Things I Want To Know
Ever wonder what really happened — not the rumors, not the Netflix version, but the truth buried in forgotten police files? We did too.
We don’t chase conspiracy theories or ghost stories. We chase facts. Through FOIA requests, interviews, and case files scattered across America, we dig through what’s left behind to find what still doesn’t make sense. Along the way, you’ll hear the real conversations between us — the questions, the theories, and the quiet frustration that comes when justice fades.
Each episode takes you inside a case that time tried to erase — the voices left behind, the investigators who never quit, and the clues that still echo decades later. We don’t claim to solve them. We just refuse to let them be forgotten.
Join us as we search for the truth, one mystery at a time.
Things I Want To Know
Bridging the Gap Between Law and Heartache in Family Conflicts (repost)
Join us as we sit down with Nancy Purpole, to peel back the layers of divorce law and the importance of client engagement. Nancy's journey from the courtroom offers a unique vantage point, as she discusses the subtle nuances of family law and the emotional toll it can take. We delve into how one's past can shape communication in relationships, the shifting sands of legal acceptance for LGBTQ+ individuals, and the impact of upbringing on one's ability to navigate legal challenges.
This episode is a roller coaster of emotions, touching on the heartache that comes with custody battles and the contentious nature of using children as pawns. We share poignant stories from Nancy's career that highlight the complexities of attorney-client dynamics and the ethical quandaries lawyers face in family law. The discussion also sheds light on the surprising number of divorces arising from COVID-19 disagreements, serving as a stark reminder of the unforeseen challenges in marriage and the legal framework that surrounds it.
As we wrap up, we tackle the tough questions about advocacy, particularly when it comes to children's welfare post-divorce. We also share the significance of role models during life's transitions and the necessity for resilience in the face of adversity. And because we understand the need for levity amidst serious topics, we end on a lighter note debating holiday nutcrackers and the virtues of vodka, inviting you to join in on the fun. This conversation with Nancy Purpole is not just an exploration of the law—it's a journey through the human experience, marked by growth, struggle, and the quest for justice.
“Thank you for listening to Things I Want to Know.
You want these stories, and we want to bring them to you — so hit the support link and keep this circus, and the mics, alive.
Then do us a favor and rate and subscribe; it helps the show find more people like you — the ones who like their mysteries real and their storytellers unfiltered.
And if you want to wear a little of this madness, grab some Andrea-approved gear at paulgnewton.com.
We make t
Things I Want To Know
Where two stubborn humans poke the darkness with a stick and hope it blinks first. If you know something about a case, report it to the actual police before you come knocking on our door. After that, sure, tell us. We’re already in too deep anyway.
If you enjoy the show, or you just like supporting people who refuse to shut up, grab some merch at PaulGNewton.com. It keeps the lights on and the caffeine flowing.
And when your curiosity needs a breather from all the murder, jump over to my other show, Paul G’s Corner, where history proves that saying it can’t happen here usually means it already did.
Hey guys, this is Andrew from Things. I Want to Know. If you like the podcast, please leave a five-star rating. Don't really know why this is important, but it is, so let's get the voice out. Also, don't forget to check out the podcast Paul G's Corner, a podcast where everyone gets a voice. Have you ever wanted to sit down in front of an attorney and just ask questions? Have you ever wanted to learn what to do in court, what not to do in court and what the law really states, even though sometimes it's very unfair? And today our guest is Nancy Purpole she's going to be able to answer some of those exact questions. So, nancy, how are you doing today?
Speaker 2:I'm doing very well, except I woke up with allergies, so I apologize to your audience if I sound raspy.
Speaker 1:Oh don't worry, I'm pretty raspy too after just getting over the flu, sexy raspy. I don't know about that Trying not to cough in the mic, and I'm just tired of coughing. The flu is a pain in the butt, guys. It's flu A. I even had my flu shot and I still caught the flu.
Speaker 3:It was a bad flu man.
Speaker 1:Well, my kid went to spend the night at somebody's house and then brought it to us. So no more having sleepovers.
