Survivor Squad: Collier Landry’s Story w/ Terra Newell - Part 2

discretion is advised. The views and opinions expressed are solely those of the podcast author or individuals participating in the podcast, and do not represent the opinions of Red Table Talk productions. I heart Media or their employees. And my jobt father saying to me, do you see what he's doing here? And I was like, well, what is that? And he's like, this is called manipulation. He's manipulating you to make you feel sorry for him. But he murdered your mother, but

he's trying to make you feel good. And of course it worked because I am an empathetic person and I'm like, oh, my dad, I can't ever have that again, not realizing that he made that choice to do all this and that's what he wants. Anyways, this is the second of a two part episode featuring the stories of Terra Renewell

and in this episode with Collier Landry. Terra is a survivor of watching her mother survive a toxic relationship and then Tera having to act in self defense which resulted in the death of John Meahan of the Dirty John fame. Collier's story is different yet similar. Collier Landry's mother was murdered by his father when he was ten years old.

Collier has shared this story in a documentary entitled Murder in Mansfield, and he and Tara have joined forces with the new podcast Survivor Squad, where they share the stories of the survey ibras of crimes instead of focusing on the perpetrators. Collier's mother's murder was not the end of his relationship with his father. Instead, it was the beginning of a process of discovery that made clear who his father was and more importantly, a lifelong journey of healing

that both Collier and Tera are paying forward. In this episode, we will hear Collier's story. We just heard terror story in part one of this podcast, and for those of you who have not listened and you're picking up here, please check out Terror story because it really sets up so to the parallel story of terror and call you're here now, Callier that we're going to dive into your story, okay, which I didn't know as much about. I have been much more acquainted with terror story. I have talked with

her mom before. Her mom has been on this podcast, talked with her mom even years ago. Your story was very new to me, and so I've spent the last a few weeks watch it's your film, Murder in Mansfield. People check it out because it's really quite a remarkable journey to watch you go through. Callier also has an

amazing ted talk. So where I would like to begin with you, call her is tell us the story of what happened between your mother and your father, and just lay that entire story out because you are truly the brilliant storyteller. I'll start by saying that I grew up what I thought was a normal childhood. I had a mom, had a dad, and I grew up the first part of my life from Virginia outside Naval Base and Dahlgren Virginia, and we moved to a small town in Ohio called Mansfield,

Ohio when I was five years old. My father was a doctor. My mother was a stay at home mother, but she did his books, and I just kind of thought that, yeah, I mean there were issues in the home. Obviously. My father had a proclivity towards violence, anger rage. You know, he was apoplectic at times, and but that didn't really start to set in until we moved to Mansfield. But the majority of my time was spent with my mother.

I was like her little sidekick, and I didn't really think that was abnormal, I realized, and looking back at it, the temperature in the household started to raise a little bit as I was getting older. So my mother had filed for divorce. There was a lot of this back and forth with my father. Would leave me little notes under my pillow, Oh I love you, Oh It'll be okay, all these things, and I started to really see how

bad my father is. I always grew up not liking my father in a lot of ways because he was violent towards us. His temper, like I said, he was apoplectic. I remember one time I dropped an egg on the floor. You're making eggs for breakfast on a Saturday morning, and the egg dropped on the floor, and he threatened will kill me in front of my mother, like just his

rage was in control. And I grew up with a lot of fear and that and that's something that terror and I have discussed this growing up, this fire flight sort of and how your trauma triggers. She's like, your trauma started happening way before your mother was murdered, right, And I was like, oh wow, that's like wild right. So June nine, we're getting into fall winter and the divorce is not going well. It's now getting to the

point where my father is coming home at times. He's not living with us at all, but he comes home and we're hiding from him upstairs so we don't have to deal with him. Then he leaves and then we can go downstairs again. It's very uncomfortable in the house. I would spend time with my father occasionally. My father was saying, how's that bitch your mother doing? And my mother would saying the same thing about my father. This is in November of nine nine, and she says to me,

call you, I would never leave you. You know that, right, of course, Bobbly. If anything ever happens to me, I want you to know that your father had me killed. He has done something to me. So she said that to you as many words, and that was November. Correct. How did you feel? So you're ten, eleven, eleven years old and you're mom says that to you, How did you feel? I? I mean, it's that's a terrifying thing to hear, and it's a terrifying thing to put on

an eleven year old child. But obviously this was her teeing up something. When I think about what Collier is saying here, remember he's a child, but it's like a red flag come to life. Many survivors of emotional abuse live not only in the rumination of what is happening in the relationship, but also of what could go wrong.

It can feel like this running inner narrative. Her sharing that with Collier was a lot to put on a relatively young child, But it's a haunting reminder that survivors in these relationships, in even these horrifying circumstances, do instinctually have a sense of what is happening, but often just

don't know what to do. I think I even said something to her like I would never let it happened to you, mommy, and she started talking about like my father having mafia connections and things that nature and ways to get rid of her, and then we just sort of tabled it. But I was very concerned, obviously. And then it's Christmas time and my grandmother, my father's mother, who was extremely close to my mother. She was all that I had left as far as grandparents, and so

she was most to come for Christmas. She couldn't come for Christmas, so on December nine, she arrives the day before New Year's Eve with my father. And it is ironic because my mother, who I share a very start on ex sense of humor with, said to her best friend Shelley Bowen at the time, he just came here with his mother, so he can't kill me tonight. And obviously, as my mother would say, famous last words, so I

guess my mother good night. On December I woke up to what I believe was the sound of a scream, and then I heard two loud thuds, and I was terrified. And I heard this muttering of a man's voice, which I recognized as my father's, and I was laying in my bed. I saw the feet land in my doorway and stop. And I'm just thinking to myself, whatever you do don't look up, because all my answer was like to get up and see what's going on. I'm like,

don't get up, don't look up. The footsteps left. I don't know how I found a way to go back to sleep. The next morning, when I woke up, I ran straight to my mother's bedroom. I started rummaging through the sheets and I'm rummaging and I'm looking for blood. I go downstairs and my father had just taken a shower, and he's sitting on the couch watching the news, and I say to him, where is my mother? He doesn't say anything. I said, raised my voice a little bit more.

