May 7, 2025 • 46 mins
Jess and the sleuths connect with people who knew Talina Zar in real life. As the sleuths begin to formulate a picture of who Talina is, and what might have happened to her, they get the sense that not everyone is telling the truth. At the same time, local police begin their own parallel investigation.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This episode mentioned suicide. Please take care while listening.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Middletown have their skeleton. I mean they're not with that.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Greg Thompson is fifty three years old and has lived
within a forty five minute drive of Wagner, Oklahoma, his
entire life.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Wagner is a small town. I don't even remember what
the population is here rad off In. I want to
say three to five thousand people or something, but that
could be totally out.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
I looked it up.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
It's about double that eight thousand. Still small, a place
where everyone kind of knows everyone and neighbors act neighborly.
When Greg meets Tealina, she's a recent transplant to the area.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Outsiders don't normally take interest in what tier. With Tlena
not being from the area, that made her even more special.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
In my opinion, Greg became friends with Telina because he's
the guy you call when you've got odd jobs that
need doing.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
She hired me for like candy man stuff like mowing
and weed eat and hanging TVs and just all kinds
there's handyman type stuff.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
In early twenty twenty, before COVID shuts the world down,
Teleina is on the hunt for the perfect mattress to
help her troubled sleep. This turns out to be a
tedious task for the fifty three year old who buys
and returns multiple mattresses in the process, but luckily she
has Greg to help her with the heavy lifting.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Telena wanted to change the mattress out in her bedroom,
and she got a new mattress and needed somebody to
unpack it and put it on and then haul the
old and off. And so I did all that well.
A couple of weeks later she said that she didn't
care for the mattress, who wanted it return. She's got
another one, Kevin.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Finally, Teleina finds a mattress that checks all the boxes,
but now she has an extra mattress on her hands.
Luckily she knows a family in need.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
She was going to guess that bed to us. Our
son is like six foot one now, so like make
bed to word that for him.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
This is aris house, another one of Tolena's local friends.
Aris had just closed on her very first house. Teleina
had guided her through the process emotionally and sometimes even financially.
In fact, the bed was just one of many things
Teleina offered to help make Eris's new house a home.
Speaker 4 (02:32):
She was a part of the reason why we were
able to.
Speaker 5 (02:35):
Get utilities turned on new law, new light. She had
been saving up a Nashtag for I've ever since I
told her that we were starting a profit to buy
a house. I can't even put a name to all
the kitchen appliances and trinkets and items that she's put
(02:56):
in our house and added to our lives.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
The way she did.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
As COVID hits Oklahoma, Aris doesn't get to see her
friend very often. Tuleina has rheumatoid arthritis and other health
issues that make contracting the virus a real concern.
Speaker 4 (03:13):
She was a you know, compromised, so she was taking
it very, very seriously.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
But Tealina still wants to hand off the mattress as
she promised, and so on Friday, March twenty seventh, Tulina
texts Eiris to organize a pickup.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
She was checking to see if we were coming to
get to bed this weekend. That next morning, the twenty eighth,
I got a message that said.
Speaker 6 (03:37):
A bort mission. I've got a terrible migraine. I've been
staying in bed today.
Speaker 4 (03:42):
I said, okay out.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
A few days go by, having not heard from. Her
friend Aris checks in.
Speaker 4 (03:50):
On a third and I said her that I hope
you're feeling Betters wanting you know, if I get dropped
by it.
Speaker 7 (03:56):
Yes, I don't.
Speaker 6 (03:58):
Want anybody coming to the porch and making the dogs
bark because I'm sleeping a lot.
Speaker 4 (04:04):
I said, that's okay, maybe another time.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
This is her last exchange with Telena before she goes
missing from iHeart Podcasts. I'm Melissa Jelson, and this is
what happened to Teleina's oar.
Speaker 8 (04:43):
Hey everyone, I'm on day nine of this virus, and
I am pretty sure it has reached my lungs.
Speaker 9 (04:50):
For her to just leave people with no way of
contacting her and knowing if she was alive or.
Speaker 4 (04:55):
Dead was strange to me.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
There were a lot of secrets that were very hard
to find, and no one wanted to talk about anything.
Speaker 10 (05:03):
I'm a really nosy person, so that's how I got
caught up in all this.
Speaker 4 (05:06):
I was like, this is this is crazy.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Episode two small town big Secrets.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
She wanted to help anybody and anybody.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
This is Greg, the local handyman in Wagner.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
She helped us volunteer picking up trash a few times.
I'd heard of her giving food to people that needed
it or giving them little jobs to do.
Speaker 11 (05:37):
Like me.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
You know, she knew that I needed something to do,
so she'd give me jobs. And she had other people
that would you know, do little odd jobs for or
somebody he moved through the area from bigger towns and
just take in the interest in what's going on here
and trying to help people that live here that may
(06:00):
impression on me.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
When Teleina moved to Wagner, Oklahoma, in late twenty sixteen,
she did it with her partner Tom. They left their
longtime home in Indianapolis and purchased a brown ranch house
in Whitehorn Cove, a lake community near the border of Arkansas.
From the outside, the home is rustic looking, cozy, private,
(06:24):
set back from the road and nestled among the tall trees.
It's not easy to move to a totally new place
when you're in your fifties and beyond. But the couple
had their reasons for choosing Wagner, of all places, one
being they had a group of friends who were already
established there, Like Aris Howe, she.
Speaker 12 (06:44):
Could be exactly the person that she was here and
that was a little weird, a lot filly a little
queer Oklahoma had all the people who brought out the
those aspects for her.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
The two women were several decades apart, and ers looked
up to Telena like a big sister.
Speaker 4 (07:08):
She always left you kind of enraptured by what she
was saying because she had a unique way of telling stories.
She had a very dry wit, and it.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Helped that they shared the same offbeat sense of humor.
Aris told me about one time Telena was giving her
some spices from her pantry that she no longer needed.
Speaker 12 (07:27):
I grabbed a bottle of dill weed and I said, oh,
look at the bottom of my husband the dill weed.
And we laughed really hard about it, and then she
snatched the bottle away from me and a land of
the other round.
Speaker 4 (07:39):
She had a label maker. She typed in that labels at.
Speaker 13 (07:42):
The bottle of Jason and clapped it on the bottle
of dill weed and handed it back the look.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
Of absolute joy and mischief in her faith. When she
handed me that bottle, it was like sharing the best secret,
and we both fell apart in laughter.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
To her friends, to Lena was not only kind, generous,
and hilarious, she was also super smart, here's Greg again.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
She was a self proclaimed computer I called her my
own little hacker.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Talina was a techie and a good one. She worked
on Microsoft products, fixing code errors that no one else
could solve.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
My wife was going to school at the time for
her bachelor's and didn't know anything about powerpart presentations and
Microsoft Office and all these things. In Tolena had worked
for Microsoft and she dropped some of these program so
she saw another opportunity to help my wife, and she
(08:42):
started helping her with these presentations and showed her how
to do it herself and things like that. She felt
like she could help you out of the hole you're in.
She was here, was all in.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Telena was helpful to her community and also devoted to
her partner to The two had been together for more
than a decade.
Speaker 4 (09:04):
They had one of those bonds that you know, everybody
could aspire to.
Speaker 5 (09:08):
You could see you could just look at him in
a glance, the way they looked at each other.
Speaker 14 (09:13):
They were young fool anytime they looked at each other.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
But Teleina wasn't a homebody. She travels a lot for work,
often swinging through Indiana, where she and Tom used to live,
and some of her extended family remained, and then while
she was on one of those routine trips, the unthinkable happened.
Speaker 4 (09:37):
They both went here and then like not even I
don't even think it was a year later. Tom had
a stroke while she was away on work, and when
she came back from work, you know, they had found
it on the floor. He was still alive. He had
hung on long enough for her to say goodbye.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Tom was only fifty nine. In his obituary, he was
described as a twenty two year veteran of the army
and an avid gun enthusiast. The family asked that in
lieu of flowers, well wishers could donate to his favorite charity,
for Love of Dogs.
Speaker 4 (10:16):
I remember after Tom and path and we went over
to her house for the memorial. It was an intimate
gathering with probably about twenty of us, and we all
kind of said a word for Tom, and you could
see around the house where she left ticket that they
do not move, do not touch. The general assumption was
(10:39):
so I was was the left eye inst he had
cut and she wasn't ready for those to.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Move Toalina was shattered by the loss.
Speaker 14 (10:48):
They were deeply connected and while she was able to
regate her joy and find life again.
Speaker 4 (11:00):
It wasn't the same as she couldn't share it with him.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
Tom's death on moored Toelena, and for a long while
afterwards she battled with a stubborn depression.
Speaker 4 (11:10):
And I actually spend a lot of phone calls together afterwards,
because whenever you spend an amount of your life with
somebody bouncing decisions off of them, or you know, looking
for validation for a decision, you get kind of lost.
And there were a lot of time where she would
call me and ask me, Hey, what do you think
(11:31):
about this? That happened a lot more after Tom had passed.
Speaker 13 (11:36):
I had her come afterwards, and I was a little nervous.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
This is Kim, a hairdresser and wagner who cut Telena's hair.
She remembered Telena's first appointment after Tom passed.
Speaker 13 (11:48):
I had my mom, who is a widow as well,
come fit and be with us so that i'd have
like them backup in case it got to too sad.
