Erin

I love the one people came in with children because you know, I get to pull you with her and what talks to things like that. She wants everyone to feel welcome, regardless of the circumstances that brought them to a meal at a church hall in the middle of the week. It's the spring of two thousand thirteen, three years before the incident at Camp Summit. Naomi is a nineteen year old college student at Virginia State University. The

church is near campus. We talked about it, you know, Jesus, you know, um asking everybody you know, if you know, have a church home and things like that, not so much to recruit them on sut of church because we weren't member that the church. I say it was just about and saying she especially loves being a part of the church choir. She's at her happiest when she's singing. It's as if music is her direct connection to Heaven, we arning love. As she makes her way from person

to person, she spots a woman sitting by herself. Naomi has never seen her before, and she's hard to miss. This is a traditionally African American congregation. The visitor is a white woman with short brown hair. She's wearing a sun dress, no makeup, and she seems well, she seems like somebody he's having a bad day. She kind of say it. She looked like she was out of it. We were there to witness, we were there to help, so you know, I took it upon myself to be

time to reach out. The absolute first words that she said to me was giving me her name. She said my name was Sarah. So that was the first thing that she said to me. And she confides she's pregnant. As Sarah eats her lunch, she tells Naomi that her boyfriend is emotionally abusive to her, claims the baby isn't his. She says she's embarrassed to be in a church pregnant and unmarried. So immediately, like I said, my right off went off, because so is it somebody who really needs help?

This somebody really probably just needs somebody. Naomi is deeply religious, and in that moment, she knows Sarah needs her. It's why God brought them together. She was, you know, along by herself, and I felt like, oh, I'm a helper. After the meal is done, they say goodbye and exchange numbers. A couple of days later, Naomi sends a text, how are you in the baby doing? Sarah answers it was super long. All her messages were always long. She could never send on one liner. It was always parag long,

long paragrams in visceral detail. Sarah tells Naomi that she's having morning sickness and that her boyfriend isn't being supportive. Naomi feels for her. As the weeks passed, Naomi says she loves babies and that she herself has been adopted, and Sarah says, hey, I'm adopted too. They start to exchange texts every day. All day. I would always wake up two messages from her. No, you know whatever, time. It was even if I slept to seven, I wouldever, you know, if I sleep seven and eight, wake up

is a message. It started coming in like four o'clock or something. So from then she protects me first, and it was always um about the baby, about you know how her night was, you know, things of their nature. Several times when I'll be going about my day as a student and if I take too long to text her, I would get like messages. They meet up a couple of times a week. She begins to reveal more to Naomi about her life, and it's weighty stuff for a

college student to take in. Sarah says that she had been raised in foster care that should run away and been hauled back every time, even raped. She was never interested in my life story. So at a certain point it was like I just shut up because her life stuck way more than mine. So let me just help her. You know, everything she went through was a hundred a

million percent worse. I'm a Christian. I told her so many times I don't have enough changes, and so see how how many times I told her that she can be sure God knows her name. As Sarah and Naomi's friendship deepens. She starts getting texts from Mason, the a friend. She portrayed him as a jerk, but he would text me and be like it was almost like he was the sweetest do ever. So I didn't know what to believe.

So it was real confusing. That July, Naomi takes Sarah out to dinner for her birthday, to a seafood restaurant. It's a stretch for her student budget, but she wants her new friend to feel special. But even before they order, Sarah says she's feeling nauseated at the smell of the

fish and races to the women's room. She owys in the bedroom to the last all the big one, and immediately like you also weren't even she's jagging and it's totally hugging and totally and I'm confided her the best I can, because I mean it was horrible and you know, she's all read and she's struggling. They leave without eating, but it's just as well since it wasn't Sarah's birthday anyway. She was actually born in December. A month later, in a barrage of rapid fire texts, Sarah tells Naomi that

she's miscarried. She had been trying to reach Naomi the whole time she was in the stress, but Naomi was away from her phone. I feel horrible because the way that she has portrayed herself to be and somebody who has nobody, her baby father, Mason, is a piece of trash. She has abandonment issues and emotional issues. So here's somebody who has nobody's never had anybody, and she miscarried and

