Murders to Music: Crime Scene to Music Scene (Streamline Events and Entertainment)
Come on a ride along with a Veteran Homicide Detective as the twists and turns of the job suddenly end his career and nearly his life; discover how something wonderful is born out of the Darkness. Embark on the journey from helping people on their worst days, to bringing life, excitement and smiles on their best days.
Murders to Music: Crime Scene to Music Scene (Streamline Events and Entertainment)
Story of Survival: Chilling Memoir of Survival, Multiple Kidnappings and a Search for Justice
The most terrifying monsters don't hide under beds—they live among us, sometimes as the people we trust or love. Cheyenne's story begins in a childhood bedroom where her mother kept her prisoner for years, plucking her from school and isolating her from the world under the guise of an unhealthy "love" that masked severe abuse.
When her mother died, Cheyenne stepped into the world at 18 with deep psychological wounds that made her vulnerable to predators. She soon met a charismatic, attractive man who seemed different—until he wasn't. The cycle of abuse continued as he isolated her, controlled her appearance, and eventually held her captive multiple times, threatening her with a sword when she tried to escape.
Through tears and raw honesty, Cheyenne recounts being drugged against her will, forced to pose for photos on dark backroads, and hearing her boyfriend's chilling words: "A girl like you can easily go for a few grand on the dark market." Her eventual escape came through quick thinking at a gas station, but the nightmare wasn't over.
What makes this episode particularly powerful is how it exposes the failures of our justice system. Despite reporting her kidnappings, police dismissed Cheyenne as unreliable—a drug user caught in the domestic violence cycle of returning to her abuser. Even when her attacker confessed years later to every crime, justice remained elusive due to technicalities.
Yet this isn't just a story of trauma—it's a testament to resilience. Today, Cheyenne is a certified life coach pursuing education to become a therapist. She's written a memoir titled "Unbreakable" and dedicates her life to helping others escape their own cycles of abuse.
"Your cards that you were dealt do not define you," she tells us. "You deserve a better life." Her journey reminds us that even from the darkest places, transformation is possible when we recognize our worth and make choices that honor it.
Gift For You!!! Murders to Music will be releasing "SNAPSHOTS" periodcally to keep you entertained throughout the week! Snapshots will be short, concise bonus episodes containing funny stories, tid bits of brilliance and magical moments!!! Give them a listen and keep up on the tea!
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he's driving us along these back roads. We're supposed to be going back to town. Jamestown is just a stone's throw from Sonora, where I live, and it was like there was almost a demon in the car with us. I am not joking. The air just turned icy and it was the deepest pit in my stomach.
Speaker 1:Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Murders to Music podcast. My name is Aaron, I'm your host and I just want to introduce you to our guest. Our guest name is Cheyenne. Now, you can all probably relate to putting yourself in that situation where maybe you're not making the right choices, the right decisions. Maybe you put yourself into that vulnerable situation or maybe you're living a lifestyle that puts you on the fringe of what is socially acceptable. Maybe it's drug use, maybe it's who you're dating, maybe it's your promiscuity who knows what that is but I think a lot of us can relate to being in that situation where in hindsight being 2020, maybe we contributed to our own demise. Well, even if we put ourselves in those situations, we can still earn the title of victim.
Speaker 1:And you know, tonight, when we talk to Cheyenne, we're going to talk to her about a situation and time in her life where she might have not been making all the right decisions, and I'm not judging or blaming her. She's going to tell you in her own words that she is partially responsible for what occurred. But when she was in that situation, she was kidnapped by a boyfriend, she was forced to do things against her will, she was held captive multiple times and ultimately was forced to do things against her will. She was held captive multiple times and ultimately was able to escape. Then she reported it to the police and when she did, they believe she was either lying or didn't take her reports credible. Why? Because she's used drugs, because she has got low self-esteem, because it's a boyfriend that she keeps going back to.
Speaker 1:The domestic violence cycle, says we always return to our abusers, the drug use. It's an addiction. You know, so many times doing my job, I met cops that were unable to separate all of the biases from the report that was coming in. Strip away those biases and get to the meat and potatoes of what it is. Your job is to determine was a crime committed, who committed the crime and who's the victim. That's it. And if those things exist, you must push forward because we don't get to pick our victims. Tonight Cheyenne is going to tell you her story of being held in captivity, forced against her will and ultimately reporting it to the police and them not caring, and then, after all of that, the boyfriend admitted to all of the bad acts. Anyway, let's meet Cheyenne.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me. I would love to start from the beginning. I grew up in not the best of situations. My mother had been an addict. She was 48 when she had me, and I'm the youngest of 10 children.
Speaker 2:Unfortunately, by the time I came into this world she had already succumbed to years of addiction and mental illness and unfortunately that allowed her to become a very abusive individual in pretty much every single avenue that one can be abusive towards children.
