This podcast started with the story of Laura West, how this blonde, attractive, promising young woman lost her life in a car crash. You've heard how her death left a young daughter without a mother and sisters grieving the loss of their brightest light. And of course you know now that Laura didn't exist, and that there was no car crash. Instead, the crash, Laura, her sisters, and her daughter were all just the creation of one woman, a woman called Natalia Burgess.
In twenty ten, Natalia killed off Laura like a character in an end of season soap opera. At that point, Natalia had been creating online fantasy worlds and deceiving people online for so long she had outlasted some of the world's biggest social media companies. She's told me she started doing this in two thousand and one when she was seventeen, and now Natalia is forty. But on the Internet she can be whatever age she chooses to be, and for a time, when she first put on the face of
character Laura Jane West, she was sixteen. In recent times, she's used Crystal Jenice Photographs to create the person of Kaylie Littellly, a twenty seven year old single mum. Sometimes Kaylie has a different surname, but no matter the name, the game remains the same. To live the life online she feels she can't have in our real world with those invented selves. She insinuates away inside the lives that those convinced she is real, and once inside their lives, well,
there's a reason she's called herself the puppeteer. She plays with people's lives, and so far in this series, we've been talking about the boys and men she's targeted, and there's many of those stories to tell, but there were other stories to tell, stories about others Natalia has fooled. Because for Natalia has not just boys and men. She's also gone after families.
She's a shadow stalker and she got so far into my personal space. I don't trust people. It was like she was.
Stalking you from Afarre, knowing every movie it had done.
This is Emma and her mum Bernie, talking about their encounter with Laura West and Laura's sister Abby, all characters created by Natalia Burgess over about two years. Natalia breathed life and reality into those characters, so much so that she convinced Bernie and Emma that she was a blood relative,
that she was Emma's cousin and Bernie's niece. Unlikely as it sounds, it shows how completely utterly convincing Natalia can be, and just how good she is at taking the threads of someone's life and weaving them into a convincing narrative.
To know about a family member I hadn't spoken to and who he had passed away, people would go by different Alis's but knew their proper birth name.
It was part of a process that led to Natalia's false characters becoming fully integrated into Bernie and Emma's lives. Once inside their lives, Natalia then created scenarios and situations that would turn Emma and Bernie's world upside down.
Even to this day, I'm always looking over my shoulder. I don't want friendships because of this. To watch my daughter's self destruct on some silly little dream. This woman ad, I'll never forgive it.
With that control, Natalia put Emma and Bernie inside the false world she created, then fed them a stream of scenarios, some good, some bad, but all carried out by invented characters. Put mother and daughter on a roller coaster of emotions as they were drawn through love, romance, heartbreak, and the made up car crash that killed Laura West. We've heard
from a few mothers in their daughters so far. In this case, the likes of Crystal and Lucy el Jenna knew from the start of their interactions with Natalia that they were dealing with a catfisher for Ebra and Bernie, though they were lied to and tricked for years. It's a type of catfishing wildly different to anything else we've discussed so far in this series, and not like any
other case I've heard before. This is Chasing Ghosts the Puppeteer and I'm David Fisher, an investigative reporter who started trying to understand Natalia Burgess thirteen years ago, and every time I think I'm getting close, something comes along that completely changes the game in terms of volume. Natalia's false characters churned through guys in depth and intensity, though she seems to be looking for something else. I don't think
I understood this when our paths first crossed. I found over the years when bring out an investigation into an individual that a profile builds my head. The quirks Tech's personality traits of the person on whom I'm intensely focused. It helps build an understanding of who you're dealing with, to understand the reasons why your subject might behave in a certain way. And with Natalia, I had such a
profile in my mind. It was built with interviews with those she had interacted with and after spending hours with her doing interviews, and the foundation of the profile I'd built was what I'd learned that she was targeting young teenagers online, and she created a carousel of characters through which she engaged with those boys. Back then and for years after, Natalia, in my mind, was someone driven by an urge to connect with young teen boys for sexual reasons.