I don't like to handle that stuff, and I'm not
good at saying.
Speaker 7 (12:02):
The right word.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
But we got through it.
Speaker 13 (12:04):
There was just a few, you know, peers that were
shed Tolena. She had even asked if my mom would
maybe be her roommate for a while after, you know,
because my dad had passed and she was living alone too,
and she had been talking about finding a roommate to
share in the bills and stuff.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Telena didn't like living alone in the house she'd shared
with Tom. Nicole, her friend in Tennessee, remembered how Telena
navigated her new role as a relatively young widow.
Speaker 9 (12:35):
Of course, she missed him greatly and missed their life together.
She was dealing with it with grace and moving on
with her life the best she could. She had told
me that she had taken in a roommate and that
was mostly more for having someone around them necessity.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
It was in twenty nineteen that Lena invited Corey Bamiley,
a fifty eight year old woman she knew through friends,
to move in with her. Corey was also in a
transitional period, in the middle of a divorce. I couldn't
get Corey to speak to me, but from what I've learned,
the two had a lot in common. They were both
(13:19):
adjusting to life without a partner. They were both enthusiastic
pet owners, sharing a singular love for animals, and they
both dabbled in pagan culture and attended local renaissance fairs
for fun.
Speaker 13 (13:34):
After they had moved in together, every time I cut
Tolena's hair, the first thing I would say was, how
was how's your roommate going?
Speaker 7 (13:41):
And she always answered the best I've ever had.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
It didn't take long for Toleina and Corey's lives to
become intertwined. Soon enough, Corey was over at Kim's getting
her own haircut, while Teleina was adventurous with her hair,
dyeing at different colors and even giving a perm Corey
preferred a look some might call a mullet.
Speaker 13 (14:04):
We'd go short on the you know, straight across prop
of the ears, and a little bit longer in the back.
It wasn't anything that I wanted to do to her,
but that's what she wanted.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Corey quickly fell in with Teleina's social circle too. Here's
Greg again.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
We'd had Telena and Corey over for dinner, and a
couple of times went out with him. You would have
thought they were best friends. Had had noting Cheddar for
a long time.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
Greg found a kindred spirit in Corey. She too was
a handyman of sorts, strong, industrious.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
From the term that I met Corey Bromley, she was
somebody that you know, I could relate to, and you know,
at the time I was going to things that you know,
I could talk to her about.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Corey also found unique ways to make money, like buying
people's old stuff and selling it on eBay and Greg's
maybe he could do that too.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
I like, you know, pilfer and through stuff. I had
done some other work elsewhere and accumulated a bunch of things,
and she was helping me, you know, kind of take
inventory and possibly help meself some of it.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Telena seemed to really enjoy having a friend around too.
It lifted her spirits. Here's ris again. Having Corey air
improved their quality of life.
Speaker 4 (15:28):
He would go out in the yard and you know,
play with the dog. They would go on car ride
together and just take the bogs out of the lake.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
While Corey's presence was a comfort, there were clues that
Teleina was still struggling with Tom's loss. In November of
twenty nineteen, a few months before COVID hit, Tlena wrote
a note to her friends on Facebook entitled Grief Etiquette.
Here's a reenactment of some of that post.
Speaker 6 (15:58):
Over the last two years, many people have said they
don't know how to interact with me ari Tom's death.
The anniversary of Tom's death is approaching. I'm already struggling
with that, combined with lonely holidays. What I do not
need right now are unsolicited videos and picks of Tom.
(16:20):
At this point, it's difficult for me to concentrate on
work or have pockets of happiness if I see an
unsolicited pick or video.
Speaker 7 (16:28):
During those times, I feel like I ran flat out
into a wall. It's painful.
Speaker 6 (16:35):
If you ask first, I can respond when I'm emotionally
and physically available to reminisce.
Speaker 7 (16:41):
If you post on your own feed, I can choose
whether or not to serve that content.
Speaker 6 (16:46):
If you send me or tag me in unsolicited reminiscence,
I will block you to save my sanity.
Speaker 7 (16:55):
Please don't slap me in the face with my grief.
Thanks for hearing me.
Speaker 4 (17:04):
Heelena was never one to let anything do. She would
say that head on and a threat it because you know,
sitting in silence is uncomfortable. Let figure out what went
wrong and how we can avoid it in the future.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Aris described to Lena as assertive and good at setting boundaries,
and so in April twenty twenty, when Telena posts on Facebook.
Speaker 8 (17:29):
I made the decision at the ownset that if it
got bad enough, I would not go to the hospital.
Please respect my privacy and give me my alone time,
Aris does.
Speaker 4 (17:43):
There were a lot of parts of her life that
she kept private, and we respected that, like we love
the person that she gave us every time we got
to see her. It did seem out of character, but
considering the fact that she had lost her husband not
so long ago. People can be consumed with Greece at
(18:07):
different times, it would make sense to me.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Quick note, you've heard most of Telena's cryptic Facebook post already,
but there's a few lines I withheld that mentioned Tom.
Now that you know who he is, this will make
more sense.
Speaker 6 (18:24):
In and out of fever and chills with Tom just
out of reach, I'm going to either beat this virus
or be with Tom.
Speaker 7 (18:37):
I see it as a win win situation.
Speaker 6 (18:41):
Please respect my privacy and give me my alone time
on the lake with Tom.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
In this part of the post, it resonates with those
who knew Telena in real life, who had witnessed her
debilitating depression after Tom's death. Here again is Nicole, who
saw Telena just a few weeks before she went missing.
Speaker 9 (19:04):
I didn't take it as her being suicidal. I just
took it to mean that if she passed away from COVID,
she was at peace with it because she would be
with Tom, not that she was actively licking doorknobs and
trying to get COVID so that she could pass away.
Speaker 4 (19:21):
I took it that she was.
Speaker 9 (19:23):
Good either way, and I feel like I feel like
that was true. Telena fashioned you know, well, if I die,
I die.
Speaker 4 (19:32):
Yeah, There's not much I can do about it.
Speaker 9 (19:34):
And if I live, I'll hug you again.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
A week before Telena disappeared, she posted about her illness
on Facebook.
Speaker 6 (19:49):
I called my doctor and was told to stay in
bed and stay hydrated and self medicate and call back
or go to the er. If my tempreach is one
O two. I think Oklahoma's medicals system is stretched thin
right now. I am thankful and grateful that I do
have someone watching out for me and running the household.
Speaker 7 (20:08):
Back to bed. I'm exhausted. I love you all.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Telena is talking about Corey, her roommate, running the household
and watching out for her. Corey had been the last
person to see Telena before she disappeared. On the day
Telena posted her mysterious message, Corey said she'd been out
running errands and came home to an empty house. The
next day, Corey posted to her own Facebook page, alerting
(20:36):
everyone to her missing roommate and asking for help. Here's
a recreation of parts of the post.
Speaker 15 (20:43):
I called every taxi service I could think of last Eve,
and drivers don't keep records. I also called our phone
carrier to try and trace or track Telena's phone and
was told of an app that could do this if
the phone was turned on with location services activated. As
of this morning, she hasn't called home and her phone
(21:04):
still appears to be turned off. Anyone else hears from her,
please update me.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
A day later, core posts again, this time sharing insight
into what Telena's experience with COVID had been like.
Speaker 15 (21:19):
So this is my COVID nineteen rant and the state
of affairs here in rural Oklahoma.
Speaker 7 (21:24):
Feel free to bypass this post.
Speaker 15 (21:27):
I just need to rant or I will scream.
Speaker 7 (21:32):
Maybe I need to do that. Anyway.
Speaker 15 (21:34):
When Telena first got a fever of one hundred point five,
We packed up and went to the er. We expected
to be able to get her a test. A tech
met us outside, questioned all of her symptoms and sent
us home without even allowing us to check in. We
(21:55):
determined that the healthcare system, at least here in Oklahoma
was not equipped to take care of everyone with viral
symptoms and would only do so if you got bad
enough to probably be admitted in Looking back, I think
her attitude changed on that car ride home from the er.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
A few days go by. Talina's friends hear nothing and
start to worry she's died of COVID alone in a
remote cabin. But they also start imagining other worst case scenarios,
like Greg who speculates that maybe Tolena was abducted.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
When she came up Methan and put this big Facebook
post on there say I'm going to the wood to die.
It didn't sound like her. We didn't, I mean me
and my wife and talked about it. We live on
the Highway sixty nine and Highways sixty nine goes from
the heart attackes all the way into Tangas. At the time,
(23:03):
you know, there was a lot of abductions and stuff
from even walmarts. You know, over here in our area
there was ladies picked up from Walmart for suspected sex
trade type things. Me and my wife watch a lot
of crime shows. We're armchair investigators over here. I mean,
(23:24):
we get a little lead and we follow it and
it you know, we're not trained investigators, That's what I'm
saying it. So we just didn't know something like that
could have happened to Colena.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
Her friends think hope, maybe Toleina will emerge over the weekend,
But as Saturday and Sunday come and go, they're polite.
Respect for her privacy kurdles into concern and dread, and
there's consensus that the police now need to be involved.
On Monday, April thirteenth, Corey goes to the shriff's department,
(24:01):
but she's told that an adult woman leaving on her
own is not considered a missing person, at least not yet.
