is no one on this thread is interested in the mother of Ellie? The wife that took extreme care, covered Jared for years and in poor health. She looked after him when he had seizures.

Yes, a break up is painful, this is why someone needs to check up on our dear Jared. He is spiraling out, y'all can't even see it.

There was no plan to 5150 Jared or other people sharing their insight of his behavior, but it was better than I expected. I had done my part, and felt a weight lifted. The claims that myself and two other women in my family made against Jared in court were extremely serious. At the very least, I hoped that by sharing my statement, it would make anyone else in the family contemplating writing a supportive one for him think twice.

Then, early the next morning, [Redacted Uncle #2] responded and I lost my ever loving mind.

He started with a screenshot, showing an email that he had sent.

He went on to say:

----------

The short, most concise, response is: Zinnia, you have a new understanding as a counselor, which is great. While helping youths, you're reflecting on life experiences, making sense out of concepts in relation to your own family. From pages you've posted a picture forms of someone who's made tremendous strides and personal growth. I mean, that's just what seems evident.

With that, I could conclude. Below is additional information, if it matters:

----------

Do you want to have this discussion here? is the question. I have not been silent. Yesterday, when I saw I was included in the chatboard, and 12+ new messages on my phone, [Redacted] spoke with me, I text [Redacted], and one other family member, and called and eventually [Redacted] spoke with me. I asked if she would be willing to arrange an in-person meeting for me to listen and hear out Zinnia. I have comments to make, too, but I don't know if they're suited for the internet.

In our conversation, [Redacted] advised against posting, saying, "Stay out of it. Emotions are running high at the moment." In the conversation with [Redacted], I said, "Sounds like Zinnia has found her voice. I'm proud of her and hope the family, especially the women, give her love and support right now." [Redacted] said, "Don't post that. It sounds condescending." Later, [Redacted] cautioned me, "If you do reply, keep it brief."

I wasn't sure If I should comment until I had a chance to hear from you. Also I hesitated to type if people are looking to find fault with Jared (several issues seem open at once here). Jared has an upcoming trial. Maybe that's the best place for him to plead his case. I will not be injecting comments into custody proceedings between a married couple. If people here feel differently and want to align themselves one way or the other, that's a personal choice.

The attached image shows I sent a message at 7 am this morning, asking Zinnia, "Can I call you? A brief conversation. Would you pick up?" Nothing more. That's all I wrote.

I responded promptly to developments in this thread. And, hopefully, my remarks, phone conversations (and attempts to talk) convey compassion while respecting the dignity of all participants.

Seeing the man who had locked me in his room all those times as a child say he was proud of me for “finding my voice” shattered all lingering guilt and fear. I didn’t think, I just typed.

^ Here I had meant to say in between paragraphs that since my uncle was decades older than me, he should expect there to be a maturity gap between him and anyone my age he tried to date (including me 🤮) but that I was more mature than he would ever be. Like I said, I was seeing red and this well-reasoned point was a casualty of my rage.

Looking back, unleashing on [Redacted Uncle #2] might have been the proudest moment of my life. It was hard to recognize that in the moment though, as my burgeoning label as the family’s identified patient was officially solidified.

I’ve been very open with my struggles with Bipolar disorder and other mental health conditions. I’ve been in treatment for fourteen years and am an active participant in shaping said treatment. For me, mental health maintenance looks like taking my medication daily, being proactive in communicating with my psychiatrist about any changes that may need to be made, attending therapy, attending support groups, and practicing other health habits. I have no qualms about sharing my diagnosis because I want others to know that a life like mine, one of relative stability, is possible. When I was first diagnosed, I didn’t know it was.

I am nowhere near the only person in my family who has a mental health condition. On both sides of my family, anxiety, depression, and other conditions abound. Many, many of my relatives have attempted suicide and Jared’s not even my first uncle to kill himself by jumping off a building, which is actually pretty wild.

Still, it seemed as through mental health management was much more stigmatized in my family than showing clear signs of mental health distress. And so as family members began talking behind my back about my “outburst” and telling others not to listen to me because I “take medication,” I wish the conversation had been focused on Jared’s behavior instead of mine. Instead, he was written the very character letters that I’d tried so hard to prevent people from submitting to the court.