Now I think I know better there's something else driving Natalia. The turning point was discovering Bernie and Emma in New Zealand, who Natalia become involved with fifteen years ago. Until now, I'd seen Natalia as a predator. Now, for all the pain she's caused, I see her differently. Emma was at high school when she met Natalia online through the Laura
West character. Emma had not long had her first child, who has been looked after by Bernie, and trying to adjust to the dual roles of being a teenager and a mum.
I received a friend's request on Facebook and then I had a message in the message request saying to me, I'm your cousin's cousin. I was like, okay, we've never heard of you. And then I was asking her, you know, how she knew my family and things like that, and she was saying everything to the point where it was like she was in the family and she knew too much. And then she said that we had already met where
men with hunaus and beerre just in passing generally. And then she knew a lot about me to the point where she knew my son's father. She knew the whole family rite down to the tea.
Just in case there's any confusion. Natalia didn't know and hadn't met Emma or Bernie. Let's also remember Laura West isn't real. And yet Natalia was able to introduce family facts and personal information that helped Ford's trust very quickly. And that's even though Bernie was doing all she thought a good parent should do.
That was at that time where you know, Mum still patrolled our facebooks and having that sense of security. Mum was even given me the twenty questions like who is this? I was like, well, she seems to be a cousin of a cousin. So that's how you know. Mum got on board because she ended up calling her Auntie.
Bernie had ruled the computer stayed in the sitting room. She wanted to know who's at the other end of the internet connection. She needed to know the part words of kids' social media accounts, and she even insisted on speaking on the phone to this Laura West, who become friends with her daughter. None of that was a barrier to Natalia.
When she mentioned a family member that I hadn't spoken to for at least fifteen years, that's oh, okay, you do know, yeah, it must be the relation of that relation. I'll telling you something that you wouldn't I. She knew so far into my life. She knew I had lost my son and where he is laying at Reece. She knew the cemetery, she knew the date, she knew a date that was born. A lot of you know Emma's girlfriends, they didn't know that because it was quite a while ago.
But this is how first she got into my personal life.
Hook line and Catfish.
It was like, my life consisted of messaging her twenty four to seven because she was bringing tyme be a life story, and I'd always say, oh, should we you know, hey, cous you know, because it got to the point where I believe that your you know cousin, So I was like calling your cousin.
There were things that didn't add up. They were minor and it wasn't until later that they were red flags, seen only with the benefit of hindsight. For example, and this is consistent with Natalia's targets. She avoided video calls or FaceTime, and she would organize meetings in real life only to have some drama emerged that meant that the meeting couldn't go ahead.
Oh you know, the car broke down or I'm too junk to drive or what was the other famous one?
I miss the bus.
I missed the buss. That's it.
Yeah, And I was like, it's fair to say that Emma was a volatile teenager. She was just sixteen at the time that she met Natalia. When Natalie was around a decade older. Emma thought she was bonding with a long lost cousin who was the same age. Both of them navigating their difficult teenage years. In reality, something different was happening. As would emerge in the years to come.
Natalie was soaking up the life experiences of Emma and Bernie and incorporating those experiences into the lives of her fantasy world characters, and as it became clear, she was meddling in a dangerous and difficult stage of Emma's life in a way that had significant repercussions. I've spoken about the death of Laura West, the decision by Natalia in December twenty ten to kill off the young woman that
she created, causing huge upset among those she bonded with online. Well, there are layers to this, and here's the first we know. Natalia posted news of Laura's death to Facebook, but when it came to Bernie, she took a different track. That morning of December sixth, Bernie's phone rang.
Every run Mom and I are to mess. We thought it was a genue when light cry for like grieving. You know, So Laura is dead and my mom was like, what do you mean she's dead? We were just talking to the other day. She was like, no, shared a car crash and she's dead. They deal with the ICU, but she didn't make it.
