Episode 5: Unmasking The Puppeteer

For the first time in 13 years, David Fisher sits down with Natalia Burgess to talk about her catfishing. While he gains new insight into her life, how she operates her false characters, and her reasons for doing it, something's missing. And then an email out of the blue offers the answers he's been waiting for. 

And one victim of Natalia's catfishing reveals the devastating consequences of having these memories resurface. 

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This episode contains references to suicide and sexual violence. If
you need help, If you need support, refer to our
show notes.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
I'm going to pick up the Talia and it looks
like she is there.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
Yep, there she is. Hello, how are you doing? Long
time they see goes back cold.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
I hope sugar freeze okay, taipe one diabetes tend I've
made about eight years ago for me, and so like
sugar and carves.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
And all that stuff just poison poison.

Speaker 3 (00:52):
When I was in jail, I got diabetics too, Okaya,
which is a weird place to give it because you
eat healthy food.

Speaker 4 (00:59):
I would have thought.

Speaker 1 (00:59):
So. Yeah, it's the first exchange I had in person
with the Tylia Burgess for thirteen years, Just like I
had in twenty eleven. I offered to pick her up
from a home in South Auckland and take her to
our interview. Part of this was so I could chat
with her and get to know her a bit more
easier into having a conversation with me. Part of it, bluntly,

(01:23):
given her reluctance both then and now, was to ensure
she'd actually show up for the interview. It was over
a decade since we'd last laid eyes at each other,
and after a year of trying to get her to
talk to me on the record again, it was a
little surreal, but then we slipped right back into chatting
for the thirty minutes it took to get to the

(01:43):
Herald offices.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
I have been in Womens a couple of times for
various stories.

Speaker 3 (01:49):
I went on to meet an interview to meet an
interview in this Canadian peace smuggler called Pinky, Pinky, Pinky.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
Do you remember peeking?

Speaker 2 (02:01):
I remember thinking there would have been Would that be
during your second stip?

Speaker 4 (02:05):
Were your first my first stint?

Speaker 1 (02:06):
I was going to say, to be back then, right, yeah?

Speaker 5 (02:08):
And blonde here yeah, well, big booth.

Speaker 1 (02:12):
Like so many people online know, Natalie is a bright
and interesting person to spend time with. I found it
the same back in twenty eleven when I first exposed
her as the Facebook predator, a woman who was hunted
by police after ensneering dozens of teenage boys using false
online personas always like Ethan Williams and Sam Baker. Some

(02:33):
of those boys were as young as thirteen. One of
those boys, a judge said, came close to taking his
life as a result even for those who are older,
like Peter Russell of Christchurch. There was an emotional cost
in Natalia's mind games. This is a story I thought
was over when Natalie was sent to prison for her
second long term stint in twenty thirteen. I had hoped

(02:57):
that she'd learned her lesson. I had hope she had
moved on, But she hadn't. She got out of prison
and pretty much started all over again, using photos from
Crystal Jenna, among others, to create brand new personas. This
time she targeted older men, many in Australia, as well
as continuing her habit of approaching mothers and daughters to

(03:19):
forge pseudo familial relationships. After years of struggles, Crystal asked
the police for help, and they didn't. She asked Facebook
to stop Natalia stealing her images from its platform, and
they didn't. As is often the way in journalism, when
nothing else works, there is the media. So Crystal emailed

(03:42):
me and well you know the rest. Now, after a
year long investigation, it's finally time for Natalia and I
to talk again. Over that year, I've discovered just how
much I missed the first time I investigated in Natalia.
I've also discovered just how little I knew about her
and what I've now learned, Well, for me, that changes

(04:05):
everything about this story. My name is David Fisher, and
this is the final episode of Chasing Ghosts the Puppeteer Natalia.
Thank you very much for taking time to talk to
me today. I'm really grateful for it. I've been trying

(04:26):
to speak to you for a year and here we are. Now.
What is it that led you to sit down with
me today.

Speaker 5 (04:38):
I just think it's now that I'm not mentally unwell,
I need to address why I keep doing this, and yeah,
you've been really got in the past to debrief stuff
and help me get through stuff.

Speaker 1 (04:51):
So the interview happened a few weeks ago, actually, on
the day the first episode of this podcast came out.
It had been a long time coming. As I detailed
last episode, in the decade plus since I'd last interviewed Natalia,
I have more appreciation now for the fact that she's
not well and the insight I gained this year from

(05:12):
doctor Justin Barry Walsh, forensic psychiatrist with a specialization and
people who are fixated or obsessive. That gave me a
richer understanding before sitting down with Natalia to understand just
how difficult this interview might be. I also know from
my interactions with Natalia that it could be very difficult
to accept what she says at face value. That might

(05:35):
sound harsh, but she has spent actual decades living a lie,
so it's complex, or will be. Before we get into
the hurt that Natalia has caused. I wanted to understand
more about her life. Last episode, I spoke of how
Natalia was adopted a Simon baby, welcomed into the home
of a Parloringy Salvation Army couple, and then raised in

(05:58):
part on the West Coast. She arrived halfway through the
school year, and as she tells it, those friendship groups
were already formed for a new kid. It was hard
to find the place she was meant to be.

Speaker 5 (06:10):
It was hard. That's when I started feeling and making
up lies.

Speaker 1 (06:14):
It didn't help. Natalia told me that her parents were
church officers who, as Salvation Army clerics, wore uniforms, and
when she stood in front of a mirror, the girl
she saw looking back didn't look like anyone around her.

Speaker 5 (06:29):
I have two Palany parents, a Palany brother, and then
I'm Samoan Palay, So it was kind of like, yeah,
how do I fit into this family scenario?

Speaker 1 (06:39):
From West Coast to christ Church Primary school to high school,
these were moves that further distanced to her from her
peer group. It wasn't until Natalia moved to Auckland in
her late teens that she first started online, which goes
back to use that days, back to two thousand and one,
and back to Chickadee.

Speaker 5 (06:59):
Jesus, I haven't heard that of Asias.

Speaker 1 (07:01):
Chickadee was Natalia's first online persona in those early days
of social media. This is when Natalia discovered she didn't
have to show her true self to the world. But
when Bibo arrived in two thousand and five, she realized
that true self could be anybody she wanted it to be.
Can you tell me about that, about how all of this.

Speaker 5 (07:23):
Began, All this began, what was on It wasn't Bibo,
That's what it was on. It was on Bibo? And
I think I started off with a character called Amy
and Rachel. Amy and Rachel they were my first two characters.

Speaker 1 (07:40):
And how did they come to be? How did you
come up with the idea for Amy and Rachel?

Speaker 5 (07:46):
I just think because I didn't like who I was,
So I went to America stole pictures of a girl
of America and it just started from there. And when
I realized that this Amy girl was getting so much attention,
I needed a friend otherwise people have stad no believe it.
And then Rachel was created.

Speaker 1 (08:07):
And with those masks in place, Natalia set out to
meet people, well, she set out to meet men. And
the people that you were meeting in real life, did
they expect to meet Rachel or did they expect to
meet Natalia Rachel? And how did that work out? When
you did have that meeting?

Speaker 5 (08:28):
Some went okay, as I can remember, like I can't
remember fully back then. Some went okay, somewhent difficult, somewhere
more than.

Speaker 1 (08:37):
Unpleasant, unpleasant in what sort of a way.

Speaker 5 (08:41):
I put myself into situations with guys that were very violent,
and when they found out the truth, they weren't very nice.

Speaker 1 (08:50):
One of those encounters is, in Natalia's mind, the reason
for Laura West, his sister Abby, even Kaylie Littali, the
identity she modeled on Crystal's photographs. It all goes back
to an encounter Natalias has happened around two thousand and seven,
she met a man online she calls Karl, and arranged
to meet him in person. After that real world meeting,

(09:13):
she says, a group of young women mocked her on Facebook.

Speaker 5 (09:17):
She called me fat, she got me ugly, show me.
Isn't it good for Carl to go back to where
I belong?

Speaker 1 (09:23):
Among that group of women, according to Natalia, were Crystal, Jenna,
and Sophie Jarrett. You remember that Sophie had her photos
SOLN back during the Laura West phase, many of them
used as the basis for Laura's sister Abby. Her photos
were used again alongside her friend Crystal's after Natalia got

(09:45):
out of jail in late twenty fifteen. I've got to say,
there's elements of this story that just don't hold together,
but it seems significant to Natalia.