After the second set of messages, not everyone gave me the courtesy of talking about me behind my back. I was also screamed at and cussed out, partially for my choice of language, which was quite ironic. I was told horrible things about myself, that I was fucked up in the head. I was blamed for causing high blood pressure. Pre-existing high blood pressure, I might add. I was even blamed for potentially causing high blood pressure for people who didn’t have it and didn’t get it. I was blamed for relationships that I wasn’t a part of that deteriorated. For this person no longer speaking to that person. For that person no longer answering some other person’s texts.

With time, several relatives rallied around handling the issue of [Redacted Uncle #2]. There were confrontations, with him apparently crying on the floor and explaining that he had fallen in love with me. Then a few weeks later he started besmirching my name by telling family I had come onto him and lashed out when he rejected me. That crossed a new line and was not met with kindness. Shortly after, he stopped living in the room at my grandma’s house where he used to lock the door behind me.

She never spoke to me again, by the way.

I was less involved in whatever fallout occurred for [Redacted Uncle #1], as I’ve had no contact with the man in years. But later on a relative did bitterly spew their regret at me for cutting him off based on my words as they missed the relationship. I didn’t give a shit.

My goal all along was to protect Ellie. I said it over and over again throughout the letter, the initial one before rage took over and I veered left. Though I was angry, I was also filled with hope.

Growing up, I’d always been told I was misunderstanding things, reading into things. I’d learned to shut the fuck up because I watched others do the same. At family functions, molesters, abusers, victims, and those who knew of the horrors all mingled together faking smiles. And while the weight of it dragged me down, I was painted to be unreasonable for pointing it out.

I really thought this airing out might work, might make people come to their senses about Jared and the others like him.

“It’s a new era,” I had said. “See something, say something. Stop enabling. Protect others. Don’t let abusive, manipulative, twisted, demented, and/or behaviors run unchecked and rampant in this family any longer.”

It didn’t happen in my family, but maybe you can make it happen in yours.

I will leave you all with one final message for today, one I am so grateful to my aunt Jamie for sending in the group chat. She is one of the women whose strength has supported me through this whole process, from our fight to save Ellie to our loss of her.

Sometimes the truth is too much to face. Set it free.

The toxic part is when the innocent is expected to keep their mouth shut & sit still as the perpetrator outright gaslights you and pretend they have done no ill thing. The innocent is suppose to behave while everyone who knows the truth dances around the perp... keep the perp comfortable and respect the perp.

Good for you Zinnia for not letting anyone shit on you. 👍🏽. #not today 😁 you are a beautiful soul, no longer should you quell yourself to make others bigger. 🦋

The real therapy is everybody acknowledging and admitting the truth. Only then can one be forgiven and healing start to happen.

Dysfunction only begets dysfunction.

To the young ladies out here... get your life! Make your own coins. Secure that bag so you NEVER have to succumb to some sleeze bag that have financial power over you. When you don't have to ask for shit... guess what... you don't answer to bullshit. ✊🏽 Independence is true freedom. 🌈

Are you reading this because you knew Jared? In depth or in passing? If so, email me at zinniamoreno@gmail.com. I would like to fill in some blanks with you and will anonymize your experience.

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Written by Ellie’s Mom:

Jared brutally beat Ellie. He smashed her skull until it fractured and she had brain swelling. He broke her neck and spine. He did all of this with a heavy boot stomping on her. He wasn’t mentally ill. He was controlling and manipulative and fed his entire family lies to keep me isolated here in a place where I had no family and close friends.

He never allowed for Ellie to visit Texas for even a brief visit so in her 3 years of life, most of my family never got to meet her if they couldn’t fly to California. He lied to ppl and pretended like he had majority custody when he had limited time due to his behavior.

He manipulated his school and innocent church goers to collect money and donations while I paid for everything, I never even asked him for a dime of support. On the contrary, I paid 100% of all bills for my daughter and even offered to pay for his travel and lodging if his objection was about visits. Even after giving him half of everything I earned and paying off all his college debt and giving him my car.

