The Legacy of a Lost Child: The Far-Reaching Impact of the Etan Patz Case

What if one child's tragic disappearance could spark a nationwide conversation that changed the landscape of child safety forever? That's precisely what happens as we dive deep into the haunting story of six-year-old Etan Patz, whose face was projected onto Times Square buildings and whose story inspired laws and projects that are still in effect today. 

In the chilling tale of Etan's abduction and murder, we scrutinize the investigations that followed, delving into the intricate web of suspects and highlighting the role played by local pedophile Jose Ramos. We also delve into the psychological and emotional turmoil endured by Eatons family. Shifting gears, we explore the wider implications of this high-profile criminal trial. Going beyond the headlines, we illustrate the challenges law enforcement faced while collecting evidence, and the enduring dialogue this case sparked about child safety. Ultimately, we go beyond the headlines to the tunnel vision that can potentially blind detectives from crucial leads and the importance of multiple perspectives in criminal investigations. Join us as we navigate this key chapter in criminal justice history and its unshakeable impact on child safety in America.

CBS news 6/8/2019
BBC news 5/25/2012
NBC New York 11/21/2016

Contact us at: whatweloseintheshadows@gmail.com



Background music by Michael Shuller Music 

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:11

Good morning and welcome to what we Lose in the Shadows.

Speaker 2 0:14

A father, daughter true crime podcast.

Speaker 1 0:16

My name is Jameson Keyes.

Speaker 2 0:17

I'm Caroline.

Speaker 1 0:19

Good morning Caroline. How are you?

Speaker 2 0:22

I'm doing well. Finally not sick anymore, so that's good that one took me out. I think it was RSV the pulmonary disease. It was horrible. Make sure you guys get your shots, because it was a bad cold.

Speaker 1 0:36

Yeah, more than that, more than that.

Speaker 2 0:39

Yeah, it really like it competed for first place with COVID. For me I was down and out bad.

Speaker 1 0:44

Wow, I'm very lucky I've so far not come wood.

Speaker 2 0:49

Yeah, not come wood, you need to get the vaccine.

Speaker 1 0:52

Avoid it both, but yeah. So a couple things I wanted to mention. First of all, we are now available on all the major platforms. We've all been available on Spotify and iHeart Radio and things like that, but now we're also available on Apple Music as well Apple Podcasts so that's a great thing. Also wanted to mention we have some new listeners since the last time we mentioned this New listeners in Annapolis, maryland, rochester.

Speaker 2 1:21

Minnesota, oh yay.

Speaker 1 1:25

And Jamestown, rhode Island, internationally. We also have some folks listening in Poznan, which is in Poland, and Brussels, of course, which is in Belgium, so welcome everyone.

Speaker 2 1:35

That's so cool. Wow, I think I'm going to visit Belgium soon.

Speaker 1 1:40

You have some Belgian ancestry, so yes.

Speaker 2 1:45

Today's trigger warnings are child abduction, child sexual assault and murder of a child. These cases one that has helped launch many projects and programs that we know today. Some of those projects started as bills and have become laws, some of them policies for police officers to follow, so children can hopefully be found quicker. That being said, this case is extremely upsetting. Today we'll be discussing Atom Pates and his legacy. Do you remember this case?

Speaker 1 2:18

I do not. No, you don't Okay.

Speaker 2 2:21

Maybe you will remember a little bit about it because it's very famous, sadly, infamous, infamous. Yeah, on May 25th 1979, a young boy named Atom Pates was about to leave for school. He was living in Lower Manhattan with both parents. He was six years old and on May 25th his parents had finally let him walk to the bus stop by himself for the very first time.

Speaker 1 2:47

Oh my.

Speaker 2 2:47

God, for the very first time I know he was two blocks away from the bus stop, so close. He left the apartment wearing a t-shirt that said future flight captain, and that part really really made me tear up when I was researching because, as you'll see, this is just I mean, it's just so sad that that's what he was wearing as well. I remember as a child fighting you and mom to let me walk around by myself.

Speaker 1 3:13

Yes.

