The Jealousy, The Voicemails and The Literal Broken Heart

and the literal broken Heart. Her whole life, Sarah Ludiman had played it safe. She worked hard in school, participating in multiple sports, and was involved in the church. Those were the eighteen year old priorities. But as your senior year in Penelli's Park, Florida began, Sarah couldn't help feeling that she was entering adulthood and that she was on the outside looking in. Sarah yearned to go to parties, break some rules, and above all, made a boy who

made her heart swim. Sarah was an only child and her parents had been married for over thirty years. Her father was a cab driver and her mother was a surgical nurse, and the pair had moved from New York to Florida when Sarah was born to keep her safe and warm. The pair doated on Sarah and showered her with endless love, but despite that, their daughters seemed to have low self esteem. Although she had brains, beauty, and a killer sense of humor, she dealt with some weight

loss issues. These, in turn plagued her with insecurities. Sarah saw true love at home with her mother and father, and in the books she read and the show she watched, but she wondered if it would ever be hers. All of that changed in the fall of two thousand and eight, when Sarah was struck with cupids arrow. After meeting nineteen year old Josh camecho Josh was everything Sarah wanted, and to her surprise, he seemed to feel the same way. For the very first time in her life, Sarah no

longer felt like an outsider. Perhaps her feelings could be encapsulated best in a MySpace photo she posted of herself with Josh. The caption underneath it read, quote true love when you look at him and you can see her entire future in his eyes. Here's Jeff. So here's what we know about Josh Camacho. He was a well known cool guy in the area. He was known for having a string of girlfriends and a tough guy attitude. But despite being so different than Sarah, the pair really seemed

to click. There were rumors around town that Josh just us girls for rides in cash, but Sarah wouldn't hear any of it. But can you really blame Sarah for feeling the way she did. Romantic love is an addiction, and your first love is your first dose, the best, most elusive high you feel, the one you always chase.

The results of the Harvard study we were looking at strongly suggested that because love provides a kind of chemical feedback in our brains, were creating this chemical response may eventually become our human drive or motivation to stay in love. And the way we put this into context of this story is that Sarah might not have even loved Josh specifically, but just the idea of being in love. Chris, what do we know about how the people in her life

reacted to this new relationship. It's often that the people closest to us sometimes hear little alarm bills when some of this stuff is going off. We're young, we don't necessarily have the best taste sometimes, but I mean they were they were in love. But her parents didn't necessarily take to Josh. They were worried about her. They could see this relationship wasn't good for her, but they also

loved her and wanted to be supportive. I think it's kind of hard for parents, right, They see this and they think it's wrong, but they don't want to drive their daughter away by completely not supporting her. Right, It's a fine line. Yeah. I think they wanted to be there and make sure that they could catch her if she fell, or be pleasantly surprised if they were wrong. Right, So instead of acting angry and potentially driving a wedge,

they kept Josh close by. And you know, Sarah's dad went to the extent of taking him to baseball games and had him over for family dinners, trying to get him to be a part of the family a bit, probably, and to keep a watchful eye on him. And it was also a little bit of keep your friends close and your enemies closer, that kind of thing. So they hope the relationship would fizzle out, but it kept ongoing

and that plan didn't seem to work. Sarah was more in love with Josh and this bad boy image more. Each day, Sarah's parents noticed a change in Sarah. Her grades started to slip, her behavior was different. She even transferred schools to be closer to Josh, which that's a pretty big move, pretty bold. So the parents at that point wanted to intervene, but what could they do. She was eighteen, so she's now kind of out of their sphere of being able to do anything legally. Right. Yeah,

that must have been self frustrating for her parents. They felt like they knew bath But you know, what can you tell a teenage girl about her love life? Not a whole lot, Well, especially once she's turned eighteen. And oftentimes at that age, when we're told something by our parents, oftentimes we think we know right and we don't really listen to our parents. Yeah. I think also, girls always want to date a bad boy because they think they're going to be the girl that will change him and