He constantly harassed me even when I was postpartum, locking me out of rooms in the house and recording my reaction to his abuse. His family blocked me when I reached out asking for help with what I thought was his mental breakdown.

He lied in every court document about anything and everything he could. Projecting sick false accusations of murder and abuse which he would ultimately be guilty of himself.

One of the last people he called before taking Ellie’s life was a convicted child sexual predator who he had apparently been friends with for 20+ years. It wasn’t a “custody battle”. It was the slaughter of an innocent child by a monster. I don’t care how many pictures of him taking her to the park he showed. I watched him dump a box filled with her lifeless body in a dumpster. And he was very calm doing it. Jared may have been alone but the blood is on all of their hands.

You may want to believe he was a desperate father wanting time with his child but that is far from the case. He refused to get a job to provide for Ellie even after graduating. He was inconsistent and erratic when exercising his visitation. Often cancelling last minute if there was no one around or no outside event he could take her to for people to see his "doting father" routine. He spent his time trying to earn the sympathy of strangers and family who refused to see the truth.

He calmly changed clothes after dumping her body and made sure he was looking like a professional for his own suicide photo op.

I’m burying Ellie alone, the same way I raised her.

Are you reading this because you knew Jared? In depth or in passing? If so, email me at zinniamoreno@gmail.com. I would like to fill in some blanks with you and will anonymize your experience.

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It had been a while since I talked to Chrystal, though less than two months had passed since the court last asked me to weigh in on the custody matter. As always, I had been steadfast that moving to Texas with her mom was in Ellie’s best interest.

One of the countless lies that Jared told was that he was an active father, but he didn’t give a shit about Ellie long before he murdered her. To him, she was just a prop through which he could engender himself with sympathy. I can’t imagine an end for Jared that didn’t include him begging for money under false pretenses until the day he died. She just ended up the final ruse.

To portray himself as the doting father, Jared took lots of pictures with the baby. Now knowing that his closest friend was a convicted pedophile, I pray that there was nothing more sinister to them.

Sometimes Jared would switch out Ellie’s outfits in between shots, creating a cache of photos to send out to friends and family on the days he had nothing to do with her. Through the picture he painted, he was the primary caregiver and her leaving would be a devastation. In actuality, it would have allowed her to thrive.

Northern California wasn’t the home base of either parent, and isolating both Chrystal and Ellie from their support system had had insidious effects. Meanwhile, I knew the dysfunction and sickness of my own extended family all too well and the reasons why myself and others have struggled with PTSD just from growing up in it. I was so excited for Ellie to have a normal, happy life, my initial reaction to Chrystal’s words was joy.

She started the call by telling me that the judge had approved the move. But my one word “yay” response was quickly interrupted by words that shook me to the core. 

“Do you know where Ellie is?”

She explained that she’d gotten a call informing her that Jared had attempted suicide by jumping off a building in San Francisco. It was his weekday with Ellie but there had been no sign of her. Even more alarming, this was his first overnight visit since receiving the news that their years long custody battle was finally over. 

Nobody that Chrystal had talked to so far seemed to know or care where the baby was, with one relative saying Jared’s recovery was the most important thing to focus on right now. She begged me to find out whatever I could about his movements over the past day and to question the family members I was already distant with about her baby’s whereabouts.

With all the times Chrystal had called me out the blue asking if I thought Jared might hurt Ellie, it was hard for my mind to go anywhere else. I would ask if anything happened recently, for example if he had said anything weird or if the baby had come home with bruises. There had never been something definitive or specific, but his generally alarming behavior was so all encompassing that there was always cause for concern.

I wouldn’t admit it for many days, but I knew he had killed her as soon as I heard that he killed himself. Later on, Chrystal would say the same. Still, I didn’t want to be right. It was time to search.

I first called my mom, who answered the phone sobbing. She had just heard the news about Jared but knew nothing about Ellie being missing or where she might be. I hated to hang up on her while she was clearly in distress, but I was on a mission.