Four more days pass by Friday, Telena has still not returned,
so Corey tries again. This time she's able to file
a missing person's report. That same day, two deputies drive
(24:25):
out to Teleina and Corey's house. Because of COVID, they
play it safe and don't go inside. Instead, they talk
to Corey in the driveway. They get the basic facts,
like what Telena looks like and Telena's cell phone number,
which they immediately try to locate. Surveying the property. The
(24:46):
deputy's note a gray shed in front of the house
and several vehicles parked in the driveway, two cars and
a red truck with a trailer attached, and then they
turn the case over the detective Joel Weber, who will
lead the search. A few days later, he asks Corey
to come back to the station to provide more detail.
Speaker 11 (25:11):
All Right, I just got cold in here.
Speaker 7 (25:14):
Yeah, I'm glad I wore a sweatshirt.
Speaker 11 (25:16):
I'm going to turn this up.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Okay, Now, two weeks after Telena's Facebook post, Corey arrives
at the station wearing a COVID mask and gloves. We
don't have a recording of the conversation, but we do
have a transcript, parts of which we've recreated.
Speaker 16 (25:34):
Let me just get some background information from you, sure,
and then we'll kind of go from there. And I
don't want you to think that you're in any trouble
because you're here, Okay, yeah, yeah, And that's pretty standard.
Speaker 17 (25:47):
It's just normally I would have come to the house,
but give them the situation and all that.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
Detective Weber asks Corey how they met and came to
live together.
Speaker 15 (25:56):
I've known Telena about fifteen years, but we've really just
become close in the last couple of years since her
husband died.
Speaker 11 (26:06):
How did you originally meet up with her?
Speaker 15 (26:09):
There was a festival here in Wagner, Oklahoma that we
both attended fifteen years ago, and my husband and I
went and met her and her husband. Then she had
just gotten together with him, and it was actually a
big weekend party. So that's how we all got to
know each other first.
Speaker 11 (26:30):
Okay, that's interesting.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Corey explains that she moved in less than a year ago,
in May twenty nineteen, and the two of.
Speaker 11 (26:38):
You get together.
Speaker 17 (26:39):
Is it because of her husband dying that you rekindle
or become closer?
Speaker 7 (26:44):
Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 15 (26:46):
I was starting to have problems with my husband and
initiated a divorce, and she had lost her husband and
really lost an interest in living, and then we were
getting to know each other better and better, and it
just got to the point where she asked me if
I would stay with her because she couldn't be alone.
Speaker 7 (27:10):
Sure, and then she was having I don't think she's
ever been diagnosed as.
Speaker 15 (27:15):
Bipolar, but she had really up periods and really down periods,
and she didn't want to be alone during the very
down periods, Okay, so she needed a roommate.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Corey tells the detective that when she moved in, she
took on a lot of responsibilities for Telena, who had
been struggling with her health. Corey ran errands for her,
handled the household duties. They got close fast. They considered
each other their emergency contacts. Telena even listed Corey as
(27:51):
the executor of her estate in her will, and so
when Telena got COVID, Corey went into full caregiver mode.
Speaker 15 (27:59):
The first thing that happened she gets bad migraines, okay,
and she finished work on a Friday, went to bed early,
woke up Saturday morning with a really bad migraine that
ended up lasting two days. She pretty much stayed in
bed for two days with migraine. Okay, Monday, she's due
(28:19):
back at work. And Monday morning she asked me to
come in and take her temperature, which I did, and
she was running a one hundred point five, And so
she stayed in bed with her temperature. I can't remember
if we went that day or the next day, but
she pretty much kept her temperature at one hundred one
(28:41):
hundred point five. So we said we better go down
to the hospital. We didn't know what this is, and
so we went to the er at Wagner here and
a tech came out and asked, you know what symptoms
she was having and we told her that she had
to migraine all weekend and now she was spiking the temperature. Sure,
(29:05):
and they said go home and self medicate and look
for these signs. And he said, if your temperature goes
about one oh one or you start developing other problems,
to call back.
Speaker 7 (29:17):
In or come back in.
Speaker 15 (29:19):
So we went home, and she was kind of at
that point disheartened or kind of disgusted with things that
she couldn't get any help or diagnosis or couldn't even
check in.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
By this point, there are over two point six million
confirmed cases of COVID globally. The US leads the world.
In New York is the epicenter with over two hundred
and fifty thousand cases, thousands of deaths, and hospitals beyond capacity.
Oklahoma was preparing for the worst, predicting a surge in
(29:54):
COVID cases any day now.
Speaker 15 (29:56):
She developed a really barking cough and sometimes she'd start
coughing and couldn't stop coughing.
Speaker 7 (30:02):
She was starting to wheeze a little.
Speaker 15 (30:03):
Bit, and I said, you know, we do not want
you catching pneumonia. So I asked her the night before,
I said, let's take you back to the emergency room.
I think you're bad enough now that they will admit you, right,
And she said no, she just wanted to spend the
(30:24):
night in her bed with one of the pops.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
On the morning of April seventh, Corey says, she asks
again if she can take to Lena to the hospital
and toe Lena again says no.
Speaker 15 (30:36):
She asked me to go out and do a few
things and give her some more time to snuggle with.
Speaker 7 (30:42):
She's got a little yorky that she likes to stay.
Speaker 15 (30:44):
In bed with, and she just wanted to I don't
know what she just wanted to do.
Speaker 11 (30:52):
Did she ask you to do something specific or just
leave for a while.
Speaker 15 (30:56):
Yeah, she just wanted me to leave her alone for
a while. I wish I had never gone and run
errands that day.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
When Corey gets home sometime in the afternoon, she goes
into Toelina's room to check on her, and Toelena's gone.
Corey can't tell if Teleina has taken clothes or an
overnight bag, but her phone is missing, along with some
medication and Toleina's guns.
Speaker 15 (31:24):
She always kept a forty five magnetized to the bottom
of her bed.
Speaker 7 (31:29):
Okay, that was gone.
Speaker 15 (31:32):
And she always kept a nine millimeter in the car, okay,
and it was gone. She really she gets into these
places where she just she just wants to expire, and
so she doesn't really care.
Speaker 7 (31:49):
She always says, you know, I've got my DNA orders.
I'm not going to let anybody you know, into vate
me or whatever.
Speaker 15 (31:58):
Right, And she said, she said, it's a win win,
I get to see Tom sooner. And she talked like
that a lot. She'd have good days where she'd be
really excited about her job and we'd be planning a
trip and I think this is great, she's got a
(32:20):
reason to live.
Speaker 7 (32:22):
It's all good.
Speaker 15 (32:24):
And then she'd say, yeah, and the first chance I get,
I'm gonna check out. So she'd go really high on
her job or a trip, and then she'd get really
down and depressed and just not want to be around.
Speaker 11 (32:41):
Has she ever attempted suicide that you know of?
Speaker 7 (32:45):
She has not. She has not ever attempted it with me,
and I would know.
Speaker 15 (32:50):
Has she talked about how she would do it if
she did constantly?
Speaker 11 (32:55):
Well, what is the what's her general conversation.
Speaker 7 (32:58):
On that general conversation with me?
Speaker 15 (33:02):
That I would know when she had done it, that
she had a favorite little spot that she was going
to go to, and I think she was going to
use a gun.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
Corey explains that Telena was very matter of fact about death.
Telena had already organized her own funeral and made plans
for her estate.
Speaker 15 (33:26):
Telena has always had an end of life game plan
ever since Tom died. She prepaid her funeral, she planned
her own music and the order of songs.
Speaker 7 (33:40):
She was going to do. She told not just me,
but I think.
Speaker 15 (33:45):
All of her friends that you would talk to that
sooner or later she was going to go join Tom
on her own time.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
Still, Corey says she's holding out hope that Telena is
alive and offer to help Detective Weber in any way
she can. He asked her to watch the mail for
credit card statements and phone bills that may offer clues
to her whereabouts.
Speaker 17 (34:10):
What's tough about the situation that we're in is that
we don't no. There's no clear evidence that a crime
was committed, so because she everything points to her intentionally leaving.
In other words, people are free to leave on their
own accord anytime they want, and just because they're missing
(34:30):
doesn't mean anything was nefarious.
Speaker 7 (34:33):
There's still part of.
Speaker 15 (34:35):
Me thinking that maybe someone will just call and say
she's sick somewhere. Most of me is saying that when
I get that phone call, it's gonna be because someone
found her.
Speaker 7 (34:49):
I'm supposed to identify her.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
While the cops are talking to Corey, the online sleuth
have their own sprawling investigation.
Speaker 10 (35:03):
It was super intense. I mean we'd stay up for
hours late at night. During the day, I was always
on my phone. We were always googling something, looking up
people online, reaching out to people.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
Everybody had their roles. Brittany, as an Arkansas native, was
trying to piece together Telena's movements and timing. Jess was
the instigator reaching out to new contacts.
Speaker 10 (35:27):
I probably spent twelve fourteen hours on my phone or
computer talking to people a day, cold calling strangers, We
tried several times to break into her email. We asked
her friend, Jim, who works night with Telena, if he
knew her passwords, and he sent him to us passwords
that he knew that didn't end up working. We talked
to the neighbors. The guy across the street. I called
(35:47):
him because he had a ring camera and we thought
maybe like he's seen Telena leave. He said it was
facing the wrong direction. He didn't see anything.
