Catfish: The TV Show (2012–…): Season 6, Episode 12 - Open Investigation - full transcript

[dramatic music]
- We're embarking on the biggest case of our lives.
- We could've finally met our match.
- A celebrity case with shocking twists.
- She said, "I'm gonna post your nude pictures."
That's when we called the cops.
- A criminal case with real-life consequences.
- She was sentenced to 18 months in jail.
- I think she is going to do it again.
- An international journey that will take us
to the very edge of the civilized world.
- Where are we?
- As we dive deep into the abyss.
I'm looking for Shelly?
- To track down the biggest catfish we have ever sought.
[knocking]
- Hello?
[dramatic sting]
- Let's see if there's anybody online that needs some help.
- Whoa. - Wait, hold on a second.
- I recognize that name. - Yeah, Paris Roxanne.
"Hi, Nev and Max, I don't know if you remember me.
"You guys contacted me about a year or so ago
"when a catfish named Jasmin used my pictures
on her fake profile."
- I think I remember. - I remember that, for sure.
- Yeah.
- Now everybody's using her pictures.
- Right. - She wanted you to see this.
- My name is Paris, and I'm not the person
you've been talking to.
- "If you remember, I was caught up in a catfishing scheme
"where I ended up dating who I thought was Chris Andersen,
"the professional basketball player, also known as Birdman.
"It all started in 2012 when I liked a picture
"that I thought was Chris.
- ♪ Hear what I say ♪
- "Chris was a star player for the Denver Nuggets,
"and I was a big fan of his,
"so I was pretty excited when I got his friend request.
"We were texting constantly, and we even exchanged some,
"how do I say, naughty pictures.
[hip-hop music]
"I actually flew to meet Chris Andersen in person, and we had
"a great weekend together, but after I went home,
things started to get weird."
Okay, so, hold on a second. "So I started getting
"threatening texts from who I thought was Chris,
"and then they posted my naked photos on the Internet.
"I was freaking out. Now, confession time,
"I told Chris that I was 18. I was actually 17.
So when I tell my mom, she flipped and called the cops."
- We start today with a developing story,
investigators seizing computers from the Larkspur home
of Chris "Birdman" Andersen.
- This is being called an Internet Crimes
Against Children investigation.
- "Chris was under investigation
for child pornography."
involving the Nuggets' Chris "The Birdman" Andersen.
- "It was all over the news, and it looked bad."
- We know he's not expected to suit up tonight.
- "He was kicked off the Nuggets,
and his reputation was ruined."
- The Nuggets issued a statement saying,
"Chris has been excused from all team-related activities."
- "But as the police kept investigating,
"they discovered the crazy truth.
"I thought I was texting with Chris, and Chris thought
"he was texting with me, but turns out we were both
being catfished by a woman in Canada named Shelly Chartier."
- Chris Andersen, the basketball player, was talking to
Paris Roxanne, but what they-- neither of them realized
was that all of their communications were going
through this woman.
- "Shelly had created fake profiles and phone numbers
"from both of us, and all of our messages were really
"going through her.
"Shelly was the one that posted my underage photos.
"Shelly also pretended to be my mother and threatened to make
"Chris' relationship with me public unless he paid Shelly
"thousands of dollars, which Chris did.
Shelly got caught and went to jail."
- Normally, you don't go to jail for catfishing.
- Right. - But she was, like,
blackmailing. - Right.
"Well, guess what." - What?
- "She just got out of jail, and I want to make sure
"that she doesn't put anyone else through
what I had to suffer through. Please, call me, Paris."
- Wow, okay, so... - Whoa.
- The mastermind who ruined Chris Andersen and Paris' life--
- Right. - Is now out of jail.
- All right, so let's video chat with Paris.
Here we go. [line trilling]
- Hi. - Hey, Paris, how you doing?
What's going on? It's been a while.
- Um, everything's been really good.
- This is a little different for us.
We don't usually do this sort of thing because
you're not actively being catfished.
You're not in a relationship with someone on the Internet.
You're the sort of past victim...
- Victim.
- Of a catfishing. - Yes.
- And now she's out of jail, and you're worried.
- Yeah, I'm worried because I think she is
going to do it again.
I'm worried about, you know, other people getting catfished
by her because she's good at it, obviously.
- Has she tried to reach out to you since she got out?
- No.
- Well, maybe she has, and you don't know.
- She could very well be.
Now that she's out of jail, I'm really scared.