Speaker 2:So growing up I had a very unique situation where my mother took me out of school. She plopped me out of school one day in kindergarten, took me home and basically situations just got worse and by age seven she would pretty much lock me in the bedroom with her days on end and she did not want me to leave. So I didn't really go to school. I was able to enroll in second grade very briefly and then she pulled me back out and so for a majority of my childhood I was pretty much stuck in this cramped, messy bedroom with my mother. So I grew up with a very shattered sense of self and a very low amount of self-esteem and I feel like these deep psychological scars were really embedded within me and they allowed me to put myself in very dangerous situations where, later on, I was kidnapped more than once as an adult.
Speaker 1:Can I ask you a question about growing up?
Speaker 2:Of course, absolutely.
Speaker 1:About your mom and them. So your mom, were your mom and dad married? Were they together? Was it just your mom who was all living in your house? You said you got 10 siblings. That's a lot. Yes, it is's a lot.
Speaker 2:So it's a very interesting situation. My mother was with her husband for like 25 years. They got married like right out of college. My mother was a straight, a college student and she had even worked as a school teacher before she succumbed to addiction and mental health, and she had even worked as a school teacher before she succumbed to addiction and mental health. So they were married. Most of my siblings were adults by the time I was born or late teens, so they weren't really in the house.
Speaker 2:It was mainly myself and then my three older siblings who were in the house with us and my mother's husband worked away as a truck driver.
Speaker 2:So he took himself out of that situation. Years later I would find out that it was because he really just didn't want to deal with her. Her addiction had gotten that bad so he left myself and then my three older siblings to fend for ourselves. So she kept basically all of us out of school and we were secluded in the middle of Nevada, like in the outskirts boonies of Nevada, and unfortunately we had this really difficult upbringing where, you know, my siblings were forced to cook for my mother and, you know, try to do some housework, and I was the one that she kept in bed with her all the time. I was the one that she wouldn't let me really leave the bedroom. In fact there were times she wouldn't even let me brush my teeth because she didn't want me to be away from her for that long. So it was a very difficult situation. In fact I was in her room so often growing up that I have a severely malformed vertebrae in my neck from laying down in bed for so many years of my childhood.
Speaker 1:And what years were those? What age were you when all that started?
Speaker 2:It got really bad when I was seven, and that's when we moved to Nevada. That's when my mother's husband worked away as a truck driver. By age seven, I wasn't really allowed to leave the house or her bedroom. If I went to the bathroom, she would say hurry up and come back, come back quickly. And I'd say, mommy, my teeth feel yucky. Can I go brush my teeth? No, I don't want you to wait that long. So my teeth started to get very deformed and cavity ridden. Um and just, she was not taking care of us or our basic needs.
Speaker 2:So, we were in Nevada until around age 12, until I was age 12. After that, situation fast forward. We moved to Elk Grove, California. We moved in with my sister because my mother and her husband separated and he moved to Thailand. I still wasn't allowed to go to school. I was lucky if she would let me go to church once a week, and even then she would keep a tight grip on me and I would not be allowed to really talk to others too often.
Speaker 1:So so what? What is your mom addicted to? What is she addicted to?
Speaker 2:Prescription drugs.
Speaker 1:Okay, and you obviously know my background of being a police officer, so some of these questions are coming from you. Know that genesis, that core, and what was the purpose of her not wanting to be separated from you? Is this a mental health thing? Is she scared that she's going to get discovered for the abuse? What's going on there?
Speaker 2:I feel that it was a mixture of many things. To be honest, my mother essentially forced me to be in an incestuous relationship with her and she had been molested by her mother. So growing up I did not realize what was happening, but she would force me to be in her bed with her all the time. She had this unhealthy obsession with me. That's why she pulled me out of kindergarten. She faked a family emergency and that was the last day I ever went to kindergarten. And then, briefly, I was enrolled in the second grade. Very briefly, I was far behind my peers and she pulls me out, so I basically learned how to teach myself how to read and write, and I didn't go to school again until I was 18 and I went to college. I had to spend a couple of years studying GED books to get my education.
Speaker 1:That almost sounds like a domestic violence relationship, right, I mean isolating and insulating and limiting your friends and your contacts is a total power play of domestic violence.
Speaker 2:Oh, I agree it was absolutely a terrible situation. And there was also the drug use, where she would force me to take drugs against my will, starting when I was a little girl. She liked to get me high so that I would be more like her doll, so I would do what she wanted, and it was a very sick situation.
Speaker 1:Wow. And did DHS ever get involved? Or Department of Health and Social Services? Oh, absolutely, what was their impact? Were you ever removed from the house or what happened with them?
Speaker 2:No, In fact, I write in my book that there's a time I wake up and my mother says oh, cheyenne, hurry up, cps is here. And I'm a little little girl and I covered for her. I said oh, mommy teaches me everything. I pulled out a book I didn't know how to read, said, mommy makes me read to her every night. I completely covered for her. Um, and that also is that I feel like that domestic violence, uh, situation where she had that manipulation over me. Oh, cheyenne, no one will understand our love, don't tell anybody about our love. And she would also say to me very often, cheyenne, you need to pretend that you're quiet and you need to pretend that you don't exist because no one wants you here. She would literally say that to me while she's locking me in the bedroom. So there was just so many psychological and physical, all different types of abuse. So, yes, dhs, cps were involved many times and we just flew by the radar.