he'll change for them. And I imagine Sarah probably had seen her fair share of romantic comedies and where it kind of always works out. I imagine she felt that it would work out for her in the same way it did in all those You know idyllic movies. Well, yeah, she you see the bad boy or the broken boy, you want to be the one that kind of fixes

him or brings them to the good side. From looking at this, you know, and her parents were probably seeing him dragging her to the darker side, considering her grades were dropping, she's changing schools for him, and her behavior was getting more erratic. It sounds like Sarah was proud of her relationship and did what any teenager who is in love does, post about it incessantly. As is unfortunately true with all social media, you never quite know who

is going to see those posts. That autumn, Sarah got a comment from someone named Rachel Wade. Sarah didn't know Rachel, but the girl's words struck a chord. Under a picture of Sarah and Josh kissing, Rachel had written, I'm his girlfriend, Who the hell are you? Sarah was devastated. She confronted Josh, but he denied everything. He and Rachel had dated, he said, but they had broken up months ago. Sarah believed him,

but couldn't help wondering who was Rachel Wade. So, Chris, what do we know about this building love triangle between Josh Sarah and Rachel. Well, Johnshu told Sarah that he and Rachel had been broken up for months. The truth was that he and Rachel were still dating and had actually been dating since the summer before he had even met Sarah. So really, Rachel's kind of right because Sarah's the new girl right in that love triangle, not that Sarah knew at all. This is Josh playing the field.

Josh is two timing Rachel and he's two timing Sarah. The girls looked at each other as the enemy, and Josh has the conquest the the bad boy at the center of this that they both wanted, and Rachel and Sarah would fight over Josh. So Rachel started coming for Sarah online on the photos that Sarah would post, Like there was a photo that Sarah posted where she was at the beach. Rachel commented, why would you wear that

to the beach? Don't you know you're fat? I mean that must have hit Sarah like a ton of bricks. As we mentioned earlier, she she'd already had weight issues, like self esteem issues with her weight, so for another young lady to say that to her about a beach

photo that probably sent her spinning. I would assume um. Rachel, because she's a young lady herself, would have known that that it would hurt quite a bit, probably one of the most hurtful things she could do to Sarah, and on such a public form, to like my Space where everyone can see the comment, probably stung even harder. But it's not like Sarah just sat back and I hope this would go away. She actually fought back in a way.

She continued to antagonize Rachel by posting photos of her and Josh when they were together, knowing that Rachel would see them, and in turn, Rachel would then do the same, posting photos of her and Josh when they were together, knowing that Sarah would see. Most of this happened online, but the fighting started to happen in real life. One time, Sarah and her friends went to the Applebee's where Rachel worked,

and asked to be sat in her section. Once they were at their table, they complained, sent the food back, made a mess, generally just making Rachel's life miserable. We're going to take a break. We'll be back in just a moment. You know, it strikes me with some of this because right now there's a boy at the center of this Josh and the two girls. Instead of going after Josh, who's the one who's in the wrong, he's the one who's two timing both of them. They're going

after each other. And we've read that at least in one case. I think it's Rachel was in the Disney Princess movies. You know, this is something that we're kind of conditioned, as you women, when we're watching those movies, that that the ultimate goal is the prance or the guy. So I think this is playing out in a really bad and negative way with the story. Yeah, I mean from the outside looking, and it's so easy to say

Josh is the jerk. These two girls are both being played they should really come together and break up with this guy. But I think when you're in it, and you know, putting yourself in Sarah's position, She's in love with Josh, and so she wants to maintain that relationship. This is her first relationship. She's putting a lot of weight into it, and so Rachel is this outsider trying to break in, and so what she's trying to do is stop that at all costs. I don't agree with it,

but I get it. No, I don't agree either. I'm just saying there's also social pressures that I think are coloring how these girls are responding. For sure. Well, I wonder to what Josh is thinking in all this. I mean, probably knowing what it's like to be a you know, high school boy. It's it's pretty fun. I would have thinked to have girls fighting over you, and I imagine probably friends at school. We're making it worse too, and