And I'm hoping you guys will make sure she's not
going to do it again because it would protect a lot of people
from having to go through all this--
- What we really want to do is we want to bury this for good.
- Yes.
- I still have so many questions.
- So can you guys meet up to talk about it?
- Where are you? - I am in LA right now.
- Oh, cool. - So the good news is
we're already in LA, and we can meet you right now.
- Okay. - All right, we'll see you soon.
- I'll see you soon. - Bye, Paris.
- Bye, Paris. - Bye.
- Now that the mastermind behind the craziest catfish ever
is out of jail, Paris isn't the only one who should be worried.
Hopefully, we can put all our years of experience
catching catfish to the test to track down Shelly
and make sure she never does it again.
First thing we need to do is talk to Paris,
get her side of the story, see if we can also get
Chris Andersen's side of the story, and then,
hopefully, track down this Shelly woman.
- I love it when you talk like a detective.
Hey, look who it is. - Hi.
- She's right there. When was the last time we spoke?
- It was a while ago. - Can you go back to
the beginning and, you know... - Mm-hmm.
- Just give us the whole timeline of events.
- Okay, so, at that time, I was 17 years old,
still in high school and had been a Birdman fan,
and I liked his Facebook fan page.
And then I got a friend request from Chris Andersen.
We would text day and night. - But never talking
on the phone. - Never talking on the phone.
- Okay. - Then it moved to flirting,
and then it moved to the photo sharing.
Sent me selfies of himself in the mirror, and I'm sending
him full nude photos.
- So what's crazy, looking back, is that Shelly
was obviously the one... - Mm-hmm.
- Who was sending them to each of you.
- To each of us, yeah. - So she had, like, a collection
of photos of you, and she had a collection of photos of Chris.
- Yeah, so we never even were sending it to each other.
- Okay. - And then I ended up getting
a friend request from this guy, Tom.
He told me he was best friends with Chris Andersen
and his brother-in-law--that's what he always called himself.
- I'm getting the feeling that Tom is really Shelly.
- Yeah, and Tom's always texting, "Chris wants you
to come fly out there."
So I talked to Chris a little-- I was a little iffy--
and then he said, "I got your ticket,"
and he emailed me the ticket.
- What'd you say to your parents?
- Well, I was going out with this guy from Washington,
so I just said I was going there.
- So he show--so you get to Denver...
- So I get to Denver. - You text him, "I'm here"?
- Mm-hmm, and he said, "Okay, I'm coming around."
- So you actually texted Shelly, "I'm here," and then
she immediately texted Chris and said,
"I'm here, pick me up," and then, like, he texted...
- Whoa. - It was, like, immediate.
- That's crazy. - So then we get to his house.
- Okay. - Then we started talking
a little, and I said something like, "Well, Tom said..."
And he said, "Who's Tom?" And I said, "You know, Tom."
- Your best friend. - And he was like,
"No, I don't." - That is so weird.
- And then he was all-- - And in your mind,
you're kind of, like, freaking out.
- I was like, okay, he's just doing it
to mess around or something. And I remember he's all
"You brought Victoria's Secret to wear."
And I said, "No, I didn't. I didn't, but okay."
- But you weren't like, "Wait a minute"?
- No, it crossed my mind to think,
"that's a little weird," but-- - At the time, you weren't
piecing it together. - He's right there,
so it doesn't matter. And then I played with his dog
for a while, and then we sat down and we talked
a little more, and then, you know, we ended up kissing--
ended up kissing, I don't know. - Okay, so you were into it.
You were feeling it. - Yeah, of course.
- Great. - But he was really sweet
in the morning, and then he left to go practice,
and I stayed, and I texted Tom the whole time.
And he was like, "How's it going?"
"Oh, you should go look in his closet
and take a picture with his hat on."
And I was like, no, I wasn't gonna go
looking through somebody's stuff, so.
- Yeah, weird. - So after that, with Chris,
it was, like, really good, you know?
- You guys really liked each other.
- Yeah, and then drove me back to the airport.
- Was there talk about, like, "Okay, well,
can I see you again?" - Yeah, there was like
a next time, yeah. So it was all nice.
It ended nicely, and then I went home.
And then Chris and Tom were obsessed
with "Call of Duty," right? And this Xbox.
There's this talk of this guy that Tom can't effing stand.
Forget the name of the guy, but he lived in Indiana.
The guy was beating him at his game.
- Beating him on "Call of Duty"?