I say, where is my mother? Because at this point, like I know what's going on, something that happened. I'm pretty sure were that he's done something to her, and I'm pretty sure that he's killed her at this point, and my father says to me, well call your Mommy took a little vacation. And at that moment, I knew that I was starting a race and it was going to be him or me. So my father goes into this whole thing, and we're not going to call the police. We're not gonna call the FBI. And when he said

we're not gonna call the FBI. I'm thinking to myself, you just escalated this. Like we live in Mansfield, Ohio, and that was like red flag number one. One of the things that I had done is I had, in preparation for what my mother told me, I took all of her friends phone numbers and I wrote them down on a piece of paper and I folded that piece of paper up and I put it inside this Santa claus Garfield that I had inside the hat. So he said, we're not gonna call the police. We're not gonna do this,

and it's okay. So I'm like, well, I won't call the police, but I'll call someone and tell them to call all the police. So I call my mother's friends and I tell them exactly what happened. I say, my dad told me I can't call the police. Police call the police. And then I'm waiting and two uniform officers show up the house and those officers just do a routine check. Now, mind you, my grandmother is very upset that the police are. They're yelling at me. Your father

said in the call piece. I'm like, I didn't call the police, Grammy. I don't know why they're here, So they do a routine walk through and take them upstairs my mother's bedroom. They're like looking around and I pull one of the police aside because they're one of them talking to my grandmother and I say, I don't trust my father as far as I could throw him, because that's what my mother always used to say, I don't trust your father as far as I could throw him.

So they leave. I called my mother's friends and I said, you know what what's going on? And they're like, we file the missing person's report. I'm like, she's not missing, because it's like, oh, she just went somewhere. She's dead. She is either physically incapacity somewhere or she's dead. Like my mom would never leave me, right, So the missing person's report caught the eye of detective named Lieutenant David

Messmore at the Mansfield Police Department. So he arrives at the house and my grandmother is like screaming in him, yelling at me like not letting him in our My son's a doctor. He's gonna get back. He's like, oh, just let me, you know, let me just talk to you for just a little bit. Just want to ask a couple of questions about Mrs Boyle when my grandmother walked away from me. At that moment, I told the Tennam Messmore, I said, my mother is dead. Something has

happened to my mother. Would never leave me, give me your card. My grandmother comes back. She says, my son is ordering you to leave or ordering you leave the house. He goes, okay, okay, no problem. The next morning, I get picked up because I'm starting school again, go into the principal's office. I say, I want you to call this guy at the Mansfield Police Department and get him here. So Dave Messmore comes down, and then I proceed because

school was my safe place. Right my father is not around, not with my grandmother, and I can talk, and I lay out everything to Dave Messmore. I just bombard him with all of this information where he's just like, what the who is this kid? And I tell him, I said, I'm gonna go home tonight. Well, my grandmother is dealing with my sister downstairs. I'm going to run upstairs. I'm going to pull the bookshelves out of the wall and look in the crawl space for my mother's body, and

then I'm gonna look for her purse. That would be missing because she would only leave with this one specific person only I would know that and all the stuff. And I think he's just like this kid. And what proceeded to happen over the next twenty five days is I would come. I would come everyday to school, and I wouldn't be going to school. I would literally be like, get Dave Messert lists call him on the phone, and

I would be giving him clues. Around January, my father says to me, He says, call here, I have a medical conference down in Florida. So he goes, I think it would be great if we took a father and son trip down to Florida. And he starts, you know, started selling me on this idea because you know, your mother has been gone and I just really want us to on and this and that, and I go to school. The next day, I was called Dave Messmore. I said, Dave, and I've been able to swim since I was four

years old. I'm going to drown in the Gulf of Mexico. Not coming back from that trip, and Dave realizing that potentially I am the only witness to a murder. The soul witness to a murder is like, we need to get this kid out of there. Janu Children's Services comes knocks on the door. They wake me in my bed. They pulled me out. I say, you know, they like, pack a bag. You got Twenty minutes as I'm coming downstairs, the entire house is flooded with men in white lap coats.

Cops did the whole thing. They are you got the scanners out, these machines, all this stuff. They are full on into it. They can't find my father, He's sort of on the run. And then they say to me, call your lieutenant messmore found your mother. Eternal pause, and she was dead. And the first words out of my mouth were that bastard. And you talked about relief earlier.

We were talking about like with Tara and myself, and when I had said in the film, there is an overwhelming feeling that happens in a scenario just like that. And it's such a juxtaposition because on one side, you are relieve that, like you're not crazy, that something really happened.

On the other hand, I'm like my entire life as I know it is over, and the one person who is the most dear to me in that life I will never see in this physical plane again, So did you have hope in January that it's possible she was

still alive until they found her body. Nobody had hope in that moment because it was lieutenimus were found your mom, you know, And just when you hear that, and even though I knew what I heard, what happened, the behaviors, everything me leading the charge of just you know, this is what this is. It's so hard to explain. But just like you'd have that just modicum of just hope, it just evaporates. And the thing is is that there was a trial is about to start happening. You know,

I testified under all these circumstances. And you talk about the loss, right, So you know I lost my mother, but I also lost my father, Yes you did. And I lost my dog. I lost me. I lost my entire way of life. And then I'm in a situation which was not great in foster care. Foster care was not great for me, but I had to sort of find whatever was in me. Two then go, okay, now you have to buck up and bootstrap and figure it

out and go into that courtroom. Because look, the prosecutor said to me, you don't need to testify, and I'm like, that's over my dead body. We've come this far. This man will not walk free like over my dead body. And if it, if it happens, I am going to give my absolute all and tell the truth as I know it. It's just like what you said about Terra earlier, reciting these things that that happened, and people are like, well, why did you say that? How did you do this?

Because it's the truth, and the truth is the easiest thing to remember. That's why thirty years later, when I look back, I can look myself in the mirror and go, I did what was right. And here you are in a courtroom and your father is completely negating your literal existence and your grief and not even looking at you. There's no recognition by this man that that little boy just lost his mother, his beloved mother, none whatsoever. It was.