I wasn't there for her. I'm like the only friend that I knew of in the world who was just like, really really there for She never had a mom, so she had the opportunity to be a mother, but she lost it. So I cried for all that I forgot crossfall those reasons because I know how much you mean tour Um. Not having a mother, wanted to be a mother meant a lot to her. So I cried to that. I cried because I wasn't there for he, and I just my heart went out to work. I just I

was devastated. In September of two thousand thirteen, the brother of one of Naomi's good friends is killed. Her friend asked Naomi to sing at the funeral, but the day of the service, Sarah is having a meltdown something about Mason. She sits in Naomi's car sobbing. Nao Me misses the funeral. Sarah is soon expecting again. She seems to relish the role of a pregnant person in trouble. The second pregnancy appears just a month later, but Naomi's young and doesn't

think twice about it. Sarah proudly shows her the ultrasound, She rubs her belly and talks to the baby. Naomi vows to be there for her this time. She absolutely loved being pregnant. The attention she got from me was top not It's as if Naomi has to constantly show Sarah what a good friend she is. From crisis to crisis, My life revolved around her, like for you every day

from the moment I woke up. I'll put it that way, because of course, when I was sleep I can't answer, but when a moment I woke up, it was um. To be Sarah's friend is to be overwhelmed with one emotionally draining situation after or another, no time to really stop and reflect on her unbelievable space of bad luck. A few months later, in January of two thousand fourteen, Naomi gets a text from Sarah saying that she's gone

to the bathroom and seen a lot of blood. Naomi panics, Yeah, I was scared because, like I said, I didn't want it. I didn't want it to mister. I didn't want it to be nothing like that, because like I said, I saw it to go through the first time, and then she also played the whole Mason blames her so the baby being you know, she claimed he used to call her murderer. Sarah tells Naomi that she's going to the hospital and then one word messages pop up on Naomi's phone,

scared blood. She tells Naomi that she's on her way to Southside Hospital. Naomi and another friend jump in her car and dashed to meet Sarah there, but when they get to the e R, the front desk says that no one has come in with a possible miscarriage. She spells Sarah's last name for the guy behind the desk, the lashman, and watches as he types it into the system. He looks up nothing. Naomi is confused. She sents Sarah a text Southside Hospital with a question mark minutes passed

and Sarah does not respond. The silence is deafening, and then it just that's when it just hit me, waitness, she's nothing to me. That's like that had to be the only huge that may have been a moment that you know, God decided to show me because it nothing else may say. I think it was just meant for me to know right there in that moment, for whatever reason me doing that, it was just it was just meant for me to know the end that she was lying to me. Naomi asks her why she lied about

going to the hospital. I never heard from R again. I promised you I ain't hear nothing else. She said nothing. It's when I asked her why she died, she said nothing else. Naomi gradually realizes that nothing Sarah told her had been real for years. She tries to process what happened, how her emotions had been toyed with, how she missed a funeral for someone she cared about over a lie. How could she believed all of it, all of Sarah's

stories for so long. She was finally starting to put the ordeal out of her mind, until the day she learned that she was not the only one and all the feelings of betrayal came rushing back, and I was also like, Okay, so the other people here who you know? She made them feel like she made them feel like she made me feel And I just I didn't get it. I didn't understand, like, how one person, how one what? What did she get out of it? I realized it was a whole bunch of other people. I was like, WHOA,

She'd been busy. A year and a half after Sarah vanished from nay Amy's life, she turned up at Camp Summit, the place she meant Bethany. But Bethany and the other camp staff weren't the only one shocked. The day that Sarah rose from her wheelchair and disappeared, there was one more person, and her life was about to be turned upside down. I'm Laura Belle. You're listening to Sympathy Pains.