- On "Call of Duty," and he couldn't stand it,
so they wanted to set me up to fly to Indiana to go steal
his game account and password. So they can hack in
and break it all. - So this is the weirdest part
of the whole story. What?
- Okay, so Shelly, as Chris and Tom, said to you--
- They were both going at me. I got pressure and pressure,
and they were going crazier and crazier, and Chris was offering
me purses, and, you know, I went back on forth on it
because I was getting so pressured.
I couldn't stand it. And then I said, "You know what?
I'm not doing it." It set them off.
Then Chris and then Tom were saying, "I'm gonna send somebody
"down there to rape you and kill you and throw you
on the side of the street."
And that's when I just turned off my phone.
Like, an hour later, when I turned that phone on,
as Chris Andersen, she said, "I'm gonna post
your nude pictures." That's when it got really heavy.
- Talking to Paris, we learned the depths
this devious catfish, Shelly, had gone to.
Not only did she manipulate Paris into a relationship,
but Shelly also threatened her life.
- Then I just turned off my phone.
Like an hour later, when I turned that phone on,
that's when, as Chris Andersen, she said, "I'm gonna post
"your nude pictures. Go to this link,
go to this page, go look. Go look right now."
So I click on the link, and there's my pictures on a thread.
"Look at this whore." She was writing my address
and my number and my mother's number,
because I had texted off my mom's phone too.
- Whoa, are people calling? - Like crazy.
[phones ringing]
- And I remember, one time, somebody called my mom's phone,
was whispering, "You're so beautiful,"
over and over and over and over.
- Wow, so you must be freaking out.
- Mm-hmm. - Did you tell your mom
that this happened? - So I had to tell my mom
when all these pictures, and about the address and stuff.
- And what does your mom say?
- Um, you know, it was a mix of disappointment and shock
and trying to wrap her head around it and everything.
You know, we had to focus on these pictures at that moment,
and that's when we called the cops.
- Investigators taking evidence from his home this morning,
part of an investigation with the Internet Crimes
Against Children unit.
- Essentially, you're accusing Birdman of child pornography.
- Yeah, so the police come, collect my phone,
camera, and computer. - And who was your point person
at the police? - This guy,
Constable Gord Olson, which was a Canadian cop.
- Oh, right, 'cause she's from Canada.
- Yeah. - So Constable Gord explained
to both you and Chris what actually happened.
- Yeah. - And how did you feel
towards Chris when you found out that--
- I felt really bad.
People calling him a pedophile. It's just sick to me
what she did to me and Chris. She tore up our lives.
- And she wasn't even in jail for very long,
based on kind of all the damage she did.
- Yeah. - Yeah, now that she's out,
I would put--bet my life on it. She's gonna do it again
because she was so unsympathetic.
Like, she said Chris should be glad that
she got him somebody, and then she said
I should be thanking her.
- Wow, like a sense of sort of accomplishment and pride...
- Yeah. - Over what she had done.
- She just didn't care.
- Wow. - She's sadistic
and cold-blooded. - Yeah.
- That's--so what's the plan? - Crazy.
- So we need to talk to both the police and Chris.
- I think what would help is if you gave us
the contact information of Constable Gord.
- I will do that. - All right.
- Thank you. - You too.
We've never tackled a catfish this big before.
And with Shelly out of jail, there's no time to waste.
[upbeat music]
What happened to Paris was awful enough,
but Chris Andersen was even more devastated
by Shelly's actions.
So before we confront Shelly herself,
we need to get Birdman's side of the story.
- Okay, booking agent contact.
- But getting ahold of Chris was proving to be tricky,
to say the least.
[phone beeps]
- Hi, I'd like to speak with someone
who could book Chris Andersen for a speaking engagement
with me. Thank you.
- Have you ever left a message before?
[laughter]
If we were gonna shut down Shelly, we needed
the facts of Chris' case, and we knew just who to turn to.
- I do know the Sklar Brothers. They would be able to kind of
give us the whole rundown.
- The Sklar Brothers are twin sports commentators
best known for their contributions to ESPN
and their weekly podcast.
- Hey. - Hey, buddy.
- In the house. - How are you?
- These guys know a ton about basketball, which is great,
because Max and I, we're not really experts
when it comes to that kind of thing.
- We are here for a very specific reason.
- Okay. - All right.
- Birdman. - Right.
- When this story broke-- - It was tragic.
For a second, I was like, "Oh, no, what is he,
messing around with 10 year olds and 9 year olds?"