It literally was like watching this man eradicate the very existence is the psychic existence of his son right in front of him. Yeah, it's just it's just terror story with John locking her in the car, like you don't you don't exist to me, don't exist because your testimony

is powerful. However, at the end of the day, a jury is still going to need evidence, and why did they get it in a home in erie that belonged to him, with her encased in concrete under his house, with the shelving unit in the carpeting and all that stuff like that's beyond the smoking gun. I mean, ultimately, at the end of the day was my testimony and then my father's testimony, because again we're talking about navigating narcissism, which I think that I've discovered that my father is

beyond that. But my father will lament to me the letters that he sent me from prison, because I have like fotters over the past like thirty years about how he realized when he got to prison all every but he's like, no, you shouldn't have testified, and you should have testified when my father, you know, testified. But here's what it is. It's when we think of grandiosity. We think of the person who's walking around saying, look how fancy my car is, Look how great I am are,

and I wonderful. This is what grandiosity. Also is that I'm so smart, I am so clever. You put me up on that stand. I can convince anyone it's grandiosity. And I think again, we don't realize the many faces of grandiosity. But this idea that I'm the smartest person in the room put me up on that stand, and that he believes his own hype. It really is on

almost a delusional level. Terra. As you're sitting here and you hear Call your Storage, I know you've heard before, but you know, for the listeners of this podcast to hear, what parts of Call your Story do you relate to? Well, I relate to his mom to be honest, you know, I've been through these types of relationship. Maybe not with a psychopath, but I've definitely been with like a sociopathy. For his my mom, I feel are very different where I believe that like his mom was in it and

she wanted this life, and my mom did too. She wanted this great life and everything, but there's certain things that like my mom had many guys in her life, She's had many marriages where his mom was trying to make this one marriage work. And I have so many friends where their husband's cheat and their husbands lived this lifestyle, but they won't to stay in it because they feel that it's going to be the best security for the kid.

And so I relate to that with it. I don't have any kids or anything, but I I could have been his mom. I hear that. I hear that, and I think what to me also strucks me again about Call Your Stories is the era it was, you know, in the nineties certainly, and prior to that was how disempowered your mother was. And I often think of your mom. One of the things that I've used very protective in her case was how robust her career was. For such

such a long time. Your mother retained even though controlling men try to control her money, she still had some level of financial autonomy because she had that career. And whereas call your your mom got into that really risky position where the wife is working for the husband, and not only that, there's a full financial interdependence of him

being the full breadwinner. And nobody taking these things seriously because it still sounds like the vast majority of the abuse your mother endured was psychological and in two we still have no way of addressing that. And we've got, you say, late eighties. What's changed, not much, not when it comes to this, there's a real authority. There's no authority to call, there's no you call if you call

law enforcement saying I'm being so psychologically abused. No matter how well intentioned they are, they don't have anything they can do. They're gonna say, call me, call me when he beats you and does something violent, calm when he breaks the law. That's the problem. Emotional abuse is not against the law, and only now in California September. I believe it was twenty that the coercive control laws came into place, and September right, and that was only in

family law. It only applies there, so it can't be like example, I can't be back in in the workplace or in a in a non marital, non custodial, shared children custodial relationship, So the range of applicability is pretty mild. But even then law enforcement can't prosecute that as a crime. It's a part of that family law statute that can be extended to decisions around custody, so it's a bit more subtle. So there's still nowhere for someone like your

mom to go. The only difference is things around community property and things like that may have put her in a better stead financially, but even still he wasn't gonna let her go, so I don't care for your mom's story took place in or two twenty two with your father's personality being what your father's personality was, that was the end to this story. The time in history. I just only think is that she would have fewer options.

Would if there was no internet, there was no place to go and listen to a podcast or a video of like, oh I'm not alone in this, Maybe there's things I could do. But to your point, tera that your mom also believed in something else. She may have believed in family. So there's a lot going on. And I feel like his mom also kind of had the secure attachment in a sense where to call her yeah, because I feel that she was like, Okay, how do I manage this relationship? What do I do best for

my child in the situation? And it was always about call You're always about, you know, building that relationship that bond with him. And I feel like that's also why he has more of a secure attachment and like his relationships and everything, because he's a able to have that nurture from his mom. But again, when my father violated, when he crossed the line of the sand, that was when she's like, you've crossed the rubicon, like that's that's it,

there's no turning back. So she did take that stand because a lot of people will say, well, your mom, you know, I'll get hey, Oh, your mom was just stucking into it because he was a rich doctor, and that's why she was taking around for the money. I'm like, no, she was sticking around for that. But when he finally crossed what she said, that's when she said enough, I

don't care what the outcome is. I'm not gonna subject my son, my now daughter, my family to this anymore because now you're worthless to me in a way, because you've shown that you have no parameters and no respect for our relationship, and now you have no respect for your child. And in every toxic relationship, people have said to me, there is a line, and that line is different for everyone. Right, For some people's physical violence, For some people it's infidelity. For some people it is in

your mom's case, it was involving children. When that line gets crossed, now they're going to take on a toxic person and it rarely ends well. My session with Terra and Collier will continue after this break. So now the jury has entered a verdict and they find your father gets life in prison. I stay in the foster care system, and then you know, no family is really there obviously, but I did develop a relationship with the police officer

and his family. David mess Morning became very close from them, and I asked him if they would consider adopting me, and they said absolutely, And so I thought there was gonna be a silver lining to all of this because after the trial I was able to spend time with them, and there was a summer and ride bikes and just have some sense of normalcy after all of this just insanity.

