Episode 9: Surviving Murder for Money with Hera Mcleod

Hera from Riverside

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Her new book, Defying Silence is available wherever you get your books, Amazon, and audio book. Like me. Here is a survivor of domestic violence. Her 15 month old son Prince was murdered at the hands of his father who now faces life in jail. I want to thank you so much for chatting with me today.

So thank you. I will give a little backstory. I met her in Washington, D. C. last October, I believe I was there with a group of us trying to go into the Capitol and fight for some more child safety laws that can go federally. And she had us, she invited us all to her home, which I thought was lovely, but I never really got a chance to chat with you one on one about your story and, why we were all there. So I wanted to give you the floor to share your story, what people want, what you want people to know about you. And then of course, I do want to hear all about your book and I want to know all the things that you're working towards that you want to see happen while you're still alive. I did read a little bit about how your story began and you met your ex on match. com. I too met Greyson's father on match. com. How did that go for you?

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Whereas when you meet someone on an app there could be some good things with getting outside of your circle, but the danger is that you really have no one in your life who can give that person a reference. And I think. People also don't realize is that these folks are crazy and they will make stuff up and it will seem completely legitimate and they will also be able to create people in their life that will lie for them.

And for me he presented family. That was not actually his family who said they were who upheld all of his lies. And so people are like, Oh my gosh, how did you not know? I'm like. They tell you to meet the family and friends. What they don't tell you is that people will lie to you.

And so yeah, I still feel very skeptical about app dating. I think the challenge is that in this day and age, it's hard to really do anything else because that's what people do now.

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[00:03:22] Hera McLeod: Yeah, and it's a very useful targeting mechanism, honestly, for people like this, because. How else can you go through people? And do you feel like you were targeted? Oh, absolutely. I think people like this do that, right? They don't find another person. They're not looking for another psychopath.

They're looking for somebody who is going to be an empath. Somebody who's going to. Be a caregiver. And so I think I was definitely targeted. I think, honestly, if it hadn't been me, it would've been someone else and it was someone else before me, so I don't think I'm special in any way other than like being a good target perhaps.

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[00:04:04] Hera McLeod: I think he sought me out as a. A means for his financial, for finance, for finances. I don't think he necessarily thought, Oh, I'm going to impregnate her and then kill our baby. I don't think he was necessarily, but he

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[00:04:17] Hera McLeod: He

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[00:04:20] Hera McLeod: like he, and he had money when I met him. I didn't know that he was living off of insurance proceeds from the. Two other people he killed. And so there's no way to know that even if I had known his real family, they would have been like, yeah, he killed his mom for insurance money.

But I didn't meet his real family. I met his fake family who said he was a musician and said that they had seen him perform, so it's yeah I think that he was a and he preyed upon women financially. And was not above killing people for insurance money. And I think if it hadn't been my son, it probably would have been me, honestly.

And I think the only reason it wasn't me is because I left.

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[00:05:11] Hera McLeod: Yeah, and I think it wasn't just financially motivated.

He was a sick and evil twisted person who's, who was angry that I left him and angry because he felt entitled to my money and my body and in all of it. So it was prince was the only thing that I couldn't take from him I couldn't protect from him,

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[00:05:31] Hera McLeod: courts wouldn't allow me

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Let's have our listeners get a little bit of background because I didn't go into it too much. Start at the beginning, whatever you feel comfortable speaking about that you want. I,

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And I didn't know any different. I was like, that's pretty sad. And did she die in an accident? He shot her. He killed her. And that's a fact. This is the thing. They didn't charge him for it until after Prince died. And then they charged him. He's never actually had a trial because they ended up dropping it because he's serving life in prison.

So they were like, oh my goodness. And what about that child that he had? So he went to live with his maternal grandmother when he happened to fail. But the thing that was crazy about it is I did not know any of this until I left and hired a private investigator. Of course I survived abuse in the house and it got to the point where Prince was only two weeks old when I left and I was like, I can't stay here.