Speaker 3 (35:56):
Jess and some of the other girls felt more comfortable
calling and talked to people than I did. I was
not the person that called. I was sort of the
fact checker.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
This is Rosie the small business owner in Ohio.
Speaker 3 (36:10):
So if people were telling me things, I would, you know,
look things up and figure things out and try to
see if these stories made sense. It got really fast,
really intensely fast.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
Telena's real life friend Nicole starts taking advice from Jess
and the sleuths.
Speaker 4 (36:29):
They were like, well, why isn't there a missing poster?
Speaker 9 (36:31):
And I thought, well, why isn't there and so we
put together a missing poster immediately, you know, after that,
in a post that we could share.
Speaker 4 (36:39):
Being in marketing, I kicked it up.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
You know.
Speaker 9 (36:42):
I contacted a friend who has a friend that's a
producer of Dateline. We started a missing videos. We put
together all kinds of things. We put together a team
in Wagner to do a vigil. We never let them
forget the name of Telena.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
Meanwhile, membership of the Fine Telena is our Facebook group
grows rapidly to almost four hundred participants, and with the
growth some growing pains.
Speaker 9 (37:10):
There were some people like good intentions and some people
who I questioned their intentions.
Speaker 10 (37:16):
There was a lot of trolls. Somebody had posted that
they saw Telen at a truck stop in Wyoming, just
out of nowhere. Oh, we she's working at a truck
stop in Wyoming at this diner. And so I think
probably forty people reached out to this woman and she's like, hey,
I'm joking. It was that's what I would do if
I was going to disappear, And it was like, why
would you post something like that.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
The group starts off public, but obviously that's a mistake,
so they change it to private. Jess In some of
the other original members do admin duty, vetting new requests,
approving comments, keeping things civil.
Speaker 10 (37:49):
Some of these people are jerks, tempers were high. I
think a lot of that came with being stuck inside too.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
Jess is a true believer in the power of the
crowd source.
Speaker 10 (37:58):
I watched Don't Fuck with Cats on Netflix, and those
people literally stopped a serial killer. They did. The internet
came together and was like, look at this room, let's
draw a map.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
And the investigation into Telena's disappearance was, she admits, kind
of fun.
Speaker 10 (38:15):
I really enjoy the picking apart why, and the gathering information,
and the talking to people and sometimes being the person
that knows more than the other.
Speaker 1 (38:24):
Guy, scheming with a bunch of strangers, laughing, brainstorming together.
It also makes Jess feel connected.
Speaker 10 (38:32):
I think the whole world did that, didn't they. I mean,
I think everybody reached out to anybody they could because
we all felt so isolated. Any kind of connection you
could make with somebody, you kind of held on tight
to it because you couldn't see most of the people
in your life unless they lived with you.
Speaker 1 (38:44):
It's a new community, united by a common goal find
to Lena's are, but it's hard to know just how
trustworthy everyone is. And there's a name that keeps popping
up in Jess's conversations. Has she talked to Toelena's close
friend Marty just gets a hold of his number.
Speaker 10 (39:04):
I was sitting on the side porch I smoked at
the time. I smoked cigarette, so I didn't smoke in
my house. I have children, so I stepped outside of
smoke and I just called him.
Speaker 1 (39:14):
Did you feel nervous about doing that? No, So I
think most people would not cold call someone random whose
friend dis disappeared.
Speaker 10 (39:22):
I'm very I hate to say impulsive, because it's not
necessarily my entire personality, but a lot of stuff. If
I want to do it, I just do it.
Speaker 7 (39:32):
I don't know.
Speaker 10 (39:32):
I'm very direct. It doesn't help me make friends. Nicole
had told him that I was going to call, and
so when I called, he said, oh, hey, Darlin, how
are you. He had a very grandfatherly Southern drawl, just
very approachable, and I was like, oh, this guy's not scary.
He sounds like anybody's grandpa. And I just said, tell
(39:53):
me what's going on, and that's he just started talking.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
Connecting with Marty is like hitting gold for Jess and
the online sleuths because he's on the ground in Wagner
looking for Teleina too. And he's also been talking to
the Sheriff's department. For whatever reason, he's willing to share
everything he has with them. He's not skeptical of a
bunch of strangers doing their own investigation into Teleina's disappearance.
(40:21):
In fact, he welcomes it. The first big clue Marty
gives them has to do with Telena's cell phone. The
detectives tell him that her phone was last used on
April seventh, the same day as the Facebook post.
Speaker 10 (40:37):
He had told us that the phone pinged in Arkansas
by Lake Mamel and it could have pinged within a
thirty mile radius.
Speaker 8 (40:43):
Please respect my privacy and give me my alone time
on the lake.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
Lake Mamel is a three and a half hour drive
from Wagner. Brittany, who happens to be in Arkansas, starts
putting together a map.
Speaker 18 (40:59):
We looked at up the phone towers and stuff, and
I went and like screenshoted the map of the lake
and then put a radius over it.
Speaker 10 (41:10):
So we started like going on maps and finding out
what could be within a thirty mile radius of where
her phone pained, and just trying to figure out where
she could be. What cabins or for rents where she
could stay. What lake is over there, what tiny lake
even if it's not the big lake mouth or something else,
a pond or whatever.
Speaker 8 (41:28):
At one of my favorite idaways at one of my
favorite lakes, and I've booked it for the remainder of
this week.
Speaker 18 (41:35):
We had come to the conclusion that there might not
have been very many airbnbs available at the time because
of COVID, because of the time of the year, and
because that area that her phone had pained in is
not really like an area that people go to for vacation,
(41:56):
like ma Mill is just like a business town, like
that's where work and go to school and stuff.
Speaker 7 (42:01):
It's not like a vacation town. Didn't feel up to driving,
so I hired a ride.
Speaker 10 (42:07):
We called all the uber and lyft hubs that we
could to see if their drivers kept track of who
they would pick up. Because she said she hired a ride.
Speaker 1 (42:14):
Pretty quickly, Marty becomes their main source, a person who
seems to know a lot, who's just as committed as
they are to finding to Lena. He goes around town
passing out the missing poster, helps organize the vigil, even
talks to the local press.
Speaker 13 (42:32):
I saw her my birthday on which is March twenty six,
and then I spoke to her on the phone on
the twenty seventh.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
During this time, Marty and Jess are in constant communication way.
Speaker 10 (42:47):
My text message is to twenty seven pm, three fifteen pm,
same day as just bam bam, bam, bam, bam, throwing
ideas at each other. It was obsessive.
Speaker 1 (42:56):
It's a mutually beneficial relationship. Marty likes to talk, Jess
likes to listen.
Speaker 10 (43:02):
He would talk and talk and talk, so he'd give
us information. He'd give us names, he would give us
phone numbers.
Speaker 1 (43:10):
In the beginning, Jess doesn't know if she should trust Marty,
and that's just her baseline. She doesn't trust anyone before
they prove themselves to her. So she's kind of pretending
with Marty to get him to open up to her.
She'll say whatever to make him comfortable to get the
information she wants.
Speaker 10 (43:29):
So all of us wear masks. Right at first, it
was almost like copying the way he'd talk to me.
I'd talk back to him that way to try to
make it so it's easier for us to communicate. And
then we go off on little talks.
Speaker 1 (43:44):
Even though she's acting friendly on the phone. Jess is
double checking everything Marty says on Facebook. She can see
that Teleina and Marty seem to be good friends. Like
he said. They're tagged in each other's posts a lot,
including in a phone koo taken at the Oklahoma Renaissance
Fair in April twenty eighteen. It's Teleina, Marty and his
(44:07):
wife Lorianne. It's a warm day. They're dressed in shorts
and t shirts, all smiling widely. But in the caption,
Marty refers to both women as his quote wives, which
is confusing, and so is Telena's name or more accurately names.
(44:27):
When Jess runs a basic background check, the kind you
can pay for online, nothing comes up for Telenazar. Turns
out her legal name is actually Teuleina Galloway, but even
that name hadn't been her name for very long. Before
Telena Galloway, she was Jena Lovic and before that Jenna Dillman.
(44:49):
Ess doesn't know what to make of all this. With
additional researches, learns that Telenazar is more of her online nickname.
Speaker 10 (44:58):
I'd done some Internet digging, you know, basic Google stuff,
and I googled Telenazar, and then that popped up with
the John Norman Gorrian novels, and I was like, literally
not very polite of me, What the how are you
people into? What is going on here?
Speaker 11 (45:15):
Gore was a world of slaves and beautiful women of
human domination by the alien secret priest Kings. And it
was also the world of Telena.
Speaker 8 (45:26):
Lena to Lena.
Speaker 7 (45:29):
Lawrence.
Speaker 1 (45:31):
That's next week on What Happened to Telenazar. What Happened
to Telenazar is a production of iHeart Podcasts. It's written, reported,
and hosted by me Melissa Jelson, with writing and story
editing by Lauren Hansen. Our executive producer is Ryan Murdoch.
(45:51):
For iHeart Podcasts, executive producers are Jason English and Carl Catel.
Fact checking by Savannah Hugley. Zoey is our associate producer.