Speaker 2 3:14

The taste of freedom was so sweet as a child, being able to be in the world alone. It was a different feeling than if you're with your parents, you know, like as a child not being supervised and like just looking around. It's just, it's very interesting as a child, so I understand, you know.

Speaker 1 3:30

Now I can remember this, when I was a child, a million years ago, and the funny thing was your grandma she was the same thing, because I was. I was probably in elementary school and she was trying to fight tooth and nail to make sure that didn't happen. But I put my foot down and the funny thing was she gave me the illusion that I was walking by myself and you just followed her. Well, yeah, because I hysterically and this is terrible in this very, very kind of a tragic case, but I remember that, yeah, I caught glimpse of her periodically ducking behind trash cans and trees, but easily within eyesight. So she, until she see me get, make it to the school. So, yes, it's, it's, it's a parents kind of you know, that's, that's just something they're built, wired into. They don't want to let them go.

Speaker 2 4:23

So that day someone decided to rob Aeton of his freedom at school. His teacher noticed that he wasn't there but did not report it to the principal. I'm not sure why that was the decision that the teacher made, but that took many hours away from the investigation. Aetons parents realized he went missing in the evening after he did not return home from school, but he never made it on the bus stop.

Speaker 1 4:50

Oh no.

Speaker 2 4:51

So he's been gone for hours 12, could have been 12, 10, 12 hours. Over 100 police officers and a team of bloodhounds took to the streets of New York city to look for the boy. However, they came up empty handed, and this pattern would continue for weeks and then months. The police and his parents went to great lengths to make the public aware of Aeton being missing, and he was one of the first children to be fit featured on a milk carton.

Speaker 1 5:21

Oh, wow.

Speaker 2 5:22

Mm, hmm. His face was also projected onto the side of buildings in time square, which I didn't know was a tactic used by detectives. I don't think I've ever seen that when I was in times where projected onto buildings.

Speaker 1 5:33

I'd never heard of that.

Speaker 2 5:34

Mm. Hmm, yeah, he was. He was like lit up on the buildings before they were like backlit Right.

Speaker 1 5:40

They used to be projected, right yeah.

Speaker 2 5:43

So his face was everywhere at that time period and 1983, so that would be four years after he disappeared. Reagan decided, or dedicated May 25th to Aeton by proclaiming it to be National Missing Children's Day. The police started to consider a local pedophile named Jose Ramos. They wondered if this could be his doing. He was in the right area and he was also somehow close friends with Aetons babysitter. Horrible connection A babysitter and a pedophile. I don't. I don't know how that could be on accident of like a relationship. I don't know, but that's just ridiculous and that's the last time we'll hear about it somehow.

Speaker 1 6:26

Really.

Speaker 2 6:26

Yes, ramos had been known to try and get boys to visit him in the drainage pipe area nearby Aetons house and that's where Ramos was living at the time. He was attempting to get them into the pipes so he could molest them Literally terrifying something out of a nightmare horror film like scary scary in the drainage pipes terrifying.

Speaker 2 6:53

The police searched the drainage pipes later on and found photographs of Ramos and young boys, one of which looked a lot like Aetons. Upon further investigation, police realized that Ramos had been in a Pennsylvania jail for a different molestation charge against a young child. A Deputy States Attorney General named Stuart Grabois was assigned the case against Jose Ramos and he went to interview him in prison. When he interviewed Ramos, ramos told him that he remembers taking a young boy that day with the intention to rape him. Ramos said that he was 90% sure it was the same one that he had seen in the pictures of everywhere all over the place, but he didn't know or use the little boy's name Aeton. He did not know that name.

Speaker 2 7:46

Fast forward to Grabois interviewing a jailhouse informant that had been told to extract information from Ramos about Aeton's case. The jailhouse informant definitely delivered on his duty. He claimed that Ramos had told him that he knew it was Aeton and he drew a map of the school bless route for him. He said that he knew Aeton was on the third bus stop where he would be able to take him from. Wow, but remember it was the first time he ever walked alone. It's weird, conflicting information. It's just confusing, right? It's so strange.