Speaker 5 (09:57):
As dating they met Carl, and they were very mean
about it. So I took her image and Sophie's image,
and Natalie's image, and Ashley's image and Colle's image.

Speaker 1 (10:07):
So they became what five people whose image you were
going to use for false profiles? YEP. One thing that
trips Natalia up here is the name Natalie. That's the
name of the woman who became the face of Laura West.
You might remember I took Natalia to meet Natalie and
she promised she swore to never again use her image.

Speaker 5 (10:31):
Not Natalie, not Natalie Nettley, another Natalie Least, just get
that really clear. Through the fol good on the get
bombarded again. She was the worst and she was his
ex girlfriend and she was the worst. And then Ashley
in Crystal and Sophie kind of just chimed in.

Speaker 1 (10:47):
She again assures me that she's never used Natalie who
was Laura's image again. But Natalie who's Laura is one
of the keys to the story because she's connected to
all the other characters that existed at that time. And
Crystal I checked with her about these bullying claims, and

(11:08):
her earliest knowledge of Natalia was within the last ten years.
That's how long Crystal says her image has been used.
There's a lot of things that can happen online. I mean,
you know, because you've spent lots of time online. Is
it possible it's one of those things that happened that
they don't even remember.

Speaker 5 (11:26):
Possibly we were young, but you remember, oh yeah, Netalie
was horrible.

Speaker 1 (11:32):
Why I asked Carrie something on seventeen years later. It
baffled me. Some long ago altercation online that doesn't fit
with what I know, that doesn't resonate with the women involved,
that even if it did happen, Natalia accepts they may
not even remember.

Speaker 5 (11:52):
So why because I hated those girls?

Speaker 1 (11:56):
This story is one Natalia put forth as if it
explains everything. It explains nothing. There were many many faces
used by Natalia that never did anything to her, and
maybe that's the case here too. When Natalia started using
Crystal's photo, that was after Natalia had been to jail.

(12:18):
That's when she switched from talking to adolescence to catfishing
adult men. Her focus went from New Zealand to Australia.
These were, she had told me, conscious decisions to avoid
being caught. Natalia told me she had also changed the
scale on which she operated. Is there a particular way
that she go about constructing a profile to make it

(12:39):
more believable.

Speaker 5 (12:41):
I used to have the whole family, sister, cousin, best friend,
like I'd make a whole family for them, But now
now I'm just like nussed up at one person's enough.
I can't deal with anybody else.

Speaker 1 (12:54):
Not exactly one person. There was Crystal and Sophie, but
that is still quite a switch from the broadcast of
characters she had used to build worlds in the past.
It was around this point in the interview when we
started to get deeper into what Natalia had been up
to since we'd last spoken in twenty eleven. I asked

(13:15):
her about taking photos of the children of Crystal's friends
in order to build the narrative of Kaylie Rose. We
know this from Crystal and her mum, Lucil, and from
Jada Moran, a man Natalia spoke to briefly in character
as Kaylee. Danika, and Lisa, the mum and daughter Natalia
lied to for six years, also recall being sent photos

(13:35):
of Kaylee's daughter. The only person who doesn't think that happened, though,
is Natalia herself.

Speaker 5 (13:42):
I haven't done any children, not since Laura.

Speaker 1 (13:45):
Well, it was Danika's recollection of Lisa's recollection that you
had done so, And actually in the message chains that
are there, you write about having a daughter. When I
say in the message chains, I do have screw of
messages between Kaylee and Danika which include photographs of a child,
a child of one of Crystal's friends.

Speaker 5 (14:07):
Yeah, I had a daughter, but I didn't use any
images for her. I haven't done that since Laura.

Speaker 1 (14:11):
And I stuck with this because I had the actual
photographs sent by Kayley, photos of Crystal's friend's child at
a birthday party, shopping in the mall, celebrating Christmas. That's
not something that you can recall.

Speaker 5 (14:25):
No, I do remember giving Kaye a child, but not
any pictures. Could I let my lesson with Laura?

Speaker 1 (14:31):
What do you think that lesson was not to hurt
a child. We've reached a place I've come to think
of as the reality chasm. Almost all of us live
on one side of this chasm. Here in the real
world where you're listening to this podcast. Across that yawning
expanse is a place some visit on occasion, some more often,

(14:52):
where reality isn't something you can grasp firmly. It is
instead a tenuous thing, slippery creature that escapes and slithers away.
And with its absence, there is a world that's foreign
to almost all of us, a place where Natalia can
be whoever she wants to be. When I interviewed Natalia,

(15:14):
I asked her about the scenarios the car crash on
which Laura died, the characters who fell in love, pregnancy, miscarriage,
self harm, Where did those things come from?

Speaker 4 (15:24):
Me?

Speaker 1 (15:26):
And that's what's happening in your life for things that
you wish were happening in your life, for both and
so you could live that out through the false personas,
share the things that were real, and dream about the
things that learned.

Speaker 6 (15:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (15:40):
Oddly, when I asked Natalia about the death of Laura
West and her memories of Emma and Bernie, who you've
heard from a lot in this podcast, this was her response.
If we go back to twenty eleven, and that was
just after the Laura West persona had been killed off,
and there was a really large group of characters that

(16:01):
were around Laura that became very involved. Is that right?

Speaker 5 (16:05):
I actually can't remember back that far. Sorry. I remember
killing her off, and I just can't remember why I
did it and how I did.

Speaker 1 (16:14):
It in a car crash.

Speaker 5 (16:19):
That sounds about right.

Speaker 1 (16:21):
And do you remember Bernie and Emma a mum and daughter.
Emma would have been about sixteen when you met her online.

Speaker 5 (16:32):
Great Auckland, christ Church.

Speaker 1 (16:33):
Wellington outside christ Church.

Speaker 5 (16:36):
Not off the top of me head, I don't.

Speaker 1 (16:38):
Later, while clarifying one thing. I similarly asked her about Jake,
the guy she catfished, the guy who wanted to do
an interview and then ghosted me. You remember Jake briefly
from episode.

Speaker 5 (16:50):
Two one, Jack Jake. I can't remember these names. These
names are like, it's Jake, Okay, thank you Jake.

Speaker 1 (17:00):
I can't remember the names because because it was so
long ago.

Speaker 5 (17:05):
I've done it to too many people since him.

Speaker 1 (17:08):
How many do you think in the.

Speaker 5 (17:10):
Last year, maybe twenty.

Speaker 1 (17:14):
There's one name that Natalia did remember, Peter Russell.

Speaker 5 (17:18):
Oh yeah, I remember Pete. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (17:20):
In the context of Peter, Natalia remembers Emma. You recall
that Emma and Peter were together until her supposed cousin
Laura West aka Natalia, showed up. Emma told us how
she ended her relationship with Peter so Peter and her
beloved cousin Laura could be happy together.

Speaker 5 (17:38):
She sued to me, and I m I was like,
what's up, and he goes on, thanks, I'm falling in
love with this girl.

Speaker 1 (17:43):
And I was like, you need to bow your heart,
you need to do what you need to do. But
that's not how Natalia remembers it.

Speaker 5 (17:50):
That's not true. Peter was single when I met him.

Speaker 1 (17:53):
And things with Peter took a really terrible turn during
twenty ten. Is that something that you recall?

Speaker 5 (18:00):
I remember that, but people forget. If it was that
heartbroken over Laura, why did he move on? And then
he was in another complete happy relationship and I left
it alone.

Speaker 1 (18:13):
It's such a thing as a rebound relationship.

Speaker 5 (18:17):
No, he was happy. I saw the bitches.

Speaker 1 (18:19):
I then asked Natalia about how Rawn has long blamed
her for Peter's self inflicted death.

Speaker 5 (18:26):
Like the court of law when she told me to
court found me not guilty, So I don't know how
to reconcilt it. What chounts me to go back to
jail for twenty years?

Speaker 1 (18:38):
Found you not guilty? Where do you mean the coroner's
hearing that was held.