Laura's gone. So this is Abby still Natalia, but using a different voice. This is Abby who's messaging and speaking with Bernie and Emma. This is right in the middle of the shop. News of Laura's death, and Abbie's contact has a particular purpose.
How do I plan a funeral? Got no idea? You know, she would want it this way. What she says, she goes, I would like you and your mom to carry her, you know, stowed away. Well, there's no parent that she took her a pearance or no. No, she didn't talk to her a parents, So we were like her parents. Where were all she had about me?
At the time. Emma wasn't at home. Remember I described her as a volatile teenager. She was juggling a lot. And there was an event one which Natalia is believed to have instigated, that led to Emma leaving home and living elsewhere.
And then I've got a message or a phone call at the home saying she's dead. Your cousin is dead. And no, that's sent both of us spiraling.
In that event that Natalia is believed to have instigated. Well, that was about Peter Russell. Remember Peter He was Raywan Ford's son who took his life in twenty ten. Rayman has forever linked his suicide to Natalia, entangling him in a rollercoaster relationship with Laura West, though no official inquiry has offered any reasons that can be published. Certainly, I know from covering many coronial hearings there's almost always multiple
reasons for suicide. Well before the relationship with Peter and Laura came Peter and Emma.
So me and Peter we met randomly. I think it was as I was always at his house in christ Church. We were on and off for a wee back, you know, so excited young love. I was like, oh, got someone, and she was like, oh, you know, asking the twenty questions. Trying to be that so called protective family member.
Emma told Natalia all about Peter, including his name.
And then all of a sudden, she's I've got to be a partner now. I'm like, she was almost to the point where she had to.
Have what I had.
Me and Pete drifted away, That's right.
Laura West cut in on cousin Emma, and.
Then we just started drifting away. And then he said to me and am I was like, what's up? And he goes, I thank I'm falling in love with this girl. And I was like, you need to follow you, you need to do what you need.
To do well teenage Emma. It was devastating but troubling too to see the changes that came over Peter in that difficult online relationship.
He was like a schoolcad all over again, for like its fierce love.
He proposed, she accepted, then rejected the proposal, cup and got together again and then broke up again. It was all the drama all the time, and the change to Peter was there to see.
A huge, huge m back, like and it's like he's lost as well, like isn't doing do anything? He didn't he on benders.
I still remember a.
Message I got from me. He goes, well, she's she's broken up with me again, but I think this times for real. I'm just going to go on the bender and just ended all. I vividly remember that message and I was trying to talk him out of it, and then I called him his nickname and he goes, I need to wake up from this, Like how can a girl take advantage of me? You know, I lost everything I gave her everything. It was hard. It was really hard.
He wasn't himself or he had There was a complete empty shell to the person that I fell in love with. It was quite scary to think, you know, this big, bright, bubbly personality that he always had, you know that eOne knew you for, and it's just empty, like completely and utterly. Indeed, Emma was hurting but locked it down. She was determined to give them space, not to be that ex girlfriend. But all the time she was nursing pain.
That's when Abbie came, and you know, Emma was hurt of what happened. And I was watching this unfold. But Emma and her persona of a front that I'm okay, but she wasn't.
Bernie's take on it, in hindsight was that Natalie wasn't getting whatever it was she was looking for from Emma.
So all of a sudden, we've got a new person coming into play, and that was Abby. And Abby seemed very genuine, more so than any of the other people.
Abby she was so genuine, like she was trying to say how she was disgusted how her mate ye made Laura had done what she'd done, Like she was like, you know, one of those high school friends, like backstabbing her best friend to her deserve it, Like, yeah.
She was real, She's just so manipulating.
Believable, Yeah, she was believable. Bizarrely, this conflict between characters played out online, Ernie and Emma watching as Laura's friends turned on her, remonstrating, yeah, we were just watching.
It on face you know, you hop on Facebook or whatever it was at the time, and you'd watched this fight going on like Keyboard Warriors, but didn't.
Realize it was the same person.
And one was.
Saying this, one was saying that, and then this one would back off off, and it was just blowing up, and you.