We can't stay here. It's not safe. And when I hired the private investigator, I found out that on the eve of their custody hearing, she was shot. And he had changed his name to his son's name six months before she died and then claimed that her life insurance policy that she intended on it being for her son was his, they had different names.

They had different names, he and his son had different names, and he effectively made his son a junior 6 months before this woman died. She died conveniently on the eve of their custody hearing. They, he found her, I'll put that in quotes, right? And then bled all over the crime scene because he was like, Oh, I saw her lying there and I broke through the window.

Witnesses who lived in the area said it's impossible for him to have seen her because the blinds were closed.

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[00:07:19] Hera McLeod: The police F'd it all the way up. I go into this in my book how part of the reason it took me 10 years to write the book is that the story is so incredibly twisted.

And I had to go through all of these documents from the other two murders because I was like, how on earth did they F this up? And I talk about a lot people are like, do you think there's, he's Do you think you've gotten justice because he's in jail and I'm like, look, he's a sick and twisted individual.

And part of me has to feel for him just from a human level being like, how sad and tragic is it that you are so affected

with whatever mental disorder you have that you would even kill your own child. That's tragic. He's not the demon in my story. To me, the system is a demon in my story because I should never have met this man.

Prince should never have been a born. He should have been arrested multiple times over for all of the other people that he killed. And then even if he hadn't been arrested for all those people, he killed, the family court should have been the end. They should have been like, yo, we're not doing this. To me, that's the demon in my story. The demon is the police. Allowed him to kill multiple people before he killed my son all for the same thing. Like it was all insurance money motivated like every single time. And yeah, like he, he killed her. His son's grandparents initially got custody, but then, how family court works.

And I tell people all the time, I'm like, Family court is civil court. If you study the law, you don't have to meet the same threshold as criminal court. You don't have to definitively prove without a reasonable doubt someone did something, right? Similar to like the O. J. Simpson trial. We all know O. J. killed her, right? But The, yes, the evidence for whatever reason wasn't enough to put him in jail for life, but he lost civilly, right? The family got the money because he lost because there was enough evidence. So I'm like, why do we treat family court and child custody like it's not a civil court?

All you have to prove is that it probably happened and probably will happen again. You don't have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, and it shouldn't be beyond a reasonable doubt because we're talking about the safety of kids, right? So when we went into court, I even had a police officer from a different state, from Virginia, come to Maryland to be like, we think he did this twice.

Oh my god. And the judge was still like he hasn't been convicted. And it's No, but many people commit crimes that they're never convicted of because our court system is so busted. So not only did he try to get the money from the first woman and family court gave his son back by the way, which they shouldn't have done because he proceeded to abuse the kid.

The kid reported him multiple times for abuse and they continued to put the kid back in the house. So by the time I left, there was police coming to testify. We had the grandmother coming to testify about abuse. We had a police report where the kid had reported that his father had abused him.

And I'm like, what is it going to take? For you guys to realize that this guy is not safe. And then when Prince died, they were all like, Oh my gosh, I can't believe that. I'm like, Really? You're like, I told you this. This is not rocket science. And I think the thing that is so disturbing, I tell people all the time, I'm like, You look at all the evidence I had, right?

That was a lot. This is a guy who is seriously affected. And I think a lot about there are so many things that don't even reach that level that are terrible. And I can't even imagine a scenario in which the courts would choose to protect a kid if they had all that and they still didn't do it.

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[00:11:01] Hera McLeod: Oh, they all know it's him. They know now, but then? Yeah. They knew it then. Like the police all said there's only one suspect. There's only one person and they had enough information.

They never found the gun probably because he went to Florida where his actually family lives and got rid of it. And another problem in our country is like police departments from different states don't share. You just leave the state, you ditch it somewhere else. And then it's done.

Nobody from Virginia is going to Florida to look for a weapon in a case where a black woman was shot. They're just not doing it. And all knew that he did it. And they just, they never charged him. So you couldn't do a Google search and find his name even attached to her name.