Speaker 1 8:25

I think a lot of pedophiles are people that always looking for an opening right.

Speaker 2 8:33

Yeah, no, that's true, that is a good point, that is a good point.

Speaker 1 8:35

So yeah, so he might not have realized that that was the day he would be walking alone. It's just, he was always looking for a weakness in him, yeah.

Speaker 2 8:43

However, there was no body and no evidence that was considered to be more than circumstantial. The prosecution was not confident that the case could be made without any reasonable doubt. So in 2001, aeton was declared legally dead. It had been 20 years since he had been taken and no real evidence of where he went, what happened to him and he was six at the time. Damn, it's so sad. In 2004, aeton's parents, stan and Julie Pates, took Ramos to civil court where they won over $2 million. They never collected that sum of money.

Speaker 2 9:23

I'm sure he didn't have any money to get them Right. They did it to prove a point, I think, and they did it to hold him accountable for something. I guess to feel some control, I'm assuming.

Speaker 1 9:35

Right, stan Pates Still in prison.

Speaker 2 9:37

Oh, okay, yeah, stan Pates had sent Ramos a photo of Aeton every year on the anniversary of his disappearance, with a message on the back that said what did you do to my little boy, so sad. Ramos maintained his innocence publicly. He said that he never murdered Aeton and he continued that statement. He continued saying that all through his sentence and he served 20 years from a station of a different child. He was released in 2012. The same year, the FBI dug up a suspected crime scene via tip. Someone tipped them off that this could be a crime scene.

Speaker 1 10:18

Right.

Speaker 2 10:19

And it was a basement of one of the Pates' neighbors. It had been renovated the same year that Aeton went missing.

Speaker 1 10:26

Gotcha.

Speaker 2 10:27

After excavating the basement, they found nothing, inclusive. Then again, that same year, 2012, a man confessed to the murder of Aeton Pates.

Speaker 1 10:37

Really.

Speaker 2 10:39

The man who had confessed was not Jose Ramos. It was 51-year-old Pedro Hernandez. During the year Aeton went missing, Hernandez had only been 18 years old and now he's 51 when he's confessing.

Speaker 1 10:53

Wow.

Speaker 2 10:55

He was apparently working at a bodega on the street corner, a street that Aeton would have been walking past. He did go into the store. Aeton did go into the store and get a soda with a dollar that his parents had given him at some point. He said that he kidnapped Aeton, strangled him and threw him into the trash.

Speaker 1 11:14

Oh no.

Speaker 2 11:16

Literally one of the worst things I've ever heard.

Speaker 1 11:17

Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 2 11:18

Like so disturbing, so disturbing on so many levels. So how was he found, you may be asking. Well, a man named Jose Lopez, a family member of Hernandez by marriage, went to the police with his suspicions in 2012. He said that it was kind of an open family secret suspicion-ish thing that Hernandez had confessed to the Church of murdering Aeton in 1980, the year after.

Speaker 1 11:47

Catholic Church, catholic Mass, yeah Catholic.

Speaker 2 11:49

Mass and I'm not sure of the actually I don't know anything about like Catholic Mass, and if they are required by law not to tell. I would assume, that they should be able to tell on murder charges.

Speaker 1 12:01

Well, no.

Speaker 2 12:02

They're not supposed to.

Speaker 1 12:03

No, they're not supposed to, because well, it's the, it's the sanctity of the confessional is what they say. The things that people confess to God and confess to the priest aren't necessarily something that they have to tell the police, or even allowed to tell the police because they can't be subpoenaed, do you think?

Speaker 2 12:25

I feel like they could be subpoenaed.

Speaker 1 12:26

Yeah, but I don't know that they, I don't know that they.

Speaker 2 12:29

I feel like they could be charged if they don't.

Speaker 1 12:30

Well, so it's think of it this way. Okay, so if, if you're a priest, right, you're, you're, you're kind of have a fiduciary responsibility, just like someone that you know, let's say, you know, I like a member of the press or something like that, right, they know things, or they're you know, they, they know about sources and you know for their stories, and they aren't always compelled or they can't be compelled, or similar to psychiatrists or doctors or something like that. They can't be compelled legally to confess or tell what the person confessed to them, and a priest is similarly.