Next, I talked to my dad to help calm myself down. His own contentious divorce with my mom had once strained our relationship, but as things had gotten rough with her side of the family, I came to really appreciate his insights. He talked about a mother’s intuition, praising Chrystal for the steps she’d taken to prevent this situation, and told me that I had tried my best. It wasn’t what I wanted to hear as I was still holding onto hope, but it helped me calm down a little bit to focus better. I made one more fruitless call to a relative before Chrystal called me back again.

Jared was dead. Where was Ellie?

Neither his phone or car had been located and no one seemed to know where he went after picking Ellie up the day before. But now that he was officially gone, I could already see the way this was go and was unhappy to be proven right.

Jared had spent years turning my family against Chrystal with one malicious lie after another. In fact, back in 2021, when she had still hoped that their relationship might be salvageable, she acknowledged this reality in a safety planning document created while on the phone with a domestic violence counselor and myself.

By July, 2024, the anti-Chrystal train no longer required Jared to drive it. The immediate narrative was that the family’s gentle giant had been stolen, driven to the brink of madness by a cruel and vengeful woman. The missing baby didn’t quite fit this narrative but it didn’t even matter.

Some refused to even believe she WAS missing, spreading conspiracy theories that Chrystal had her safe and sound and was lying to make this tragedy about herself. They re-emphasized that Chrystal had used him for a ”light skinned baby,” forgetting that that inappropriate family joke had only started because at the time they got together, no one could figure out why else she might be dating so far below her league. They blamed her for taking away his daughter, assuming that this cost him his will to live, and acted as if no one else in this fucking family tree had ever gotten a divorce before— that he was a victim of a uniquely unimaginable pain. When, in fact, dozens of Huggins’ and adjacent last names have all managed to divorce plenty and not take anyone else to the grave over it.

While her daughter was still missing, presumably murdered, one of my relatives said that they hoped Chrystal spent the rest of her life suffering. That she didn’t die young, but instead lived to old age filled with pain. That the baby would turn up fine, with a babysitter or at a fire station, but Chrystal deserved to pay for “destroying our family.”

Another cussed me all the way out for even daring to suggest that Jared had done something to Ellie, told me I deserved to get my ass beat, and then blocked me. Others prioritized my grandmother’s grief from losing her child over Chrystal’s anguish and requested respect for Jared’s passing as well.

I hadn’t even said an untoward word about him (yet). I just acknowledged the still unproven conclusion that anyone would have immediately jumped to if this was happening within some stranger’s family. As I told them, I wanted anyone literally anyone to prove me wrong. To show me the baby. To turn her back to her mother. To make this be okay.

Now that we know the outcome, I’ve chosen to use this space to depict the man accurately. Through his own choices, he left a carefully constructed blueprint for how he should be considered. He designed this legacy himself.

Chrystal was outside Jared’s apartment during our next call. The police had asked her to stand around the corner before they went in but still hadn’t entered the building. Her screams through the phone were chilling.

“He’s dead! It doesn’t matter anymore! Just kick the door in! What are you waiting for? Where is my child?”

I heard a police officer respond way too calmly, “So what I’m hearing is that you’d like to file a missing persons report?”

Fearing they would find the worst, I wished I wasn’t so far away. She had none of her own family nearby, just as Jared had wanted. Luckily some relatives from up north were able to support with the search and went to her side.

I had expected the police to find blood, something, anything, but there was nothing. I couldn’t tell if that was good or bad.

The next few hours were an emotional rollercoaster of false leads and dead ends. Meanwhile, police were piecing together Jared’s movements with CCTV and other means which gave a small bit of hope.

At this point, I had made my way to a local amusement park of all places, to pick up my siblings who were there with a friend. It was an incredibly disorienting contrast between my external surroundings, and what was actually happening in my mind. But I allowed them to wander off out of earshot as I continued doing whatever I could to help find Ellie.

I started reaching out to every single local media outlet because I was shocked that, after five hours, the general public didn’t even know there was a toddler missing in their city. If she was alive, valuable time was being wasted and plenty of people might be forgetting vital information that they didn’t realize was important.

We were five hours into the search and the police still had not issued an AMBER alert. I couldn’t believe it. State government had acknowledged that AMBER alerts were underutilized for missing Black girls and signed the EBONY alert into law on January 1, 2024 in an attempt to rectify it.