And then, in the state of Virginia, he also changed his, when he changed his name, he changed his age too. And falsified a birth certificate. And this man was walking around with a concealment weapon license in the state of Virginia. I brought that to their attention when I had the PI and they were like he's not harming anyone.

I was like, except the fact that, he's killed two people. Like here's something you can actually get him on. And they still wouldn't do it.

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[00:12:16] Hera McLeod: Yeah. Was a cold case by the time I met him. She had been dead and I remember he told

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[00:12:21] Hera McLeod: It was just an accident. I didn't even know she had been shot. He was like, oh, it was just a tragic accident.

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[00:12:28] Hera McLeod: Yeah, because the gun became a fixture in our relationship, like people think that it's easy to leave someone. I was like it's easy until they tell you if you leave, you're going to leave in a body bag.

So you don't leave because you're like I don't want to get shot.

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[00:12:45] Hera McLeod: It was good. I think it's always good at first. These guys don't come up and punch you in the face. And say, you want to date like it was great in the beginning.

Like he seemed financially secure. He seemed to be taking care of his son. His son, was adorable and I bonded with him too. Which also adds a layer of hardness, right? Because I think it was about six months into the relationship when I got pregnant, which I mean, yeah that's not an ideal situation.

And I think that was really when things took a turn for the worse, because I think in his head, he was like, oh, I have her now and he also knew the family court system. So he was like, every time I try to leave, he was like, I'm going to get custody. And he's not wrong he probably is that what he wanted custody.

That's what he said he wanted. I think he wanted me to pay him child support. I think, I think he, but

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[00:13:39] Hera McLeod: The thing that's crazy about it is when we left, Prince was two weeks old. I didn't hear from him for three months. He didn't ask for visits. He didn't ask to see him.

Nothing. How he was, nothing. And he took out over 500, 000 in life insurance before he even responded to my custody order three months later. And the thing that's crazy about about Insurance in this country, which is another area that I think needs to be cleaned up, especially when it comes to children.

But you can take out a policy on your neighbor and that person won't know that you took out a policy on your neighbor. And so that's crazy. I was not aware that he took out a policy on Prince. And he told the insurance companies that I was dead. No one checked. Man did not even have custody of his son, took out an insurance policy on him, said I was dead.

And the insurance companies were like, Oh, sure. This is normal to take out 580, 000 on an infant. Did you sue them? You can't. You can't sue an insurance company. You cannot. It's crazy. It's similar. You can't sue court. You can't sue a judge for, even if you find that the judge does something like completely corrupt, they're untouchable, which is part of the problem.

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[00:14:46] Hera McLeod: I'm

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[00:15:12] Hera McLeod: They never paid out because they didn't have to pay out because he was too stupid to realize that you can't. Got insurance policy within a year. And then also, even if it had become like he, they never would have been forced to pay out. Which is also effed up because it makes them not think about that.

They should have been forced to pay out just for their life just for being like liable, but they're not because they're like within a year, he died within a year of him taking out the policy. Plus it's a crime you can't, pay out on a crime. I still think they should have been forced to pay out to the estate, but they, they're not held accountable.

ross business, of think about: 1000

[00:15:55] Ali Kessler: Yeah, no, that whole sector and even the whole probate side of death is another level of nightmare.

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I don't actually think it would have, but whatever. It was a box to check. Sure, they let him hire the person of his choosing, which. I'm trying to get them to stop doing because I think it's stupid. He hired somebody who did not actually have a license to test adults in the state of in the state and she was actually a child psychologist who wasn't even licensed to test children outside of a school setting.

Somebody who had diagnosed ADHD. But like probably is not gonna understand how to deal with an adult. So I did sue her for practicing outside of her license. And I reported her to the medical board because I was like, she's still practicing, by the way, she just got probation and had to and had to do had to be supervised or something for a period of time.