And what happened is the who was in charge of awarding custody to whoever was going to take me, David Massmore had investigated him a few years earlier for corruption, and he said, there's no way you actually you don't believe that I'm going to send you the guy that rested your dad, right, And I got very upset in the courtroom and stormed out and was very angry and just and I was awarded. Now, look, I mean, there

is a silver lining to this. I went with a wonderful family Zigglers, But in that moment, it felt like just yet another blow and another trauma. So I guess my next question is, so, now you've been after a sort of circuitous process, you do end up with the Ziggler family and it was a safe, stable space. So after that period of time, so now you're into adolescence high school. Were you asked to visit your father? Was there any was there any request to do that or

was that I was on you? And were you given the option to say no? I was both of those things. I did actually visit my father when he was in more in correctional institution. My father would write me letters, and I can remember when those letters would come to my adoptive family and the Siglers, and they decided to open them to read them first, you know, to sort of screen them. And I think that's fair. I send

him letters. They're getting screened by some prison guard because they wanted to be protective of me because I stayed in the same town where all this happened. And then I remember my adopted father sitting down with me and I read the letter. But I was sitting at the

kitchen table with my parents. There was this thing that my father was writing about, really craving a filet of fish from McDonald's and how he would give anything to be able to have a filet of fish, and how lucky I am to be able to have a filet of fish, you know, and my adoptive father saying to me, do you see what he's doing here? And I was like, well, what is that? And he's like, this is called manipulation. He's manipulating you to make you feel sorry for him.

But he murdered your mother, but he's trying to make you feel good. And of course it worked because I am an empathetic person and I'm like, oh, my dad, I can't ever have that again, not realizing that he made that choice to do all this and that's what he wants. Anyways. So over the years my relationship developed. Once I turned eighteen, I went and visited him, and I decided at a very early age that I was

going to forgive him, not forget, but forgive him. The example that Collier gives here of his father grieving over not ever getting to have a filet of fish sandwich again, and how it played on Collier's empathy saying, Oh, how sad my dad can't have that kind of sandwich again. That's an example of manipulation and the trauma bond. That is a classical example of these toxic relationships. What was interesting was that Collier's adoptive family pointed this pattern out

to him clearly when they read the letter. Most survivors don't have people in their midst helping them decode messages and make sense of the confusion and guilt that empathy and the trauma bond can cause in these relationships. So I was determined to not let this take me down. So on those terms I had a relationship with him, and the relationship was very surface. I would go and see and we talked about like basketball, sports, girls, college,

like what. It was very surface, the weather, politics, whatever it is. There was no like feeling getting into oh why did you? Never asked him why. I just decided that I was going to table those questions for later on in my life. For whether that was good or bad, I don't know. I think it was a good thing, but it enabled me to cultivate a relationship with him

on terms that I understood. However, I always was driven by the fact that I wanted to know why he did this, because there was it made no sense to me, And that is ultimately what drove me to get out of a small town Ohio. And I wanted to do something with this creatively, to share my mother's story, to share my story so it wouldn't be in vain, so it would be told and other people could learn from this experience, because why go through all of this if

you can't share it so others can learn. It's stunning to me that you did maintain a relationship with him, that you would go to prison, that you would visit him. Do you feel though this that a major driver for that was I need to find out this Why that was your motivator one hundred. I just didn't know how it was going to unfold. But I also knew that I would need my father's cooperation if I ever wanted to do anything with my story, if I ever wanted to do and because I was like, I want that

from him. Let's face it, that's a really hard thing to unload on someone terekn relate. I mean, being what she what she's gone through doing load in another relationship. It is Hey, by the way, I'm a really good person, but this happened, and this is you know what I mean? People look at you sideways like you know, and I always faced a lot of skepticism, was like, well, the parents of the girl I was anywhere, Like, what's to

say he doesn't do it to you? I always had to give down that stigma, right, And that stigma is it's such a powerful and painful part of survivorship because the survivors carry shame and they did no wrong. So it's where people say, I feel shame for the family I come from. I feel shame for my parents behavior. And it may not even be an articulation of shame, but it may even be that the world regards a person who brings these experiences with shame. And I think

that that has been since time immemorial. There are many cultures and religions that would actually literally would put into the fringes families where there were histories of, for example, a person ending their own life for something like that. As you said, I'm saying, so those biases, those stigmas have been there since forever, and I still think that they're very very present, no matter how much openness people

claim to have. Now. I want to go to these letters though, because you say hundreds of them have come over the years, especially in the early letters call your I am curious about how how much or how often the letters we're focused on checking in on how you were doing. Okay, I'm taking that isn't ever again, Folks, you got to watch a murder in Mansfield Beak for no other reason that some of the more some of those letters I paused. I had to pause. They were

so vile, Callio. The things he was saying to you were so horrific after all that had happened to you. I was like, you know, like I need to take a walk, I need you to do something else. And I would pause because it would so painful to think that from prison, that he would put these things on paper and send them to you. And and again. Particularly another profound scene in the film was he was rejecting

your letters. You sent him a letter and it came back to you with a note rejected on the envelope. You were his his only contact now to the outside world, and he was rejecting you. How long did your visits continue, so I understand the letters kept coming. You went to the prison to make the film. Was there ever a break or did you continue to regularly go to the

prison in Ohio and see him? So in the scene in the film when he walks up and leaves the room, that's the last time I've seen And that was how long ago? That was six years ago, So six years ago was the last time you saw him up to that point six years ago where you would see him. I would see him whenever I go home to Ohio. I would see him every time. As I got so if I had, you know, even when I was in college, like I could see him twice a month, So I'll

go twice a month. Because I was just trying to feel out like how I was going to do this and how this was going to play out in my life. And also like I am a son who is trying to grasp at some sort of whether I'm grasping at straws or not, it's some sense of decorum of normalcy he did. What does that look like? Right? And just trying to even you know, be even introspective to myself,

like am I crazy for feeling this way? Because of course when you grow up being gaslighted and manipulated, you feel guilty because you know, so I had to go through all of those range and promotions, which it's very easy to say, well, I'm gonna be indignant about this, and I'm going to be I'm going to stand firm going around. But also it's not human to think that, you know, a psychopath or soteopath could do that, but not a normal person that has empathy and understanding and compassion.

So you normally reflected back on you. I think I feel like you reflected that back on yourself and go, am I doing? Did I do the right thing? So that was part of this journey and getting to know him. One of the biggest fears that people who have toxic parents have is I'm afraid I'm going to end up being like them. Maybe there is the belief that this is genetic or falls back onto the adage that the

apple doesn't fall far from the tree. It's interesting because the people who recognize the harms of their own parents behavior and who commit to not being like that aren't the ones who really need to worry, because there's an awareness that their parents behavior was problematic. But this fear that this legacy of emotional abuse is ultimately their inevitable destiny is a fear that often plagues survivors of these situations. So did you feel like you got to know him?