Speaker 1:You know, cheyenne, I hear your story and, having worked thousands of domestic violence cases over my career everything from a screaming phone call to a murder what you're talking about is the common thread that is between every single one of those. So in my parameters, in my parentheses, bookends of my domestic violence cases, what you're talking about is literally the thread that connects all of them. You know there's got to be more than one person involved and there's a power play, struggle and manipulation. That is the crux of domestic violence, and you are experiencing it at the age of 7 to 12 years old, when you haven't even I mean you can't even leave the house yet. Right At some point, at some point, you grow up and you make your way on your own as a young lady. When does that happen? When do you get out of the house, kind of what's the next step of your life look like?
Speaker 2:Well, that is a great question, and it did go a little bit beyond that. It actually went until I was about 18 years old.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:I really wasn't allowed to leave the house. Very briefly, she allowed me to volunteer at a library for a couple hours a week, starting when I was 15. And that was quickly taken away from me. So I really was not really allowed to leave the house very often. But when I was 18, she passed away from cancer. So my world was turned upside down. I had thrown myself into college. I had already basically taught myself how to read. I was a straight A college student and I was just throwing myself into college as a way to help cope with her death. I was desperate for a mother figure. My mother had just passed away and I really couldn't even bear to live in that house anymore. I had to sleep in my niece's bed for months after my mother passed away because I couldn't be in the bedroom that I had shared with her for several years because I lived in that house from age 12 to 18. So I had to sleep in my niece's bed because I just couldn't deal with the memories.
Speaker 1:Wow, wow. And when your mom died, did you feel a loss or a grief, or was it a relief when she passed away?
Speaker 2:It was the biggest loss. It really was. I even posted on Facebook my platonic husband has passed. Because I called her my platonic husband, I thought of us like a married couple, as sick as that sounds, because she had manipulated me to that point.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:So, it was like I lost my heart and my soul.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so what happened next? Where'd you go? I mean, as this young lady that's now out on your own, your world's turned completely upside down. What is the next?
Speaker 2:step of your life look like. Well, I moved in with my aunt in Tuolumne County. My aunt was an older lady. She was a spitfire. She didn't really get along too well with my mother when my mother was alive and she was like this, you know, 80 some year old lady who lived on her own and still climbed on the roof of her house, and she was completely different than my mother. My mother was a, you know, a victim and really had that victim mentality, and my aunt was a very harsh woman, I would say to say the least. So I moved in with her, I started enrolling in the college in Tuolumne County.
Speaker 2:I am, you know, throwing myself into my studies and I pick up a job working at a craft store. So I'm kind of lost right now in the sea, and so I start to have these unhealthy behaviors. I start to get into like the party lifestyle. While somehow managing to be high functioning in the daytime. I start to be more promiscuous and I start partying, and then we're moving towards the time when I, uh, I meet the man who would end up kidnapping me.
Speaker 1:Tell me about that, tell me about him, tell me about how that situation happened. And I understand you were kidnapped a couple of times. Walk me through those yes.
Speaker 2:So, in fact, the first time I was kidnapped it was from a bar and I was being a dumb kid. I was really hurt and I was really leaning on alcohol as a crutch and partying as a crutch. And this older gentleman I had been left by my friends at the bar. He takes me in the back of a cab. I'm super drunk right now. I can't stand. There's no reason why I should have been left at the bar and there's no reason I should have allowed myself to get to that point. But, like I said, I was dumb and I was young. We all make mistakes. All we can do is learn from them and grow. So this man takes me in the back of a cab and, um, next thing, I know he's being very forceful with me and I'm blacking out. And then I wake up and we're in a motel room and horrible things are happening and I black out and I wake sexual.
Speaker 2:Yes, he, um he uh, climbed on top of me and forced himself in me.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And I wake up the next morning and I'm just abandoned. It's a crazy situation. So that was the first time I was kidnapped, was by this man in a bar, and fast forward. I'm struggling a lot with the highs and lows of my life and just so much crumbling. You know you can't have 18 years of horrific abuse and walk away from it unscathed.
Speaker 2:And at this point I'm now what? 21? So I've only been away from my mother for about three years and I've already been thrown away left and right. So I was clinging to. The things that I felt like were constants were alcohol and partying. So after that situation, unfortunately, I crossed paths with who we will call jake, and when I saw jake at the store, there was something about him.