Speaker 2 13:09

But journalists, doctors and therapists all do have the they're. They're supposed to go and tell the police if they are thinking that someone will hurt themselves or hurt other people. Doctors and therapists and then journalists are just there. They have to tell the police if.

Speaker 1 13:27

They don't. They sometimes hide behind the not hide behind. I shouldn't say it that way, because they, they, they just refuse to give their sources and things like that, even if it is a murder, even if it's in a murder.

Speaker 2 13:40

Now, a lot of times they will or they'll get sued, though I feel like they've definitely been sued.

Speaker 1 13:43

They know they'll. They'll be held in contempt of court, basically horrible, right, but but that's part of the gig, man, if you're a journalist and you don't want to review your sources and that's part of the you know freedom of the press then they won't do it, you know. But you know it's that way in a lot of things, it's that way in a lot of professions. Um, a lawyer, for example, if, if, if, if you're representing me as an attorney and I confess something to you, you can't be compelled to.

Speaker 2 14:10

Really yeah, even if you're subpoenaed.

Speaker 1 14:13

You can be subpoenaed, but you can refuse because it's uh, you know, client privilege. Uh, you know.

Speaker 2 14:18

Client attorney privilege.

Speaker 1 14:18

Yeah.

Speaker 2 14:19

That's interesting. That is so interesting. I've never really thought about that.

Speaker 1 14:22

Now I've also heard of different times when priests have come forward. Or or figure out a way to Let the police know.

Speaker 2 14:30

Exactly, yeah, so well. I wish that had happened in this case, because there were so many victims and their pain was so prolonged, not knowing what had happened to their child or to their family member, or to their friend or to their student, or you know what I mean. Like there's so many victims that were hurt by the 30, some year gap, 40 year gap. This could have been transferred into a like a closure point where they can heal, hopefully and of course, that's still horrible Struggling. I'm sure there's so much you know suffering after that too, but I do think that it is easier to heal when you know what happened and when you're not still supposed to be searching for them.

Speaker 1 15:16

I'm sure you never heal. I'm sure you, I'm sure you don't. But there's, you can find a way to cope with it. You can find a way, but but heal, I don't think you ever do. I'm sure you don't, but I think that it's better to know you know it's better to know Did they ever find the remains of the boy or?

Speaker 2 15:30

No, they never did.

Speaker 1 15:32

Terrible.

Speaker 2 15:32

Yeah, hernandez was charged and indicted for second degree murder and first degree kidnapping. I'm not sure why second degree murder. I guess because they can't prove that he was.

Speaker 1 15:43

It wasn't premeditated.

Speaker 2 15:44

Yeah, premeditated. I don't know. I guess. As the trial went on, the defense team pointed out one huge mistake that the police made while collecting his confession. Can you guess what it was?

Speaker 1 15:56

They did Miranda's.

Speaker 2 15:57

Yep.

Speaker 2 15:58

Oh my God, they skipped over his Miranda rights. The court had to decide if his confession was legally admissible or not because Hernandez had not been made aware of his rights before confessing. His trial was finally taken into court in 2015. So this is like 30, 40 years. This is 36 years after the crime. Actually, the math kicked in later, after I had said that it was 36 years, and I can only assume that the family is finally feeling some relief knowing that the monster who took their precious boy their whole life right Sure Away, is finally going to be tried in court. Only after all the litigation had finished. The court ruled in a mistrial because one juror did not agree that he was guilty. He was tried again in 2017.

Speaker 1 16:48

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 16:49

So that was only five years ago at the time of recording this. So after nine days of deliberation, the jury finally found him guilty on both murder and kidnapping charges.

Speaker 1 17:01

Thank God.

Speaker 2 17:03

Yeah, he was sentenced to 25 years to life in April of 2017 and he will not be eligible for parole until 2042. This case was one of the first cases that had the country shaken. People, especially the parents, were on edge. This case started the conversation about stranger danger. Having parents discuss this with their children and just having in the back of their minds has no doubt saved many lives.