Speaker 5 (18:42):
I don't know, if something because the police couldn't charge
him with manslaughter because there was no evidence according to them.
That's well they told me, right.

Speaker 1 (18:50):
So there was the police inquiry into Peter's death. Whether
you were responsible for that? Yeah, do you feel any
responsibility for that? I realized that this is a long
time ago. But when I'd interviewed Raywan, I was struck
by really felt it by her grief, and I'm wondering

(19:12):
how you deal with that because she's out of the
world there thinking that she'll fault.

Speaker 5 (19:17):
There's nothing I can do to change your mind, but.

Speaker 1 (19:20):
You don't feel that responsibility.

Speaker 5 (19:23):
I feel partly responsible because what I did up to
the day that he broke up with me was probably
not a very good idea. But then, like I said,
he moved on, he got a new relationship, he was happy.

Speaker 1 (19:33):
Natalie was right in the fact she was never held
responsible for Peter's death. There was a coronial hearing about
Peter's death, as I mentioned in that bit of the interview,
but the contents of it were sealed. As to Peter
moving on, I can't speak for how happy he was
before he died, or if he truly moved on from
this relationship. From what I know of Natalia, she puts

(19:56):
a lot of weight on relationships as being a source
of happiness, hence why she sought them out with such
great regularity over the last twenty years. I don't think
Peter entering into another relationship after Laura West necessarily wipes
away the impact of Natalia's deceit. However, while Rayvend blames Natalia.

(20:19):
Those who knew Peter at the time have spoken of
other difficulties in his life before his death, and in
my experience of covering cases like this, there's really a
single cause for suicide regardless. I think Peter's death is
a shadow that will follow Natalia for the rest of
her life. His death after his involvement with her was

(20:40):
a big part of the narrative back in twenty eleven,
both in my coverage and in other interviews she did,
and the names Natalia Burgess and Peter Russell will in
some way forever be linked. She spoke to me in
twenty eleven about how much his death impacted her at
the time, and during our recent conversation, Natalia acknowledged again

(21:01):
the impact of his death, but she didn't seem to
really grasp the impact her actions had on other people,
which I pushed her on near the end of our conversation.
You seem to have become really aware of yourself and
the things that are inside you that cause you difficulty.
I am sensing less awareness of the pain that you've

(21:22):
caused out there in the community, which has been incredible.
It really has been a huge amount of pain. Do
you have trouble understanding the difficulty that you've caused others?

Speaker 5 (21:33):
I just don't get the grips of it.

Speaker 1 (21:35):
Tell me more about that.

Speaker 5 (21:36):
I understand that I've hurt people, and I've understand that
I don't have any empathy. I'm sorry, but I don't.
There's one thing I don't have.

Speaker 1 (21:50):
Is that like a thing that you think you should have,
but it's gone. You never grew it.

Speaker 5 (21:54):
I had it when I was young, but then I
just caring about people as soon as they started bullying me.

Speaker 1 (22:03):
This was not the first time she'd referred to difficulties
in her childhood and teenage years and the impact those
had on her. Several times during the interview, she referred
to life changing at fifteen.

Speaker 5 (22:14):
Since the age of fifteen, everything has just gone done uff.

Speaker 1 (22:19):
What do you mean Since I.

Speaker 5 (22:21):
Turned fifteen, I met certain people at certain things, and
that just led my life down like a merry go
round of bad decisions.

Speaker 1 (22:30):
It was an age she kept referring to, but not
saying fully what she wanted to. She referred to an
incident when she was fifteen when her brother found her
overdosing on drugs and her hurt and how that affected him,
but there was clearly more to the story. My producer
Ethan eventually asked her outright what had happened.

Speaker 5 (22:51):
Then, I was raped by my best friend in the
whole town were.

Speaker 1 (23:01):
And that's the point of change that sticks in your mind.

Speaker 5 (23:05):
Because no one believed me, because everyone thought up to
that point that I was not a version. I'd been
on drugs, but he was one that was sup playing
me with the drugs and the alcohol. It was bad
enough I got around school, and that was my first
proper incident with it, when this girl from school found
out about it, when it spreaded around the school, so
I went and makes the crap out of her.

Speaker 1 (23:26):
You know, I wasn't surprised. I wasn't surprised that there
would be the Natalia, a pivotal moment where life didn't
suffer just a subtle shift, but a tectonic shake. Her
distress at not being believed, a rejection of those who
didn't believe her, and then turning to those who did,
no matter how unhealthy and how dangerous that choice was.

(23:50):
Last episode I talked about there been two interviews in
this podcast series that had a real effect on me.
One of those was Raymond, and the other is Natalia.
It's this interview. Our interview ended shortly after that point.
While I had a lot of answers to a lot
of questions, or at least Natalia's version of answers, there

(24:14):
was a lot I felt I still didn't understand about her.
The interview had come together overnight, with Natalia wanting to
be collected early the next afternoon. For me, it was
important to interview her before she changed her mind. I'm
just not convinced. I went about it in the best way.
I brought it from a South Auckland home into the

(24:35):
central city, into the New Zealand Herald offices with all
the lights and cameras and all that who and then
hit her head on with the one thing she really
didn't want to talk about. It was her voice I
was hearing. But for me, the answers she was giving
weren't enough. But then, sort of like Crystal Jenner's email

(24:56):
two years earlier, another arrived in my inbox just a
few weeks ago, I thought my chat with Natalie. It
was the first time she had spoken properly since twenty eleven.
It turns out five years ago she sat down for
a long form interview, one that has never seen the
light a day until now, and in it, finly, I

(25:20):
think we meet the woman behind the puppeteer.

Speaker 7 (25:28):
I'm doctor nikiy Osborne. I have a pitched in psychology
and my role is to try and understand how forensic
scientists make decisions about forensic evidence. But my general interest
in psychology really drives me to try and understand why
people think the way that they think, and why they
do the things they do and what motivates them.

Speaker 1 (25:49):
Met Nikki. She's also been on our television screens as
a reality TV contestant on the local versions of The
Bloc and The Bachelor, which is relevant to what happens next.
Around twenty nineteen, Nicki was looking to make her own
podcast series.

Speaker 7 (26:05):
In twenty nineteen, I had a bit of time on
my hands, and like many others, I decided I wanted
to start a podcast, and my interest was really in
New Zealand's justice system and what is and isn't working
and how the individuals who experienced.

Speaker 5 (26:23):
The justice system could help.

Speaker 7 (26:25):
To inform steps that could help to make it better.
And so I put a post out on Instagram asking
if anyone wanted to talk to me and tell their stories.
And the very first email I got was from Natalia.

Speaker 1 (26:42):
And here's that email, read by NICKI.

Speaker 7 (26:45):
Good morning, Niki. I saw your post on Instagram and
I'd like to put my hand up. I've been in
jail for eight years, in and out, and I'm more
than happy to tell my story. Thanks Natalia Burgess.

Speaker 1 (26:57):
PS.

Speaker 7 (26:57):
I loved you on the block.

Speaker 1 (26:59):
As we know, Natalia has an affinity for local TV,
namely long running soapop for Shortland Street, so it's no
surprise to me that she was drawn to Nicki. This
feeling became, if anything, more solid when during Natalia's interview
with Nicki, I heard Natalia say this, and you're very.

Speaker 4 (27:19):
Friendly and your face is very good.

Speaker 1 (27:21):
Look at It reminded me of sitting at that truck
stop thirteen years earlier, watching Natalia with Natalie the face
of Laura West, and Natalia constantly reaching out to touch
Natalie's arm, almost disbelieving, starstruck. Nicki interviewed Natalia twice once
for an extended period and had started to shape it
into an episode. Then she got a job and the

(27:44):
podcast plan went on the back burner and it sat
there until Nicki heard episode one, and that's when she
got in touch.

Speaker 7 (27:53):
I was making breakfast and I finished this episode of
whatever I was listening to, and then my phone just
automatically went onto the next podcast that it thought I
would like, and it was Chasing Ghost the Puppeteer, and
I get five minutes in and I was like, why
does this sound familiar? And then guy had seen headline

(28:17):
come up on New Zealand Herald, maybe the day before,
and then my brain started to go, hang on a second,
this is all connected, and I just ran to my
computer and I looked up who I'd interviewed, and I
was like, oh my gosh, it's Natalia Burgess. And then
I emailed you, and I didn't know why, but I
was like, I need to email David and let him

(28:39):
know that I've spoken to Natalia.