You do and what did you learn. Well after he left the room that day, I realized at that moment that I will, I am not, and I never will be my father. There was a massive sense of relief because you grow up again stigmas, and you grow up being sort of attached again to this outcome of understanding why this has happened. And I talked with the therapist offline from the film. He said to me, he said, I think if he had admitted and said, hey, this is why I did this, and it was this big moment,

you would probably have more questions. But because of this, you can see the person he is or isn't resent or yes. So when you say, like you said, please say after the last contact you have him six years ago, he leaves the room, please say I'm not him. I understand that part of it. But you said, I did learn who he is. Who is he? He's a sad shadow of a of a human being. He's vapid. There's nothing there like it was. It was like talking to a wall, like an inanimate object, like it's a shell

of a person. It's like his eyes were black. You're not talking to someone. You're talking to was vapor very much so and also hollow hollow, But again that's it. That's the shape shifting of these kinds of antagonistic personalities like psychopathy and narcissism. There their shape shifters. They are constantly figuring out like how they can sort of sneak through the lock and get what they need from any

human being. Yes, and the thing that you asked earlier was in these letters, as you say, like how are you? How is this something that was that we were talking about with seeing my father in prison, how this whole

scene was going to play out? As you had mentioned the letter that I read to him, which is the letter that he sent back to me, which was when I wrote him when I was thirteen years old and said, please come clean for notledge yourself, but for me everybody, so the whole family can move on and we can all begin to heal from this. I think it's very big of me. But we were discussing the scene like

how is going to play out? And I thought of that two days before we actually went to Ohio the film and I said, look, as I said, I have this letter, I want you to read it. I haven't read it. I only knew about it because a friend of mine that I was working with another project had

read it and reminded me of the story. So I don't want to read it because I didn't want to taint it and read it since I was thirteen years old or when I sent it, So said Barbara, John, you guys, read this, and then you tell me what you think. Should I come in there and should I be Should I softball this or should I come in there? And should I come out both barrels and just say read the letter and just go right for the jugular and be like, now, I need you to tell me

why you sent this back to me. And John said to me, this is literally right before my father comes in the room. I said, so, guys, what do you want me to do? What do you think I should do? And John says to me, he says, he knows that you and I are been friends for almost a decade. I just spent you know, the last three hours with this man. I spent forty five minutes with him alone. He never, I think he asked maybe one thing about you.

The rest was all what he's doing this. He had all these awards that he was showing me about all this stuff he's done in prison and all these merits that he's achieved and all these things. That's all it was about. It was never like he was really tell me how my son is doing. How is he doing? Is he is he a good kid? Is he is he doing well? Does he? Is he telling me the

truth about stuff like how is his love life? How is he connect like all these things that you would want to know if you're a father that doesn't get to interact with your kid. He didn't ask, and they said, stick it to him. This man doesn't care about you. Again, in the film, you see the kind of certain chronology

through the letters. One thing that was stunning to me is not only how cruel they were, but when the tenor and the energy and the letters started to shift when he needed something from you, which was for you to write those letters to the parole board. I was thinking everything this man does is a calculation and a manipulation.

The complete lack of interest, and even how he would start trying to pump you up, son, I'm so proud of you, and all the positivity nonsense and right there again, your story is far more cruel and violent than mostly here, but it is no different than almost any one story with this kind of parent, which is there is no genuine interest and what the is about whether they were a child or whether they're an adult child or an adolescent, it doesn't matter, no genuine interest, but you want to

hear about me. However, when they need something, they have no problem fluffing up their own child. Oh, I'm so proud you. I'm so proud. Hey, gonna borrow some money. It's that and so yours. Seeing it played through those letters was what was so profound. And we have one

of these letters. This is to me if you might be willing to maybe read part of this letter and maybe we could even do some sort of breaking it down with regard to where we see the psychopathic narcissistic stuff in how this letter is approach is a very long letter, so we'll only read a part of it. There's something in his approach that is so it's so clinical, it's so procedural, it is self serving, it is disengaged

from you. It's almost like if you took all three letters and put them together, you would have a masterclass on psychopaths. I'm gonna go ahead and have you read this. I want people to hear what one of the letters is like again. This is a letter, one of the many letters that Collier received from his father, who is in prison. I'm just gonna read the very intro here, but it starts off dear son Collier. Well, as anticipated,

I received your last letter last night. It was very thrilled to hear from you and to receive your photos. You are a very handsome young man and photograph very well. I am proud of your composure. Your mother would be very proud of you. I agree on Mommy's friends. They were never friends from the get go. It seems to me that all they did was take and use your mother for their own purposes. It also seems that Mommy,

unfortunately was duped by them. I am not at all surprised that the rest of Mommy's acquaintances have vanished fair weather friends. All on my questions about the case, I understand your desire to quote forget things as they are painful, but I can assure you that they are just as painful, if not more, to me personally. They are questions that must be asked and answered. I know the answers to some of them, as the investigation has turned up many interesting things. I just need to know if you are

aware of them. This is the logic that I am utilizing with you. On the other hand, I am glad that you have happy memories. At least I was not that bad of a father to you, eh. I know I was not a bad father, So do not worry about that. I did the right thing for you and Mommy all the time, and everyone knows it all too well. Yes, I am in prison. I am not in prison for a crime I committed or had anything to do with. I am here because I allowed my attorneys to conduct

a trial in the manner they did. I did not know about the law. It was a great big act for Mayor and Whitney and Henson. So Mayor would be the prosecutor, Whitney was his was his defense attorney, and James Henson was the judge. You must recall there is no evidence against me, As tom Adgate tells me, the quote playing field was not level for my trial. All had their own individual motives for riding my back to a victory, and it all seems to have centered on

political advancement and money. I am innocent of the crimes for which I am convicted. I killed no one. I planned nothing to cause either the disappearance or death of Mommy. I don't even know if it is Mommy. Doesn't it seem peculiar to you that I was never and had my medical experts, were ever able to examine the evidence against me the body? Does it seem peculiar to you that our system of government and the laws that the defendant was not able to confront the evidence against him.