Speaker 2:Where tuolumne county is a predominantly white community, and here I see this person who really just is gorgeous, exotic looking. Know, he looks like this beautiful Asian man with this lovely tan skin and like these tattoos, and I'm just kind of, when I first saw him, I was starstruck. I thought, wow, this guy is just so gorgeous and he's very, um, very brave in his way to pursue me. So he starts to sing to me and I write about this in the book. He sees me in the store and he starts to sing to me and I just swoon. I'm like, oh my gosh, my knees are buckling. Who is this beautiful man? And fast forward, a friendship develops between him and I and then it blossomed into something romantic. But in with the blossoming, there were these red flags that were very concerning and I really should have listened to the red flags and left after the first red flag.
Speaker 1:And what were some of those red flags? And I assume that led up to that first kidnapping.
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely the red flags, I would say. One of them was when we were cuddling. We were cuddling and I saw, as he's looking through photos on his phone, a picture that looked like it was me sleeping, and I said what's that? He said oh, you just look so peaceful while you were sleeping. I just had to record you. Another time being, I went into the shower and I saw that he had opened the shower, the bathroom door, and he's watching me secretly while I shower. Okay, Then he started to control my appearance, where he wanted me to do my makeup a certain way.
Speaker 2:He wanted me to dye my hair black. He wanted me to dye even my body hair. He wanted to control every aspect of my appearance. He controlled how I dressed. These were some of these red flags. There was this control where he didn't want me to really hang out with other people. Flags. There was this control where he didn't want me to really hang out with other people. He wanted to take up so much of my time and he always had this fear that I was somehow cheating on him and things just started to progressively get worse. Where, you know, he is secretly recording me while I sleep. He's watching me while I shower. Then he goes on to do worse things, such as insisting that he goes into the bathroom with me every time I go to the bathroom, because he feared that somehow I was cheating on him and he would force his way into the bathroom. So I wouldn't even have that amount of privacy.
Speaker 1:Wow, you know this is your mom reincarnated. Oh, absolutely, the domestic violence cycle, the control cycle, the manipulation, the power plays. This is just totally your mom and never having been in your shoes, but having dealt with thousands of people like you and in that victim state, this is a domestic violence cycle that we talk about. Right, the abuse happens. You get fed up with it. There's some kind of climax. You find the pictures in the bathroom that could be the climax in this. You're going to leave, but then you feel loved by this guy. So you come back and you start the cycle over again and, without you even saying it, I kind of feel that's where this is going. Yes, Because if not, you would have left on the red flags, right, you would have left as soon as you saw those red flags. And you, because, if not, you would have left on the red flags, right, you would have left as soon as you saw those red flags and you wouldn't have been there to get kidnapped a couple of times. So what happened next?
Speaker 2:Correct and he had this way of pulling me in and apologizing, saying oh, I love you. No one's ever going to love you the way that I do, being so horrible but then, at the same time, making me feel like he was the only one who loved me and cared about me, where he would shower me with presents and afterwards you'd be like, baby, I love you, You're the woman for me. Um, he even said look at me, I can get any girl that I want and I choose you, and that that was true. He was very attractive and I know that he had other women who pursued him and he would hold that over my head saying, oh, look, you're the girl that I've chosen Things of that nature.
Speaker 1:Yeah, again, it's just unfortunate. It's such a common story, cheyenne, it's such a common story. Tell me about the kidnapping. How did that occur and were you able to report that to the police and how did that go?
Speaker 2:He starts yelling at me that I've cheated on him. I told him I'm not cheating on you, you're the one I'm with, you're the one I love. It's getting more and more severe. So I tell myself I have to leave. So his apartment was at the top of these stairs, on his family's large farm. So I moved past him. I'm trying to get away because he's already got in my face, screamed at me, sorry, it's okay.
Speaker 2:I remember just having a feeling that something bad was going to happen and he had already tried to stop me a few times. And I see the top, top of the stairs, right, and I see that they lead down to the door and then there's my car and that's how I can escape, and so I make it to the top of the stairs. So I just want to get away from him. And he comes up. He, he's very quick.
Speaker 2:He came up in front of me and I see that he held up his large sword and it wasn't just like a fake sword, it was an. Actually it was a collectible, but it was a sharp collectible, it was an actual, real sword that he had gotten. And he held up the sword to me and he said if you try to move past me, things are going to get ugly. And he holds it up to my face like this and I remember being terrified and I'm thinking, oh my God, this, this is really happening. This is really happening. And he like waits for a couple seconds, as if if I move towards him, like he said, things are going to get ugly. So I had no choice, because now he's in front of me with the sword. I have to go back.
Speaker 1:So, um, sorry, it's okay, take your time.
Speaker 2:Um, I remember there was just a sense of defeat. There's a sense of defeat knowing that I had to go back into that room with that individual. And so I go back into the bedroom, part of his apartment, and then for two hours he is yelling at me, screaming at me, saying that I don't care about him, that I don't love him, that I have cheated on him, and it's just this overwhelming anger that he throws at me repeatedly.