Regarding its passing, Kellie Todd Griffin of the CA Black Women’s Collective Empowerment Institute had said:

“It’s very important to have the Ebony Alert because far too often when Black women and children go missing there is little to no publicity which hinders the effort to find them”

Though Ellie didn’t qualify for the EBONY alert itself, the failure to use any and all tools at the police department’s disposal felt like just another devaluation of Black life. The police department hadn’t even shared her photo on their own social media page.

I was able to direct the flurry of media responses to my cousin who was at the Fremont PD station with Chrystal. They set up the following impromptu press conference off the slim chance that someone might recognize and return her.

By now, my up north cousins had really made the missing poster take off on social media. People from all over were sharing it in the hopes of finding Ellie, even though some of her paternal relatives were conspicuously absent. I was using the Internet to the best of my own ability, reaching out to anyone with the ring camera in the neighborhood to check their footage and tapping into the local neighborhood groups on Facebook and other apps.

Police were questioning relatives in both Northern and Southern California to see if anyone had any information. They even showed up at my grandma’s house in Los Angeles to search it, just in case.

By the 11 o’clock broadcast, Ellie was on every news station. It had been 11 hours since she was reported missing and 36 hours since Jared had picked her up. Jared‘s phone was still missing, but the car had been found sans car seat or baby bag.

Early the next morning, I got another call from Crystal:

“Ellie’s dead. He killed her and dumped her in the landfill like she was garbage.”

Then she hung up.

Are you reading this because you knew Jared? In depth or in passing? If so, email me at zinniamoreno@gmail.com. I would like to fill in some blanks with you and will anonymize your experience.

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My name is Zinnia and I am the niece of Jared Lorenzo, née (Huggins).

I am writing this statement to the court in support of my uncle’s wife, Chrystal Obi, in an honest effort to protect the best interests of their child. I am of the belief that Jared should only be allowed supervised visitation with his daughter at this time, pending both an independent psych evaluation and drug test. His erratic behavior worries me greatly and I believe he needs help for his paranoia and delusions.

While I have never seen my uncle in such a sustained uneven state, he does have a history of lying for sympathy and attention. Approximately ten years ago, while living in his car by choice, he started a YouTube channel about being homeless in order to receive donations. While discussing how his family refused to help, he ignored to mention that multiple relatives had offered him spare rooms to stay in. I was in the car with my mother for several conversations in which she begged him to stay in our guest room and he refused.

Jared also has a documented history of obsessiveness to the detriment of his own health and well-being. He routinely rejects sleep for up to 48 hours, pushing his body to its limit in order to pursue whatever his current obsession is, be it running/exercise, learning a new language, writing, etc.

My uncle’s judgement has always been questionable, yet I never considered him to be cruel or vindictive until recently. As described in my summary of the following phone calls, his erraticism has me worried that he is not fully in touch with reality. I cannot tell if he actually believes the things he is saying about his wife or if he is knowingly lying for financial gain, sympathy, and academic leniency. Regardless, he has fully crossed a line into psychological and emotional abuse, which must be stopped. And as much as it pains me to say this, I see no concern for his daughter in his actions. Rather, he is using her as a prop in his manipulative quest.

On August 29, 2021, I hesitantly reached out to Chrystal Obi to share my knowledge of the disparaging statements and accusations her husband was sharing amongst our family. Though I do not normally consider it my place or desire to intervene in a married couple’s personal affairs, I was concerned for the safety of both my aunt and her child. My uncle had warned several relatives that his wife may reach out to them accusing him of abuse and requested that her calls and texts be ignored. Witnessing Dr. Obi message my mother asking for help and being ignored was incredibly unsettling and moved me to action.

She did not believe me at first, and was shocked that her husband could be saying these things while simultaneously lulling her into a false sense of security. However, I stood by her side and helped her to realize the gravity of day-to-day gaslighting and emotional abuse inflicted upon her by connecting her to domestic violence resources. However, I had not yet heard the accusations myself so I was unable to fully opine about Jared’s state of mind or motivations.