Actually believed it was real.
That was a wait, and it added to what Emma was already dealing with the death of a friend in a car crash. It was later that she realized the real world tragedy in early twenty ten served as a template for the death of Laura West.
But it was quite weird because it was the same kind of car crash that actually happened to a lateral life friend, real person, and she genuinely died in the car crash. It was you know, I still get over pet and then all of a sudden, I'm grieving for this cousin that I'd never met but was really close with. So you know, she was playing on our emotions with that one.
It's like she got into our emotions and she knew our stories of our friends and our family, and she could worm me way into that story and make a fiction story of it.
It was crazy.
It was like she knew where to hit us where it hurt.
For Emma, this was a time of profound instability. There were aspects of her behavior that made it, for a time impossible for her to be at home, and with Tatalia in the mix, that volatility increased exponentially. I asked Emma what the impact was on her, but it was a mum Bernie who spoke first, self distruct Yeah.
Literally, I went down the path of what stealing, getting locked up all the time. I was like so close to going jail, so close to going jail. I was getting towards the alcohol became alcohol depending at seventeen, just running myself into the ground like I was over. I was going to go join them, and I was at that stage I couldn't take any more, and then turned into the drugs as well, and I turned to the drugs.
I was watching my daughter self destruct and there's nothing like go out of this.
This woman destroyed my family. I was so close to losing my daughter.
There was a drunken stumble by Natalia that New Year's Eve when she introduced herself with her own name. She talked fast to paper over the cracks in her story, Emma and Burnie recall, but it did create a seed of doubt. And then came the reporting about four months later who was really behind the face of Laura West? And the truth was out. But even though that reporting was followed by police chargers and at court hearing, Emma still found herself struggling to believe it was all fake.
I was disgusted, like and still believing that she was my cousin, like she'd manipulated me that much. I was like, Nah, that's my cousin, and like, no, that's this not who she is, This is my cousin, Like I wanted to protect there at saying zion, I don't know why, but I was shocked and I'm thinking, well, okay, there's so many unanswered questions at the same time, so I.
Was I don't know, I was shell shocked.
I was numb, and I probably a lot of gelt. Yeah, I lived with the gelt because I felt I'd put my daughter through as it was like a grief.
It really is like a grief proving all these family members and friends that really real.
Yeah, and to realize, you know, someone had done this to my family and even to this day is still doing it within the mind.
The relationship between Emma Bernie and Natalia as Laura lasted for nearly two years, but ended when I exposed Natalia and the Hero on Sunday. You know the story by now, that Natalia went to jail, I thought she would stop her puppeteering and then founded twenty twenty two. She was masquerading as others. But not only did she start targeting
men again. Once Natalia got out of jail, she set her sights on infiltrating another family and just like the men, she now turned to Australia, landing in Adelaide, where she found mother and daughter Danica and Lisa Danika Baxter. Like Emma met Natalia while she was at school. By her account, this was twenty sixteen.
I met so in a friend's Facebook group, so like just wanting friends. Then she started messaging me under a name called Kaylee. Then we headed off pretty well.
Kaylie said she was a decade older than Danneka, who was sixteen at the time. In reality, Natalia at that time would have been around thirty two. This time, Natalie was using the name Kaylee. Remember that friend Emma actually lost in a car crash. Her name was Kaylee. Natalia's fantasy world had taken a different direction since jail here in twenty sixteen is the earliest I've found where she's using Crystal Jenner's image. Around that time, she created a
new cast of characters. She told Daniker and Lisa she had a daughter, Lily Rose, and as time went on, linked herself to the well known family from Auckland, the Littalis. Daniker is now twenty four, but she and her mum remember the woman they knew as Kaylie Rose or Kaylee Litelly was that kind.
Of normal like mom life.
She was blonde from New Zealand, very pretty, oh yeah, very pretty, treated us as her own sample like kept calling me her little sister, like auntie to.
Her daughter, and then like my mom, her mom.