Speaker 1 (28:40):
So that is how we came to be sitting together
talking about Natalia.

Speaker 7 (28:44):
But I did reach out to Natalia and let her
know that I'd like to talk to you and share
this side of her story, which I don't think was
captured in the first few episodes, which would some of
her more vulnerable moments and part of why she is
the way she is. And so she gave me permission
to share that with you.

Speaker 1 (29:05):
And when I listened to Nicki's interview with Natalia, I
can see why she didn't have an issue. They had
fun together and instead of hitting Natalia head on with
questions about catfishing, Nicki's interview was really an invitation for
Natalia to talk about herself, which she did for hours.

Speaker 7 (29:23):
She probably talked ninety percent of the time and I
just had a few prompts every now and again. But Yeah,
I found her really easy to engage with. It was
definitely pleasant spending time with her. She's yeah, she is engaging.
And the way she told her stories and I went
on a ride with her. As she's telling the stories,
there were moments where I was tearing up hearing her experiences.

(29:43):
And she's just smiley and she laughs a lot. She's
got this scute little giggle.

Speaker 1 (29:49):
I found when I put it all together, my research,
Nicki's interview, my interview, I could really see Natalia, and
i'd like you to see her too.

Speaker 8 (30:02):
If you just say your name and that you understand
that you're being recorded, and that at any point you
feel uncomfortable, you can just say no, I don't want
to answer Okay, so my name.

Speaker 4 (30:13):
Is Natalia Urdus, and I understand that he's recording this
for her podcast.

Speaker 1 (30:17):
Here's what struck me about Nicki's interview with Natalia. When
I sat down with Natalia, we both knew we were
there to speak about her catfishing behavior. It meant Natalia's
guard was up. She knew there would be pointed questions
about a pattern of behavior that had previously sent her
to prison. When talking to Nicki, Natalia wasn't guarded because

(30:39):
the interview was so broad in scope. As I listened
to Nicky's audio, this was the moment when I realized
this was Natalia talking about herself, almost musing out loud,
rather than responding to direct questions about something that had
deeply hurt her parents and sent her to jail. In fact,
there are times when Natalia sounds reflective and genuinely introspective.

Speaker 4 (31:04):
I just want to let people know that, you know,
there is another side to life, Like you, you can
go through that tunnel, but there's always that little bit
of light that just shines a little bit through, like
that little little hole in the ceiling that you can
just see but you can't touch it. So that's my
aim is to make sure that people know that they

(31:25):
can actually touch their light.

Speaker 1 (31:27):
I should note there is some difficulty in recounting Natalia's
life as told by Natalia. That's because it's sometimes impossible
to know what is real and what she has made up.
But between my interviews with Natalia in twenty eleven and
twenty twenty four, in this interview by Nicki in twenty nineteen,

(31:47):
there is some consistency. I can imagine many of you
listening may be inclined not to believe anything Natalia says,
and that might include her story of being raped. But
for what it's worth, I believe that's the case largely
as she told Nicki the story as well, and the
scarring impact actually more of an open wound, is plain

(32:09):
to see.

Speaker 4 (32:10):
The cops were called, and the cops were like, why
are you so angry? I was like, because I got
raped and no one believed me.

Speaker 1 (32:15):
The consequence of that disbelief was her rejection of those
who didn't believe her and the embrace of those who did.
Part of that, according to Natalia, was a relationship with
a young man with gang links whose gang boss dad
put her on the streets as a prostitute took a
share of her earnings and applied her with drugs when
she talked about being in pain. This led to more trauma,

(32:38):
as she told.

Speaker 9 (32:39):
Nicki, Yeah, yeah, I got raped one night and the
cops never took it seriously because of the prostitute and
because of my age. Are like, well, follow, you're standing
out there at seventeen.

Speaker 5 (32:50):
Don't come crying to ask when stuff like that happened.

Speaker 4 (32:53):
That was their response.

Speaker 1 (32:54):
The drugs, the addiction that followed the sex work. When
asked when she felt to disconnect with the real will
begin when the voice is started, it is this period.

Speaker 4 (33:03):
Yeah, my voices started when I was about sixteen and
a half. And do you know what brought them on?

Speaker 7 (33:12):
If there was an incident that happened, what do you
associate with the voices starting?

Speaker 4 (33:16):
So it was probably the heroine that I was on
and the fact that I was rape.

Speaker 1 (33:21):
Just in case you were wondering, Both Nicki and I
checked with Natalia and her well being before and after
our interviews, but it wasn't just trauma or heartbreak that
Natalia shared. She also spoke to Nicki about her time
living with her parents again in Auckland. You might recall
the questions Natalia says she had as a pacific a

(33:42):
baby in a European home and how she fits into
that family scenario. And yet, as she told NICKI, home
was a safe place with enormous meaning.

Speaker 4 (33:52):
So my mother's kitchen growing up was always filled with
Sunday ROAs. No matter what it was, Sunday ROAs had
to sit down and heaven meal together. Chocolate cakes the
law because she used to bake the stuff. And I
always remember the smell of like gingerbread baking for Christmas
and shortbread. It was so buttery, creamy in your mouth.

Speaker 1 (34:15):
Not only is home a safe place, but her adoptive
father is her champion.

Speaker 4 (34:20):
I'm very much a daddy's girl. Dad and Move bonded
because I'm adopted. So Dad and Move bonded quicker than
me and Mom bonded. I think, I mean, me and
Mom get on, but we don't get on get on
like we tolerate each other. I think the best way
to put.

Speaker 1 (34:33):
It, even by Natalia, is telling she was challenging at home.
She talks of taking and using her mother's credit card,
taking money saved by her younger brother, of acting out
at home in a way that made her uncontrollable.

Speaker 7 (34:47):
So if you could give any message or words to
your parents, like imagine I'm your parents and you want
to say how you feel about them and their role
in your journey, what would you say to them?

Speaker 4 (34:58):
I love you and I'm so going to make you
proud one day. And I'm glad that even though all
of this stuff opened, I'm so glad that you adopted
me and didn't leave me, leave me as a baby.
Because yeah, and I love you dad like I love
my dad like nothing else. Like I'm such a daddies girl.
My dad's amazing. Yeah, I break his heart all the

(35:21):
time and I do stupid stuff. But yet he'll always
you know, he'll always stand by me, and he'll always
be if I go to court, he's my number one supporter,
and he'll stand there and he'll go. My daughter ain't
a bad girl. She's just an idiot, you know. He's like,
she's actually quite intelligent when she puts in mind to stuff.

Speaker 1 (35:37):
As Natalia tells it, drugs led to poor life choices
and that led to the police being called. But there
was always something else going on. There were always his
struggles with the voices. After being released from prison in
late twenty fifteen early twenty sixteen, Natalia moved back to
her parents' South Auckland home for a period of years.

(35:59):
It was relative of calm in prison. There had been
a new diagnosis of schizophrenia and new treatment pathways that
seemed to be helping. There was also support in the
form of Legacy, a network for women that is part
of the evangelical Destiny Church. The Natalia Legacy became a
constant in her life over a number of years. It

(36:21):
was a place where she formed bonds, made friends, where
she was surrounded by people who helped her feel that
she had value. It was a period in Natalia's life
that she shared with Nikki, something that had nothing to
do with her online behavior, something in the real world
that showed Natalia could see beyond the life in which
she was tramped. Natalia tells of a former gang member friend,

(36:44):
someone she would smoke he with, who invited her to
a Destiny Church service. After the service, Natalia went around
the side of the church with the man and discovered
he had reformed.

Speaker 4 (36:56):
I was like, you know, have you got anything on you?
And he's like, no, have you Like yeah? For the
part for me. He's had it's going and he took
the pipe off my hand and smashed it in front
of me. I was like, you ken ay, that just
cost me sixteen dollars and you just smashed it. He go, yeah,
we don't need it anymore, and I was like, yeah,
doing is I need?