Speaker 1 17:32

Right.

Speaker 2 17:33

And it has ignited an intuition. I think into parents now because I've been told and I've read that back then people weren't as careful as they are now with strangers. Now, your mom, my grandma being a little different, but I think you know commonly it was a little more lax with people's children.

Speaker 1 17:53

Yeah, I mean, yeah, especially I know we lived in a smaller town so it wasn't thought to be as dangerous. But to my mother it was all danger, it was all her responsibility to make sure. Now my father was a lot more lax in terms of that. He would have yeah, you can walk up to the corner store, you can, you know, while you're up there, give me a paper, that kind of thing. But no, not her. She was rabid in her protective instincts.

Speaker 2 18:24

Yeah, I mean, I think that's really important to be as like, the caretaker of a child. So in response to this case the case of Etan the United States Congress passed the Missing Children's Act of 1982. And that led to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children Foundation being established. That center is known for providing assistance to families and law enforcement agencies in locating missing children and providing education and prevention programs to help prevent child abductions and exploitation of children.

Speaker 1 19:02

Right.

Speaker 2 19:03

The other thing that I wanted to mention was it started thoughts of an Amber Alert system. Now, the Amber Alert system is a notification system that helps law enforcement agency quickly provide information about children missing children in the area.

Speaker 1 19:21

Right.

Speaker 2 19:22

And nationally to the public, so it started a conversation about why we need that. However, the Amber Alert system was founded by someone who was thinking about a missing little girl named Amber oh okay. So it started a conversation about it and then a different case started that system being used, the true like founding of that system.

Speaker 1 19:54

Oh wow. And which also spawned is it? Is it called an Amber Alert if it's a senior citizen, or is it called a?

Speaker 2 20:00

Silver Alert. No, it's a Silver Alert.

Speaker 1 20:01

Silver Alert, yeah so it spawned all kind of good things it did. I wonder how many, hard to tell, but I wonder how many lives that?

Speaker 2 20:08

has saved, oh my God, the Amber Alert, yeah, dozens, dozens of lives, I'm sure. I think it's tough, you know, because it's kind of like you're always in a state of like anxiety when it comes to like your children not being in your sight. Right, that's really intense.

Speaker 1 20:24

It is. And you know you have this balancing act because, as a parent, you, first of all, you want to make sure that your children are always safe, always fine. You can't do that, obviously, because they're not always in your presence, right, right, but that's certainly something that you're always striving for. But at the same time, you want to be, you want to give your children some level of, you know, of freedom so scary it is, and it's this terrible balancing act. And look at this family, the one time that they let him walk to the bus off himself.

Speaker 2 21:01

That has to be, that has to haunt them from that they told this I know it feels so bad.

Speaker 1 21:06

It feels so bad, it's certainly not their fault, oh my.

Speaker 2 21:08

God? No, not at all. The blame lies solely on this.

Speaker 1 21:12

SOB criminal.

Multiple Perspectives in Criminal Investigations

Speaker 2 21:14

Yeah, Of course, Absolutely. But yeah, I can only imagine that that's like you know how they feel.

Speaker 1 21:20

So the first guy, I mean he confessed to, that's weird, I mean it's super weird.

Speaker 2 21:27

It happens a lot, though, like we see it all the time but they had, like they were so sure it was him for like 15, 20 years. They were sure it was him, which is another reason why it's important, like for detectives, not to get tunnel vision, because there are other people and sometimes people will just confess to crimes for no reason.

Speaker 1 21:45

Right.

Speaker 2 21:45

Which is so ridiculous. I just don't understand. Like it's like almost like, you see, like I'm famous, like it's just like trying to make a name for yourself, I guess, in like the worst possible way, which is ridiculous to me. But right, that's my guess, well, and and, and and.

Speaker 1 21:59

Yes, sometimes you, you jumped to the wrong conclusion. I think a couple of cases ago we talked about the Roxanne Woods case where they one of the detectives on the very night that she was murdered told the husband I think it was you and I'm going to prove it I'm going to put you in jail. That kind of closed you know that doesn't do anyone any good.