- 'Cause they didn't give details.
He was like a white Rodman. He's not a loved guy.
- He wasn't, like, a beloved character.
- It's not Michael Jordan. It's not LeBron.
- I mean, tattoos up to the neck--
- He's got, like, a turtleneck of tattoos.
- His face is probably a tattoo of his face, okay?
- [laughs]
- His tattoos weren't the only thing that contributed
to Chris Andersen's bad boy reputation.
In 2006, Chris Andersen was suspended from the NBA
for two years for violating the league's drug abuse policy.
He did his best to clean up his image.
He went to rehab and even dedicated tons of time
volunteering with kids.
- Birdman! [cheers and applause]
- He became a real hero in the community
on and off the court, which is why
when the public heard he was suspected
of crimes against children, the news hit hard.
- After he was... - Accused.
- Accused, then the team releases him.
And now he's like damaged goods. - Right.
- Nobody wants to pick him up, but no concrete, like, charges
were brought. He's just being investigated.
- And then it's broken that, in fact, it was some
strange situation with a woman in Canada.
- But it never went away. There wasn't like the equivalent
of the news breaking. There wasn't that equivalent
of admonishing him and saying he's--
- Right. - They're never gonna clear.
- There will still be people who will forever label this guy
a pedophile.
- I think what we're hoping is that after this episode,
to a certain degree, we can help push the tipping point
of his redemption back. - I hope so because this woman
cannot be let off the hook. - All right.
- All right, boys, good luck. - Thank, guys.
- Good luck, good luck. - Good luck on the quest.
- Now more than ever, we wanted to get in touch with Shelly,
but we didn't know how. Luckily, we had some help.
[phone buzzing]
Look at this. Paris texted,
"Hey, I spoke with Constable Gord Olson,
"and he wants to meet with you as soon as you can
"get up to Canada. He can be reached
at this phone number. Good luck."
- Winnipeg. - Canada.
We're gonna be a few hours from her.
- All right, I'm dressed as warmly as I know how to
for our trip to Canada.
- ♪ When you fade right there in front of me ♪
- We're on our way to Winnipeg because we've got a meeting
with Constable Gord. He's the cop that
should know what exactly went down.
- ♪ It hurts ♪
♪ It hurts ♪
- Here we are in beautiful, snowy Winnipeg,
where the sky and the ground are the exact same color.
- I'm excited to meet Constable Gord.
Constable Gord Olson is a Royal Canadian
Mounted Police Officer.
He was also the lead investigator out here
on the Shelly case.
There he is. All right, thank you so much.
- How are you? - Hey.
Gord knows more about this complex case
than anyone, and we have so many questions.
Was the Tom persona created just to catfish Paris?
Were Birdman and Paris Shelly's only victims?
We need answers, and we're hoping Constable Gord has them.
I would love if you could just sort of rewind the tape...
- Sure. - Back to your first sort of...
- Interact--okay. - Moment where this became
a case for you. - For sure.
It started back in May of 2012, actually.
Detective Shawn Cronce from the Douglas County
sheriff's office in Colorado, she was involved in
an investigation of the basketball player,
and she was seeing some phone numbers and IP addresses
that were coming back to Manitoba, so she reached out
to us for some help.
- Were you able to trace those numbers or provide
any information? - Yes, they came back
to Shelly Chartier's residence, and we hit the ground running.
It was amazing what she had amassed.
Like, the amount of email addresses which led to
social media accounts that she would use to reach out
to people as whoever she wanted to be.
- How does Tom play into this whole story?
- He is one of the personas that--that Shelly came up with.
There was a woman from Texas that she connected with as him.
They were in love and in a relationship
for a number of years. - Wow.
The woman in Texas unknowingly became a very important tool
in Shelly's schemes.
After befriending the woman as herself, Shelly then seduced
her using the Tom character.
Once the woman had fallen for Tom, Shelly used Tom
to manipulate her to serve as a point of contact
in Shelly's blackmail schemes.
When Shelly was blackmailing Chris,
she ran the money through the Texas woman
so Shelly wouldn't be traced. It was diabolical.
- I've never really talked about this with anybody else.
Shelly, as this male persona, really put this Texas woman
through an emotional ringer, and when we showed up there
and told her, "Look, you were talking to Shelly Chartier,"
she was devastated. It was like we were telling her
that somebody had died. - So she hadn't figured it out.
- No. - Wow.
- Shelly was sentenced to 18 months in jail,
and there's an active arrest warrant for her out of Colorado
seeking her extradition.