Speaker 1 (37:13):
Destiny gets a hard time. The church leaders, Brian and
Hannah Tamaki, faced a lot of criticism for an opulent lifestyle,
and Brian particularly for some of his public comments. For
all their controversies, though which have admittedly become more regular
since the COVID nineteen pandemic, there's another side to the church,
mainly through its support groups Man Up and Too Tangata.

(37:36):
Whatever you feel about Brian, I believe these groups genuinely
save people. I've said it at lunch with a dozen
two Tangua to members, all with criminal convictions, some murderers,
all Harley Davidson writing leather jacket wearing tough guys, and
heard them talk of turning their backs on crime, learning
how to be better dads, being better husbands. So I

(37:57):
can see how legacy a sisterhood to match the two
Tangata brotherhood would be great for Natalia, faith has always
been a part of her life, and now she had
a group which looked past people's backgrounds to a place
where they could make a new life.

Speaker 4 (38:11):
And so I started going to Legacy, and Legacy has
shown me I'm confident I can be the woman that
I want to be. You know, the past is the past,
and yeah, if I keep holding on to it, then
I'll never move forward. I still have the voices. Now
I know how to cope with the voices I can
get for a day.

Speaker 1 (38:28):
It's not to say Legacy solved everything like Man Up
or Too Tangata. It offers a framework into which a
life gone crooked can be reshaped, and it offers support
in company. But it isn't a mental health service. Here.
I say, Destiny can't perform miracles. And we know that
because during this period, as Legacy was helping Natalia rise

(38:51):
up and see herself differently, Natalie was living a lie
online as Kaylie, wearing Crystal's face. I have the message
reads time stamped and dated. Around the same time, Natalia
explained to Nikki why she wasn't going to jail again.

Speaker 4 (39:07):
I think the last leg that I did that kind
of woke me up because suddenly what I was doing
was I was missing with people's lives, like and the
Facebook predator stuff like that. That woke me up when
I got expusted for that, because I actually didn't think
I was doing anyone any harm, because I didn't think
like when I stole someone's photo to do the Facebook page,

(39:28):
I was like, I wasn't using any of their you know,
name details or anything like that. I was just using
their photo. So I thought it wasn't hurting them or
anyone else or what I was doing. But when it
all came out to light, like like I have one girl, Sophie,
like like she was the nicest fun out of a
whole group of girls, this girl called Sophie, and like

(39:50):
she just said to me, even though you didn't use
any of my details, you know, you use my face.
She used my daughter's face, and you created a whole life.
And now I live in fear that one of those
voice that you talk to under my photo, if they
ever see me, they're gonna, you know, yell and screaming
me like you broke my heart, you lied to me,
and you know, And that woke me up.

Speaker 1 (40:10):
It didn't wake her up too much, there's evidence Crystal
and Sophie with a face of false profiles from twenty
eighteen three to twenty twenty two. It's easy to simply
say Natalia is flat out lying here. She's certainly sincere
in her assurances to Niki, and it may be that
she believed what she was saying at the time she
was saying it. It may have even been true at

(40:33):
that particular moment in twenty nineteen, on that particular day.
And that's in spite of this exchange with Nikki.

Speaker 7 (40:40):
Do you feel remorse for what you did?

Speaker 4 (40:42):
Yeah? I do know, especially to like ones like Sophi
and Crystal that you know using their face has damaged
your life, and like I used Sophie's daughter, that's not
right because that child, you know, has the right to
be a child without her image.

Speaker 1 (40:59):
Being That's right. Natalia is speaking of remorse for using
Crystal in Sophie's image at the same time as there
is evidence she is doing exactly that. She also confirms
here that she had been using the image of Sophie's daughter,
despite her saying when I interviewed her that she had
not done that since leaving Jalen twenty fifteen. It's confounding

(41:24):
until you consider her mental health. I spoke earlier about
the reality chasm and how across this divide is the
place where Natalia builds online characters. These Frankenstein like creations,
a pieced together from her life, her imagine life though
she encounters, and those she dreams of encountering. It's a

(41:45):
place where promises she's made to others to herself can
be promises that somebody else has made. Some truths remain,
but they're a part of the Frankenstein or the Puppeteers monster.
You might remember Danika's de stress at the death of
her grandmother and Kaylie comforting her, offering an empathetic role
call of loss.

Speaker 7 (42:06):
Grandma died of old age, Vickiy of cancer in May
last year, and Liam, when he was fifteen he was murdered.

Speaker 1 (42:12):
You remember I was skeptical of those claims. Kaylie was
not related to the real Vicula tally, and there isn't
any sign of a fifteen year old liamb being murdered
in New Zealand in the last twenty years. But when
Natalia spoke to Nicki, she did speak of losing her grandmother.

Speaker 4 (42:29):
Losing nan on a couple of weeks ago. She was
the only person in the world other than my dad
that used to tell me that I was worth it
and that you know, one day I'll make her proud.

Speaker 7 (42:40):
What type of life do you think would make her proud?

Speaker 4 (42:44):
Drug free, boyfriend free, Yeah, and a job like she
used to say to me, maybe you can do anything
you want when you put your mind to it. You
are very clever. You you just hide it very well.
And then I laugh and I'm I'm not clever, and
she's like, you are very clever, You're very smart.

Speaker 1 (43:04):
Like, thanks, Nan, isn't that just how we want to
be seen? And Natalia, how did she see herself? NICKI
asked her, just that give me the elevator pitch. She said,
a short, sharp summary that might happen over two minutes
in an elevator.

Speaker 4 (43:21):
So in two minutes, I'd say, Hi, I'm Talia, I'm
ex drag edic, and I have a fantastic life now
thanks to legacy. And I've changed my life around because
of legacy and because of the positive people around me now.
And what you see now is what you get. There's
no fake shit, there's no Facebook shit, there's nothing like that.

(43:44):
It's just purely me and if you don't like me,
well that's not my problem.

Speaker 1 (43:49):
And at another point in Nicki's interview, she asked this.

Speaker 7 (43:54):
What would you go back and tell your fifteen year
old self if you could just be you, babe and
you're worth it?

Speaker 1 (44:02):
If only they were that easy. When I met with
Nikki just the other week, I asked her for her
thoughts on her interview with Natalia.

Speaker 7 (44:09):
When I was interviewing Natalia, I didn't have all that background,
and so I've been learning about her through your podcast.
And the way that I wanted to tell my story
was really just to give her a voice and a
platform to tell her story. And I have a lot
of empathy and compassion for her, and then hearing the

(44:31):
impact that her actions have had on other people was
really confronting for me because I just hadn't really considered
all of that because it was I was quite just
kind of focused on this on individuals telling their stories.
And something I'm wrestling with in my own mind is like,

(44:51):
I have so much empathy and compassion for Natalia because
she's been through so much and the mental health struggles
that she has, and in some ways I was leaving
that cloud my judgment of her to the point where
I was almost making excuses.

Speaker 1 (45:05):
For her behavior.

Speaker 7 (45:07):
But actually, until she's held accountable and she takes account
for herself, I don't think she's going to stop. Because
she is very self aware, she's intelligent, she can create
complex narratives and hold all of that together.

Speaker 5 (45:28):
But there's still very.

Speaker 7 (45:29):
Much an element of her blaming the people she's talking to.
She blames the prison system for enabling her to have
access to phones.

Speaker 5 (45:38):
Still in there, there's still very much.

Speaker 7 (45:40):
An element of blaming other people and not saying she
didn't sure say that she's done the wrong thing and
that she is aware that she's hurt people. But it's
still if she's allowed to do it, I think she
will keep doing it.

Speaker 1 (45:56):
When I set out to investigate Natilor again, producer Ethan
and I knew there needed to be a point to
this podcast. Initially we figured that there was a gap
in the law. It's something that was raised as far
back as twenty eleven.

Speaker 4 (46:10):
Is it's not a criminal arrestler. I feel an at
least case is so extreme. It's at the most extreme
end of cyber arrestment. Yeah, that it could be used
to shake us on all right and say, Okay, this
probably doesn't happen every day, does it?

Speaker 1 (46:28):
And has been a constant query from the victims I've
spoken to, why.

Speaker 10 (46:33):
Can the government not step in and put protocols in
place to protect people? Surely there must be something out
there that you know the government can can don't.