adding fuel to the fire. Well, also, if he's a bad boy, it's probably adding to a street cred to have two girls fighting over him. Not to be outdone, Rachel got Sarah's phone number and started calling her. Take a listen to some of these disturbing voicemails. Next message, please tell me, Sarah, why you would be a dumbinos just to put a brand new picture you and Josh at the beach. Seriously, I told you to watch back and not to chill with him. Now you ask his mind,

and I'm guaranteeing you I'm no murder you. I'm letting you know that now because you know what Josh might have played me. But bitch on gonna play your ass out to watch your fat bitch it on the can kill you. I wear on my lights, watch out your window when I get off for tonight. You jump, bitch. End of message, next message. It's so funny how you talk and you want to sit there and say that my man without your ass house. Then tell me what

he was wearing tonight. Sarah, you're a dumb bitch for real. If you're in line, I'm gonna find you and I'm gonna beat your ass. If you're not lying, I'm gonna find you and beat your ass. Okay, you keep playing games. You're apathetic, little bitch, and you're a little girl. Honestly, what do you have this going for you that Josh wants to you? What we're me for? I got a job, have my own place. Seriously, he could get anything he wants for me, anything, not to mention that I would

probably ten times better than you. And you run your mouth. You still got your mommy and daddy's curfew, bitch, For God's sake, what do you Why do you run your your mouth? And why are you that pathetic? Please do leave it on your mind space, because that's o You's just like you and him are, so keep talking, Sarah, you stop. You haven't relearned your life and yet, but

I'm gonna teach you it. I'm telling you now with me, Sarah, psychonical action and I'm telling you now, I'm going to show you psycho with me for a long person the one thing that I care about, because I'm gonna teach you how to go up roma quick. Holy Yeah, I was getting uncomfortable listening to those messages. I can't even fathom what it was like for Sarah to receive messages

like that, especially at her age. You know, she's being cursed at, she's being threatened, and it seems like this kind of started a dumb cat and mouse game, you know. And then Josh is sitting there enjoying it. Really disturbing voicemails are going out to Sarah from Rachel and and then Josh seems to be playing dumb about all of this and seems to be enjoying his sooner stage position in this game and not helping either side, but kind

of egging them on instead of shutting it down. He it sounded like he encouraged the girls to keep posting photos and crazy captions. Yeah, and where my brain goes is these kids are clearly not thinking straight, because when you're doing something wrong, the first thing you know is you should never put it in writing or put it online. And that's all these girls are doing, I mean leaving these voicemails. Now there's this proof forever of the horrible

things that Rachel was saying to Sarah. In the same way putting these comments on the internet, it lives forever online. Now everyone can always read these awful words that they were saying about each other. Yeah, in the case of both Rachel and Sarah, this is two thousand nine, So this is the beginning of the Internet. I think Facebook came public in two thousand seven. We're somewhere around there.

I think YouTube started in two thousand seven, and we're talking about my Space, which is a precursor to Facebook. So I think there's a lot that we've learned now about that. All of them are teenagers, so they've got an adolescent brain, and experts who will tell you that the adolescent brain is not developed enough to really be logical,

right and to calm yourself down. So you get in the middle of this fight and you're gonna post, and you're gonna get angry, and you're gonna get reactive and I think that's what we're seeing here, and it's just egging each other on. So it strikes me that we're talking about this now when we know so much more about how those negative effects, we're watching a tragedy planting out right now online. That's a great point, and it

was clearly working. Every time Rachel would leave Sarah voicemail, Sarah would respond, so it was clear she was Rachel was getting a rise out of Sarah, which was the ultimate goal. I mean, obviously the whole fight was cyclical because they were both doing it to each other, but they were getting what they wanted, which was the other one to feel bad about themselves. Yeah, and they were also probably getting a rise out of the boyfriend they were trying to nab two. Oh for sure. Yeah, he's