Speaker 1:Just for our listeners' sake. When we hear the word kidnapping, a lot of times we think about everything we see on TV, where the kidnapping off the street or something like that Statutorily the elements of kidnapping are keeping somebody from leaving an area, moving them from one area to another, either with force or coercion. In this case, the coercion would be the sword and then, uh, some kind of assault that occurred after. So moving somebody from one point to another against their will, and then some kind of assault, or attempted assault or with the intent to assault physical injury, kidnapping, sexual abuse, rape, something like that. So the fact that he's standing there with a sword, that's coercion. She's forced to go back inside. That's moving somebody from one place to another kidnapping.
Speaker 1:And now we have the criminal element of physical abuse on top of that. That is what makes this a kidnapping case, not just a domestic violence case, and I just want to clarify that for folks that are out there that listening that maybe don't understand. So, go ahead. You were starting to say before he kidnapped you the second time. Go ahead.
Speaker 2:Yes, thank you for clarifying that, and that's actually was very insightful for me to learn on my healing journey that kidnapping comes in different forms. It's not always what you sound to me, but that was still horrifying being held against my will. So we're in his vehicle and he flies into another rage and I start to cry because we're along this back road and he puts his hand over my mouth. He's like you shut your mouth right now. I know you're cheating on me. I'm going to take your purse, I'm going to take your phone, I'm kicking you out and you're going to be on the side of the road and I'm terrified. I'm terrified. I remember crying and I said please stop. You know I've already been raped. Please stop. And he said I don't care, I want you out of my vehicle now. And I had to cry and convince him after he had moved his hand away from my mouth. But no, I was not cheating on him. And somehow it clicked. Thankfully it clicked and he did not take my purse and my phone and leave me stranded in the middle of the boonies at night. Now, moving forward, there's just this consistent violence from him aggression, anger, rage, and then there's that manipulation where it's like oh, I'm sorry, I love you so much, you know I'll never leave you. And he starts to have his friends kind of pull in on me as well, before the second kidnapping. So I woke up one day and I see that all of these people are tagging me on Facebook and there's an attractive friend of his, apparently, who had made a post of me on Facebook, posted it for everyone to see, saying that I wasn't as pretty as my photos. Turns out she had a crush on him, she was jealous. He told her lies about me. And there's that extra element where he's trying to tarnish my reputation in a town. And I had him call her up and I said you tell her the truth right now, because she had posted that I'm not as pretty as my photos and that I stole money from him. So, thankfully, after some some deep talking, he finally called this uh, very attractive young lady up and said hey, you know, turns out Cheyenne didn't take the money. Um, I need you to take down this post. So he's starting to add these other elements.
Speaker 2:Now the second kidnapping I'm sorry, the third kidnapping, the most horrific one, happened. Like I said, it all happened within a fairly short timeframe of each other. You know he had said to me babe, get ready, I want us to go out, I want us to go to the store. I said sure, and I knew what he meant. He wanted me to do my makeup put on my outfit. He wanted me to go to the store. I said sure, and I knew what he meant. He wanted me to do my makeup put on my outfit. He wanted me to, like I said, be his little doll. So I spent an hour getting ready, making sure that my appearance was just what he wanted.
Speaker 2:We, we go to the store and, um, he says to me, wait in the car, I'll be right back. And I was irked, I was irritated and I I snapped at him. I said to him why, why do you want me to wait in the car? I just got ready. He said you don't nevermind change of plans.
Speaker 2:And he drives me out to this area where we would often spend time together. And we go to this old, abandoned house in Jamestown and it's overlooking the city lights and I thought, okay, things will get better. You know I can see that he's angry, I'm angry, but you know it's going to be a romantic night. So we cuddle a little bit, we kiss, and then the mood changes instantly and he basically brings us back to the car, basically brings us back to the car and, um, he's driving us along these back roads. We're supposed to be going back to town Jamestown is just a stone's throw from Sonora where I live and my gut.
Speaker 2:Instantly it was like the air had been pulled from the car and I knew something was wrong, something had flipped. And I say to him where are you taking us? He said very nonchalantly, like he was like monotone, I'm taking us back to town. And I said to him no, you're not. This isn't the way. And it was like there was almost a demon in the car with us. I am not joking. The air just turned icy and it was the deepest pit in my stomach.
Speaker 2:And he starts to get aggressive. As I'm asking more and more where are you taking us? He starts to tell me you shut the F up. And it's apparent he's not taking us back to town. He's driving instead along these back roads. And I'm crying please take me home. I'm scared. You take me home now. I want to go home. At this point I know something's wrong and he's getting more and more aggressive and he's telling me to shut up. So he pulls off to the side of the road and he drugs me against my will. Earlier in that night I forgot to mention I had taken a small amount of recreational drugs, but a very small amount, and I had kept my intake very low because it made me ill. And I like to be clear-headed what was it?
Speaker 1:you were taken meth okay now I have.