Jeremy Thal is our editor. Original music by Aaron Kaufman
with additional music by Jeremy Thal. Episodes are mixed and
mastered by Carl Katle. Voice acting by Lizzie Gore, Chris Ferry,
(46:15):
Stephanie Frame, Pete Monica, and Molly Maslin. Our logo is
designed by Edo Moore. Thanks so much, for listening,
This episode mentioned suicide. Please take care while listening.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Middletown have their skeleton. I mean they're not with that.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Greg Thompson is fifty three years old and has lived
within a forty five minute drive of Wagner, Oklahoma, his
entire life.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Wagner is a small town. I don't even remember what
the population is here rad off In. I want to
say three to five thousand people or something, but that
could be totally out.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
I looked it up.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
It's about double that eight thousand. Still small, a place
where everyone kind of knows everyone and neighbors act neighborly.
When Greg meets Tealina, she's a recent transplant to the area.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Outsiders don't normally take interest in what tier. With Tlena
not being from the area, that made her even more special.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
In my opinion, Greg became friends with Telina because he's
the guy you call when you've got odd jobs that
need doing.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
She hired me for like candy man stuff like mowing
and weed eat and hanging TVs and just all kinds
there's handyman type stuff.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
In early twenty twenty, before COVID shuts the world down,
Teleina is on the hunt for the perfect mattress to
help her troubled sleep. This turns out to be a
tedious task for the fifty three year old who buys
and returns multiple mattresses in the process, but luckily she
has Greg to help her with the heavy lifting.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Telena wanted to change the mattress out in her bedroom,
and she got a new mattress and needed somebody to
unpack it and put it on and then haul the
old and off. And so I did all that well.
A couple of weeks later she said that she didn't
care for the mattress, who wanted it return. She's got
another one, Kevin.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Finally, Teleina finds a mattress that checks all the boxes,
but now she has an extra mattress on her hands.
Luckily she knows a family in need.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
She was going to guess that bed to us. Our
son is like six foot one now, so like make
bed to word that for him.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
This is aris house, another one of Tolena's local friends.
Aris had just closed on her very first house. Teleina
had guided her through the process emotionally and sometimes even financially.
In fact, the bed was just one of many things
Teleina offered to help make Eris's new house a home.
Speaker 4 (02:32):
She was a part of the reason why we were
able to.
Speaker 5 (02:35):
Get utilities turned on new law, new light. She had
been saving up a Nashtag for I've ever since I
told her that we were starting a profit to buy
a house. I can't even put a name to all
the kitchen appliances and trinkets and items that she's put
(02:56):
in our house and added to our lives.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
The way she did.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
As COVID hits Oklahoma, Aris doesn't get to see her
friend very often. Tuleina has rheumatoid arthritis and other health
issues that make contracting the virus a real concern.
Speaker 4 (03:13):
She was a you know, compromised, so she was taking
it very, very seriously.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
But Tealina still wants to hand off the mattress as
she promised, and so on Friday, March twenty seventh, Tulina
texts Eiris to organize a pickup.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
She was checking to see if we were coming to
get to bed this weekend. That next morning, the twenty eighth,
I got a message that said.
Speaker 6 (03:37):
A bort mission. I've got a terrible migraine. I've been
staying in bed today.
Speaker 4 (03:42):
I said, okay out.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
A few days go by, having not heard from. Her
friend Aris checks in.
Speaker 4 (03:50):
On a third and I said her that I hope
you're feeling Betters wanting you know, if I get dropped
by it.
Speaker 7 (03:56):
Yes, I don't.
Speaker 6 (03:58):
Want anybody coming to the porch and making the dogs
bark because I'm sleeping a lot.
Speaker 4 (04:04):
I said, that's okay, maybe another time.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
This is her last exchange with Telena before she goes
missing from iHeart Podcasts. I'm Melissa Jelson, and this is
what happened to Teleina's oar.
Speaker 8 (04:43):
Hey everyone, I'm on day nine of this virus, and
I am pretty sure it has reached my lungs.
Speaker 9 (04:50):
For her to just leave people with no way of
contacting her and knowing if she was alive or.
Speaker 4 (04:55):
Dead was strange to me.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
There were a lot of secrets that were very hard
to find, and no one wanted to talk about anything.
Speaker 10 (05:03):
I'm a really nosy person, so that's how I got
caught up in all this.
Speaker 4 (05:06):
I was like, this is this is crazy.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Episode two small town big Secrets.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
She wanted to help anybody and anybody.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
This is Greg, the local handyman in Wagner.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
She helped us volunteer picking up trash a few times.
I'd heard of her giving food to people that needed
it or giving them little jobs to do.
Speaker 11 (05:37):
Like me.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
You know, she knew that I needed something to do,
so she'd give me jobs. And she had other people
that would you know, do little odd jobs for or
somebody he moved through the area from bigger towns and
just take in the interest in what's going on here
and trying to help people that live here that may
(06:00):
impression on me.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
When Teleina moved to Wagner, Oklahoma, in late twenty sixteen,
she did it with her partner Tom. They left their
longtime home in Indianapolis and purchased a brown ranch house
in Whitehorn Cove, a lake community near the border of Arkansas.
From the outside, the home is rustic looking, cozy, private,
(06:24):
set back from the road and nestled among the tall trees.
It's not easy to move to a totally new place
when you're in your fifties and beyond. But the couple
had their reasons for choosing Wagner, of all places, one
being they had a group of friends who were already
established there, Like Aris Howe, she.
Speaker 12 (06:44):
Could be exactly the person that she was here and
that was a little weird, a lot filly a little
queer Oklahoma had all the people who brought out the
those aspects for her.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
The two women were several decades apart, and ers looked
up to Telena like a big sister.
Speaker 4 (07:08):
She always left you kind of enraptured by what she
was saying because she had a unique way of telling stories.
She had a very dry wit, and it.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Helped that they shared the same offbeat sense of humor.
Aris told me about one time Telena was giving her
some spices from her pantry that she no longer needed.
Speaker 12 (07:27):
I grabbed a bottle of dill weed and I said, oh,
look at the bottom of my husband the dill weed.
And we laughed really hard about it, and then she
snatched the bottle away from me and a land of
the other round.
Speaker 4 (07:39):
She had a label maker. She typed in that labels at.
Speaker 13 (07:42):
The bottle of Jason and clapped it on the bottle
of dill weed and handed it back the look.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
Of absolute joy and mischief in her faith. When she
handed me that bottle, it was like sharing the best secret,
and we both fell apart in laughter.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
To her friends, to Lena was not only kind, generous,
and hilarious, she was also super smart, here's Greg again.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
She was a self proclaimed computer I called her my
own little hacker.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Talina was a techie and a good one. She worked
on Microsoft products, fixing code errors that no one else
could solve.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
My wife was going to school at the time for
her bachelor's and didn't know anything about powerpart presentations and
Microsoft Office and all these things. In Tolena had worked
for Microsoft and she dropped some of these program so
she saw another opportunity to help my wife, and she
(08:42):
started helping her with these presentations and showed her how
to do it herself and things like that. She felt
like she could help you out of the hole you're in.
She was here, was all in.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Telena was helpful to her community and also devoted to
her partner to The two had been together for more
than a decade.
Speaker 4 (09:04):
They had one of those bonds that you know, everybody
could aspire to.
Speaker 5 (09:08):
You could see you could just look at him in
a glance, the way they looked at each other.
Speaker 14 (09:13):
They were young fool anytime they looked at each other.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
But Teleina wasn't a homebody. She travels a lot for work,
often swinging through Indiana, where she and Tom used to live,
and some of her extended family remained, and then while
she was on one of those routine trips, the unthinkable happened.
Speaker 4 (09:37):
They both went here and then like not even I
don't even think it was a year later. Tom had
a stroke while she was away on work, and when
she came back from work, you know, they had found
it on the floor. He was still alive. He had
hung on long enough for her to say goodbye.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Tom was only fifty nine. In his obituary, he was
described as a twenty two year veteran of the army
and an avid gun enthusiast. The family asked that in
lieu of flowers, well wishers could donate to his favorite charity,
for Love of Dogs.
Speaker 4 (10:16):
I remember after Tom and path and we went over
to her house for the memorial. It was an intimate
gathering with probably about twenty of us, and we all
kind of said a word for Tom, and you could
see around the house where she left ticket that they
do not move, do not touch. The general assumption was
(10:39):
so I was was the left eye inst he had
cut and she wasn't ready for those to.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Move Toalina was shattered by the loss.
Speaker 14 (10:48):
They were deeply connected and while she was able to
regate her joy and find life again.
Speaker 4 (11:00):
It wasn't the same as she couldn't share it with him.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
Tom's death on moored Toelena, and for a long while
afterwards she battled with a stubborn depression.
Speaker 4 (11:10):
And I actually spend a lot of phone calls together afterwards,
because whenever you spend an amount of your life with
somebody bouncing decisions off of them, or you know, looking
for validation for a decision, you get kind of lost.
And there were a lot of time where she would
call me and ask me, Hey, what do you think
(11:31):
about this? That happened a lot more after Tom had passed.
Speaker 13 (11:36):
I had her come afterwards, and I was a little nervous.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
This is Kim, a hairdresser and wagner who cut Telena's hair.
She remembered Telena's first appointment after Tom passed.
Speaker 13 (11:48):
I had my mom, who is a widow as well,
come fit and be with us so that i'd have
like them backup in case it got to too sad.
I don't like to handle that stuff, and I'm not
good at saying.
Speaker 7 (12:02):
The right word.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
But we got through it.