This is the type of justice fostered in the small minds of Mansfield. What you must do is prepare yourself for those who see you as a target. You will have an inheritance. There will also be those who are waiting for you to get money, so they will try to get it from you. I personally would have liked you to have been raised under Uncle Charlie's roof, but that is the past. Now. Some of the anxieties you were experiencing might have been avoided or more easily answered.

But the Zigglers are good people, and I have no compunctions about their care or love of you. I am thankful they have been so generous to you. Alright, so let's just star breaking, because damn, So let's just give people context. You're sixteen years old, So you're an adolescent, which to me is still a kid. Okay, you are not. That would have been horrible for a full on adult to here, But you are an adolescent, an adolescent who would actually just been through trauma the likes of which

most people could not comprehend. Okay. So he gets into it with its Sun Collier okay, which is already a strange way to you know, like it's like though you're playing a role al right, not dear Collier, and never in any of the parts you showed me, and even what I look it over, there's ever how are you are you? Okay? Is everything okay? I am worried about you. There's no shred of empathy, no shred of concern, none of that is there. Then he goes into criticizing your

mother's friends. Okay. So that theme, that criticizing your mother's friends, it comes up later again with another thing he does is a really example of triangulation. It's almost an extension of what we were talking about in terror story of the sense of isolation. It's as though he's still trying to isolate your dead mother from her friends after all these years. The mother's friends were still the enemy. So he's criticizing them. It's then that all of this is

more painful to me personally. Oh really, child loses mother because father murdered her, or I'm inconvenience by being in prison. So that idea, that pain competition, that idea of pain competition shou which is actually, in somebody's a form of gas lighting. It just shows the absolute absence of any kind of not only empathy, but the absolute egocentricity. It's my pain. Yeah, sure you might be going through something too,

but oh my gosh, my pain is worse. And then he talks about the logic I am utilizing with you. That almost robotic, unemotional, that approach is something that's more consistent with something we'd see in sort of a psychopathic presentation. Then he says, I know I was not a bad father. I did right by you. That speaks to that delusional grandiosity,

like whatever the opposite of the good father is. This is the polar flip to that you know that the fact that he just paid the mortgage and kept the heat on does not a good father qualify, but that this is sort of the delusional narrative that he maintains for himself. He actually was a good father. The denial a crime. I didn't commit to the blame shifting. My lawyers didn't mount up a defense, no mention of the fact that this woman was that your mother, that his

wife was encased in concrete under his house. No, No, this was all his lawyers mishandled the justice that self victimization. There was no evidence against me, which is again just absolutely almost bordering on delusional talking about political advancement and money.

So that sense of there's something almost conspiratorial that you'll sometimes see in that sort of delusional grandiosity you see, it's also that's a new sort of it's this sort of low grade paranoia we see in this kind of personality. Then it's even this sort of again more of this delusional, almost conspiratorial stuff we don't even know it's mommy. This idea that no, I think that they pretty well established

that on multiple fronts. Talks about system of government, and then he goes on to talk about the small minds of Mansfield. That idea of contempt is a major theme, like, oh, these small town fools or these people don't know better. That contempt, it's a way of maintaining the dominance that's very much that that narcissistic, psychopathic quality. I found the part that when he brought it to money, bringing it to money, you're going to get an inheritance. People are

going to know that. What that spoke to me more of was not him trying to take care of you. It spoke to me of the salience characteristic of money. And what do I mean by that is I actually think that for him money was a real measure of a human being, to him, having it the power it would accord him by the new house, and he was critical if your mother is spending, oh she shops, and this and that, the throwing of the assumed throwing of the credit cards, bringing the money in like that. It

shows to me how top of mind it is. Because when you see people with these personality styles when they're going into divorces, the idea of just cutting the check of what is rightfully that other persons is unbearable to them. And so this is where we'll see that escalation to violence and even murder. We hear about these cases every day.

And then the way he puts the situation. I wanted you with your uncle, Charlie, but I have no compunctions about the zigglers, these are the people who have adopted your son. The clinical detach, distanced language, and all of this in this meandering polemic with absolutely no focus on how are you doing? Are you okay? That it means it's like a psychopath's manifesto, and you've got four hundred

of these and it's interesting. So what was happening at this time is that he was seeking an appeal based upon the fact that there was new evidence and that my mother. He was trying to get my mother's body exhumed, and there was all this. There was an investigative journalism article that was out in the acron Beacon Journal, which is a very good investigative journalistic publication, least back in that time it was, and this writer had discovered some things.

There were discrepancies in the autopsy, my mother's eyes being brown she had blue eyes just like mine. Her weight was off, her height was off, there were different things

that were left. So I actually and this also put me at odds with my mother's family, but like it didn't really matter at that point, but because all these things were brought up by other people, I agreed the exhumation of my mother's body and give a d n A test because it was also even brought up and skeptical people were skeptical of the fact that my mother was even my mother in the first place. There was all these other things that were undertone and my father

at this time. And I actually got a copy of this from a relative of mine recently. My father was sending these newsletters out to prominent people in the Mansfield area called the Doctor John F. Boyle Newsletter. I literally got it last and bringing up all these questions about the police, the judge, all these other modes, basically gasolighting the hell out of an entire population and putting his edge pation on there and all. I mean, it's insane.

So I agreed to have the body exhumed. It was exhumed, they took the DNA from my mother's sister. She also gave d n A and it was of course my mother. But at the time, and one of the things is my father had done a series of radio show interviews from prison and on this very very right wing religious conspiracy theory radio show. So I played that tape before in one of my episodes of my father just it's it's it is staggering because it's on because it's because

he's talking to people that are enabling him. Right, So there he's no holds barred. The psychopathy is on full display, even more so than in the film. I mean by far and away, and that was the environment, the climate of what was happening at this particular moment in time. So there's a series of letters and I had accidentally opened one of these were not accidentally, I was opening it because I was reading it live and then I

found the tape and he tease it up slowly. He'll drop these subtle hints of like, you know, there's gonna be things that come out about mommy that you might not know. I just want you to be prepared for those things, like that's in another letter. Right, He's planning these seeds of manipulation and disinformation and it's so calculated, but it's staggering because when I read these are just like, oh my god, this is just it's he's playing chess well again. Like I said, even get away from terms

like psychopathy, narcissism, sociopathy. We can even use more of a theoretical look at it. Something we've talked about in this podcast before called the Dark tet Traad, and the dark tet Traad is an extension of the dark Triad which takes in psychopathy, machiavellianism, narcissism, and sadism, and those things hang together. Okay, I would actually ran the world.