Speaker 2:This actually is very interesting because it bodes very well for me in this situation. I have ADHD, so when I took it it made me calm like almost addall, and I only took one or two puffs. Like I said, this is a long time ago and I'm proud to say I'm very sober. Um, but he, uh, he starts to force me to take meth and I'm like no, I don't want to, cause it's making me ill. That's why I only did one or two puffs and I'm like no, I don't want it. And he grabs me and he forces it in my mouth. He's like you, effing, take this right now. He had already threatened me with a sword. In fact, I looked in the back seat when I realized that he wasn't taking me back home for that sword, because I didn't know if he was going to use it on me, because he had manipulated me into staying with him and that's how I got kidnapped the third and most horrific time. So he drugs me, forces me to puff some meth, and it's not doing what he wants it to, because I don't have a normal neurotypical mind, I have a neurodivergent mind. So I feel like, okay, I'm calm, I'm alert, but I'm still terrified. And he pulls me out of the car and I I had begged to go home, please just take me home. Take me home, I love you, I'm not going to leave you, I'm not going to cheat on you, just take me home.
Speaker 2:And he drags me out of the car and he, um, he pulls out his phone and he says pose for the camera. And I'm like what? No, like I want to go home. At this point my stomach is hurting. I'm feeling physically ill, um, horrifically ill. And he says I said pose now. And uh, at one point he grabbed me by the arm and he pulled me. And uh, at one point he grabbed me by the arm and he pulled me. And he starts to force me to pose for photos and, um, in some of the photos he wants me to look like we're a happy couple. And he's uh, telling me, you, telling me things, you, you shut the F up, you wipe those effing tears off your face. Yeah, lean in and kiss me. And he's taking his photos that mainly they're just me, um, posing me, um, and, like I said, making me pose, uh, with him.
Speaker 2:And then he pulls me back in the car we're driving and uh, again, I'm kind of trying to figure out what do I do? I've yelled at him to take me home multiple times. It's not working. I've cried, I've begged, and then he says something horrific that just makes me like ice in my veins. He says you know, you need to be careful who you hang out with. A girl like you can easily go for a few thousand grand, a few sorry, a few grand on the dark market. And he said to me if you ever went missing, no one would be able to find you. I am terrified at this point, oh my God, is the man that I have been, you know, head over heels? For is he going to try to sell me? What's going on here?
Speaker 2:And then this cycle happens, this vicious cycle happens, where he's randomly pulling me off to the side of the road around Long Beach back roads, he's dragging me out of the car and he's randomly pulling me off to the side of the road around Longview's back roads. He's dragging me out of the car and he's forcing me to post for more photos. And this goes on for hours and hours. I'm crying, I'm begging and I he's getting more and more angry, more and more violent. I noticed the more I cry and the more I beg, the more he's trying to force me to take more meth against my will. And I'm trying to fight it because I don't want to take it, I don't want to get sick.
Speaker 2:The cycle continues and I I go to the bath. I asked him I go to the bathroom, I need to go to the bathroom. Can you take me somewhere Like I want it? Like go to the bathroom and escape one, because I actually had to go out, um, but two. I wanted to like be able to escape. And he forces me to use the bathroom outside like an animal. Like an animal. He's watching me with beady eyes, he's forcing me and he he makes this just like inappropriate comment, while I'm forced to use the restroom outside just to humiliate me. He's like look at you. Do you think anyone would want you like this? You know I'm the only one who loves you. So he is doing everything in his power to suppress me.
Speaker 1:How did you end up getting away from this?
Speaker 2:Oh, this is a great, great story. Oh my gosh. So, after all of these hours, this whole cycle of if he's angry at me, he's forcing me to smoke meth, he's forcing me to pose for photos, he's grabbing me, he's pulling me, all that I had realized that I couldn't call 911 because there was a history of them not believing me and I feared deeply that I would be arrested for being under the influence of meth. I don't know, I was just new to this world and even though I didn't do a lot of it, I was still terrified. So then he finally, after 12 hours of this whole ordeal of the drugging me and the forcing me to get out of the car and post her photos and making that horrible, creepy comment about selling me, he finally stops at a gas station and, um, he, he gets out to pump gas. I grabbed my phone, grabbed my purse, I hop out of the vehicle and I quickly, within like a moment, I memorized his license plate, his, um, I had never memorized it before, um, but I memorized it quickly, make and model. I run into the gas station bathroom and I text my friends. I even have the text message on my phone saved all these years later and it was basically like help, I've been kidnapped, uh, by this individual. Here's his make and model in case anything happens to me.
Speaker 2:And then there's this moment where I'm still terrified to call the police. And also, you have to remember, um, the way I grew up with my mother secluding me. She had also raised me to be terrified of police. She had said that they were, you know, not to be trusted and sadly, that had been proven accurate. When they did not believe me when I had had reported, you know, being kidnapped before, and when I reported, um, my first sexual assault from somebody else a year prior. So I text my friends that. And then I I try to compose myself. I think, okay, what am I going to do now? What am I going to do? Am I going to call 911 and risk getting arrested for being not even fully high on meth, I would say, but because I had taken meth?