Speaker 13 (12:04):
There was just a few, you know, peers that were
shed Tolena. She had even asked if my mom would
maybe be her roommate for a while after, you know,
because my dad had passed and she was living alone too,
and she had been talking about finding a roommate to
share in the bills and stuff.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Telena didn't like living alone in the house she'd shared
with Tom. Nicole, her friend in Tennessee, remembered how Telena
navigated her new role as a relatively young widow.
Speaker 9 (12:35):
Of course, she missed him greatly and missed their life together.
She was dealing with it with grace and moving on
with her life the best she could. She had told
me that she had taken in a roommate and that
was mostly more for having someone around them necessity.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
It was in twenty nineteen that Lena invited Corey Bamiley,
a fifty eight year old woman she knew through friends,
to move in with her. Corey was also in a
transitional period, in the middle of a divorce. I couldn't
get Corey to speak to me, but from what I've learned,
the two had a lot in common. They were both
(13:19):
adjusting to life without a partner. They were both enthusiastic
pet owners, sharing a singular love for animals, and they
both dabbled in pagan culture and attended local renaissance fairs
for fun.
Speaker 13 (13:34):
After they had moved in together, every time I cut
Tolena's hair, the first thing I would say was, how
was how's your roommate going?
Speaker 7 (13:41):
And she always answered the best I've ever had.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
It didn't take long for Toleina and Corey's lives to
become intertwined. Soon enough, Corey was over at Kim's getting
her own haircut, while Teleina was adventurous with her hair,
dyeing at different colors and even giving a perm Corey
preferred a look some might call a mullet.
Speaker 13 (14:04):
We'd go short on the you know, straight across prop
of the ears, and a little bit longer in the back.
It wasn't anything that I wanted to do to her,
but that's what she wanted.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Corey quickly fell in with Teleina's social circle too. Here's
Greg again.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
We'd had Telena and Corey over for dinner, and a
couple of times went out with him. You would have
thought they were best friends. Had had noting Cheddar for
a long time.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
Greg found a kindred spirit in Corey. She too was
a handyman of sorts, strong, industrious.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
From the term that I met Corey Bromley, she was
somebody that you know, I could relate to, and you know,
at the time I was going to things that you know,
I could talk to her about.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Corey also found unique ways to make money, like buying
people's old stuff and selling it on eBay and Greg's
maybe he could do that too.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
I like, you know, pilfer and through stuff. I had
done some other work elsewhere and accumulated a bunch of things,
and she was helping me, you know, kind of take
inventory and possibly help meself some of it.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Telena seemed to really enjoy having a friend around too.
It lifted her spirits. Here's ris again. Having Corey air
improved their quality of life.
Speaker 4 (15:28):
He would go out in the yard and you know,
play with the dog. They would go on car ride
together and just take the bogs out of the lake.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
While Corey's presence was a comfort, there were clues that
Teleina was still struggling with Tom's loss. In November of
twenty nineteen, a few months before COVID hit, Tlena wrote
a note to her friends on Facebook entitled Grief Etiquette.
Here's a reenactment of some of that post.
Speaker 6 (15:58):
Over the last two years, many people have said they
don't know how to interact with me ari Tom's death.
The anniversary of Tom's death is approaching. I'm already struggling
with that, combined with lonely holidays. What I do not
need right now are unsolicited videos and picks of Tom.
(16:20):
At this point, it's difficult for me to concentrate on
work or have pockets of happiness if I see an
unsolicited pick or video.
Speaker 7 (16:28):
During those times, I feel like I ran flat out
into a wall. It's painful.
Speaker 6 (16:35):
If you ask first, I can respond when I'm emotionally
and physically available to reminisce.
Speaker 7 (16:41):
If you post on your own feed, I can choose
whether or not to serve that content.
Speaker 6 (16:46):
If you send me or tag me in unsolicited reminiscence,
I will block you to save my sanity.
Speaker 7 (16:55):
Please don't slap me in the face with my grief.
Thanks for hearing me.
Speaker 4 (17:04):
Heelena was never one to let anything do. She would
say that head on and a threat it because you know,
sitting in silence is uncomfortable. Let figure out what went
wrong and how we can avoid it in the future.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Aris described to Lena as assertive and good at setting boundaries,
and so in April twenty twenty, when Telena posts on Facebook.
Speaker 8 (17:29):
I made the decision at the ownset that if it
got bad enough, I would not go to the hospital.
Please respect my privacy and give me my alone time,
Aris does.
Speaker 4 (17:43):
There were a lot of parts of her life that
she kept private, and we respected that, like we love
the person that she gave us every time we got
to see her. It did seem out of character, but
considering the fact that she had lost her husband not
so long ago. People can be consumed with Greece at
(18:07):
different times, it would make sense to me.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Quick note, you've heard most of Telena's cryptic Facebook post already,
but there's a few lines I withheld that mentioned Tom.
Now that you know who he is, this will make
more sense.
Speaker 6 (18:24):
In and out of fever and chills with Tom just
out of reach, I'm going to either beat this virus
or be with Tom.
Speaker 7 (18:37):
I see it as a win win situation.
Speaker 6 (18:41):
Please respect my privacy and give me my alone time
on the lake with Tom.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
In this part of the post, it resonates with those
who knew Telena in real life, who had witnessed her
debilitating depression after Tom's death. Here again is Nicole, who
saw Telena just a few weeks before she went missing.
Speaker 9 (19:04):
I didn't take it as her being suicidal. I just
took it to mean that if she passed away from COVID,
she was at peace with it because she would be
with Tom, not that she was actively licking doorknobs and
trying to get COVID so that she could pass away.
Speaker 4 (19:21):
I took it that she was.
Speaker 9 (19:23):
Good either way, and I feel like I feel like
that was true. Telena fashioned you know, well, if I die,
I die.
Speaker 4 (19:32):
Yeah, There's not much I can do about it.
Speaker 9 (19:34):
And if I live, I'll hug you again.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
A week before Telena disappeared, she posted about her illness
on Facebook.
Speaker 6 (19:49):
I called my doctor and was told to stay in
bed and stay hydrated and self medicate and call back
or go to the er. If my tempreach is one
O two. I think Oklahoma's medicals system is stretched thin
right now. I am thankful and grateful that I do
have someone watching out for me and running the household.
Speaker 7 (20:08):
Back to bed. I'm exhausted. I love you all.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Telena is talking about Corey, her roommate, running the household
and watching out for her. Corey had been the last
person to see Telena before she disappeared. On the day
Telena posted her mysterious message, Corey said she'd been out
running errands and came home to an empty house. The
next day, Corey posted to her own Facebook page, alerting
(20:36):
everyone to her missing roommate and asking for help. Here's
a recreation of parts of the post.
Speaker 15 (20:43):
I called every taxi service I could think of last Eve,
and drivers don't keep records. I also called our phone
carrier to try and trace or track Telena's phone and
was told of an app that could do this if
the phone was turned on with location services activated. As
of this morning, she hasn't called home and her phone
(21:04):
still appears to be turned off. Anyone else hears from her,
please update me.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
A day later, core posts again, this time sharing insight
into what Telena's experience with COVID had been like.
Speaker 15 (21:19):
So this is my COVID nineteen rant and the state
of affairs here in rural Oklahoma.
Speaker 7 (21:24):
Feel free to bypass this post.
Speaker 15 (21:27):
I just need to rant or I will scream.
Speaker 7 (21:32):
Maybe I need to do that. Anyway.
Speaker 15 (21:34):
When Telena first got a fever of one hundred point five,
We packed up and went to the er. We expected
to be able to get her a test. A tech
met us outside, questioned all of her symptoms and sent
us home without even allowing us to check in. We
(21:55):
determined that the healthcare system, at least here in Oklahoma
was not equipped to take care of everyone with viral
symptoms and would only do so if you got bad
enough to probably be admitted in Looking back, I think
her attitude changed on that car ride home from the er.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
A few days go by. Talina's friends hear nothing and
start to worry she's died of COVID alone in a
remote cabin. But they also start imagining other worst case scenarios,
like Greg who speculates that maybe Tolena was abducted.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
When she came up Methan and put this big Facebook
post on there say I'm going to the wood to die.
It didn't sound like her. We didn't, I mean me
and my wife and talked about it. We live on
the Highway sixty nine and Highways sixty nine goes from
the heart attackes all the way into Tangas. At the time,
(23:03):
you know, there was a lot of abductions and stuff
from even walmarts. You know, over here in our area
there was ladies picked up from Walmart for suspected sex
trade type things. Me and my wife watch a lot
of crime shows. We're armchair investigators over here. I mean,
(23:24):
we get a little lead and we follow it and
it you know, we're not trained investigators, That's what I'm
saying it. So we just didn't know something like that
could have happened to Colena.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
Her friends think hope, maybe Toleina will emerge over the weekend,
But as Saturday and Sunday come and go, they're polite.
Respect for her privacy kurdles into concern and dread, and
there's consensus that the police now need to be involved.
On Monday, April thirteenth, Corey goes to the shriff's department,
(24:01):
but she's told that an adult woman leaving on her
own is not considered a missing person, at least not yet.