On September 24, 2021, Jared called me with, in his words, a “warning” about Dr. Obi. Jared claimed that Dr. Obi was threatening to tell lies about him in order to sabotage his graduate school education, career opportunities, and, lastly, access to his daughter. He said that she was not the person he thought he had married, and that she had fooled the rest of his family as well. He likened this call to a situation in which someone in fear of their life may mail off a letter with pertinent information in case anything happened to them. He also asked that I not mention any of this not only to his wife, but also other relatives. He admitted that I was not the first in our family to receive this warning, and that others had immediately called his wife and repeated back “verbatim” the things he had said, unknowingly referring to me.

However, my immediate impression of this phone conversation was that it was part of a premediated effort to silence my aunt, should she speak up about her husband’s abuse. And so, I started the attached text message exchange that day requesting additional information from him, in which he insinuated that reaching out to Chrystal myself could endanger their child.

On October 7, 2021, Jared called me with additional warnings. He said that his wife had called multiple friends and relatives with false accusations of physical abuse and aggression in an attempt to destabilize his life and get him kicked out of school. Jared claimed that his wife had hacked his phone, computer, and may have tapped his phone.

Jared was sniffling throughout this phone call and speaking in an accelerated manner. His affect felt both inappropriate and disconcerting. The overly cheerful demeanor with which he spoke did not match the severity of the topic. He was often laughing or swept into a state of elation, jumping back and forth every couple of sentences between descriptions of how he was being terrorized and things that had made him happy during the week. He seemed unable to follow a train of thought through to conclusion.

During this phone call, he not only accused his wife of abusing him, but also all of his siblings.

On October 8, 2021, Jared called with additional startling statements. He claimed that his wife was making up lies while they visited a marriage therapist. He stated that the baby was being purposefully neglected and underfed by both her mother and the nanny. Once again he jumped back and forth between accusations and irrelevant statements. In some moments, he struggled to coherently complete even three consecutive sentences of either. As if he hadn’t opened the call in a frantic, he ended it with chitchat about how much he liked hiking.

On October 10, 2021, I received text messages from Jared letting me know he had purchased a new phone and I should delete his old number. When we spoke by phone afterwards, he expressed a sense of relief that his wife would no longer be able to listen to our phone calls.

“She has been tracking my phone calls, my texts, my credit cards. Now that I’m calling you from a different phone, I can be a little more open but I’m scared.”

On October 12, 2021, I had another phone call with Jared that lasted over an hour. He was again sniffling throughout the call, this time every few seconds. At least six times in this phone call, he requested that I keep everything he said a secret from my mother, aunts and uncles. However, I took many notes.

In this call, Jared revealed that he had reached out to school counselors and advisors in order to get extensions for his assignments/exams due to domestic abuse. He was in the process of now emailing his professors with this request. This was also the first time that he outright accused Dr. Obi of sustained child abuse. And now with absolutely no affect, he alternated between proofreading sentences from the email out loud and delving into even more troubling accusations against his wife and siblings.

When claiming that his wife refuses to speak to or even make eye contact with their child, he ended the sentence by saying, “and that’s why I need to send this email [to my professors] and ask them if they have an alternate date for the final.” As it dawned upon me that he may be once again using accusations for personal gain, in this case academic leniency, I was extremely disappointed.

Additional notes from this call:

• “When I smile at my child, she [Chrystal] finds it disturbing because she is mentally ill.”

• “Chrystal flew into a rage and threw all my stuff outside because I complimented our daughter. This is a really sick person who is good at pretending she is not.”

• Chrystal has bribed other relatives in amounts up to $3,000 to say things about Jared that make him look bad.

• The only joy that Chrystal feels in this world is to cause her daughter and husband pain and harm.

• “It would be one thing if she was a good mom and took my daughter and broke my heart.

I don’t care about me. This is purely about her mistreating my daughter. She doesn’t like spending time with Ellie. She hates when Ellie gets attention. Chrystal is a sick person, so by taking the kid from me, Ellie won’t get attention. Just to hurt me and Ellie.”

• “Chrystal is a total psychopath. I’d never met one before in my real life, only seen them in movies. I always thought it was unbelievable, so unrealistic. There’s no way someone could be like that. And why would someone go through so much effort just to have their whole life be a lie? [...] Chrystal does not feel love towards her own daughter.”