Speaker 2 22:19

Especially not like telling the person yeah, why would he tell the person that they were going to do that Well?

Speaker 1 22:27

it's a technique. I think sometimes it's been seen that if if you're strong with them, they'll actually break and say okay you're right, you know, but but you wonder how many, how many times that if they hold someone in and they, you know, they question them for three, four, five hours and finally they just reach a breaking point and say yes, yes, yes, just let's stop, can I? Can I just write something, sign something, and and you wonder how many times that has ended up in a, you know, in the wrong person. Go ahead, jo.

Speaker 2 22:57

Oh yeah, it definitely has. I mean, I know like I've seen a few with like the Innocence Project, have you?

Speaker 1 23:01

heard of that no.

Speaker 2 23:03

So it's a, an organization that and we're just talking right now, so I'm not I don't have the their thing up, but this is just my own words of what the Innocence Project does. I'm sure they do many, many, many things, but from my understanding, one thing that they focus on is getting people out of prison who are truly innocent.

Speaker 1 23:25

Right.

Speaker 2 23:26

And oftentimes like they've served years, years and years. Like, how do you even like figure out how to like live your life after that? You know what I mean. How do you not like hold a grudge against everyone? Like that's tough. That is tough, which is why it's really, really, really important for detectives to have multiple people multiple like lanes and avenues to follow you know what I mean To try and figure out who the criminal is.

Speaker 1 23:52

Sure, because you wanna have a lot of different eyes on this, you know, on the particular case, right?

Speaker 2 23:58

Yup, because different people see different things. Yeah, that's a good point.

Speaker 1 24:00

That's a good point, yeah, and I know it's always good to. I know in different cases we've studied so they handed the case off to different people and the reason for that is it's always good to have a new set of eyes on something. Absolutely, it's always good to start back from the beginning and work the case through again, because a lot of times there's one small, very crucial thing that's missed and with a new person on the case, with a new person looking at it from frame one all the way through the end, sometimes they catch that.

Speaker 2 24:27

I mean that and it kind of reminds me of like when you're looking for your keys and you look in like all the places and you're just like looking and looking and looking, and then you have someone else come and try and find them and they're in one of the places that you look and you're like, oh my God, I literally overlooked them. So like that I feel like probably happens in these cases too, where you're just like I knew that, I knew that, but I just didn't, it didn't click, you know.

Speaker 1 24:51

Right.

Speaker 2 24:51

So I definitely think it's really important to have, like a strong team working on the case and also new eyes, because sometimes I think people get a little jaded in their everyday jobs, right, they're just like it's this person, it's always the husband, it's always the boyfriend, and for good reason. We see it time and time again. It typically is, and I know the statistic of women being murdered. 80% of those murders are from their, or happen because of their boyfriend or husband. So it's a high statistic. Yeah, aren't you lucky, I'm a lesbian.

Speaker 1 25:31

It does honestly.

Speaker 2 25:32

I mean it's not as high, but all to say, like people get jaded and they think it's always this, it's always this. I've made generalizations and those generalizations just are not true. You try to make generalizations, as a human, about everything, but things are too complicated. You can't make generalizations. You just have to follow your gut and then also ask other people for their opinions.

Speaker 1 25:57

That's how you really get it. I was just about to say follow your gut, which is an axiom that they use a lot in different cases. I was just following my gut, but you have to also realize that sometimes your gut is wrong.

Speaker 2 26:09

It is, it is, and it's like you have to think about it. I think about this often, actually, because when is your gut? This is a little bit different, but when is your gut, not actually your intuition, but your anxiety? You know what I mean. When is your gut not your gut but it's actually just paranoia, unfounded paranoia, because if I'm on the Metro and I see a man by himself that looks at me right when I look at him, doesn't matter if he has ill intentions or not, I think he does and I'm terrified and I'm moving cars and if he follows, I mean I'm out, I'm taking an Uber, I'm leaving and I'm taking an Uber Terrified, terrified. And it's like it's tough sometimes to know. I think, as a woman, as people in general as well is it my intuition that's saving me, or is it me being paranoid and not being able to enjoy my life?