Four more days pass by Friday, Telena has still not returned,
so Corey tries again. This time she's able to file
a missing person's report. That same day, two deputies drive
(24:25):
out to Teleina and Corey's house. Because of COVID, they
play it safe and don't go inside. Instead, they talk
to Corey in the driveway. They get the basic facts,
like what Telena looks like and Telena's cell phone number,
which they immediately try to locate. Surveying the property. The
(24:46):
deputy's note a gray shed in front of the house
and several vehicles parked in the driveway, two cars and
a red truck with a trailer attached, and then they
turn the case over the detective Joel Weber, who will
lead the search. A few days later, he asks Corey
to come back to the station to provide more detail.
Speaker 11 (25:11):
All Right, I just got cold in here.
Speaker 7 (25:14):
Yeah, I'm glad I wore a sweatshirt.
Speaker 11 (25:16):
I'm going to turn this up.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Okay, Now, two weeks after Telena's Facebook post, Corey arrives
at the station wearing a COVID mask and gloves. We
don't have a recording of the conversation, but we do
have a transcript, parts of which we've recreated.
Speaker 16 (25:34):
Let me just get some background information from you, sure,
and then we'll kind of go from there. And I
don't want you to think that you're in any trouble
because you're here, Okay, yeah, yeah, And that's pretty standard.
Speaker 17 (25:47):
It's just normally I would have come to the house,
but give them the situation and all that.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
Detective Weber asks Corey how they met and came to
live together.
Speaker 15 (25:56):
I've known Telena about fifteen years, but we've really just
become close in the last couple of years since her
husband died.
Speaker 11 (26:06):
How did you originally meet up with her?
Speaker 15 (26:09):
There was a festival here in Wagner, Oklahoma that we
both attended fifteen years ago, and my husband and I
went and met her and her husband. Then she had
just gotten together with him, and it was actually a
big weekend party. So that's how we all got to
know each other first.
Speaker 11 (26:30):
Okay, that's interesting.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Corey explains that she moved in less than a year ago,
in May twenty nineteen, and the two of.
Speaker 11 (26:38):
You get together.
Speaker 17 (26:39):
Is it because of her husband dying that you rekindle
or become closer?
Speaker 7 (26:44):
Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 15 (26:46):
I was starting to have problems with my husband and
initiated a divorce, and she had lost her husband and
really lost an interest in living, and then we were
getting to know each other better and better, and it
just got to the point where she asked me if
I would stay with her because she couldn't be alone.
Speaker 7 (27:10):
Sure, and then she was having I don't think she's
ever been diagnosed as.
Speaker 15 (27:15):
Bipolar, but she had really up periods and really down periods,
and she didn't want to be alone during the very
down periods, Okay, so she needed a roommate.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Corey tells the detective that when she moved in, she
took on a lot of responsibilities for Telena, who had
been struggling with her health. Corey ran errands for her,
handled the household duties. They got close fast. They considered
each other their emergency contacts. Telena even listed Corey as
(27:51):
the executor of her estate in her will, and so
when Telena got COVID, Corey went into full caregiver mode.
Speaker 15 (27:59):
The first thing that happened she gets bad migraines, okay,
and she finished work on a Friday, went to bed early,
woke up Saturday morning with a really bad migraine that
ended up lasting two days. She pretty much stayed in
bed for two days with migraine. Okay, Monday, she's due
(28:19):
back at work. And Monday morning she asked me to
come in and take her temperature, which I did, and
she was running a one hundred point five, And so
she stayed in bed with her temperature. I can't remember
if we went that day or the next day, but
she pretty much kept her temperature at one hundred one
(28:41):
hundred point five. So we said we better go down
to the hospital. We didn't know what this is, and
so we went to the er at Wagner here and
a tech came out and asked, you know what symptoms
she was having and we told her that she had
to migraine all weekend and now she was spiking the temperature. Sure,
(29:05):
and they said go home and self medicate and look
for these signs. And he said, if your temperature goes
about one oh one or you start developing other problems,
to call back.
Speaker 7 (29:17):
In or come back in.
Speaker 15 (29:19):
So we went home, and she was kind of at
that point disheartened or kind of disgusted with things that
she couldn't get any help or diagnosis or couldn't even
check in.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
By this point, there are over two point six million
confirmed cases of COVID globally. The US leads the world.
In New York is the epicenter with over two hundred
and fifty thousand cases, thousands of deaths, and hospitals beyond capacity.
Oklahoma was preparing for the worst, predicting a surge in
(29:54):
COVID cases any day now.
Speaker 15 (29:56):
She developed a really barking cough and sometimes she'd start
coughing and couldn't stop coughing.
Speaker 7 (30:02):
She was starting to wheeze a little.
Speaker 15 (30:03):
Bit, and I said, you know, we do not want
you catching pneumonia. So I asked her the night before,
I said, let's take you back to the emergency room.
I think you're bad enough now that they will admit you, right,
And she said no, she just wanted to spend the
(30:24):
night in her bed with one of the pops.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
On the morning of April seventh, Corey says, she asks
again if she can take to Lena to the hospital
and toe Lena again says no.
Speaker 15 (30:36):
She asked me to go out and do a few
things and give her some more time to snuggle with.
Speaker 7 (30:42):
She's got a little yorky that she likes to stay.
Speaker 15 (30:44):
In bed with, and she just wanted to I don't
know what she just wanted to do.
Speaker 11 (30:52):
Did she ask you to do something specific or just
leave for a while.
Speaker 15 (30:56):
Yeah, she just wanted me to leave her alone for
a while. I wish I had never gone and run
errands that day.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
When Corey gets home sometime in the afternoon, she goes
into Toelina's room to check on her, and Toelena's gone.
Corey can't tell if Teleina has taken clothes or an
overnight bag, but her phone is missing, along with some
medication and Toleina's guns.
Speaker 15 (31:24):
She always kept a forty five magnetized to the bottom
of her bed.
Speaker 7 (31:29):
Okay, that was gone.
Speaker 15 (31:32):
And she always kept a nine millimeter in the car, okay,
and it was gone. She really she gets into these
places where she just she just wants to expire, and
so she doesn't really care.
Speaker 7 (31:49):
She always says, you know, I've got my DNA orders.
I'm not going to let anybody you know, into vate
me or whatever.
Speaker 15 (31:58):
Right, And she said, she said, it's a win win,
I get to see Tom sooner. And she talked like
that a lot. She'd have good days where she'd be
really excited about her job and we'd be planning a
trip and I think this is great, she's got a
(32:20):
reason to live.
Speaker 7 (32:22):
It's all good.
Speaker 15 (32:24):
And then she'd say, yeah, and the first chance I get,
I'm gonna check out. So she'd go really high on
her job or a trip, and then she'd get really
down and depressed and just not want to be around.
Speaker 11 (32:41):
Has she ever attempted suicide that you know of?
Speaker 7 (32:45):
She has not. She has not ever attempted it with me,
and I would know.
Speaker 15 (32:50):
Has she talked about how she would do it if
she did constantly?
Speaker 11 (32:55):
Well, what is the what's her general conversation.
Speaker 7 (32:58):
On that general conversation with me?
Speaker 15 (33:02):
That I would know when she had done it, that
she had a favorite little spot that she was going
to go to, and I think she was going to
use a gun.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
Corey explains that Telena was very matter of fact about death.
Telena had already organized her own funeral and made plans
for her estate.
Speaker 15 (33:26):
Telena has always had an end of life game plan
ever since Tom died. She prepaid her funeral, she planned
her own music and the order of songs.
Speaker 7 (33:40):
She was going to do. She told not just me,
but I think.
Speaker 15 (33:45):
All of her friends that you would talk to that
sooner or later she was going to go join Tom
on her own time.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
Still, Corey says she's holding out hope that Telena is
alive and offer to help Detective Weber in any way
she can. He asked her to watch the mail for
credit card statements and phone bills that may offer clues
to her whereabouts.
Speaker 17 (34:10):
What's tough about the situation that we're in is that
we don't no. There's no clear evidence that a crime
was committed, so because she everything points to her intentionally leaving.
In other words, people are free to leave on their
own accord anytime they want, and just because they're missing
(34:30):
doesn't mean anything was nefarious.
Speaker 7 (34:33):
There's still part of.
Speaker 15 (34:35):
Me thinking that maybe someone will just call and say
she's sick somewhere. Most of me is saying that when
I get that phone call, it's gonna be because someone
found her.
Speaker 7 (34:49):
I'm supposed to identify her.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
While the cops are talking to Corey, the online sleuth
have their own sprawling investigation.
Speaker 10 (35:03):
It was super intense. I mean we'd stay up for
hours late at night. During the day, I was always
on my phone. We were always googling something, looking up
people online, reaching out to people.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
Everybody had their roles. Brittany, as an Arkansas native, was
trying to piece together Telena's movements and timing. Jess was
the instigator reaching out to new contacts.
Speaker 10 (35:27):
I probably spent twelve fourteen hours on my phone or
computer talking to people a day, cold calling strangers, We
tried several times to break into her email. We asked
her friend, Jim, who works night with Telena, if he
knew her passwords, and he sent him to us passwords
that he knew that didn't end up working. We talked
to the neighbors. The guy across the street. I called
(35:47):
him because he had a ring camera and we thought
maybe like he's seen Telena leave. He said it was
facing the wrong direction. He didn't see anything.
Speaker 3 (35:56):
Jess and some of the other girls felt more comfortable
calling and talked to people than I did. I was
not the person that called. I was sort of the
fact checker.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
This is Rosie the small business owner in Ohio.