• “Chrystal does not feel love towards her own child. Ellie is just an inanimate object to her.”

Everything that Jared claimed tied back to an attempt to salvage his scholarship after a quarter of slacking off. He wanted to know if his email to the professors would be convincing. While writing the email, he even threw in the fact that he has untreated ADHD, though Chrystal has spent thousands of dollars hiring him ADHD specialists and he is medicated.

He ended the call by asking, “That letter sounds pretty good, right?”

On October 13th, Jared realized that Chrystal had moved out of their shared home. He called to tell me that the baby had been kidnapped, however requested that I do not say a word of this to my mother, grandmother, or any other relative. He accused both Chrystal’s mother and the child’s nanny of abusing the baby through neglect. He claimed that the baby would be left to sit in a dirty diaper, as they nanny had tried to do before, since he was not there. The baby would be ignored and left in a dark room by herself to cry.

Jared told me he had been awake for 56 hours straight, and that it was Chrystal’s fault. Jared was furious that Chrystal moved out, saying that he only spent at most an hour a day with the baby. “Zinnia, I’m never even there! Why can’t Ellie even have one hour with me? Why take that away from her?”

Jared ended the call by tying it all back to his exam. He talked about how difficult it is for him to study in these conditions, which seemed like a bizarre focus for someone who was actually in fear of their daughter’s safety. And once again, he blamed his lack of success in school on his wife’s sabotage.

On October 14th, approximately 11am, Jared seemed the least coherent out of all the phone calls we’d had so far.

Jared repeatedly yelled about the kidnapping, and how jealous he was that women can just take the child and leave. He said that women will lie for other women, women will support other women no matter what and it is disgusting. He talked about how men do not have equal rights to women, however he was finding support from online forums where others have experienced the same. He described this experience “almost like taking the red pill”, which triggered alarm bells in my mind immediately, in reference to the misogynistic hate forum “The Red Pill.”

Contradicting himself from what he said yesterday, Jared now claimed that he usually spent 20- 30 hours a week with Ellie and was the primary caregiver. He also repeatedly claimed that his daughter was only two months old and Chrystal should have waited until she was a year old if she wanted to break up. He talked extensively about not being allowed to see his daughter.

I talked to Jared on the phone again on October 14th, around 8pm.

He again claimed that the baby was kidnapped and being abused. Jared told me that Chrystal was probably going to pass the baby around to her brothers and uncle so that they could molest her. I was personally horrified at him throwing this around so cavalierly.

He said that since Chrystal doesn’t love her daughter, the only way to “hit her where it hurts” would be to go after her financially. It was an illogical conclusion for anyone who truly felt their kidnapped five-month old daughter was in danger of being raped to draw.

Jared again talked about how he was unable to study due to the kidnapping, which he implored me not to tell anyone about. He said that Chrystal’s abuse throughout the quarter has prevented him from doing well in school. Because of the trauma, he may be unable to financially support himself for the rest of his life and she should have to pay for that. He deserved half of everything, if not more.

Additional quotes:

• “I talked to a lawyer and he was like ‘Hey, try to see her’. Because it shows you want to see your kid. But now that I’ve seen her, I emailed my school. I told them I can’t take finals because somebody took my kid or whatever. And now I’m going to wait to hear back. And instead of tomorrow, probably I can take it next Wednesday or Thursday.”

• “How could you ever take a test if you haven’t slept in three days? And you have someone not tell you where you kid is? Could you imagine? It would be a nightmare.”

• “I just need to get through the next four days of school, then I can fully devote myself to going after her money.”

• "I’m gonna fucking take this lady for fucking everything.”

On October 15th, Jared called to talk about his current state of homelessness, saying that his wife is sending him back to the gutter, in her words. Though he still has the keys to his apartment, he shared that he’s been trying to find emergency shelter on campus and soliciting donations from local churches.