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[00:17:11] Hera McLeod: happened. I don't know. I just, I get so frustrated with our system and I can only think that perhaps part of the problem is that kids can't vote.

And so I have long felt like this country has a civil rights crisis on their hands when it comes to children, and as they're not voters, they're like, oh we don't care because they don't have the money. And there's just this there's this expectation that. Parents will transfer their civil rights to their children, which happens with healthy parents.

But, it's a huge assumption that someone's going to be healthy because you and I know there's crazy people out there and I think as a country, we need to start addressing, like, how we make sure that children have their have agency and safety

independent of their parents.

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Yeah. I'm trying to practice it now with my kids. Like I, I try to be really conscious about obviously they need parenting and they need some authority to help them not choose chaos, in moments where they.

Can make decisions. I like to be like, look you guys are people, right? It's your body, it's your I want you to feel like you have some control and agency over yourself, and like my oldest is 10 and we, how many children do you have?

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Oh, I have three. I have two living ones, but I have three children. Yes. But yeah, the doctor she, I like the fact that her doctor now talks to her instead of me.

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[00:18:47] Hera McLeod: Cause like it's her

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[00:18:57] Hera McLeod: Yeah, and I also think if it comes down to a decision of hey, do you want to get these shots now or like in a month? I turned to her. I'm like, look, if there's a medical necessity for you to do it now versus next month. Then I'm going to be like, look, I'm going to be the tiebreaker here and you're doing it now.

But if the doctor is saying, it's a preference about whether or not, what schedule you want to be on I'm going to look to her and be like, what do you want to do? Do you want to get three now or two now and one later?

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[00:19:35] Hera McLeod: I mean, I think. He's an amazing kid guy, slash guy is a man now. He went into the military and now he's finishing his degree. I think like anybody who's lived through a tragedy like this. He probably has a long journey and honestly, anybody who's lived with my ex has got like a life therapy, right?

But he has a very, he's a very loving family and his mom's family. And I think, they have wrapped their arms around him and he went to them when he was 13, which, he still had very a long time with this crazy person. But I think he's, I think he's gonna be fine.

But I do think, like, whenever you think about, and I testify this to this when I testify in front of family court, trying to change things. I'm like, even if you don't think your kid is in trouble, right? If you might be able to say that Oh, I don't care about this issue because I either don't have kids or like my kids are never going to be family court.

My response to that is okay. But imagine the kid who has just been terrorized for the last 16 years. And next thing, he's knocking on your door and wants to take your daughter to prom. Are you going to be okay about how he was living. Or if you don't have kids, are you going to be okay when this child eventually work enters the workforce and then you're dealing with somebody who has acute trauma from what you have decided to ignore?

It's like we don't live in And isolate a society. Like we're all going to have to deal with each other and each other's kids.

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[00:21:04] Hera McLeod: Yeah. I just want people to start caring. I know

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[00:21:09] Hera McLeod: Yeah. It's just just start caring, just start thinking about something, somebody else, and then stop also thinking that these are like. I don't know if you've experienced isolated

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[00:21:18] Hera McLeod: that are just like, Oh, that was terrible. But that's not, that doesn't

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[00:21:21] Hera McLeod: Yeah. Oh, I've been doing this for 10 years.

e I have been, my son died in: 2012

[00:21:39] Ali Kessler: hear them too. And I'm blown away by the things that I hear that is still going on every day.

Yeah. Since Prince passed, what have you done and what do you want to see happen in the future?

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I've built a platform on social media speak to a lot of survivors through my platform. Legislative wise, I've done a lot of work with the state of Maryland because that's where my case was, right? We were able to get a bill passed a couple of years ago now that required judges to go through extra training related to child abuse and domestic violence cases, which is huge win because that's similar to cadence law.

It is in line with Kayden's law. 1 interesting thing about Kayden's laws as, there's funding associated with it. But states actually have to create laws in line with what law recommends. What we're trying to do in the state of Maryland. It's really hard because it has to be state by state, right? I was super excited when Kayden's law finally got into federal, but I think the challenge I see is it's just it feels like death by a million paper cuts trying to do this on the state level and trying to help people understand that there's fun, that there's funding associated with it, but they have to actually make moves.