I would call it the Dark Quintad, or it's five sides Pentagon, the Dark Pentagon, and I would add paranoia to them, because there's this always, this constant sense of threat, and there's this this hyper reactivity to any perceived sense of threats, shutting it down, defaming at all of that. So both of what you experienced Tera, you and John, and you and your father are very much dark tet

triad presentations. And I like it better theoretically because it gets away from that those as a psychopath to a much more elegant formulation of how all these things like psychopathy, narcissism, machiavellianism or the willingness to exploit other people and sadism or the actual kind of the kind of higher person gets off on from menacing or harming another person. That's what this is. And there is no one word. So the theorists of Tryad became tetrad. Like I said, we'll

turn it into the Pentagon today. My session with Tera and Collier will continue after this break. Something that you got into in your Ted talk that was very big theme in your film, and then something that also came up and what we've been talking about here in terms of the ongoing contact with your father in the prison visits, is the wanting an answer. He's been convicted of a crime, right, so this is no longer the sense of he's dropping a dime on himself. He has been convicted, he is

in prison. This is not the time to be coy. He wanted an opportunity to tell his story. But as we see, well he does tell the story. He just because what you have been wanting, what you've been wanting is what every survivor wants, which is the why. A jury of your peers and investigation, all of it has shown you killed her and you simply want to know why.

And it will not bring her back. It will not address your grief, but there's a decent shot it could help you feel a little bit more whole, to have a little bit of the fabric of the universe make a little bit more sense. That is a small ask for a child to make to their parents. You've been making this ask for thirty years. You still didn't get your answer, and Collier, I feel pretty confident you never will. Yeah,

but I did get my answer. And as I said in the end when I said to him, when I said, I believe that, you believe that, and that is my answer because that is the moment that I realized that this is a like the person that is sitting in there, there's a human being. There's a body, it's breathing, it's it has life, it talks, it drinks water, it does these things, but it's not It doesn't have the qualities

of a human being. It has the physical aspects of it, but it doesn't have the qualities of a real human being. That's what terrified me is that I literally just you're looking at someone that is a shell of a human being. And it's hard to explain unless you've been there and you've seen that. But you're looking at what I would pretty much say is the purest form of evil, because you're looking at something that has no soul. And if you have no soul, what allows you to function on

a human level of existence? Well, even like something that you said earlier about how when you looked at his eyes, there was like darkness and I was like, oh, hey, that's how I felt when I looked at John, like there was so much darkness and there wasn't a human image. They're like the shark's eye or dolls eyes. They end with the plastic ends kind of thing, or just you can't look deep into them. I hear completely what you're

saying is that there's an utter darkness. But ultimately, then your why it was never too It was never the why did you do this thing, but it was the it was almost a what. That's what God answered is this is something that operate, that exists in a way that is not my conception of a human being. That was what the closure looked like. And I think that that's what's important for people to recognize, is that it's

not always that you get the why. Instead, maybe you understand more of a what, and that's an audible click when you finally do get it, and it may not be as at the level is I'm in the presence of evil. And one thing I always bring people back to is that the most difficult thing about again, these dark tetrad kinds of relationships when you're dealing with people like this is you're almost never going to get a why.

You could get a forensic psychologist in there to opine on what the why it could be, but people with these personality styles are completely cut off from their why, from why they do what they do, or it would require a connection to those deeper parts of themselves that they're absolutely not there, because if they could connect to that, then you might see things like empathy and compassion, which

you don't see. But then it's more of a is anyone really going answer the question of I'm a pathetic little human being that wanted life to turn out the way exactly the way he needed to, and something got in the way, And how dare somebody tell me no? And nobody tells me no? Because I had a plan, and f you for getting in the way of my plan, and f you to all of you for holding me accountable because really, if I was to speculate, that's his why,

and he was never going to come to that. And here's what's fascinating is, here's this incredibly grandiose man, and you gave him this platform. Here's your moment. You can actually deliver your testimony right here in a film, have your moment look all that might even help you with parole, But he had gotten so embedded in this delusionally grandiose narrative couldn't be budget out of it. And in a way, your story could free a lot of survivors. When people say,

how do they not get it? And I'm like, because they don't get it and they never will. And if somebody couldn't get it when the stakes were this high, they ain't gonna get that. I was like that, how do you? I mean, for both of you, And this is to both of you because as you said, this is not a finished line, This is not a destination, this is an eternal journey and process. How do you continue your healing journey? What propels you, what has propelled you?

And for both of you, there's been quite a moment. For you. It was the fighting for your own survival and coming out of that trauma on the top of other traumas you would live Terra in your case, Collier, it was finally bringing this story to light on your terms, telling your story on your terms. But that was no finish line for either of you. You've been working on your healing ever since. What's that process? Been like for you. Well,

I want to say that it's forever ongoing. I don't think that there will be a day where I'm like, oh, nothing triggers me, you know. I think that it's a forever step. Like yesterday, I was triggered because this guy literally bumped into me with his body at Whole Foods, didn't see me. It happened on the side where John grabbed me. And I think that before in the past, if that would have happened, I would have probably went and suck that guy in the face, where now I

didn't mdr and done so much Chile. But it took me a minute for me to process what just happened, realized I'm actually safe even though that just happened, and I don't have to react to that right now. So taking happiness in those little moments, like I reversed back to homeostasis by a couple hours later and so thank you, And it like took self care, but it took time for me to stay in that space and then reverse it. And then now today I could talk about my trauma.

I am not going to be so triggered by the end of the US. And also it helps talking about

what I did to heal where we do coaching now. Yeah, and then it's important for me to do this podcast too, because how we talked about how these people, these certain types of people, they thrive off of that attention and the grandiosity, and how it's so important not to give them stories or platform or anything, and how it's so important to have other survivors on our podcast where they're able to talk about their experiences rather than listening to so and that's going to get high off of that.