Speaker 3 (36:10):
So if people were telling me things, I would, you know,
look things up and figure things out and try to
see if these stories made sense. It got really fast,
really intensely fast.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
Telena's real life friend Nicole starts taking advice from Jess
and the sleuths.
Speaker 4 (36:29):
They were like, well, why isn't there a missing poster?
Speaker 9 (36:31):
And I thought, well, why isn't there and so we
put together a missing poster immediately, you know, after that,
in a post that we could share.
Speaker 4 (36:39):
Being in marketing, I kicked it up.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
You know.
Speaker 9 (36:42):
I contacted a friend who has a friend that's a
producer of Dateline. We started a missing videos. We put
together all kinds of things. We put together a team
in Wagner to do a vigil. We never let them
forget the name of Telena.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
Meanwhile, membership of the Fine Telena is our Facebook group
grows rapidly to almost four hundred participants, and with the
growth some growing pains.
Speaker 9 (37:10):
There were some people like good intentions and some people
who I questioned their intentions.
Speaker 10 (37:16):
There was a lot of trolls. Somebody had posted that
they saw Telen at a truck stop in Wyoming, just
out of nowhere. Oh, we she's working at a truck
stop in Wyoming at this diner. And so I think
probably forty people reached out to this woman and she's like, hey,
I'm joking. It was that's what I would do if
I was going to disappear, And it was like, why
would you post something like that.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
The group starts off public, but obviously that's a mistake,
so they change it to private. Jess In some of
the other original members do admin duty, vetting new requests,
approving comments, keeping things civil.
Speaker 10 (37:49):
Some of these people are jerks, tempers were high. I
think a lot of that came with being stuck inside too.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
Jess is a true believer in the power of the
crowd source.
Speaker 10 (37:58):
I watched Don't Fuck with Cats on Netflix, and those
people literally stopped a serial killer. They did. The internet
came together and was like, look at this room, let's
draw a map.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
And the investigation into Telena's disappearance was, she admits, kind
of fun.
Speaker 10 (38:15):
I really enjoy the picking apart why, and the gathering information,
and the talking to people and sometimes being the person
that knows more than the other.
Speaker 1 (38:24):
Guy, scheming with a bunch of strangers, laughing, brainstorming together.
It also makes Jess feel connected.
Speaker 10 (38:32):
I think the whole world did that, didn't they. I mean,
I think everybody reached out to anybody they could because
we all felt so isolated. Any kind of connection you
could make with somebody, you kind of held on tight
to it because you couldn't see most of the people
in your life unless they lived with you.
Speaker 1 (38:44):
It's a new community, united by a common goal find
to Lena's are, but it's hard to know just how
trustworthy everyone is. And there's a name that keeps popping
up in Jess's conversations. Has she talked to Toelena's close
friend Marty just gets a hold of his number.
Speaker 10 (39:04):
I was sitting on the side porch I smoked at
the time. I smoked cigarette, so I didn't smoke in
my house. I have children, so I stepped outside of
smoke and I just called him.
Speaker 1 (39:14):
Did you feel nervous about doing that? No, So I
think most people would not cold call someone random whose
friend dis disappeared.
Speaker 10 (39:22):
I'm very I hate to say impulsive, because it's not
necessarily my entire personality, but a lot of stuff. If
I want to do it, I just do it.
Speaker 7 (39:32):
I don't know.
Speaker 10 (39:32):
I'm very direct. It doesn't help me make friends. Nicole
had told him that I was going to call, and
so when I called, he said, oh, hey, Darlin, how
are you. He had a very grandfatherly Southern drawl, just
very approachable, and I was like, oh, this guy's not scary.
He sounds like anybody's grandpa. And I just said, tell
(39:53):
me what's going on, and that's he just started talking.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
Connecting with Marty is like hitting gold for Jess and
the online sleuths because he's on the ground in Wagner
looking for Teleina too. And he's also been talking to
the Sheriff's department. For whatever reason, he's willing to share
everything he has with them. He's not skeptical of a
bunch of strangers doing their own investigation into Teleina's disappearance.
(40:21):
In fact, he welcomes it. The first big clue Marty
gives them has to do with Telena's cell phone. The
detectives tell him that her phone was last used on
April seventh, the same day as the Facebook post.
Speaker 10 (40:37):
He had told us that the phone pinged in Arkansas
by Lake Mamel and it could have pinged within a
thirty mile radius.
Speaker 8 (40:43):
Please respect my privacy and give me my alone time
on the lake.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
Lake Mamel is a three and a half hour drive
from Wagner. Brittany, who happens to be in Arkansas, starts
putting together a map.
Speaker 18 (40:59):
We looked at up the phone towers and stuff, and
I went and like screenshoted the map of the lake
and then put a radius over it.
Speaker 10 (41:10):
So we started like going on maps and finding out
what could be within a thirty mile radius of where
her phone pained, and just trying to figure out where
she could be. What cabins or for rents where she
could stay. What lake is over there, what tiny lake
even if it's not the big lake mouth or something else,
a pond or whatever.
Speaker 8 (41:28):
At one of my favorite idaways at one of my
favorite lakes, and I've booked it for the remainder of
this week.
Speaker 18 (41:35):
We had come to the conclusion that there might not
have been very many airbnbs available at the time because
of COVID, because of the time of the year, and
because that area that her phone had pained in is
not really like an area that people go to for vacation,
(41:56):
like ma Mill is just like a business town, like
that's where work and go to school and stuff.
Speaker 7 (42:01):
It's not like a vacation town. Didn't feel up to driving,
so I hired a ride.
Speaker 10 (42:07):
We called all the uber and lyft hubs that we
could to see if their drivers kept track of who
they would pick up. Because she said she hired a ride.
Speaker 1 (42:14):
Pretty quickly, Marty becomes their main source, a person who
seems to know a lot, who's just as committed as
they are to finding to Lena. He goes around town
passing out the missing poster, helps organize the vigil, even
talks to the local press.
Speaker 13 (42:32):
I saw her my birthday on which is March twenty six,
and then I spoke to her on the phone on
the twenty seventh.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
During this time, Marty and Jess are in constant communication way.
Speaker 10 (42:47):
My text message is to twenty seven pm, three fifteen pm,
same day as just bam bam, bam, bam, bam, throwing
ideas at each other. It was obsessive.
Speaker 1 (42:56):
It's a mutually beneficial relationship. Marty likes to talk, Jess
likes to listen.
Speaker 10 (43:02):
He would talk and talk and talk, so he'd give
us information. He'd give us names, he would give us
phone numbers.
Speaker 1 (43:10):
In the beginning, Jess doesn't know if she should trust Marty,
and that's just her baseline. She doesn't trust anyone before
they prove themselves to her. So she's kind of pretending
with Marty to get him to open up to her.
She'll say whatever to make him comfortable to get the
information she wants.
Speaker 10 (43:29):
So all of us wear masks. Right at first, it
was almost like copying the way he'd talk to me.
I'd talk back to him that way to try to
make it so it's easier for us to communicate. And
then we go off on little talks.
Speaker 1 (43:44):
Even though she's acting friendly on the phone. Jess is
double checking everything Marty says on Facebook. She can see
that Teleina and Marty seem to be good friends. Like
he said. They're tagged in each other's posts a lot,
including in a phone koo taken at the Oklahoma Renaissance
Fair in April twenty eighteen. It's Teleina, Marty and his
(44:07):
wife Lorianne. It's a warm day. They're dressed in shorts
and t shirts, all smiling widely. But in the caption,
Marty refers to both women as his quote wives, which
is confusing, and so is Telena's name or more accurately names.
(44:27):
When Jess runs a basic background check, the kind you
can pay for online, nothing comes up for Telenazar. Turns
out her legal name is actually Teuleina Galloway, but even
that name hadn't been her name for very long. Before
Telena Galloway, she was Jena Lovic and before that Jenna Dillman.
(44:49):
Ess doesn't know what to make of all this. With
additional researches, learns that Telenazar is more of her online nickname.
Speaker 10 (44:58):
I'd done some Internet digging, you know, basic Google stuff,
and I googled Telenazar, and then that popped up with
the John Norman Gorrian novels, and I was like, literally
not very polite of me, What the how are you
people into? What is going on here?
Speaker 11 (45:15):
Gore was a world of slaves and beautiful women of
human domination by the alien secret priest Kings. And it
was also the world of Telena.
Speaker 8 (45:26):
Lena to Lena.
Speaker 7 (45:29):
Lawrence.
Speaker 1 (45:31):
That's next week on What Happened to Telenazar. What Happened
to Telenazar is a production of iHeart Podcasts. It's written, reported,
and hosted by me Melissa Jelson, with writing and story
editing by Lauren Hansen. Our executive producer is Ryan Murdoch.
(45:51):
For iHeart Podcasts, executive producers are Jason English and Carl Catel.
Fact checking by Savannah Hugley. Zoey is our associate producer.
Jeremy Thal is our editor. Original music by Aaron Kaufman
with additional music by Jeremy Thal. Episodes are mixed and
mastered by Carl Katle. Voice acting by Lizzie Gore, Chris Ferry,
(46:15):
Stephanie Frame, Pete Monica, and Molly Maslin. Our logo is
designed by Edo Moore. Thanks so much, for listening,
Host
Melissa Jeltsen
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