playing right into it. I mean he he liked it by all accounts. On April fourteen, two and nine, Sarah spent most of her day a sessing over the idea of Josh and Rachel together. Her desolation only intensified when she checked Rachel's my Space. There she saw her rival had updated her status to say quote loving maboo. It didn't name Josh specifically, but Sarah knew who Rachel was talking about. Sarah said Josh multiple texts asking him about Rachel,

all of which she ignored. Finally, she texted him quote, you say you love me, but you don't have the decency to text me back. After a long stint of silence, Josh bluntly responded, quote, bring the movies, although he hadn't responded at all to Sarah's cries about the love triangle. She headed over to Josh's house for a video. After the movie, Sarah and Josh's sister headed out to get some food. When Rachel called Sarah, there were more angry threats.

Although she couldn't hear every thing, Josh's sister specifically remembered hearing Rachel scream quote, I'm going to stab you and your Mexican boyfriend. After hanging up, Sarah got a text that would change the rest of her life. A friend had spotted Rachel and gave Sarah the address. In the car, Sarah was just a few blocks from her rival. She sped over with her curfew nearing, Sarah texted her parents saying she'd be a little late. When she arrived at

Rachel's location, Sarah got out of the car. After a few minutes, other kids had heard about the drama and rushed to the suburban neighborhood. The two teenage girls started fighting in the streets. Not more than ten seconds had passed before Rachel pulled out a knife and stabbed Sarah twice. Amidst the chaos, someone called nine one. Rachel ran. Sarah was taken to the hospital and very sadly died at two twenty am the next morning. Her cause of death

was the puncture to the heart. When police found Rachel, she'd made it a few blocks away, where she sat calmly on a bench smoking a cigarette. She agreed to come in for questioning. At first, Rachel told police she knew nothing about stabbing Sarah, but she quickly changed her story. Take a listen to a portion of the interrogation. When Sarah was hitting me, I went to hit her and I probably did not eat staff her. I'm not I'm

not killed. Somebody tell me how it happened. She was hitting me, and when I went to hit her back, I had put one of my hands up and I had like I tried to hit her back and keep my hands in front of me. This is the knife show me how you're okay. But now if I'm Sarah and I'm in front of you, what were you doing with the knight? I would out to the side. Did

she started swinging on me? And then when I went to put my hands out, but she was swinging on me and I tried to defend myself from her, and then Janet came at me from the side, and I guess, like, I did not mean to stab her how many times? And when I hear that, it sounds exactly like a teenager when they get caught doing something wrong that's innocuous.

Their first response is to just deny it. They didn't do it, and then they kind of come around and there's like a dance around what they might have been involved, but not to the extent. But we're not talking about something innocuous here. We're talking about murder, so the stakes are definitely higher. Let's stop here for another break, Chris.

Do we know what happened to the murder weapon? Yeah, So, after Rachel got in this altercation with Sarah ended up stabbing her, she fled the scene, and I guess on her way away from there, she threw the knife up onto the neighbor's roof, and that's where the police found it. So she had enough wherewithal to actually what it technically is, disposing of the murder weapon. Yeah, so that would point to somebody knowing exactly what they've done to me. Well.

As the integtition continued, the police broke the news to Rachel that her rival Sarah had died. Let's take a listen to that moment that you need to understand, Rachel. Okay, when I was down at the hospital, Okay, I saw where she was stabbed at Okay, it looks like he has two stab wounds, all right. The next piece of information that you need to know is that she is dead. Aside and the results of these stab wounds that she

had at Northside Hospital, I didn't know. He didn't. He didn't them to finally leave me alone all this over, Josh, I just didn't want them to the air right me anymore. He following me every weddy come to my job, they come in my house. They not gonna follow you anymore, because she did. Now, she seems to me genuinely surprised. She seems very emotional. I buy that she didn't necessarily know that she was dead. Or know that she was gonna know that she was going to die, But I

could be wrong. She breaks down crying and gets fairly emotional, and I don't I don't know that that's an act. It is, of course one thing to wish someone dead and to then find out you actually killed them. It's possible that it wasn't necessarily first degree murder intent with her like knowing she was going to stab her to death. It might have just been I'm gonna stabb her to get her away from my boyfriend, and now she's finding out that this person actually died from what she did.