I mean, you're absolutely right, and I think most of our platforms do focus on totally spending all our time on deconstructing the mind of the perpetrator, and all of that was far less attention to the survivor. What about for you, Callier, what has propelled you as you continue your journey of healing, not just since you were eleven years old, but since you were a child, and certainly though since making this film and seeing your father six

years ago. I set out to heal myself impact that one kid's life that was in my position, and most importantly, honor my mother and her story and put some finality to that. What I did not expect is the amount of people who I have been able to reach, not only initially from the film, but then with the podcast and now with our Survivor Squad podcast which is coming

out soon. Is the amount of people to gravitate towards my story, terror story, but me particularly how much hope and how much strength they garner from hearing my story and how it impacts them. And and these recrease, whether it's your dramatization, whether it's you know, shows even like Dirty John was turned into a television series, other you know, other sorts of big crimes. And this has been happening for a long time, but it's really gotten concentrated lately.

It's a it's a sociological comment about society as a whole as to why we are drawn to true crime. I have a few thoughts about it. I do say. I do think that sometimes when we watch a true crime story that ends up in a just place, and by that I mean the perpetrator is found guilty, a person like John, who was violent and dangerous is actually put down. I remember so well I can be in that moment when I read the story in the l A Times, and I was literally I was reading it.

I was clenching the device because I'm thinking, oh my god, this guy's gonna kill someone, and when in the story he dies, I literally felt a palpable physical sense of relief. Right, And I think that when these true crime stories end up where people want them to, there is that sense of justice where so many people don't have that in their lives, least of all in their narcissistic relationships. So for a minute, the world feels right. The problem is is that you said it very well. There is a

blast zone around these stories. This isn't just the son of the mother who died. These are the friends, the community. The fabric of safety around these stories is punctured and in a way that people never feel safe again. So talk to me, now, how about how you're going to approach this idea of ethical true crime because this is a real dicey area, and so I would be really curious as you as survivors, what you your thoughts about

that and how you're going to approach that. Well, I think, first of all, as someone who made a film not in the true crime genres, you know, it's just a film about humanity, right for humanity, Like when I became aware of terror story and I saw how these true crime shows, whether it be a podcast, whether it be a you know, a new show, whether it be a syndicated series like Dirty John, how that much of the profit off of this and how exploitative it ends up being.

You know, that was where it really heightened my awareness. But what we became both really impassioned was is allowing the space where the survivor's story is the story, not the what happened the perpetrators stuff. It's they want to know the story, but then the important thing to keep in mind and what the real story is. It's not about what happened at the crime, is how the people live through and move on with their lives. And also allow a space where people can share those stories on

their own terms. And if they don't want to, that's fine, but we're not there to share for you. Yeah. Well, I just want to say for everyone, I feel that ethical true crime is a little different, and it's asking that one person that we're having on for that episode, what does that mean for them? How can we tell your story in a better light? What are the words that you want us to use to talk about your trauma?

Because certain words trigger certain people, and so for me, it's asking that person, how can we meet your story be told in the best light possible. Totally makes sense. Again, the two of you are through a journey of tremendous pain, are in a position to actually really an act and real change. It's things like meaning, purpose and love, which when we can derive those from our experiences in our life and find that way to pay it forward to others,

that that is the humanity in the struggle. So again I am privileged, humbled, beyond belief to have spent this time with both of you, to have heard your stories and again that they will inspire our survivors to know that you know, the sun will rise again, and in fact, you might be in a better position to actually notice

it in a very different way. Nobody ever wants pain to descend into their lives, but once it happens, we have in us this incredibly human capacity to grow past it in spite of it and even more because of it. So thank you, Thank you again, thank you, thank you Spirit. Yes it, thank you, Yeah, that's it. Thank you. These are my takeaways from my conversation with Collier. One of the most profound elements of collier story was his search for a why as a child, then as an adolescent

and an adult. Like everyone who has been in one of these toxic relationships, Collier wanted to hear from his father the why. This may be one of the most frustrating aspects of the journey of healing from toxic, narcissistic, and antagonistic relationships. Collier found his version of a why by finally having to accept who his father is, but from many survivors, this is a real stumbling block to healing.

Radical acceptance means that sometimes we don't get a why because people with these kinds of personalities are simply too detached from their own motive agents. They do what works for them in the moment, with little regard for how it affects others. Grieving without a why can be difficult, but it is a major part of the healing process. In my next takeaway, for many, maybe not all, but many people who have survived stories of trauma and abuse

and emotionally, psychologically and toxically abusive relationships. After they address their initial healing and processing of what happened to them, paying it forward in some way is often part of their process, whether that is becoming trained as a therapist, doing coaching, volunteering with survivors, creating content books, anything to put their story out there. The more stories that come into the light, the more it may lift shame for

survivors who believe that they are alone in these stories. However, a piece of caution here ensure that you do the work you need to do first, whether that's trauma therapy, therapy focused on legacy issues, developing and shoring up your own coping and resilience. It can be tempting to want to jump right in and help others with your story,

but first you need to take care of you. This often makes more sense if we think of it as a physical illness or injury that you would need to heal from a broken bone or finish a course of treatment for an illness before you volunteer with others, and it's exactly the same with the unseen bruises and injuries of trauma and emotional abuse. You need to heal first.

Terra and Collier found each other both having lived through unique and very public stories, and the nature of their stories could have left them feeling quite isolated, feeling that new people they meet would not understand what they had experienced. Isolation, feeling like people won't understand you, and even shame can impact many survivors of severe toxic situations, even if they are not public. They found each other and have benefited.

And while you may not meet someone who went through exactly what you did, exploring options such as support groups or group therapy can be quite useful. Being in a room with someone who has walked a similar journey to yours can be extraordinarily healing. A big thank you to our executive producers Jada Pinkett Smith, Valen Jethro, Ellen Rakaton, and Dr Romeney de Vassila. And thank you to our producer Matthew Jones, associate producer Mara Dela Rosa, and consultant

Kelly Ebling. And finally, thank you to our editors and sound engineers Devin Donnahy and Calvin Bailiff h