This is episode two. Aaron. In two thousand five, a full decade before Sarah arrived as a camper at Camp Summit, she volunteered to be a counselor at a similar place in southern California, a summer camp where people with disabilities could fully enjoy the outdoors. At the time, she was a junior in college. One of the campers that year was named Aaron Johnson. At twenty three, Aaron and Sarah were close to the same age. Aaron was born three

months premature, weighing just two pounds. She has cerebral palsy, which affects her ability to speak and move. Good says that I had only me worse today. Aaron gets around with a wheelchair and lives in a boarding care home in southern California. She talks warmly about her childhood surrounded by great friends and parents who doated on her. I is very outgoing, compassionate about a lot. I've been told

they'm very giving and very loving on Sundays. I'm not so sure that people who always tell me that's what I and I love psychology and dying two people and how they work. She first went to camp in two thousand four. She was a little scared at first, but the anxiety soon evaporated. The camp is about an hour and a half from Los Angeles in the San Bernardino National Forest, with towering trees and panoramic views of the mountains. A camper people with disabilities. It's very inclusive because out

in the real world, like like a videos. Aaron tells me that it camps like this, a bond forms between counselor and camper that other people might not fully understand. There's a deep trust that comes from someone else tending

to those things you need daily. If you disabled, people that take care of you, and they take care of you well, and they genuinely treat you like they care about you other than physically caring for you, you tend to really admire them very quickly, because you can be in situations where there are people who maybe don't take care of you the best. The camp was free being. Aaron really loved feeding and grooming the horses. The second year she went to camp, in two thousand five, she

meant a new counselor named Sarah. Do you remember your first meeting? Oh, yeah, very well. She's very very quiet. It took her about ever the first saying on her I thought she's good to me because she was very quiet, very like drawn day shy. She talked about her family, saying that both her parents were doctors. Aaron remembers one thing that really stood out Sarah's eyes, the bluest eyes. One evening, a couple of days into camp, it was casino night. Aaron was in the recreation hall. She felt

awkward because she couldn't manage the games by herself. Seeing Aaron looking uncomfortable, a staff member asked if she needed help. She said, Sarah over Aaron and Sarah hid it off right away. She wanted to go in all my antivities with me. When I couldn't sleep in the middle of the night, I was with her, which she couldn't sleeve. She came to me. We always walked back to the

cabinet after meals together. People used to joke that escessially that first year, that wish she was I was, and vice versa, like if you could find one of us, you found the other one. When the counselors took breaks, Sarah would come find Aaron. When it came time for Aaron to wash her hair, Sarah instantly volunteered. When Aaron would change from her wheelchair to the bed, Sarah would be by her side. They had a connection. They did

fun things like play sports. No quite a few people that's show have pretty decent relation to the people that have been their counselors in the hat vice for so with the campers, especially if the campers are fully mentally aware and everything like that. It can be very bonding and kind of just brings you together and kind of just forms of friendship that tends to stay, if not for the rest of her life, for a room all time. At the end of the week, it came time to

say goodbye. Sarah walked with Aaron to the parking lot where her parents were waiting by the car. It was very hard for us emotionally to leave. She was crying. Aaron introduced Sarah to her parents, rolled back closer and I said, Mom, this is Sarah. Can we keep her? And my mom kind of get Golden said sure. They did keep Sarah in their hearts, if not their home. The French a blasted another ten plus years, and Aaron got way more than she ever imagined. After their tearful

departure in the parking lot, Aaron went home. When she opened up her bags to unpack, she found a surprise. Aaron had told Sarah that the combination of peanut butter and chocolate was her favorite candy, but Sarah had told Aaron that she had a severe peanut allergy and couldn't get near anything like that throughout my suit. In my purse in my bag, the peanut butter white up lady said a regularly. She thought, wow, Sarah risked anaphylactic shock

just to make her happy. The camp was within driving distance of Aaron's house, so she went to see Sarah occasionally, each time with an emotional parting. Until Sarah had to return to college in Illinois. Aaron learned more about Sarah's life, and it was interesting. Did she tell you anything about her childhood? She had said that she had been playing boarding school when she was staying because her parents wanted