Speaker 1:What do?
Speaker 2:I do now. So I composed myself and I thought okay, I have to. I'm between a rock and a hard place. What do I do right now? So I do what I have to do. It was one of the most terrifying moments of my life. I walk out of that bathroom in the gas station. I walk out to him and I said hey, I've texted your info, your license plate and your make and model to multiple people and I've told them that you're holding me against my will. If you do not take me home immediately, you will be arrested and you will go to jail for a very long time. And it was like instantly the spell that he was under had broken and, miraculously enough, it works and he takes me back home. And the more shocking part is that I still took him back after that.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm not shocked at all. So did you report that incident to the police?
Speaker 2:Oh, I did yes.
Speaker 2:So, that actually happened after about, I would say, a year and a half. I know I had been sober for two years when I made that report, um, and there's a lot that goes into that, because he and I we were, we were still together and then he he ended up going on to do more horrific crimes against me. So I was still pulled into that situation by him and then he ends up brutally sexually assaulting me, um, shortly about shortly after, I would say about a month after my kidnapping, he brutally assaults me, um, brutally rapes me on my birthday, and then I leave the state. I leave the state and then I I said to myself I have to report this. So I reported it, I called up the police department and I reported it. And then a lot happens. Over the next few years, a lot happens. I go on to live my life because I realized that they weren't, it didn't seem like they were going to do anything. It never felt like they truly cared about what had happened to me.
Speaker 1:They being the police, didn't care, didn't take you seriously, didn't believe you. Is that what you're talking about?
Speaker 2:That's what it felt like, absolutely. And I do very well for myself. I work my way up to be an operations manager of a company. I start making great money, Life starts to blossom for me and I work very hard to try to leave all this darkness behind me. However, things take quite a bit of a turn when he reaches out to me.
Speaker 1:Why did he reach out to you?
Speaker 2:I believe he missed me. I believe he missed me.
Speaker 1:This would be a perfect opportunity to do a pretext call and get him to talk about his situation.
Speaker 2:Yeah right, this would be a perfect opportunity to do a pretext call and get him to talk about his situation. Yeah Right, um. So he reaches out to me after about, I would say six years after the kidnapping, um, and and during this phone call that I had with him, I had decided I'm going to record. I'm going to record because he wants to apparently get back together In his mind. I'm his lost love that he can't stop thinking about. And so I hit the record button and we have that conversation and he confesses to everything. Um, he confessed to holding me against my will and threatening me with a weapon. He confessed to the kidnappings.
Speaker 1:He confessed to brutally raping me yeah, Wow, and then so he confesses to everything. You bring that to the police department and the DA's office and from our conversation earlier it's my understanding that they threw that out on technicality and about the recording and essentially nothing happened Is that correct.
Speaker 2:He's not been interviewed by the police department to this very day.
Speaker 2:And it terrifies me the fact that I have to legally change his name or I am better protected legally if I change his name in the book, despite it being on record that he confessed to every single thing. Wow, because he can sue me. He can confess to doing X, y and Z raping me, threatening me with weapon I tried to escape, holding me hostage for 12 hours, everything but I can still be sued by him and that terrifies me, knowing that his family is well off that they would do that.
Speaker 1:You know it's unfortunate. You know it's just another reminder that. A couple of things I want to talk about. And then I want to talk about what you're doing now on the other side. What does healing look like? Right? And talk a little bit about your book. You've mentioned A couple of things.
Speaker 1:You know from you reporting this early on with law enforcement law enforcement not believing you. You know, having been the recipient of these calls hundreds of times, having been the recipient of these calls hundreds of times. It's unfortunate. Law enforcement does get jaded. We do see the same thing over and over again, you know, and sometimes you get those detectives or those police officers that are just shitty and lazy and they're pathetic human beings and shouldn't be wearing a badge. Those people do exist. Cab drivers exist, with the same set of standards. You know what I mean. So it's not just isolated to law enforcement.
Speaker 1:Um, one of the things that you know me in my career and my partner, um, she and I, you know we would always try to strip the story off, right? So I'm just going to go through this and I don't want to sound too much like a cop here. But here we go. You're living a promiscuous lifestyle. You've used methamphetamine. You're with this guy. He keeps beating you up physically, emotionally, and you keep going back to him. You know it's your own fault.
Speaker 1:This is the stuff that these, some of these cops are thinking, and it's this cycle and it's not right. And you know we got to separate all that shit from the story. All that is narrative. That doesn't make sense. Did a crime occur? What are the facts? Is there evidence that can prove it and who is the person likely responsible for committing this crime? That was my mindset.