Speaker 1 27:03

Or is it some preconceived notion that you have in your head? Yep, because I remember-.

Speaker 2 27:07

But that's my paranoia. You know what I mean, sure.

Speaker 1 27:09

When I was teaching in Japan and this has been years and years ago, now decades ago and I got an elevator and there was a young mother and a young child and I walk onto the elevator right and you know me fairly well, i'm- Kind of yeah, what's your name? Again. I mean I'm I'm always trying to figure out what the right thing is and I'm always trying to do the right thing.

Speaker 2 27:34

Definitely.

Speaker 1 27:35

And I'm certainly a danger to no one, no so, but I walk into the elevator and I'm different, and I'm larger than they are, and I'm a foreigner and I, i-.

Speaker 2 27:44

They don't know you, yeah.

Speaker 1 27:45

They don't know me and I have on like a black leather jacket, I probably look like some sort of a mafia enforcer or something like that.

Speaker 2 27:50

They were like oh my God, that looks like the guy from the Godfather.

Speaker 1 27:53

Right, right and so and so they like they got really nervous and I could tell they were nervous and scary and it was. It was later at night and we're the only ones in the elevator. I felt so bad for them that I got off a floor or two earlier.

Speaker 2 28:05

That's great. Yeah, that's great Because I didn't want to scare them Exactly More than I did. No, I appreciate that and I appreciate when guys or just larger people like that, I can't tell, like if they're Right.

Speaker 1 28:19

What their intention is, or whatever.

Speaker 2 28:21

Like I just appreciate when people who are not obviously 90, you know like kind of give me some space or speed up and go around me, sure, or switch sides, because it, like I get, I get in my head like I'll be walking and I'm like, oh my God, am I going to die? Like it gets really, really intense.

Speaker 1 28:43

Right.

Speaker 2 28:43

For a lot of women, I think you know, and I tend to not go out by myself at night, which is definitely a good tactic you know to use, but also like then I talk to my other friends and they're like no, I go out by myself all the time.

Speaker 1 28:57

Why would?

Speaker 2 28:57

I limit myself, and it's like. It's true, though it's like why do I have to limit myself because people are shitty? Because people are shitty, like, that's so lame, Like.

Speaker 2 29:07

I get it, and I definitely don't want to like go out by myself and put myself in danger. But also, like, if I need something from, like, the corner store, I have to wait until the morning. I have to suffer. Like what, if I need a tampon and I can't go get one, that sucks. You know what I mean? It's just like what. Like there's some things that you do have to just go and get.

Speaker 1 29:30

Right sure.

Speaker 2 29:30

And so it's like it's so, so interesting how people approach the same like approach the same issue, because I do know a lot of like women who are my age and who will go, you know, and they're not scared, they're like, well, like I'm living my life and I'm just like you know what. There is definitely some freedom in that and it's just it's so sticky and it's kind of like what you said, like a balancing act, like I feel like everything in life is just like a balancing act and you can't make any generalizations but you have to listen to your gut, and it's just like it's so complicated.

Speaker 1 30:04

It is absolutely, and as a man, you know, I think we're, you know we're much less.

Speaker 2 30:10

Definitely.

Speaker 1 30:11

Like, if I had to run to the store, you know late at night, I'd so what? I have to run to the store late at night. I have to be smart about it as a cisgendered man.

Speaker 2 30:17

Yeah, I think, like trans, men probably feel this, feel a similar thing to like, because they know what it's like to have been, like you know, a woman in some sense, or have been seen as a woman not as a woman, but has been, have been seen as a woman you know, Right, and yeah, it's really interesting. Follow the show on whatever streaming site you're listening on.

Speaker 1 30:39

And remember. All of the source material will be available in the show notes.

Speaker 2 30:43

And follow us on Instagram at what we lose in the shadows and let us know if you want to hear a specific case.

Speaker 1 30:49

Or if you just want to give us some feedback.

Speaker 2 30:52

OK, join us in the shadows next Tuesday. Bye.