Yeah.
It was like felt so real, so much that This is familiar from speaking with Emma and Bernie.
Oh God, were talked about how literally answering the whole entire life. She's backs on me in my life, all my exys, my grandma, that Sazi passed away, and my niece sent photos to each other. She'd message down ink one minute.
And then she said, I'm like, oh, were you talking to Kaye? And then she'd hang out, but then she'd talk to me and yeah, or some jobs together.
She kept messing us Nelly every day, yep. And if Danny your head a roun like we had a fight, he could ring and asked for advice. And then godra Aran in Ireland. Yeah, I just really.
Thought she was wrong.
Kaylee called Danicas sis and Lisa mum. She messaged and spoke to both women for around six years. It sounds, I said, as if Kaylee was a part of the family brtually, even.
Though that sounds we are we are starting.
But yeah, there's large chunks of the interview with Danika and her mum Lisa that I could play, but I'm pretty sure you'd start to feel like you'd heard it before, and you would have because much of what happened with Emma and Bernie happened in just the same way. Contact started with the schoolgirl Emma or Danka, but quickly grew
to incorporate their mums, Bernie and Lisa. The contact was initially over messenger, but then changed to include voice calls, and there was always a reason why those voice calls didn't include video. Here's Danika, I'm cooking dinner.
I've just put Lily down for a sleeve so I don't want to wake her.
And here's Emma.
I was like, do you want to FaceTime? She's like, oh, I'm busy. I'm just getting out the shower. I've got an apployment or you know. My wife was playing up and I was like, oh good. I never thought anything of it.
It sort of Talia became a major influence in Emma's life, and then later with Danica. She was with them for major life events. For Emma, it was the loss of a friend in a car crash. For Danica, it was helping her cope with the death of her grandmother.
I think I told kay Lee that, oh, hey, Grandma, my Nada passed away, and then she was like, oh, I'm so sorry to hear. He was Sandy her love and support, and then when it came to us, so I think once she said I wish I was out to support you know, I'm like, no, it's all good.
And guess what it wasn't long after that Kaylee's own grandmother died. It was news Kaylee broke to Danica and I can see messages from that time that Kaylee couldn't help but double down.
Grandma died of old age, Vicki of cancer and May last year and Liam, when he was fifteen, he was murdered.
Who were these three people? Were any of them real? There was a Vicula Tally who died in May twenty seventeen, someone Natalia likely met behind bars. The two were sentenced to the same prison. Vicula Tally was serving three years on fraud chargers at the same time as that Talia had gone away. Of Liam. Danaka recalls that Kaylie spoke of him as a brother, and yet there's no evidence of a teenage at that age by the name of Liam being murdered in New Zealand in the last twenty years.
As for Grandma, well, it definitely wasn't Kayley's grandmother because Kayleie's just not real What's so striking about Danika and Lisa's contact with Natalia is how long it went on for by their account, and there are copies of many text mess sug just to support this. Their connection lasted from twenty sixteen through to twenty twenty two, and those messages show an incredible level of drama injected into the relationship,
all in the context of Kaylee's daily life. There's plenty of mundane chitchat between the two, which we've had voiced by two actors.
Pal's Lily Rose. She is playing outside.
Oh cute, She's got a scooter she plays on now she's whipped it out, And.
There's major life changing moments. Both the good be happy.
I am moving back. My new boyfriend lives in Adelaide. Who's your new boyfriend? Nathan? No, so hopefully this swks up for you both. And the bad babe, what's happened with you and Nathan? Nothing.
We had a tiny fight at two am when we were both tired. I think we are okay.