Another thing that I'm trying to do in the state of Maryland, we've been trying to have a subsequent bill that requires the the social workers that are in the custody evaluation process to have a minimum education standard. Fascinatingly, the judges are fighting us and it's so weird because their fight is oh we have this already in the judge's rules, but in the judge's rules, it also says that they can ignore it.

So what's happening in the state of Maryland is that let's say you're a pedophile with lots of money to perhaps float the judge's way, the judge can let you hire your own custody evaluator that then says, Oh this person should have to go to one of those little camps, those reunifications.

And so it's crazy because it sounds like when you think about when you hear about reunifications camps, like it sounds like the crazy, like people are reading the same, right? It sounds like a cult. It's crazy. It sounds like a cult, but it also sounds I think people turn their ears off because they're like, oh, this must be a conspiracy theory.

But I'm like, no, I have met children who are now adults who have survived these. Sure.

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[00:24:10] Hera McLeod: She's incredible, but she has gone through hell and you listen to her story and you're like, I cannot believe this is happening in America.

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I just read a mother named Rachel, I forgot her last name. She was arrested in California because her child was sent to a reunification camp and she wouldn't allow it. It's crazy.

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On social media and the girl is brilliant. Like she started filming when they took them and they've had this whole social media campaign. I think they were finally returned, but I think, just looking at her, she's so brave to be able to do that as a teenager. But yeah, we've been trying to do that.

I also work with I'm on the board of a nonprofit called the supervised visitation network. Okay. The organization provides training for supervised visitation professionals which is critical because a lot of times people think it's babysitting and I'm like, it's not babysitting. It's a profession.

And some of the trainings that we provide, that's really helpful is a lot of domestic violence training. So people understand trauma response, they understand how to treat a case that. Where there is a domestic violence concern for example, if you are, if you're supervising a father who is not to know the location of where the ex wife is right.

It might be innocuous for someone to be like, oh, what school do you go to? Or how, what's your neighborhood like? But in those types of situations that's something that the supervisor should be like, no, sorry you can't have that information. So things like, just

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Yeah. What mindset you're dealing with someone.

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[00:26:06] Ali Kessler: I would love to get something like that here in Florida. We have Greyson's law, but we couldn't get it associated with Kayden's law to get that funding. But it's something that I feel very strongly about continuing and training and judges training and all of what you just said is something that I want to see happen in Florida.

So I'd love to talk more about that another time to see how we can help make that happen.

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And I'm like, they don't want to put it up for a vote because they don't want to vote against something that is so very clearly sensical. Yeah, but I was like, I cannot wait until some of these people run for reelection because I'm going to be out there on the ads being like, hey, they say they care about kids, but here's what

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And then just because it takes that's what it takes to make change is for it has to happen to you. I know people don't believe,

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[00:27:29] Ali Kessler: when I went through when I went to Tallahassee to get Greyson's law pass.

I was like, I'm going to have to run. I'm going to have to run.

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Like,

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[00:27:49] Hera McLeod: In the state of Maryland. I have been to so many legislative sessions to talk about family court and I remember this 1 session where this guy. He got up there and was like they were trying to change the legal marriage age and he was like Oh, but what would happen if like a 25 year old got a 16 year old pregnant?

Shouldn't he be able to legitimize the baby and I was like, you mean rape? That's great. Oh my god Yeah,

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[00:28:18] Hera McLeod: Yes. And they've elected this man. This this man is completely crazy. But they don't,

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I know in Florida, when we tried to get Greyson's law passed first time, we couldn't get it passed because it had words of course of control and they didn't like that. So we had to take it all out. Which is the same

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[00:28:51] Ali Kessler: Nobody should control anything.

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[00:29:01] Ali Kessler: we should all be continuing to scream to the mountaintops about, yeah it's abuse. That's the type of abuse that I went through and it killed my son.