her to be a competitive skier, an Olympic skier. In fact, her Olympic career was supposedly stopped, so she was going to be on the Olympic ski team. But then she got ebola. Yes, that was Sarah's first big lie to Aaron, after a series of smaller embellishments about her childhood. It was in September of two thousand five. Sarah had just returned to college. One day, she sent Aaron a message saying that she felt nauseated and had a high fever. She was heading to the doctor. Once she got there,

she was immediately admitted for an infection with the abola virus. Well, I would imagine it was kind of shocking on your end. Supposedly there was this outbreaking St. Louis because of these monkeys they had they sected it at school, and Sarah's telling she was working at a lab dissecting monkeys infected with ebola and somehow she got infected. This was before the sweeping outbreaks in Africa dominated headlines. Aaron had never heard of ebola and really didn't think to google it.

She just knew it sounded horrible. Besides, she loved Sarah and thought Sarah loved her, so she wasn't preoccupied with skepticism, just worry. And then Sarah told her that she wouldn't be able to contact her for a while because the doctors were putting her into a coma so her body could better battle the infection. But Aaron kept getting updates about Sarah's condition from Sarah's little sister, Gabby. Her kid's

sister also happened to be disabled. She used to wheelchair because she had a rare inherited neuromuscular condition called spinal muscular atrophy or s M. A. Gabby sent messages to Aaron saying that Sarah was still unconscious in the hospital. They spoke on the phone, having conversations about how worried they were. This went on for five weeks, and then what happens at the end of that five weeks the week Sarah, I've had the coma and Sarah has lost

a good amount ror hearing because of the boy. She was talking to Gabby one day and Gabby suddenly got another call and she goes out, it's Sarah. Do you wanna Gabby asked if Aaron wanted a three way call so they could all talk. Aaron was thrilled. She hadn't spoken to Sarah since she had woken up from the coma. So Aaron was on a call thinking that she was speaking to both Sarah and her sister Gabby, but of course Sarah and Gabby were one and the same. That's amazing.

So she pulled off a conversation where she's herself and another person in the same conversation. It's not the only time that takes a lot of discipline. In January of two thousand and six, in Aaron's world, Sarah was out of the coma, but she had complications from ebola. Not only was her hearing damaged, she now used a wheelchair because of the neurological complications from the infection. She told Aaron it was Gian Beret syndrome, an autoimmune reaction that

actually can follow a viral infection, although it's rare. And then tragedy struck, Sarah told Aaron that Gabby had died of pneumonia. To Aaron, Gabby was real. She texted with her, talked to her, felt close to her because they both faced the challenges of an inaccessible world as wheelchair users. With Aaron's big, bottomless heart, she loved Gabby. She was her best friend's little sister. It was very hard. It felt like I actually lost someone that was a member

of my family. And she played the part very very well on the grieving big sister. She played it so well. Sarah said that she was having a hard time getting over Gabby's death. So in March of two thousand and six, Sarah came to Aaron's house for spring break. Sir, he came to a house under the pretense that she could not deal with her little sisters death unless she saw me, because I was in person understand how much that she loved her sister, and she knew that her sister like

that too. Sarah was good at that. You're the only one who really understands. Sarah arrived at Aaron's house using a wheelchair. They talked and hung out while Aaron's parents tried to spoil them to make them feel better. They grieved over Gabby. Aaron's grief was genuine. Sometime after springbreak, Sarah told Aaron that she had recovered from her ebola complications. After all she had gone through, she could walk again, and she wanted to return to the camp as a counselor.