Speaker 3:You're actually talking to my ghost.
Speaker 1:I died from it, you died from it. Yes, this could get interesting.
Speaker 3:I'm a ghost, you're a ghost. I've talked to enough mediums. I got them all together and they're channeling me all at once to finish the episode.
Speaker 2:So what's the one? That's a. I thought you had the positive energies when you walked in the room. Yeah, really.
Speaker 1:I am pretty shocking.
Speaker 3:Sorry, couldn't help it.
Speaker 1:So I guess for me, I've had a little experience in the court system. I have children, I'm divorced and I also had a little bit of I guess you'd say background knowledge with being a nurse, paralegal, so I kind of have a little bit of this. But I've always just wanted to pick somebody's brain, because when you go to the attorney you're obviously needing their assistance. So what do you think is one of the most number one hands-down worst thing a client could do when they're coming to you?
Speaker 2:I think the worst thing they can do is not really know what they want out of the interview, what they want the attorney to accomplish for them, just because you hire an attorney. If you're going and we're just going to talk about divorce at the moment, if you're going and we're just going to talk about divorce at the moment, if you're going to go through a divorce and you hire an attorney, you are under a misconception. If you think the attorney is going to take care of everything, they can't take care of everything without your help. You are the only one who knows about your case. If there's a car accident, the accident has already happened. You've got investigators that are going to tell you how the accident happened. You're going to have witnesses that are going to say how the accident happened.
Speaker 2:In a divorce, the divorce is. You're still living your life. The problems that you had are still going on and you really need to go to the attorney and explain to them what your goals are. You have to come with your financial information. You have to come with your goals with respect to custody and you have to come with your goals with respect to distribution of property and you have to come with your goals with respect to distribution of property. So the biggest misconception is going in and thinking that the attorney is going to do it all for you.
Speaker 3:So I want to get to just a little bit here. Can you tell us a little bit about your credentials, so people know who we're talking to?
Speaker 2:Oh sure, my name? Well, obviously you know. My name is Nancy McCall and I was a critical care nurse before I became an attorney. And Andrea was a nurse before she became a paralegal, that's true. So she jumped, just like I did. In any event, I became an attorney and became a divorce attorney, not by choice, by circumstance. When I was hired I was the only woman in the office, and my first day I was hired to do defense malpractice, and the first day on my job I had 75 divorce files.
Speaker 3:Wow.
Speaker 2:And I went to the senior manager and I said I was hired to do defense malpractice. I'm going through a divorce myself. I'm really not interested in divorce. And he leaned across the desk and put his finger an inch from my nose and said you're not going to make it here. You do what we tell you to do and you're a woman and women do divorce work. Ouch, well, you know what? I'm the middle of seven children and when you tell me I can't do something and I've been surgery, you know, without an amylase and they may have a ruptured spleen and you have to say no, I'm not sending him until you order the amylase. So I mean, I was sort of used to being trying to be bullied.
Speaker 3:And so you've kind of branched out as well and written some books too.
Speaker 2:Oh, yes, I actually wrote a textbook with some people from the University of Pennsylvania. It was Advanced Concepts of Clinical Nursing and it was published by JB Lippincott in 1973, so you can guess how old I am. But in any event, the book was adopted by a number of nursing schools and also many hospitals started to promulgate all the protocols we wrote about in that book because it was advanced concepts in clinical nursing. We were trying to improve patient outcome by changing some of the old protocols. So I went to the administration in the hospital that I was working at, as I said in the emergency room, and I said you know you are not adopting any of these things. I've written this for you, I've done this certificate of need for you and can you tell me why you're not thinking about this? And the administrator said to me you're not thinking about this. And the administrator said to me you're a nurse and at this hospital the doctors are the ones who are going to make the protocols so of course that was 1973.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't think that would happen again, but in any event, yeah I don't know um.
Speaker 3:It depends on the hospital I've heard some stories that I won't repeat, but I think honestly, your book was used in my nursing school.