I didn't have scars. I didn't have physical, but it's a pattern that if someone is using course of control to abuse. Someone that they are capable of sinister things.

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But I think that not having the scars, going to work every day and people not understanding that when you come home, you are going to be in hell.

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[00:29:40] Hera McLeod: I sometimes wonder had I had a black eye,

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[00:29:44] Hera McLeod: I have gotten the intervention that I really so desperately needed.

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Because I still can't, I still cried every single day. Even when Greyson was alive, I cried because I was being tormented and my, stint of motherhood was, Tarnished, I felt like, yeah. There has to be a better way. Now I'm curious, you say you, you speak to a lot of other parents going through similar things and you hear all these stories.

I know for me, it's really hard when they come to me for advice. What do you tell others?

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And I wanted to be able to have a body of work that I was really thoughtful about that could be that thing that. People going through it could read and realize that they weren't alone. And the 2nd piece was, to give legislators and advocates like a map of here's things you can change.

Look at all the things that went wrong. So it is both for, survivors, people going through it and also. People who are wanting to join the movement to change it. What the, number one advice for people is go to therapy, there's nothing wrong with the therapist.

You, I don't think it is possible to go through this level of trauma. Without seeing a therapist in the same way as if you were to break your leg and then not cast it and then you wonder why you can't walk. It's impossible to go through this and not get help unless you just want to continuously be in this place forever.

And I also think I've spoken to a lot of people who have lost children, which I think is like the I think pain is pain, but I think there is a certain level of devastation when you know that you can't go back and there is no fixing it for your child. I think what's important for people to understand is there is no right or wrong way to grieve.

And people need to give themselves some grace and also stop feeling like somebody is going to give you the answer of what to do yourself. For me, like I needed to figure out a way to still parent my son, even though he wasn't here, which is why I remain an advocate and I still speak out about it because it's how I parent my son.

But I also knew that needed to be a mom. I needed to be a mom again. I needed to, I need to move on with my life and I needed to do it my way, which is why I went and had a sperm donor because I'm like, I'm never going back.

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[00:32:09] Hera McLeod: I don't ever want to have to worry about it.

It's not that, look, there's some fantastic men in the world and I am not a man hater.

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[00:32:17] Hera McLeod: I don't ever want to co parent like full stop. I want to meet my person and I want to have a beautiful life with this person, but my kids are my kids. The decisions I make for my kids are going to be, you can be part of my village and my council, but I don't want to co parent.

So I, for me I needed to think, like, how do I keep living? Because I knew that I had two choices when Prince died. I could either, die with him, which is a choice, or I could keep living. And I thought to myself, I'm like, if I die, he's going to be completely dead. If I keep living I am the only thing left of him.

That is keeping him alive because his dad doesn't count sure. So yeah, like that's, I was like, if I'm going to actively make a choice to live, I need to actively choose to live well and not for him. Yeah, for him and for his sisters and just choose to be the best person that I can be and try to make it so that this thing that happened.

Yeah. Doesn't have to can have a positive effect on society, even if Prince won't be the one benefiting from it.

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Most of who I am and my only born child and I will not let him end my life as well.

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Sure. Upsetness or grief. And that's another reason I think the book has helped. Cause I'm like, look, I need you to read this and I need you to figure out what you need to do for yourself. Cause I can't save you. You need to save yourself. There has to be a moment where you're like, this is what I want.

This is what I need. I can give you the words to be like, you need to go find that and trust yourself. But.

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[00:34:34] Hera McLeod: tell them therapy, right? Don't use your therapist.

They're expensive and they're not good ones.

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[00:34:39] Hera McLeod: And so find a good therapist. Find your kid a good therapist. That's super important. And also focus on what you can control. One of the biggest regrets that I have from my time with Prince is that I was not a very good mom. Because I was consuming.