- How harsh would the sentencing be in the U.S.?
- Anywhere between 24 to 48 years in jail.
- Wow. - That's a lot.
- Yeah. - Is it scary to you
that she's back on the streets? - Yes, because the potential
for her to reoffend using a device and being
on the Internet, it would be high for her for sure.
- There's something sadistic about a lot of this stuff
beyond just the monetary gain and the goods.
Like, why is she ruining people's lives?
- Yeah, and I guess that's the question to pose to her.
- Can you potentially introduce us to Shelly?
- Yeah, for sure, I would be able to try to hook you up
in speaking with her.
- Well, that would be great. - Yeah.
- After hearing about this Texas woman
and just how tangled a web Shelly had weaved,
we don't wanna waste any time.
That was crazy. - Wow.
- So we're headed 400 miles north to The Pas,
which is still more than 100 miles from Easterville,
Shelly's home.
- ♪ When it's easy ♪
♪ Everything just... ♪
- This is biggest catfish we've ever encountered.
I mean, we could be going up and getting a whole lot of nothing.
- It's pretty nuts to be traveling so far
to meet someone that hasn't even agreed to meet us,
but we want to make sure that as soon as we hear from Shelly,
we're ready to go.
We're on this tiny plane. - This is a dicey move.
- Here we go.
- ♪ When it's easy ♪
♪ Everything just... ♪
- "Catfish" goes to Northern Canada.
- Whoo.
- The Pas Airport.
- Max and I have been holed up in a hotel room for days
hoping Gord would come through and help us
get in touch with Shelly.
These are the documents and affidavits.
Reading through the court documents of the Shelly case
paints a picture of Shelly as a hermit, the so-called
Ghost of Easterville.
For most of the 33 years of Shelly's life,
she rarely ever left her house, as she was shouldered
with the daily responsibility of caring for her bedridden mother.
Amidst this life of solitude in the depths
of Northern Canada, she had one link
to the outside world: the Internet.
Okay, so I'm gonna skip through some of this.
[phone beeps]
- Wait, you got something.
- New message from Constable Gord.
"Hey, Nev, I spoke with Shelly, and she has agreed
to meet with you guys for now. Here's her phone number."
- Whoa. - Whoa.
Sounds like she's expecting our call.
- All right. - It's not too early, I think.
[line trilling]
- [deep male voice] Hello?
- Hi, uh, I'm looking for Shelly.
- This is her.
- [deep male voice] Hello?
- Hi, uh, I'm looking for Shelly.
- This is her.
- Is this--this is Shelly?
I, uh--my name is Nev.
- Okay. - What?
She has a husband?
Oh, my God.
- Hi, good morning, Shelly. Is that you?
- Hi, this is Nev from the show "Catfish."
- How you doing?
- Is this an okay time to talk?
- I guess. - Okay, cool.
We're doing an episode now kind of all about you
and what happened with you, and we were really hoping to get
your side of the story.
We were wondering if, if you had some time,
maybe even, like, later today, to meet up with us
if we were to come by your place.
- Yeah. - That would work?
- Yeah. - Okay, cool.
We'll drive up there, and we'll be there in a few hours,
and I guess we'll see you then.
- [giggles] All right, bye.
- Okay, bye.
- That was really weird.
- All right, well, we got a long drive.
- Here we go.
- ♪ While we're speaking the truth ♪
♪ Could we let go of everything? ♪
♪ All of the things that... ♪
- The drive out to Easterville is surreal.
- ♪ Lost in the symmetry ♪
- We thought The Pas was remote, but plunging deeper
into the Canadian prairie, there is nothing
for as far as the eye can see.
- ♪ Lost in the symmetry ♪
- Since we've never dealt with catfish as diabolical
as Shelly before, if we're gonna get her,
it's gonna take a different approach.
- Let's see if she even invites us in.
I don't wanna--I'm not gonna try and, like, grill her.
- No, no, no, tomorrow we can grill her.
- Right, right. - We're just gonna
go over there-- you guys are gonna go in.
We're not gonna send our usual group in.
We're gonna send just you guys with cameras.
All on you guys.
- Okay.
- Let's go in.
[car door slams]
- All right.
[tense music]
♪ ♪
So I turn right here?
Can you guys hear us?
- Yep, we gotcha.
- Okay. - That's the house.
♪ ♪
All right. - Okay.
[camera beeps]
All right, let's do it.