Speaker 1:That that sounds so familiar.
Speaker 2:Well, in any event, I went to this woman who had been just hired by the hospital. She was a lawyer but she had been a nurse and she was hired to do sort of you know, examine the different protocols which I was trying to change because there were some significant issues at the hospital I was working at. In any event, I said to her they're not, they're not listening to me, you know. And I gave her everything I had given to the administration and she said I'll look at this and I'll see what I can do for you, but if you want things to change, go to law school, you'll have power. So that's why I went to law school. I had every intention of going back into the hospital, setting in administration and changing things that I knew. I mean, I entered nursing, I graduated in 1968.
Speaker 2:So I saw all the changes and so many times when things would develop, we weren't ready for that. The nursing staff, even the interns, the residents, some of the doctors, weren't ready for all of the changes. And there were so many patients who, frankly, I'll be honest with you, were guinea pigs, and you know, I mean, when they first came out with they used to call them. Oh, my goodness, there was a certain catheter, a bayonet catheter, and it was. It's pretty premature, I mean, it's primitive compared to what is available now, but what would happen is you'd slip the catheter, which is plastic, through this thing that looked like a bayonet, into the vein of the patient and it would sear off the plastic in five minutes. Three minutes later the patient would be dead with an embolism. No, I mean, I saw that many times, you know, and you know what can I say? So many? I saw many things that I was so desperate to change. But the only way I could change it was to become a lawyer and then go back into administration.
Speaker 3:And since then you've been in the family law and you've you've seen some interesting things there too, I suppose um, yes, those things I can't really talk about and then you've written a book oh well, I know I've written a book about related.
Speaker 2:It's a novel, it's fiction okay, okay um, it's a debut novel.
Speaker 2:It's called called Around which All Things Bend, and that's love. Love is the thing around which we bend to get love and give love, until the emotional toll that it takes breaks us. And it's the story about a young man who comes back from Afghanistan and he's a very wealthy rancher in Montana and I started writing this book before Yellowstone, by the way, I really did, and when Yellowstone came out I went. Somebody stole my idea, but in any event, he's the heir to this you know enormous Yellowstone-sized ranch, his mother's widowed. She pressures him to settle down, get married, pump out some heirs to inherit the property and the wealth. So he sort of succumbs to it and gets engaged with this woman who they're very compatible in the bedroom, but they don't have the same values. And he realizes that right before the wedding and he breaks the engagement.
Speaker 2:And then the story is about this evolution and the consequences. And what happens in the story is his two army buddies come and he couldn't call them off because they were en route to come to the ranch when he breaks off the engagement and so they show up and one of them asked him to help him with something that he's got a problem with in Charleston, south Carolina. So this guy goes to Charleston, south Carolina and, lo and behold, he falls in love with this guy's sister. And it's just. It's a. It's a nice story. It's getting really good reviews on Amazon.
Speaker 3:Now is it? Is it a self-published type thing, or did you get a?
Speaker 2:It's what they call a hybrid published. As I said, you know I'm a little long at the tooth to try to get traditionally published. Yeah Well, by the time you get an agent.
Speaker 3:Yeah, trust me, I know.
Speaker 2:And then the agent has to sell that right and then it takes two or three years. I mean I don't want to do it posthumously, I want the book to be out there now. I mean I'm giving lectures, I'm on a lot of podcasts talking about prenuptial agreements, things you should talk about to your fiance, excuse me, or your intended, before you get married.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Find out if you're compatible before you get married.
Speaker 3:It always helps, you know. Yeah, divorce is not fun.
Speaker 2:Find out if they have a lot of debt before you get married debt before you get married so that after you get married and you find out they're in debt for 40 or $50,000, are they expecting you to pay that without a prenuptial agreement or some other agreement? Yeah, so many people are realizing after they get married that their spouse has come to the marriage with significant debt which was not disclosed.
Speaker 3:See, I always look at the newspaper to see who hit the lottery.
Speaker 2:Well, it's called financial infidelity. That's the new thing.