So a year after they first met, Aaron and Sarah were back together again. At the camp. Everyone knew like Sarah and I were insipable, so they put us together. The two of them had another great summer and returned to Illinois for her senior year of college. But soon after going back, Sarah had news she was pregnant. Aaron didn't know it then, but it would be the first of many. None of Sarah's pregnancies were ever no. Sarah told Aaron that she had briefly dated a guy who

was a friend of Gabby's. He was out of the picture, but Sarah was pregnant with twins. One of the twins died, but the surviving baby had a heart condition, so he had surgery in utero and was born premature that spring. His name was Noah. Sarah said that she wanted Aaron to be his godmother. He ended up being okay, answer rising that at least she brought him home. He grew. He needed a couple of years go by. Sarah sends

her snapshots as he's growing up. He's in struggling health, and eventually Sarah tells Aaron that he's going to need a heart transplant. Aaron worries about him deeply. This is her godson, after all, she refers to him as her nephew, and he had a heart transplant. One day in two thousand eight, Aaron was on the phone with a friend and Sarah tried to call. Aaron didn't answer, figuring that she would call Sarah back later, and then the frantic texts began. Noah was sick. She was rushing him to

the hospital. Aaron immediately called back, stricken with worry. Sarah told her that he was rejecting his new heart. He was tethered to machines and then he died. Once again. Aaron had to mourn someone she loved, and she even thought, why does this keep happening? After that, for the rest of their friendship, there was not a time that Sarah was not the mother of several young children or pregnant.

It was always multiples. And then my had I question that, and she would I don't know if I want to say smart enough, but she knew enough to have answers for everything before you or who else she was talking to was able to question them. Sarah was Aaron's best friend, and she considered all these babies her own. She even referred to them as her nieces and nephews. In two thousand and ten, Aaron was so excited to find out that Sarah was pregnant again, she posted a video to YouTube.

Hey guys, most of you who know me perfectly know that one of the most important things in my life is my family, non biological or biological. I have a lot of friends who I considered to be family because I'm an only child. Watching it now, it's easy for Aaron to remember how she felt in that moment. I wanted to tell the whole world, you know, I have these amazing nieces and nephews and this amazing sister for

all intensive purposes. There's a reason that Sarah was well versed in the lingo of pregnancies and could send Aaron real pictures of ultrasounds and sick babies. By two thousand twelve, in Sarah's actual life, she had earned her nursing degree and was working in Oklahoma in a neo natal intensive care unit. Or any of these pregnancies that she had more memorable than any others, obviously the first one and

then the cloud pregnancy. After the quad babies were born, Sarah had named one of the little girls after Aaron. She named one of the girls him my first name as her meddling, and then shortly after that baby was born, Sarah had news for Aaron, her namesake, who had been in the intensive care unit her whole life, had died, just like so many others. By early two thousand and fourteen, Sarah and Aaron had been friends for almost a decade. This was just after Sarah had disappeared from Naomi's life

in Virginia. Naomi, you'll remember, is a friend who had supported her through an abusive boyfriend and two miscarriages. Meanwhile, Aaron was mourning the deaths of infants she loved his family, even though she never saw them. Sarah had excuses for why they couldn't come visit. They were with their grandparents. Traveling with little ones was too much trouble. The kids have colds. I'm sorry this happened to you, because I can't imagine multiple people you care about dying over a

period of ten years or so. It just must have been incredibly difficult. It was very taxi at times. But I am very loyal to people who aren't care about and sometimes to your fault. Obviously, Sara seemed to find women like this who were loyal to their friends, even friends with roller coaster lives. Sarah wasn't just having pregnancy after pregnancy, in Aaron's eyes, she was also getting sick,

once with a brain tumor that left Sarah unable to speak. Yeah, basically, are reading John not good at And so your mom would get on and Sarah would mouse the words, and your mom would tell you what Sarah said, and then you would answer. So your mom's in this in these conversations as well. During one of these skype calls, Aaron watched in horror as Sarah began to have a seizure. Aaron panicked everything and he wanted to jump through the screen and older hand, or give her a hug, or

do something anything. And how long did this season go on? Probably thirty seconds or maybe a little. At one point, after they've been friends for a few years, Sarah returned to using a wheelchair. She said she had developed s M, A, the same rare condition that Gabby had. She came to visit Aaron during that time and stayed for more than a week. Aaron's mom, who also by this time loved Sarah,