[car door slams]
- You got batteries? - I have two.
♪ ♪
[knocking]
[door creaks]
[knocking]
[door creaks]
- Oh, hey, what's up?
- Nothing.
- How you doing? - Good.
- Nev. - Rob.
- I'm Rob. - Rob.
- Hey, what's up?
- Sorry?
- Hungry.
Hi, Shelly. Hi, I'm Max.
Nice to meet you.
Um, is this cool if we're filming?
Is that cool? [phone ringing]
Oh.
- Hello?Nothing.
- How do you like living up here?
- It's great. I mean--
- Yeah? - I'm with my wife,
and she's finally back. - Congrats on getting married.
When did that happen? - Christmas.
- Christmas, two years ago. - That's a--that's a
fun anniversary to have. - Yeah.
- All right. - Yeah, sucks we didn't
get to spend our first one together, but...
- That's a bummer.
[creaking]
- What is going on?
- That's just--it's just the wind blowing the door.
[door clicks]
- So how long are they staying? - So what's up?
- Well, you know, like, we came up here to kind of meet you
and hear your story whenever and however you want to tell it.
- Well... - Can I say hi to your mom?
Or is that weird? I just feel like we're
in her house. I just want to like--
- No, you can say hi.
Uh, this is my cousin, Bert. And that's my mom.
- Hey, how are you? - Hi.
- Good to meet you. - You too.
- Pleasure to meet you. - Yeah.
- Thanks for having us. Who's this little cutie?
- My dog. - That's her dog, Winnie.
- Weenie? - Winnie.
- Winnie. [laughs]
Sorry, that's a terrible mistake.
Winnie, hi. - Say, "Hi, nice to meet you."
Shake her paw. - Okay, hello.
When was the last time you were able to stand up?
- When I came home from bringing her home from the hospital.
- So 32 years ago. - Mm-hmm.
- So this is, obviously, your room.
And then we got a few more rooms, right?
- Yeah. - So this is your room.
- Yeah. We just made this, like,
a couple weeks ago. - Oh, that's really cute.
So how did you guys meet?
[laughter]
She kicked my ass in "Call of Duty" and "Halo," and--
- And that's how you knew? - We were cool.
We were playing together. - She was the one.
- Yeah. [laughs]
- I was on his team, and I kept stabbing him.
- [chuckles] - So he would talk.
- I'm very happy she's home.
'Cause I wasn't eating, I wasn't.
I was more worried about her and how she was doing
over there. - You know, I guess
in the United States they're trying to get her
to come down there. - Mm-hmm.
- Which is, I imagine, pretty frightening.
- Yeah, if that happened, I'm for sure
going to be six feet under.
- What up? - Hey.
- Can you maybe show me a little more of the house?
A little tour? - Sure.
- Yeah.
- Here's the kitchen. - Yeah, that's--
We got married right here.
- Oh, yeah, we did. This is where we got married.
- This was the spot? - Yep, she was, like,
standing right here. Look that way.
- Do you want to see what I made in jail?
- Yeah. That's beautiful.
- Oh, here's a picture of my dog.
A girl in jail tried to buy this picture off of me for chips.
[laughter]
- Smooth. - He's very happy.
- Yeah.
- This was her for Halloween. - Oh, my God, look at this.
- She was a bumblebee.
- Buzzing around. - Mm-hmm.
- So tomorrow the real interview's gonna happen?
- We were just assuming maybe it would be tomorrow.
- Okay. - All right, bye, guys.
[sighs] Wow.
I don't know whether we just connected with her,
but, like, it's hard to remember that she did
some really terrible things. - Right.
- Well, I think we did what we intended to do.
We made a connection, and now, tomorrow, we can
get to the bottom of things.
- Back to Easterville.
Yesterday, we were really friendly.
As sweet and unassuming as she appears, we definitely
need to shift gears today.
- All right, well, here goes nothing.
[knocking]
- Come in. - Hey, what's up, man?
What's up, man?
- How you guys doing today? - All right.
Maybe just a little nervous.
Wait, why nervous? - I don't know, just, like,
this is all different.
- Have a seat.
- So how long do you think this will take?
- Why, you got big plans later? - Yeah, I'm going to the store.
- Before. - You didn't used to go out
to the store ever, right? - Never.
- Why do you think you didn't leave the house for so long?
- Because I'm safe inside.
So I've stayed in, taking care of my mom.
- So how long? - 12 years I was inside.
I was a hermit. A real one.