Natalia would share photographs with Danaker and Lisa, One of a preschool girl was supposed to be Kaylee's daughter, Lily Rose. Instead, the child pictured is the daughter of a friend of Crystal Jenny's. Remember, Tarlia didn't only harvest crystal social media output, she cast the net wide across her friend circle in a bid to find more building blocks for her fantasy world. Natalia has such a store of photographs from Crystal and
her friends that there's almost one for every occasion. There were Christmas photographs, shopping pictures, precious family moments at a park. At an early stage. The discovery they had the same birth dates delighted Daneka. It's a coincidence, she now sees with some cynicism. When Daneka was turning twenty and fictitious Kaylee was turning thirty. Four years after they first met. There are a bounty of photographs showing Kaylee celebrating their
joint birthday celebrations. The messages are an archive of the fabric of life, written large by a longtime fantasist. The messaging between them covers such a broad range of life dramas. There's new loves, there's new breakups. Together, they shared joy and frustration. In one lengthy exchange, Kaylee bored, Natalia tells Danica how her current boyfriend should be treating her better, and then Kaylee goes a step further by messaging the boyfriend Danka.
Was good to you and you hurt her. We just passed me off being her big sister.
In Danka's case, there was at least a real relationship.
Tell mom she's going to be a grandma in October again, thanks Bobe, Mom and I so congratulations.
Thanks. Me and Jaden are so happy.
That's the same Jada and we met last episode. The man who found out she wasn't real the same day he met her online.
Mom said how are you and Lily Rose? We're good.
She was at my last scan and got so excited when she heard the baby's heartbeat.
That's good to hear. And oh, she's going to be a big sister. Fingers crossed. It's a boy cross them hard. Jaden wants a boy to.
A month later, the scams were in and it turned out a boy wasn't on the way.
How about we name my daughter Summer Danica Louise Latali Grazier.
You're having another daughter? Why my name? Because you're a little sets.
And another month passes, then how's your pregnancy going?
Good? Sirs? Thank you? Scan next week?
That's good and oh so exciting I can't wait to give Lily her little sister.
And then a month later, in a message timestamp six point thirty pm, the slow drip of news about an imminent sister for Lily Rose took a dark turn.
We lost the baby. OMG, how I went an early labour Han win baby at three pm today.
The drama was constant, and it often escalated to previously unreached height or sunk to new debts in a way that is reminiscent again of a soap opera seeking out a new, gripping narrative twist. For a period in twenty nineteen, Danika and Lisa lived with the worst of one of those scenarios. It started with a text like most did, but this time Natalia had taken on a new identity.
Kaylee and Nikoma. She overdosed after Greg broke up with her this morning after losing her grandpa last night. Gregged up to her this morning. It was all too much for her.
Well is she going to be okay? What about Lily Rose?
She's at her grandmother's house. We've got no idea how long she was unconscious for before Ashley found her.
Okay, Thanks may I Ascomb talking to please Dave her brother.
That brother is Dave thet Tally, also known as Butterbean, the former pro boxer who's become quite a prominent social advocate. I've confirmed with the Tally family that this was not Dave who was messaging Dannika, and that messaging went on for days.
How's Keyley in.
A medical coma for now? To let her body heal from all the pills she took?
Okay? Well, hope she will be okay thinking of her.
There were others who rang while Kayley was in a coma.
That was her, but in a different voice.
It's just that's bizarre.
And then Kaylee was back and sending photographs from inside the hospital.
How you feeling sis like an idiot?
Why?
Because he never loved me? Lol? I tried to kill myself over a loser.
You were better without him. Now, listen to me. Never do anything stupid again, Promise, Keeley. I got so scared. Me and mine were crying. Liver's needs a beautiful mom in her life.
The contact is constant. It's about men and relationships, cheating and being cheated on. Danica talks of being messaged by friends of Kayleie's and there's no evidence these were real people, but it was all part of an ongoing, developing narrative. When Kaylee met new guys online, she would start a group chat and pull Daniker in, this is my new guy.
She would say, if I had to argue with my mom, all that we partners and all that, so used to ask, and she'll give me the best advice. Said some of the advice she gave me, it was honestly amazing, And yeah, it's so great to just touch down my name to and lean on and talk to when you need someone because she is always there.
And then came the discovery it was all a lie. When Danica stumbled across the real Crystal Jenna line.