was a caregiver to both women. Even though she herself was not feeling well, she still struggled do those nineties to do what she needed to do to make sure that we got to visit and do some things together now we wouldn't normally get to do. In two thousand fourteen, Aaron's mom passed away. Aaron descended into a deep depression. As the family made funeral plans, Aaron's dad secretly arranged for one thing that he thought would make Aaron feel better,

a surprise visit from Sarah. Shortly before her mom's funeral. Aaron was in her room, lying on her bed when she heard someone say, does anyone need a sister. Aaron looked at her phone, recognizing Sarah's voice and thinking she had accidentally dialed her up. And then Aaron looked around to see Sarah smiling in her wheelchair, and I just was stunned for a few seconds, and then I was like, Sisty, what are you doing here? She's like, what do you

think I'm doing here? Aaron gonna go to Wealth Service with your mom. I'm not gonna let you go by your's tail. Sarah was wearing pink, so was Aaron. It had been Gabby's favorite color. Pink was the only color in the world, basically for both of us. The next year, in two thousand and fifteen, Sarah went to Camp Summit. She arrived decked out in pink. She told Aaron all about it. Aaron wanted to go to so they made plans to attend together the following summer. In two thousand sixteen,

Aaron bought her plane tickets and registered. Aaron was especially excited to meet Sarah's favorite counselor, Bethany. Bethany was the one person I wanted to meet more than anything, because Sarah talks so highly of her and how she took give her and what a sweet person she was, which is all true. And then that spring, Aaron's dad got a call from the camp director. She said, I know your daughter and Sarah are friends. There's something you need

to know about Sarah, and they broke the news. Sarah wasn't disabled, never had been. Aaron was stunned. So then he starts telling me about Sarah and my head's one and I was like, wait, no, that's not too Her dad said he thought she should call Sarah, but he warned her, don't accept her to be honest, because she's

never really been honest with you. But maybe just in the way that she answered you, you can kind of get some closer and kind of realized why this is all happening and what kind of person she really was. They talked. Aaron remembers Sarah in tears, telling her that she never meant to hurt her. What did you say to her? I told her that it never would have mattered what your life was, didn't matter if your family was messed job where they're both your parents when doctors.

If not of this were true, it wouldn't have mattered as long as you were as nice as you pluetraated yourself to be at camp. Aaron would have been Sarah's friend if she hadn't been an Olympic skier or a bereft mother, or someone with a disability or brain cancer. But for some reason, it wasn't enough for Sarah to

just be Sarah. I think she saw us go to camp and be loved and taken care of and treated like we were special in getting extra care and stuff, and I think she in some extent wanted that because something, in some ways, maybe some of that was missing in her life and she was looking for that. She just

right the wrong way about it. Either that she's just evil me and Bethany and so many other people who didn't really she amally take money from, but our hearts and our most our families and everything that money can't buy. Even after Bethany, Aaron, Naomi and there were others, Sarah wasn't finished. But her victims were about to find one another,

and that would change everything. I think that we were both absolutely in shock at turning over the stone and just seeing the enormity of it, the situation, how vast and wide and deep and complex it was. But you were fearful to like of just to be clear, some kind of like fatal attraction moment, like she was going to turn and just be. We were very afraid, and both of the um police officers warned us to be. I was terrified. I was terrified. That's on the next

episode of Sympathy Pains. Sympathy Pains is a production of Neon Hum Media and I Heart Radio. I'm your host Laura Beale I wrote and reported the episodes. Natalie Wrinn is the lead producer. Our editor is Katherine st. Louis. Associate producer is Rufaro Mazzarua. Our executive producer is Jonathan Hirsch. Samantha Allison is our production manager. Fact checker is Jacqueline Colletti. Jesse Perlstein composed the theme song and music heard throughout

the series. Additional tracks are by Epidemic Sound. Scott Somerville is our engineer and sound designer. Special thanks to Stephanie Serrano from I Heart Radio. Special thanks to Carry Lieberman and beth Ann Macaluso. Exact getive producer at I Heart Radio is Dylan Fagan.