- And what did you do, you know, when you were here?
- I was online, just texting people.
- Did your friends go on too, or was this kind of like--
- I didn't have any friends, like, real friends?
- Just people you knew. - Oh, um, no.
- All right, so maybe we should go back and just sort of
hear your version of how everything
sort of started with Paris and Chris.
- So I was on my Facebook account,
and I see Chris, the basketball player.
He said they had a win.
- That his team had a win? - Yeah, on his status,
and on the comments, it showed Paris.
She said, "Hey, text me whenever," and she wrote
her number there, and he wasn't paying attention to her.
So I texted Paris. I said, "Hey, it's Chris."
And then I went to bed, I left it alone, and I woke up,
and she said, "How was your day?"
And I said, "It's okay. How are you?"
Like, it was like that. And then she started
sending pictures, and it started to get uncomfortable.
So I told my friend [bleep], "I'm just gonna tell this girl
I'm not really Chris."
- Wait a second, who's [bleep]? - The Texas woman.
♪ ♪
- I thought you were talking to this woman in Texas as Tom.
- I'm always talking to her as myself.
I never talked to her as Tom. - Never?
- Never. - Where would she even
know about Tom? The Tom character?
- She knew about everything. - So she knew that you had
created a fake page... - Yeah.
- With a guy named Tom Taylor. - Yeah, and she knew right away
when I texted Paris. She said, "Just get Chris
to notice Paris, and give him her number."
- So the Texas woman suggested, to get out of the uncomfortable
place you were in, just put-- - Just hook them up.
She said, "Hook them up." And then, on day two,
I sent him all the pictures Paris sent.
He sent some back. I sent them to her.
Within a few hours, he asked, "Would you like to fly down?"
Of course, Paris said yes.
She said, "Oh, I'm at Chris' house."
And I said, "Prove it." She sent me a bunch of pictures
with a dog in his house, and then he flew her home, and said,
"We had fun. I'd like to see you again."
Then she freaked out one morning.
Paris was swearing at me and calling me
all kinds of names--well, him. - Did you ever--
- So I went on Facebook and seen he was with somebody else.
- With another girl? - Yeah.
- So that would've been a great opportunity to end it.
- Yeah. - To like--
- But she kept going on and on, and I was trying
to text somebody else, and her thing kept popping up.
I was annoyed, and I wanted her to shut up and go away.
- And that's why you texted those awful threats to Paris,
hoping she would go away. - Mm-hmm, yeah.
- And then to kind of show her that you meant business,
you posted those pictures of Paris.
- Yeah, and I showed her. - You showed her.
And that's what made her go to the cops.
- Yeah, and then, one morning, I seen on the news
where Chris' house got raided.
And he just looked really bad.
- And so what did you feel when you saw that?
- Really bad and scared for him and for me.
That's when I started freaking out and I said, "What do I do?"
My friend, the Texas woman, said, "Delete the app
and they can't trace you," but they dug deeper
and found me.
- The most interesting thing for me to hear is the difference
in your story about this woman in Texas versus the way
the police describe her involvement.
♪ ♪
She makes it sound, from her interviews with the police--
- That she's a victim, and that she was in love with Tom
and that he sort of manipulated her.
- Shelly, as this male persona, really put this Texas woman
through an emotional ringer.
- And she was devastated and heart broken
when she found it was you. - Yeah, I know her story.
- It was like we were there to tell her that somebody had died.
- Sounds like this woman in Texas is telling you
what to do a lot. - Yeah.
- And yet she seems to have been painted as this victim.
- I don't believe she was a victim.
- In fact, she was sort of an active participant.
- Yeah, she tried to get $10,000 from him,
and she admitted that to the cops.
So she said, "I'll negotiate because he's worth millions."
And one day, she was in a meeting.
She told me not to text her until 5:00.
And I got an email, I think it was $2,000 or $3,000.
- Right. - The last offer.
Take it or leave it, and I said, okay, because I'm usually
tempted to be like, okay, first thing.
He's like, "Okay, you give me a place to fax some papers,
and you sign them," and I thought,
"No, like, that's too sketchy." And then I told [bleep],
okay, it's gonna be $2,000 or $3,000.
And then she got really mad. She's like,
"You're a [bleep] idiot. You could have gotten more.
Like, you're so stupid." So I said, "Well, just drop it,
'cause he's trying to fax stuff, and that could trace us."
And she said, "Don't worry,
"I'm gonna print it out at my work, and then
I'll just fax it back."