I doubt that. I felt like I wasn't my best because I was so incredibly consumed. With trying to save him. And I think back to those times I remember Prince used to take my phone and hide it in his little toy car.

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[00:35:11] Hera McLeod: And I'm like, I tell parents a lot. I'm just like, okay, keep fighting.

Sure. Do that. But. Don't do it at the expense of missing out on the moments that you're never getting back, right? And also realize that you can only control so much, right? Like most kids are not gonna die the way Prince and Greyson died, right? Thank God. They will probably live through terrible situations, but I'm like if you can be that child's rock and safe place, That might be the only thing you can do, right?

You may not be able to control that the kid goes to his dad, right? Or mom, but you can control what their experience is when they're with you. So that's what I tell parents a lot. I'm like, you focus on you and right. And not the trash that you can't control. Okay, he's not paying child support.

Yes. You're with a deadbeat. Like he's not going to pay child support. But don't get wrapped around the axle about that. Do the best you can for your kid.

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[00:36:10] Hera McLeod: Honestly, and that's the thing.

It's I can't be mad at people who do that. I wish I had that option.

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[00:36:18] Hera McLeod: but I'll tell you like. The asylum laws internationally are not our friend. So that could end up being, that could end up being, that could end up backfiring hard.

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[00:36:51] Hera McLeod: I think the scare that I think that the part that will drive parents crazy is the thought that they can prevent it, right? Look back at what you did. You did everything you could do, right? And it's impossible to like, go down this spiral of crazy to try to think one step ahead of a crazy person.

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[00:37:12] Hera McLeod: you did the best you could and it still ended the way that it did. And I did the best I could and it still ended the way that it did. Like

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[00:37:21] Hera McLeod: But that's the thing.

I think I made my biggest mistakes were made. In the relationship with that man not reading the red flags and getting out of it. And even when I became pregnant, frankly, the best chance I had was to lie to him and not put him on the birth certificate and just vanish.

And I have thought about this over and over again. There were things that I wish I knew that I just couldn't know at the time, like the life insurance, like I called around cause I was worried about it. I just never could know.

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[00:37:54] Hera McLeod: I did. Also problematic. Their names have been changed the book to a pseudo. And I think they probably just. I think most people don't assume that someone's going to be this crazy. So they make decisions based on thinking the person is a rational human being. So I can't say they were bad.

I spent 150, 000 trying to save him in a year. Is there something that

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And in hindsight, yeah, I was paying so much money. They probably should have vetted all of it. But I don't know if that was like common enough practice for them to have done it. Like they, they also assumed that she had a license. So perhaps, then I also think it's okay, maybe I could have checked, but don't know that would have changed anything.

So I think eventually, it may have bought him another couple of months. But I think eventually he was going to get him at some point.

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[00:39:02] Hera McLeod: I think that there were things in his story that didn't add up. I think that it was, there were moments within the six months that the mask fell a little bit, like he would either get mad at his son in a way that it was like a little bit irrational or something like that that that was off.

And then even at the six month mark I wasn't sure what I was looking at. I thought he was, like, having some sort of depressed episode, and I think I spent most of the relationship trying to get him back to the person I thought he was instead of realizing "oh, wait, this crazy person was him, and the other one was an act."

Did he ever go to therapy? Oh, no. I, yeah, but I don't even think, he's not a good candidate for therapy either. You can't be a psycho in therapy

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[00:39:55] Hera McLeod: He had a good one though, because my ex had a psych eval during the first case.

And they called out that he had narcissistic personality disorder. Yep. So did John. They saw it. I think the hard part is we all know there's a spectrum of sociopathy or whatever. Yeah. These people are like, your ex and my ex are definitely on the far end of the psychopath spectrum.

But I think that there is generally a hesitance in the psychological community or the community of psychology to say that someone is a psychopath.

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[00:40:28] Hera McLeod: I don't know, like I did all the things like. No, absolutely. Forensic therapists come and point out all the things that we knew about him that were on the scale.

The narcissist personality psychopath scale, it just didn't

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So that's a problem.