Speaker 1 (46:45):
Well, sorry, it turns out our laws are pretty good.
I explored this deeply interviewing senior police and the senior
manager at net safe, the agency charged with helping create
a safer online space. Back when Natali was first doing this,
police for creative and finding laws through which they could
prosecute Natalia. Those ill fitting laws have been replaced by

(47:07):
a better law, the Harmful Digital Communications Act. If there's
a problem now, it's the pipeline to justice. Thirteen years ago,
Natalian's behavior was unusual now, while it's still unusual in
its own right, that online space is littered with what
police call volume crime, the sorts of crimes that happen
in such great number it becomes difficult to properly investigate

(47:30):
each and everyone. Such a proliferation of this type of crime, suggested,
the problem is the environment police are trying to manage
that vast online space that's dominated by megacorp style internet
companies that make enormous profits even as critics ask why
they can't be better corporate citizens. I conducted more interviews,

(47:52):
thank you, especially to University of Canterbury lecturer Mark Rickerby
and Victoria University Associate professor Ian Welch, and I learned
what many suspect that the Internet it's a mess. Yes,
there are things Meta could do to improve Facebook and
to reduce or even possibly eliminate those who behave as
Natalia does.

Speaker 11 (48:12):
Here's Ian Welch My reading of what they're advising. People
are saying, well, we will provide these tools to let
you manage your privacy, but it's up to you to
check how you know that they're can figured it correctly
and all the sort of stuff. If you get it wrong,
well you know that's kind of your problem. You could
provide better tools to help people. We could provide a

(48:34):
view for people of their own account that says, hey,
look there's this person over here. It looks very much
like you. Do you think this might be someone trying
to pretend that it's you, and then they could report it.

Speaker 1 (48:47):
But every tweak shaves that profit margin even thinner. And
that's not what the mega corps are about. Rather, they're
about slaving the audience and the advertisers to its profit machine,
sort of uroverus the snake devouring itself. Here's Mark Rickerby
from Canterbury University.

Speaker 12 (49:05):
And at the end of it all the idea is
that this is this is how these platforms die. But
the problem that we face is, Okay, these platforms, maybe
maybe they're dead in terms of the value that they're generating.
You know, there's no longer a sort of surplus for
the users. It's and it can be a very negative
experience for a lot of people. But they're still here,

(49:26):
you know, so that maybe they're dead, but they are
still businesses, they're still making money, they're still with this
incredible reach around the world, and they kind of they
roll on as these sort of zombie zombie platforms.

Speaker 1 (49:37):
This is not how I thought the zombie apocalypse would go.
I sought answers from Meta. I wanted to know what
it thought about how its platform Facebook could be so
effectively weaponized and used against others. I sent a list
of links to Natalia's fakes and her own page is
a point of reference. As it turns out, Meta doesn't

(49:58):
really do engagement. After eight weeks, I got an unusually
bland statement.

Speaker 13 (50:03):
We took action against the Facebook profiles that were flagged.
We encourage users to report any profiles they suspect to
be inauthentic, and.

Speaker 1 (50:14):
The action I took it gave me a sense of dread.
That's because along with the fake profiles, Meta deleted Natalia's
actual profile. I know how important Facebook is to Natalia,
for all the havoc she causes. Her own page has
been a constant in her life for fifteen years, and
as far as I've been able to tell, not directly

(50:36):
used for catfishing. Do you have a favorite platform that
you use? Is there a particular social media that you
prefer to use over others?

Speaker 5 (50:43):
I like Facebook.

Speaker 1 (50:45):
What is it about Facebook that you like?

Speaker 4 (50:47):
I don't know.

Speaker 5 (50:48):
I think it's just because it's so easy to just
start up with account, and you don't have to have
numerous long lists of stuff. You're just going to email
or a phone number.

Speaker 1 (50:56):
With her page deleted, I felt I'd taken from her
something I imagined was important to her. So I apologized,
and then she said I made a.

Speaker 5 (51:06):
New page so I could keep up with my friends
and the page that I like to follow.

Speaker 1 (51:12):
Is it really that easy?

Speaker 14 (51:13):
Yeah?

Speaker 5 (51:14):
I just use myself a number because a new cellphone.

Speaker 1 (51:18):
Should it be harder?

Speaker 5 (51:19):
Yes, should be should be way harder than just to
be able to stick a number and then put a
photo aph and while are you've got a profile? That's
Facebook's fault.

Speaker 1 (51:28):
Ultimately, though, I don't think there is anything our government
can do to stop someone like Natalia. You'll be introducing
one law to stop one woman, and that doesn't really
feel like the answer. Natalia is forty now, truly an adult.

(51:50):
She's intelligent and capable, with an image in her mind
of the woman she wants to be, of the friends
she'd like to have, of the life she would like
to live. But she's also very unwell. Natalia previously she
had a diagnosis a borderline personality disorder. It's a mental
health condition which has people experiencing intense and overwhelming emotions.

(52:13):
It's hard to keep relationships and they fret about rejection
or abandonment. On the drive into the studio for the interview,
she told me that diagnosis had shifted or been compounded
by new diagnosis. When she's in prison. Natalia explained she
had also been diagnosed with schizophrenia. This is not the

(52:34):
illness betrayed on television as one of split or multiple personalities.
Schizophrenia is a mental health condition that affects how you think, speak,
and relate to people and the world. It can include
delusions and hallucinations. When I interviewed Natalia, she estimated she
had created up to thirty identities over the years. If

(52:55):
that's a real number, and I would have thought there
were more, and each of them were in contact with
around twenty people a year. It doesn't take much time
to pass before we get into thousands of lives touched
by Natalia. It's an extraordinary impact.

Speaker 7 (53:11):
What things that you would say to the victims of
your crimes. I would say, I'm sorry and and I'm
sorry for hurting so many people Like It wasn't until
the Facebook stuff came out that I realized how many
people i'd actually heard, you know, like the.

Speaker 4 (53:34):
Girls that I used like. I didn't realize that they
were scared to go out because of what I'd done,
because I thought, Oh, they don't even know your real name.
I was just like, I never thought about that from
any of that angle, because I was just like, you know,
I'm lonely. I just wanted to have friend.

Speaker 1 (53:50):
When Nikki asked about Peter Russell, Natalia sounded different. Normally
defensive on the subject of Peter, she would usually shift
blame quickly, not so much this time.

Speaker 4 (54:01):
Every day I think about it because I shouldn't never
have played my games with him. I should never have
gone that far with him. Even though he committed suicide
after he broke up with my faith, I still feel like,
you know, if I hadn't been appelated him and made
him feel like he was loved and then wasn't loved
and then loved again, it would have been you know,

(54:24):
may be different.

Speaker 1 (54:25):
I doubt there will be enough for petersbun Raven, but
it's the closest I've heard to true contrition from Natalia.
Back to Nikki and Natalia.

Speaker 7 (54:34):
Are there any other things that you want to say
to anybody who's listening, whether it's to a general audience
or whether it's two specific people who you may have affected.

Speaker 4 (54:48):
In general, I just say, be careful on the antitet,
be careful who you trust, because not everyone is a
genuine like I've learned that, like I have not been
genuine and it's like, you know, I think I save
another catfisher from doing what I did and get in
jail time. I'd love to just stop doing it because

(55:08):
you don't realize how many people you're hurting. You think
you're not hurting anybody because you're not using real details
or real names or anything like that. For you are
because that photo you caart circulate and like one of
your friends could bump into that person.

Speaker 1 (55:23):
Like you know, and just when you think she gets it, there's.

Speaker 4 (55:27):
This New Zealand's too small to play catfishing for, you know,
in America, all good, play it all you like, because
it's big enough you won't get caught. But New Zealand
is way too small to catfish because suddenly someone's gonna know,
somebody even knows their actual photo.

Speaker 1 (55:43):
An essence, don't get caught. It's almost impossible to know
how many victims there are out there. Even while writing
the script, I heard from one woman who commented on
a Herald story about Natalia. Her name is Samantha and
whose story goes back to two thousand and six, when
Natalia catfished her then boyfriend and stole her face and

(56:05):
details as well. That led to some major consequences in
her personal life. Here's her words read by a voice actor.