So she printed it out, signed it, faxed it back,
and she admitted that to the cops.
- If that's true, and this woman from Texas was trying
to get you more money, was that because she thought
she'd be getting some of it?
- Oh, we did get half. - You were gonna split it?
- We did split. - They did split it.
- Oh, you did split it. - Yeah.
- And she said that Tom... - Made her do it.
- Manipulated her into doing it. - Yeah.
- It's just interesting because from what we can tell,
Gord did a pretty thorough investigation.
- Mm-hmm. - I mean, none of what you're
saying about the Texas woman can be backed up in
the court documents we read or from anyone that we talked to.
- Yeah, I know. - So a lot of people--
- But my-- - Well, a lot of people
will say you're still lying. You're making this up.
- It doesn't appear they found any information that
implicates this woman in Texas had anything to do with this.
- Yeah, I know. - So a lot of people--
- But my-- - Well, a lot of people
will say you're still lying. You're making this up.
- Yeah, but I--I have no reason to lie about this.
I already did my time, and you get what you get.
If you don't like what you hear, then believe her.
- Right, but if what you're saying is true,
then that would mean that a vast majority of the charges
that you actually did plead guilty to were shared--
were shared with the Texas woman.
- I pled guilty because I was pregnant at the time.
And my husband was here.
I was gonna fight this in trial,
but I was told "If you plead guilty, we will
get you house arrest." And then I got 18 months.
- Oh, that's terrible, sorry.
- Can I ask you one more question?
Why did you do it?
I know you've said "bored," but what--
I guess I want to push a little further and ask were you doing
it because it was fun to do? Were you doing it
'cause it was something to do?
I think that that's a big part of this.
- I did it to see if she would believe me
at first. And then I did it
if he would believe me. And then, I don't know.
It just--I kept doing it. And I don't know why I did that.
I'm stupid. I'm really stupid.
- No, you're not.
- I don't know. My whole time in jail,
I thought-- I kept thinking of what happened
to Chris and Paris and why-- I don't know,
I kept thinking, "Why the hell did I message her?"
I blamed her for the first few months in jail.
Like, I really hated her.
I blamed the cops. I blamed the judge.
I blamed my lawyer, but I realized that
I can only blame me.
And then, when I got out, people kept asking me,
"Do you think about it? Have you thought about it?
Do you think about it?" - Just like I'm asking you now.
- Mm-hmm. - And it's annoying.
- Very.
People won't let it go
and I can't move on.
♪ ♪
And in jail, it's all I thought about.
You know? Everybody sees me as a villain.
- Do you feel like it's fair that people think you're--
- I honestly feel like it doesn't matter
what people think about me anymore because I don't have
the right for people to feel sorry for me.
I get a lot of [bleep],
and I'm not gonna ask for pity
from people.
- What about the people who say you haven't yet served
your time in the United States for the crimes
you committed there?
- I think I did my time.
A year is a lot to waste out of a human life.
And those people should look at themselves and--and think of
the biggest mistake in their life and wonder,
"Should I be punished more for what I did?"
- So let's just assume all this does blow over and go away,
like, what do you want to do with the rest of your life?
- Have a kid. I wanna have his kid.
- Do you ever, like, kind of keep an eye out, like, you know,
you're like, you wanna make sure that she doesn't...
- Of course. - Do any of that stuff?
- Because if she gets in trouble again, then I have to
deal with not being with her for another year
and stuff like that. I never want her
to get in trouble again. Just want to set her
on the right path.
- So it's safe to say you're never going to catfish again?
- Yeah, definitely not.
- All right, guys. Well, that's it for us.
Good luck. - Thanks for everything.
- Stay safe. Stay out of trouble.
- Bye. - Bye, guys.
- Have a safe trip.
♪ ♪
- After two days with Shelly, I feel conflicted.
- Do you believe her?
- I'm not even sure what matters anymore.
We thought we were going to meet a monster.
We set out to make sure Shelly never catfished again,
but that change couldn't come from us.
It had to come from within Shelly herself.
Seeing the hope in her eyes when she talked about
her future with Rob, I believe Shelly
when she says she's done.
If there's one thing I've learned after
many seasons of "Catfish," there's no monsters
at the end of the line, only people
who want something better.
- ♪ Mama, take me mallwalking ♪
♪ You know that I'm an empty kid ♪
♪ You buy me stuff to try and fill me up ♪
♪ But I think I am bottomless ♪
♪ ♪