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But our society accepts it. It's like people look at it and they're like, oh, that's fine. It just means he's powerful. And I'm like, no, it means he's crazy.

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[00:41:34] Hera McLeod: He wasn't crazy. Yeah, I don't know. I wish that there was something I could tell people in the system to do that will change the outcome. I think the hard part is that it's similar to when you have an illness that has no cure. And you join like a you join a trial and they tell you like, Oh, this is unlikely to help you.

But the information we get from this will help people in the future. And that doesn't feel good to hear. But that's really the bottom line is people who are going through it right now. These changes that we're trying to make are unlikely to help their situation immediately. We hope that it will get to the point where people in the future will not have to deal with the same stuff that we had to deal with.

But the reality on the ground is that, it doesn't matter what state a child is born in, they're not safe if they have an unsafe parent.

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[00:42:27] Hera McLeod: Yeah,

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It's the hardest because I feel like only the same parent has that gut instinct and it's hard to prove. Now, everyone can read all about your story in your book, correct?

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[00:42:48] Ali Kessler: I just started mine. So I hear you. It's going to be a while.

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I'm actually I wrote a fiction novel in parallel that I'm hoping to publish because I was like, yeah, really? Like I need an escape from this. Started a children's book. Also, exactly. So you need to get those. You need to have that balance because it's such a hard and dark subject.

Yeah, no,

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[00:43:23] Hera McLeod: I firmly believe that Prince chose me to be his mom. I think our kids find us for certain reasons. I sometimes laugh and talk to him and say, Yo, did you have to choose me for this?

But I think I will always grieve him because He was the love of my life and I only got to know him for 15 months, but, I think

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So it's little things like that, that do make it a little bit easier to wake up in the morning.

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[00:44:17] Ali Kessler: you should send a copy to all of them.

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[00:44:23] Ali Kessler: I can't wait to read it. I actually just ordered it on Amazon. So where can everyone get it? Is it available everywhere? Okay.

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So you can go on there and buy it. Barnesandnoble. com. Any of the booksellers should be able to get

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[00:44:45] Hera McLeod: Okay,

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If you have any questions for me I'd love to answer

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Yes to know what you're doing with that and if there's any way I can

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And that's really all that I can do at this point.

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[00:45:54] Ali Kessler: so

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[00:46:03] Ali Kessler: I, yeah, no, I'm a writer. So I write blogs, I write articles, but I've never written a book and I've never had it be so personal and raw and, things like that.

But like you, I want everyone to know what goes on. I want them to hear our story because these things happen. And if we don't tell them. No one would believe it nobody

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Sadly, no, but the best part of it was really just to connect with other people who are in that writing process and having to grapple with certain things like, I know in memoirs, what's hard is you're telling a true story, right? And so you have to be careful about what, like how you say things about certain people's living and things like that.

So it was helpful to be with it's your truth. Yeah, but it's also, it's tough. And it's also hard. It's also why it's harder to traditionally publish in my opinion with a memoir, because people get really weird about oh what if you can triangulate and know who the person is and I'm like I don't know that's all you like, the person said these things, so I can't really protect them when it comes to what they actually said

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[00:47:27] Hera McLeod: Which is. Yeah, I don't know. I guess I wonder do you wish that you had a day in court, or was it, do you feel like this was easier than having to do that?

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In this grief, it's just me rather than him feeling something as well. But then again, at the end of the day, he's dead and I don't have to deal with that part. And I don't have to, I want to say, I don't think about it because I think about it all the time, but

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[00:48:01] Ali Kessler: he is in hell and that's the place where he belongs.

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[00:48:16] Ali Kessler: And then it's if he was going to kill himself anyway, why did he have to take an innocent baby with him?

Yeah. Anyway I thank you for your time and I hope we can chat again and further. And I know we both have some big things that we want to see happen and then I'd love to help in any way I can.

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[00:48:36] Ali Kessler: Yeah. All right. I will talk to you soon.

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