Speaker 15 (56:13):
In twenty ten, my friend's home was rated by the
police looking for me and computers and evidence of these
alleged things I've been doing, Only it wasn't me at all.
I remember telling the police at that time that I
wouldn't have known who she was if she walked up
and slapped me in the face. Nothing came of that
until I was called in twenty eleven by a Manico
homicide detective and asked to go on to the station
for questioning. I still have a few issues with debt

(56:34):
collectors because of her. I was shocked to see her
face on my news feet I've spent years trying to
forget her and the horrible things that were said about
me online by other members of the public. It's something
no one should ever have to go through.

Speaker 1 (56:49):
I asked Nikki about the impact of Natalia's catfishing on
her victims, and this is what she said.

Speaker 7 (56:56):
For some of her victims that went for years, and
they're going to be pulling a part every element of
that and going over different parts.

Speaker 5 (57:04):
You know, if I had figured it.

Speaker 7 (57:05):
Out sooner ord And to me, that is probably the
worst part, is that the loss of trust in your
own ability to think and understand the world when it's
not their fault at all, And the reason that they
were vulnerable is because they were trusting and genuine and

(57:27):
wanted to connect, and now they're punished for that. In
the case of physical trauma, where somebody else has attacked you,
it's easy to blame them and to understand that they've
acted in a way that has affected you. When you
have a mental attack, then you also can go through

(57:47):
the blaming of yourself for allowing that to happen, when
that's not fear on yourself.

Speaker 1 (57:53):
You're not a passive victim. You were actively involved with
the individual. So where does this leave us? Natalia says
she getting good help right now. She has a new
care worker who she speaks enthusiastically about.

Speaker 5 (58:06):
So, I'm medically controlled from my schizophrenia, but I still
have anxiety and thoughts.

Speaker 1 (58:15):
Thoughts that make you feel very uncomfortable. Yes, And in
terms of the support that's around you, have you found
a place where you're able to feel safe and stable.

Speaker 5 (58:26):
Yes, So I've got a new support worker. I go
to church with my dad. I'm looking for a job,
but that's hard with my background.

Speaker 1 (58:35):
She spoke about this back in twenty nineteen too.

Speaker 4 (58:38):
It's all I want is just that one chance. And
you know I can prove some of it that, you know,
if they give me a chance, I'll like I'll work
extra hard, I'll walk you long hours.

Speaker 7 (58:47):
What skills do you think you have.

Speaker 4 (58:49):
I'm very good with phones and I'm very good with computers.

Speaker 1 (58:53):
Yeah, Natalia does have a great sense of humor. She's
no longer involved in Legacy. In one sense, that's a
sad loss of a positive bond. In another sense, someone
with Natalia's complex mental health needs is really outside Legacy's
ability to manage fine when she's on AMDs, not so
great at other times. She lost contact with Legacy when

(59:14):
she met a guy and moved north to live with him.
In the time it lasted, there were no fakes that
I have found. I thought it might have been my
investigation that steered her away from catfishing, but she told
me her new man didn't want those fakes as a
part of their life together. When was the last time
you created a false profile? A year ago and there's

(59:37):
been nothing in the last year.

Speaker 5 (59:39):
No, because my ex partner found them and deleted all
of them.

Speaker 1 (59:43):
So those pictures aren't in circulation, aren't available to you anymore.

Speaker 4 (59:46):
No.

Speaker 1 (59:47):
I should note that this contradicts what Natalia told me
earlier in the interview that she created twenty or so
profiles in the last year. It's hard to know if
one or both of those statements are lies, or if
this is just another thing that Taria got wrong across
the reality chasm. I didn't pick up on this during

(01:00:08):
the interview, perhaps because this came around the time Natalia
had told me she had stopped and I felt like,
I've been here before. How can I know that's true?

Speaker 5 (01:00:18):
You can't. It's my word against your word and every
other girl that I've ever stolen pictures from.

Speaker 1 (01:00:24):
NICKI asked her a similar question. How could she believe
her when deceit was so much a part of her life.

Speaker 7 (01:00:31):
You've talked about some of your crimes have been fraud,
some of your crimes have been deception. So how do
we know that you're not being deceptive in any of
the stories you're telling now?

Speaker 4 (01:00:45):
Because finally, it's my truth.

Speaker 1 (01:00:47):
At the time, Natalia spoke with Niki. She was still
using Crystal and Sophie's faces to create false characters, So
not true in twenty nineteen, and possibly not true now.
There's much I've heard from Natalia that's not true, things
that live across the reality chasm. And then there's something
Natalia said to Nicki in twenty nineteen. These are words

(01:01:10):
spoken at a time when she's still running false characters online.
It's a time when she's still not being honest about
what she's doing. I also think it's very hard for
her to do, so, much harder than it is for
most of us who don't need to navigate the reality
chasm on a daily basis. So these words I found
so arresting were likely not true at the time because

(01:01:33):
she was still using Crystaline Sophie's faces to create false personas.
But I'd like these words to one day be true
for Natalia, And I just hope.

Speaker 4 (01:01:42):
That someone that's a thing just gets a little bit
of self confidence and know that you know they're worth it.
Doesn't matter what you've done, who you've done it with,
everybody's worth it. And if you love yourself, then That's
what my best friend told me. She said, love yourself
and then other people will love you.

Speaker 1 (01:02:00):
Two.

Speaker 4 (01:02:00):
You got to love yourself first, and that's a hard
one for people to be, like, oh, yeah, I love myself.
But I can now say, yeah, I love my stuff. Yep,
I'm fat and I've got glasses, but who cares. I
still love myself.

Speaker 1 (01:02:13):
When I listened to Natalia speaking, this is what I
hope for her. I hope she will find a place
for herself in this world and stop hurting others. One
thing I reminded Natalia of which you may remember from
episode two, was how Natalie, the woman whose face was
the face of Laura West, joked about the fact Natalia

(01:02:34):
had had more romantic luck with her photos than she had.
It's something Natalia remembers as well. Thirteen years on.

Speaker 5 (01:02:42):
I remember that comment because I was like, what the hell?
That was the most randomist comment out of that whole
conversation that I remember.

Speaker 1 (01:02:51):
What they meant by that was that you'd drawn in
a lot of people over the years with your personality
over messaging or over the phone. Have you tried just
being you?

Speaker 5 (01:03:03):
No, because since the age of fifteen, everything has just
gone downe stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:03:09):
I want to tell you this that and I'd sent
to you before that I've always enjoyed our engagements, and
I really appreciate our engagements, even though they're on difficult subjects.
You have a really bright, EFFI bubbly personality. Do you
see that in yourself?

Speaker 5 (01:03:27):
I used to be able to till I turned fifteen.
I mean, after I turn fifteen, rething just downhill.

Speaker 1 (01:03:33):
I can see that you're having a hard time hearing
me say.

Speaker 5 (01:03:37):
It's really uncomfortable because I don't know how to take it,
because I'm so used to be calling the fat bitch
and black bitch, the parents who don't want you, the
parents who adopt you, that if they could have changed
it now, they would change it now.

Speaker 1 (01:03:52):
I do mean it's sincerely. I know Natalia does not
get the last word. It's true. I do want the
best for her, but it's important to remember as she
sets forth to find that place where she loves herself,
that the damage remains. Months ago, I spoke to Bernie
and Emma, the mum and daughter who lived in a

(01:04:13):
small town near Christchurch with Emma's three children. I made
contact with Bernie and Emma again to let them know
the first episode was out, and that's when I found
out from Bernie that Emma had gone.

Speaker 14 (01:04:26):
After we received Jaicole. We discussed that and it brought
up some feelings of why she's still doing this. We
were quite shocked, and we both thought it was a positive,
you know, talking about it. We're not the only ones.
Things were trying for a couple of weeks, and then
I noticed Emma going down, not going down in a

(01:04:54):
dark hole, but going out more, which she was entitled to.
But you could see a big change in her. And
then she moved out and sadly to say, she's relapsed
and I don't look my daughter anymore.

Speaker 1 (01:05:12):
Emma has been restling with her own issues for years,
all the way back when she was sixteen and met Natalia,
who was posing as Laura. There wasn't unusual among many
of those targeted by Natalia to find that there were
other issues at play. It was almost as if this
creative vulnerability that Natalia sensed that she was able to use.