We talked a lot about a crime being premeditated or not. And while she might have not meant to kill Sarah, Rachel brought a knife to this fight. I mean, she had to know what that knife would do it, so she certainly meant to cause her harm, which is enough to constitute a crime. I also wondered too, I mean, the crying sounds genuine, but I wonder if it's less of a surprise, it's less of an emotional reaction to Sarah's death and more of a oh wow, this is real,

I really did this. I'm in big, big trouble. Now, that's quite possible that the breakdown is more realizing the gravity of the situation. She just put herself in. Sarah kind of started to go find Rachel. Rachel had a knife. I don't know that Rachel brought the knife. Following witness testimony and her own admission, Rachel was arrested and charged with second degree murder. The trial became a media circus,

with all of Penella's Park packing the courtroom. The defense argued that Rachel had killed Sarah in self defense, and the prosecution encountered saying that people who kill in self defense don't dispose of the murder weapon and lie to police. And what did Josh, the boy at the center of this tragic drama, have to say? So? Josh sent on multiple occasions to the police that he had no idea

how bad things were between the girls. Besides, everything point pointed to the contrary in his head, and he spoke about this and on the stand. Why don't we listen in on a little bit of what Josh told the prosecution during cross examination. We are aware of the drama that was going on between Rachel and Sarah that night. Throughout the entire previous six months. Yes, tell the jury about that. They would go back and forth on MySpace or calling. What were they calling about? Are you going?

What were they arguing about about? Who was I going to be with? About you? Yes? The issue that was going on on MySpace and Facebook and the texting and the phone calls were all about you. Yes. And at no point in time do you encourage those No, Okay, he's not taking responsibility for anything. When you hear that kid, he's like, oh, I wasn't dating them, they were friends with benefit. Like, he's going to that extent with the prosecutor.

That's pretty surprising. What do you think, Jeff, Yeah, I mean, he definitely is trying to distance himself from the relationships and the crime. You know. It's it's a surprise to me that he wasn't necessarily charged with something. I mean, it seems like he could have been somehow and at fault for this, at least perfectly for kind of antagonizing this whole situation so much that it got to the point it got to if Josh knew this was going on, knew, you know, and he didn't try to stop it. Sounds

by all accounts that he was egging them on. Is there something that the prosecution could have tried to look at. I don't know. There's a lot of people out there who believe that Josh is just as much to blame for the tragedy of Sarah's death as Rachel is, and yet he faced no charges. In a way, I think he certainly is. But also I'm reminded of all the kind of drama that high schoolers deal with, and and you know, there were many love triangles back in the day.

But I don't know what made Rachel cross the line between saying I want to fight over this boy too, I want to murder over this boy. But when she took the stand, gone was that bad girl with all the confidence in the world. In her place looked more like a scared child facing life in prison. Let's take a listen to some of her testimony. If you're direct examination, you cooperated with the investigations, wasn't your cooperation line? Isn't that what you call it? No? No, you didn't like

to the detective that night. No, you did it. I never told him I didn't have a knife. I just never mentioned you never mentioned it. It was like a little moggy just you completely forgot correct right, you forget You didn't forget. You said that you couldn't even remember the point that you sat her. Don't remember physically stabbing her. You remember everything else. You don't remember that. I just remember swinging my arms. I don't physically remember stabbing or

you had the knife in your hands. I know, why did you throw the knife on the napes. I didn't know happen, and I didn't want anybody else to get a little of it. I didn't want anything to be done or anybody be hurt. That night. You didn't happen, you said, are than you got blood on the knife. I saw blood, but I didn't physically see her stabbed. I didn't know how severe this situation was. Spitting to say that a minute after you heard Jolisa say that