On October 18, Jared called to share that he is extremely behind in school. He said that since Chrystal’s physical abuse ramped up at the beginning of the quarter, he has been unable to study. His wife has purposefully been sabotaging him and would love to win by making him fail these tests. Due to her continued abuse, it is too traumatic for him to go on campus to study in a library or his car. He has nowhere to sleep and nowhere to study, and this is exactly what his wife has been planning for the last six months.

Thank you for reading my account of the interactions I’ve had with my uncle over the past month. I believe not a single one of these accusations, and am quite frankly disgusted by his behavior.

I am extremely proud of Chrystal Obi for leaving this relationship, a decision that I can attest to her not taking lightly.

I hope that Jared finds peace and healing, but that his daughter is not negatively affected along the way.

Sincerely,

Zinnia Moreno

October 19, 2021

Are you reading this because you knew Jared? In depth or in passing? If so, email me at zinniamoreno@gmail.com. I would like to fill in some blanks with you and will anonymize your experience.

A victim of domestic violence is in the most danger while on the verge of freedom. After three years of legal hell, Ellie and Chrystal Obi were almost free. On Tuesday, they received permission to leave my uncle, Jared Lorenzo’s sphere of control and move back to Chrystal’s home state. That same day, Jared told a relative that he’d found a “loophole in the case” that would prevent them from going.

Jared’s visitation started on Thursday. Not much is about known how they spent it. But around 5:45 am the next morning, Jared texted his mother, “I think I have good news.”

Ellie was already dead and in his trunk.

Chrystal shared:

“We are all heartbroken at the loss of our sweet little Ellie. Ellie was stolen from me, her grandmother, and the rest of our family and friends in an evil and brutal manner. For years I feared constantly for Ellie’s wellbeing in the hands of her father, even with his limited access under shared custody. I wanted desperately for her constant supervision and worried for her safety each time she was with him for court ordered visitation. Yet the system continued to grand him partial custody and access.

Last Tuesday, I finally received confirmation that the courts would allow me to move with Ellie out of state, of which he became aware. On Thursday morning, I kissed my daughter goodbye at our home in Mountain View where she lived and attended preschool, and I said “I love you” as she left for court visitation with her father. But my daughter never returned.

Her father killed her and went to great lengths to cover up his crime by moving her to a different city, hiding her body in a bag inside a box inside a dumpster, and driving to another city to take his own life.

We are experiencing an unbearable pain and our grief is overwhelming. I will share more of my story after I have had time to mourn with my family. We humbly ask for privacy as we grieve the heartbreaking loss of our sweet Ellie.”

I feel disgusted to share blood with someone who could kill their own child. I hate that I ever looked at his face with love in my heart. Jared Lorenzo is the monster who keeps me up at night and the man who taught me how to use the swings. Both can be true. Both ARE true.

As I got older, I saw the cracks in his veneer, even feared for the life and safety of his child’s mother and jumped in to protect her. At one point I was his confidant, which you may find an odd role for a grown man to assign to his niece. But as we’ll get to later, my family has a history of inappropriate behavior when it comes to nieces. Daughters too.

I used that position to gather as much documentation of his alarming behavior as possible, recording phone calls and meticulously documenting his behavior. Chrystal and I met with domestic violence professionals and worked on safety planning. I unsuccessfully helped her get a restraining order against him and begged the courts not to let him have unsupervised visitation with Ellie. Although most of my family engaged in its typical pattern of male enabling, two other women stepped up against our culture of silence and to them I am grateful.

Still, I never imagined he would murder his own flesh and blood. Or maybe I just didn’t want to. Either way, that’s part of the problem. This happened and it can happen to you too. 

Jared’s choice was his choice, his evil actions ultimately unveiling his true self. But Ellie did not have to die and I refuse to accept that this outcome was inevitable.

I can’t go back. I can’t unshatter the pieces of her mother’s soul or ease my misplaced yet persistent sense of guilt. All I can do is share the signs and systems, both familial and legal, that failed Ellie leading up to her death, in the hopes that it could help even one more baby stay alive.

For now, this is all I can even say though. I wish I didn’t have to say anything at all.

Are you reading this because you knew Jared? In depth or in passing? If so, email me at zinniamoreno@gmail.com. I would like to fill in some blanks with you and will anonymize your experience.