Speaker 1:Going into these dismiss victims like yourself, because of all the narrative and all the extra superfluous crap. That means nothing. You know, okay, the only difference between me and the person I'm interviewing if, even if it's a suspect, a murder suspect, child molester we got to talk about their dirty secrets today and I get to keep mine in the closet for another week. That's the only difference. I was not born with a badge on, you know, but I got to sit down and talk to you about all of your situation. You know, child molester, suspect, tell me about what you just did to your daughter. And we got to pretend to be friends here so we can get through this together. But if I went in treating them like a complete piece of shit, then I would never get anywhere, right.
Speaker 1:So I wish somebody would have taken your case and just filtered out the emotions, the personal biases that maybe they had, and got to the meat and potatoes, because maybe it wouldn't have continued to happen to you and to others and you know there, maybe there wouldn't have been a second or a third time because you could have dealt with it up front. So I really wish somebody would have taken you more seriously up front. Tell me about this. Tell me what are you doing on this side of life. Tell me about your book. Tell me about your college education, what you're doing. And then, finally, the last thing I want to hear is if you have a message for people out there that may be in your position, may be in your shoes, may be a victim of this, what would that message be? What would you tell people that have struggled with trauma like you?
Speaker 2:I would love this opportunity to share what I've learned and what I am doing with my life. I have become a certified life coach and I have devoted myself to wanting to help others because I have been through the absolute bottom of the barrel. I grew up with the opposite of a silver spoon handed to me. I grew up in a home full of horrors and I survived some horrific things. I have become a certified life coach and I'm actually in college right now, studying to become a therapist. I work a job in the corporate world. I run a weekly group on self-help and spirituality for over eight years now and I am now working on writing children's books for teaching children healthy boundaries and educational children's books. I did go on and became a preschool teacher. There was that.
Speaker 1:Sweet Good for you.
Speaker 2:So I went back to college because I wanted to truly help people and I'm very happy that I became a life coach. I love being able to help people and really the lesson that I have I simplify it honestly having been somebody who went from the very bottom of the barrel to being somebody who became an operations manager and, you know, was a preschool teacher and, you know, works in HR and all these things Um, it really just boils down to realizing that you deserve a better life. Really just boils down to realizing that you deserve a better life. You know, your cards that you were dealt do not define you. You get to carve out your own path.
Speaker 2:And something else is the matter of recognizing that you are worthy of a good life just for existing. Yes, still things happen outside of our control, but really you're given this gift of life, so make the most of it and with that, give yourself the greatest gift, and that is the gift of a well-lived life. You know, if your life is crap, then don't make crap choices. I take responsibility for the choices I made that put me in terrible situations and I am so blessed that I survived these terrible situations because I came out from the other side and I learned that it really boils down to realizing that you're worthy of a better life and then just making better choices that support that.
Speaker 2:Look at the life you want and reverse engineer it.
Speaker 1:That is so awesome. And tell me about your book that you wrote what's your book called and where can people find it?
Speaker 2:Thank you. It is called Unbreakable, it is found on Amazon and this book really showcases everything that I went through. I will warn you it is a very graphic book, and that's because I am not one who will shy away from the truth.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I felt that it was really important to see the dark side of where I came from, and then, towards the end, it talks about how I discovered these beautiful life lessons and how I want to help inspire and encourage others on their journeys as well. Cause I've been from the bottom and I've risen to the top.
Speaker 1:It sounds like it, you know, and from so you know the recap. And the cop minded me, right. The cop mind in me, right. You go from living in a house with lots of siblings. You got a disruptive parent situation dad out of the picture, new husband is out on the road trying to stay away from the mom that you're stuck with, stuck in a bedroom with your mom for years. Ancestral relationships, controlling, manipulative behavior, lying to CPS, isolating, insulating from others, controlling everybody that you're around. Now she dies and we go into a romantic relationship with all of the same factors, minus the incestual. But now let's add on sexual assault and a rape on top of that.
Speaker 1:And you live that life for many, many years. During that you experience multiple kidnapping, multiple traumas, multiple rapes Granted, some of it because of the poor choices you're making, which you just took ownership of. But that doesn't mean that it's right or that doesn't mean that it's fair that it happens to you. And then, coming out the other side, you have found a way. You know, I don't think God gives us pain without purpose, and you found a way to help others and be the life coach and the therapist. And the book that you're writing and the message. I just think it's an absolute beautiful story and I really really appreciate you sharing it with us tonight and sharing it with my guests.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for clarification. I want to mention I know by saying my mother's husband. It sounds like a new husband that was the man I was raised to believe, who was my father.
Speaker 2:And you read about it in the book. It turns out my mother had an affair with her nephew, and so that's why I phrase it that way. But yes, to recap, I did come from the bottom of the barrel and I went through court crimes and I put myself in those situations. But I do believe in God and I believe God allowed me to survive those situations. Now I just want to help others and that's why I'm so vulnerable. In the book that you can find on Amazon called Unbreakable, a chilling memoir of survival, multiple kidnappings and a search for justice.
Speaker 1:Cheyenne, thank you so much for your time and, ladies and gentlemen, that is the Murders to Music podcast.