She saw this photo of her on TikTok and she goes, that's Kad, but she's gone by a.
Different name, right, thought, okay, this is strange.
And then when we found out, Yeah, it was a shot.
Big shot, especially after talking draw for what five six years Allie and then finding out.
She's not real. Yeah, and he think, why would a person do this?
It took Danika a while to be able to have a proper conversation with Crystal. To her, it seemed unreal that her friend, her big sister of six years didn't actually exist, and I'm real that the face associated with that friend belonged to a different woman. For a while, she wanted to go to the Gold Coast and meet Crystal face to face so she would know for sure.
First, I didn't even want to believe it because I'm like, what's well? I still used her like literally just bizarre and klind isel bit scared because she literally knows my tire life.
Denika is haunted by this. She knows how much she has shared and that's left her feeling exposed and vulnerable. Would the real person behind Kaylee come searching for her? Would that person come to Adelaide?
It's start side now actually, And now I just feel like so stupid because her talks to someone that they've hasn't met. There was a lion, you know, and it's scary at it. It put all they'll trust into this person seeking as so well, I thought, well, how can.
This person do this for so long, pretending to be someone else?
And why would they do it?
You know, because they said she treated us like her mum and her sister and it's her and Frush and annoying that she's done all this for what what reason would she get out of doing this?
So upset to me the most, you know.
Talking to six years to this person thinking she's all this and then boom, find it out she's not.
Yeah, it was very hard.
Danica connected with Crystal online and learned Crystal's image had been used for years to trick people. Crystal told her about Natalia, about trying to get something done to stop it, and how she'd been unsuccessful. She told Danica, who was confused and lost with the absence of such a close friend, that Natalia likely spent so many years in contact because
she'd found a special connection. It was a kind theory that Danica was the close and genuine friend this lonely imposter needed, and the one who helped ease her pain.
Was actually my old fuck again, maybe she's telling me the truth. And then as when I funded camee then she wouldn't. I don't have a phone nn she were nine to me back, so even to blockly was furden me to be like, Wow, my whole entire plan of life speaks to this person. Nothing.
Natalia knew the game was up. She wouldn't answer calls, didn't respond messages, and eventually Janica cut herself free in one final message, and this is what she said.
What the actual fuck these past years of talking to you isn't even you? Why would you pretend to be someone else and talk to me like a fucking sister and my whole life and so you have a fucking daughter when you don't.
You even faked and.
Felt better about my nana passing away and caught us all family yuck.
You make me sick.
Danika then blocked her and in the time since, wounds have started to heal and new friendships have formed, but she still struggles to understand why Natalie has spent six years being her big sister.
She still think she's just one very not only female and clearly doesn't have the life and has friends. So she's just making so many friends on social media and real connections.
Yeah yeah, and it's really sad that she doesn't feel that she can do that as herself.
Yeah, And that's what I'm sad.
It is that.
And maybe she's jealous because Chris Stoy is absolutely stunning gown. Think, oh yeah, I could talk to a lot of people because look at her. She's staying so I can get so many people and so many guys to talk to me type of thing.
I have to agree with Danika here. Cat fishing all these men is one thing, But spending years pretending to be someone's long lost relative, treating them like a part of your family. What is driving Natalia? And ties back to the bigger question that was never really asked back when I first reported on this. Who is the real Natalia Burgess? And why has she done the thing she has? I think it's about time I try and find that out.
You've been listening to Chasing Ghosts the Puppeteer, follow the podcast and the Chasing Ghost Feed on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts, and you can find more in this case at incidherld dot co dot inz. Ethanselves as my producer with audio engineering by alistair Boys. Thanks to my colleagues for lending their voices to this episode. If you have a story about this case, contact me at
David dot Fisher at inzidherld dot co dot inz. And if you believe you've encountered behavior online that matches what we've discussed in this series, you can find help at netsafe dot org, dot inzed, but if you feel at risk, don't hesitate, contact police.