(01:05:32):
Even back then, Emma wrestled with substance abuse. You might
recall that Laura West's death was almost immediately followed by
Emma breaking her sobriety talking about those days, talking about
Peter Russell, and Laura West. Bernie reckons it was healthy.

Speaker 14 (01:05:48):
It brought up memories that she had suppressed, you know,
to hear her talk about Pete, she just shone. She
was beautiful, she was smiling.

Speaker 1 (01:05:57):
They chatted about what had happened. Bernie recalled and it
felt like they were working out something dark that needed
to be gone.

Speaker 14 (01:06:04):
And then the repercussion of that was her memories and
the demons, and it was a battle. It's hard to watch,
and it was nothing I could do this. There was
nothing I can do to stop this.

Speaker 6 (01:06:22):
Do you know where she is?

Speaker 14 (01:06:25):
I have no idea where my daughter is. If my
phone rings private number, I'm scared it's the police. If
I hear a knock on the door, I'm scared, it's
the police.

Speaker 6 (01:06:35):
It's living in fear, border bird fear.

Speaker 16 (01:06:40):
The fear is that on I.

Speaker 14 (01:06:41):
Come and tell me my daughter is done an overdose
and she's no longer with me now, and then I
have to tell her children that Mum's no longer here
in the thing. And this is a sad fact that
this woman, the damage she's done, and she's not taken
any acceptance all this. This is a lifetime of pain.

(01:07:05):
It's the second generation that is suffering because of her sickness.
She's not destroyed once. Life's keeps destroying. My grandkids don't
have a mum no more, and that innocent victims in.

Speaker 4 (01:07:24):
All of this.

Speaker 1 (01:07:25):
There's three kids who Boonie is raising now without their
mum and the house.

Speaker 6 (01:07:29):
And so for you, what's happening now goes back to
the Talia Burgess. Is that right?

Speaker 4 (01:07:36):
Yeah?

Speaker 14 (01:07:37):
The damage she's doing too, as I say, my grandkids
because of her sickness. It's just ridiculous. She didn't think
what the damage she was doing at the time to
the damage she's done fourteen years later.

Speaker 6 (01:07:51):
One of the things that has become clear in revisiting
the Tarlia's story, interviewing her and people connected to her, is.

Speaker 16 (01:08:01):
That she's very unwell and has quite a number of
mental health issues that she has to cope with or
doesn't cope with afy case. Maybe does it change your
reflection on her involvement in your life that these underlying issues, No.

Speaker 14 (01:08:26):
I know that sounds hard.

Speaker 1 (01:08:29):
When Bernie listened to the first episode, it was after
Emma had gone. It was hard for her to hear
her daughter's voice. She found herself angry just so angry.

Speaker 14 (01:08:40):
I just I just don't understand it, and I don't
understand her parents. I wonder if they had grandkids, how
they would have liked this. The next generation been tortured.
Would they accept it? That's my feeling, though I suppose
I'm more a little bit bitter because they've got a family.

(01:09:03):
My family's destroy it because of their family, and I
can't forgive them.

Speaker 1 (01:09:08):
Bernie keeps a book in which she writes things that
happen in her home, a book one day the children
will be given, and she's recorded this episode in their life,
part of a family history that she imagines the children
will pass onward to their children.

Speaker 14 (01:09:23):
But I think it will explain a lot to them
what happened with mum.

Speaker 1 (01:09:29):
And so this is where we end. It's not a
place I thought I would fetch up. When I first
spoke to Crystal, I told her I'd find a way
to get her life back. I think it likely that
now with this podcast, Crystal will have Natalia out of
her life. Natalia has a great sense of self preservation
and well, Crystal's just too hot to touch more. Crystal

(01:09:52):
fakes will mean I return to this story again, and
I think it likely the police will pay closer attention
than they did in twenty nineteen. Natalia does not want
to go back to prison. I have enormous faith in
the power of journalism. As I said earlier in this podcast,
I thought there'd be a law changed, or some shift
and messas control of Facebook rps, even Natalia arrested and

(01:10:15):
jailed again. But I don't think any one of those
things will stop there being another Crystal or Sophie or
Samantha or Natalie or any of the others whose images
were stolen to bring life to Natalia's fantasies. But all
of those things and more together might stop Natalia. Like
Nicki says, the answer lies with all of us.

Speaker 7 (01:10:38):
That yes, the social media platforms have a responsibility to
shut things down when they know about it, but there's
also responsibility in humans to be good humans. I don't
think the blame rests entirely on Facebook or social media platforms.

(01:10:58):
The blame doesn't rest on Natalia, it doesn't rest entirely
on the prison system, it doesn't rest entirely on the
people that she's interacted with. We all have a part
to play in this, and things that come up for
me are. How do we balance compassion and empathy even
for Natalia and what has led her to live this

(01:11:19):
kind of life, while also making her accountable to the
point that it doesn't happen again. How do we arm
vulnerable Internet users with the tools to enhance discernment about who.

Speaker 5 (01:11:30):
They interact with online.

Speaker 7 (01:11:32):
How do we hold social media platforms accountable for allowing
people to create multiple fact profiles over and over again,
and then not to close them down even when they
have been reported as fake.

Speaker 1 (01:11:44):
I think Nicky's right. There is no one magical solution
that I've found that can stop Natalia, no new law
or intervention specifically tailored around the extreme nature of what
she has done. I came into the story expecting to
find an answer. But I think this story, the story

(01:12:05):
of Natalia Burgess, the puppeteer, the Facebook predator, it's really
a cautionary tale for the Internet age, an example of
just how bad things can get in this world that's
so reliant on the Internet, this digital beast that has
touched every aspect of our lives. It's a world that
Natalia understands and has mastered better than most, and she's

(01:12:29):
used that knowledge to hide from the issues in the
trauma of her life, and in doing so, has created
countless more victims. Bernie thought she was doing the right
thing fourteen years ago when she investigated her daughter Emma's
new online friend, but the puppeteer got the better of them. Yet,
while other victims want someone to intervene, Bernie understands the

(01:12:53):
scale of the issue.

Speaker 14 (01:12:54):
The way technology is today, I don't think there's anything
anyone can do. Even prisoners are entitled to check their emails.
There is nothing the web. Technology is so there.

Speaker 1 (01:13:10):
My producer Ethan then asked Bernie about how this whole
saga has changed her approach to the Internet now, particularly
raising her three jen al for grandchildren.

Speaker 14 (01:13:21):
It has made me lock every device I have up
in knots and all safety measures are on the computer.

Speaker 6 (01:13:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 14 (01:13:31):
It has taught us a valuable lesson.

Speaker 16 (01:13:34):
That's one thing for us, a lesson at a terrible cost.

Speaker 14 (01:13:40):
Yeah, but it's also taught the kids respect. The young
ones respect it. It's not a granted you're going to
use it. It's a device to be earned, and I
touch what. I'm very lucky where they are concerned. If
they're not sure, I might have to unlock it. To

(01:14:01):
have a look at it, and as I'm happy with it,
you know, as they don't go and hack things, they
come and talk about it or what's that on their
they're very opens. Then it's positive. But if we can
change their thinking on technology, then it's a positive and
they will take it into their families and say, how

(01:14:25):
you've got to be really careful. I know of the story,
and it's not just technology, as people be wary of people,
but have trust, but never one hundred percent trust. Some
people aren't who they are. It's talking.

Speaker 6 (01:14:40):
Well, that's one head. Give the family story to pass
them down the generations.

Speaker 14 (01:14:44):
Oh isn't it.

Speaker 6 (01:14:46):
Let me tell you about the puppeteer, about the color. Okay, Bernie,
should we stop there?

Speaker 1 (01:14:58):
You've been those things are chasing ghosts the Puppeteer. Follow
the podcast and the Chasing Ghost feed on iHeartRadio or
wherever you get your podcasts, and you can find more
on this case at inzidherld dot co dot inz ethanmselves
as my producer with audio engineering by Alistair Boys. Thanks
to my colleagues for lending their voices to this episode.

(01:15:21):
If you have a story about this case, contact me
at David dot Fisher at inzidherld dot co dot z
and if you believe you've encountered behavior online that matches
what we've discussed in this series, you can find help
at netsafe dot org dot ZED. But if you feel
at risk, don't hesitate contact police