she was stabbed. Yes, I didn't know where she was stabbed or how severe it was. I was scared. I just thought you said you didn't know what happened to me. It's it's just sad. You know, she sounds so beaten down and scared, and obviously she did something so horrible and it's unforgivable, but it it just reminds you of the tragedy of that she's about to lose freedom and she's really facing that. But ultimately, she was still on

the stand and everything she said people were listening. And so when Rachel told the prosecutors that she hadn't lied to police, remember when she was being interrogated, she told him at first she didn't stab Sarah, but then she changed her story. She got caught in a lie, which on the stand, as you know, is very bad, and the prosecution kind of just jumped on this and it discredited everything she said from that point forward. But what I'm really reminded of is again the kind of how

scared she sounds. And this is so different than that angry, confident girl we heard earlier in the voicemails. As a reminder, take a listen again. Next message, police, tell me, Sarah, why you would be a dumbinas just to put a brand new picture you and Josh at the beach. Seriously, I told you to watch her back and not to chill with him. Now, yeah, his mind. And I'm guaranteeing you I'm no murder you. I'm letting you know that now because you know what Josh might have played me.

But on the play your ass out to watch your fat bitchet on. This can kill you. I wear on my life. Watch out your window when I get off for tonight. You've dune bit end of message. It is striking she she had this bravado and you can hear the bravado she had when she was mean Rachel on

the voicemails. And then you see the striking difference of Rachel, whose humanity seems to have returned to her being, you know, a little girl on the stand, right, but also trying to maintain the I guess the picture of no, no, I'm a good girl. No, I of course I didn't lie to the police, and you know that's not gonna

go well because you did. I think it's hard for an adolescent sometimes to understand that sometimes just facing up to what you've done, things are going to turn out better than you trying to fix it with a story, right, And I think that's kind of what I see in her A bit. I also think you can imagine what it's like to hurt someone or want to hurt someone, even to the point of I wish they were dead.

But she crossed the line. And I think in that courtroom you're seeing her realizing she crossed that line and she's beaten down by that information very well said yeah, I mean, I think my takeaway from the story is it's just a lot of people who don't understand that what they're doing, that actions have consequences. I don't think Josh was purposely trying to get these two girls to hate each other. I think he was just reveling in

the fact that two girls liked him. I don't think Sarah was trying to, you know, antagonize the situation so much that that Rachel would kill her. Obviously. I don't think Rachel even really understood that bringing that knife would escalate the situation so much so that it did. I don't think she understood that it meant her life. You know that she was potentially going to go to prison forever. But like you said, I mean, the people need to

realize what they do has consequence. But you also to add the exascerbation of this new thing called social media, which we all know the negatives now now, but they weren't really fully known back then. She also left those voicemails, which were far worse and used much more against her in court than any of the comments, you're putting it into the universe and it will probably be used against

you at some point. And it was definitely used against Rachel because when the jury heard the venom and her voice, there was no coming back from that. She could cry all she wanted on the stand, but when they heard her threatening Sarah's life, how could she recover. On July ten, Rachel was found guilty and sentenced to twenty seven years in prison, a sentence that Sarah's parents did not feel was harsh enough. When they were allowed to address the courtroom,

Sarah's father spoke about his loss. I'll never get to hold my daughter again, he said, tearfully. I'll never get to see her get married, never hear her laugh my dumb jokes. Sarah's friends also got a chance to speak, and they remembered her as a loyal friend who stood up for them. Shameless plug. If you're enjoying Crazy and Love, leave us a review and listen to season three of

our hit series The Pikes and Massacre. New episodes there every Wednesday wherever you get your podcasts, and don't forget to follow us on Instagram at Katie Underscore Studios. Crazy in Love is produced by Stephanie Lydecker, Jeff Shane, Chris Grieves and me Courtney Armstrong. Editing and sound designed by Jeff Twa. Crazy in Love is a production of I heart Radio and Katie Studios. For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Stay safe, lovers,