Speaker 1:Oh wow, they even have a term for it.
Speaker 3:Financial infidelity how does that work?
Speaker 1:Fidelity?
Speaker 3:How does that work? Financial infidelity is when you have not disclosed, or you, serotypically, serotypically, serotypically, let's go, and then we all know at that point, I'll spit that out no-transcript Interesting.
Speaker 1:Well, think about it, though. I mean, you could be someone that's got a ton of debt and you're marrying this person who's probably has no debt, and you're using their income on top of yours to pay off your debt. That would kind of tend to make the other spouse a little perturbed, to say the least.
Speaker 3:Maybe I mean, it depends, you know.
Speaker 1:It depends on the person, I guess.
Speaker 3:Maybe I mean it depends, you know, it depends on the person, I guess. But again you should probably a good idea to tell the person hey, I've got four hundred million dollars in debt. I don't really know how to fix that.
Speaker 1:I had a close purse friend of mine that didn't find out that her significant other had a child, much less behind on child support until she filed her taxes.
Speaker 2:What, yes, child support until she filed her taxes. What, yes, he failed to disclose he had a child for which he owed child support.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was just like wow, I'm so sorry, so obviously you have to do the injured spouse filing and basically her refund was delayed significantly. Like she didn't get a refund until like April or May of that year, I presume. She got a divorce. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, she got a divorce a couple years later. She was trying to be, you know, make it work, kind of thing, but yeah.
Speaker 2:What women try to do. Women always try to make it work.
Speaker 3:Not all the time. No for you, Not all the time For you, you tried hard, I tried to make it work, I tried to do everything I was supposed to do and I was just married to an idiot.
Speaker 2:Well, I was married to an idiot too. I think we've all been married to idiots.
Speaker 3:Well, mine was pretty stupid.
Speaker 1:He seriously thinks that her IQ probably level or her ability is. She's a woman that does not want to grow up. It still wants to be 12 or 13.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And you didn't see that before you got married.
Speaker 3:Well, she was 19 and I was thought that I was worthless.
Speaker 1:So oh yeah, One of those things.
Speaker 3:I was 26. She was 19. Oh yeah, one of those things I was 26. She was 19. I thought that I was a worthless person, because everyone in my life had told me that I was a worthless person, that I, you know listen to. And I didn't understand the difference and I figured.
Speaker 2:You know it's interesting. You raise that issue because you said that you studied or you're interested in psychology.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:The new theory about communication and I don't know how new it is, but it's now become accepted and you really learn in your family of origin, your self-worth, how to communicate your level of confidence in yourself and what you reflect out in terms of what you think you deserve in life. And if you don't work through those issues before you go into a relationship, it ends in disaster every time.
Speaker 3:It can. Yes, for sure.
Speaker 1:It makes sense. I mean your whole basis of who you are and what you feel is normal is based upon your family. So I mean that makes sense.
Speaker 3:Well, I, you know for me, I just decided one day I'm not going to do this anymore. This is stupid. I hate it and it's doing nothing but hurting me, and I adopted the reasoning of if you don't like me, that's your problem. Because I like me, that's your problem, because I'm not a bad person. I do care, I have empathy, I try. I don't let people run over me, but you know that's it and I'm, I'm me. My mantra for years was I am me, andrea, and I need your help. If you like our episodes, please give us a five-star rating and a review. Not sure exactly how that helps us, but it does and it makes people want to listen when they see that five stars and a good review from you. So go to wherever you're listening to your podcast apple, itunes, spotify, iheart media, wherever and hit that five stars so I got a question to ask you.
Speaker 1:Just I'm curious, I we live in arkansas. It's a little different here, obviously probably much different than other areas of country. Do you feel like family law has evolved where it's a little bit more accepting for couples to split due to, I don't know, being gay, trans couples, you know, gay lesbian couples? Do you feel like maybe that's getting better in the court system? I guess the reason why I'm asking is because when my parents split this was in 2000 and very rural part of this state or I don't know. We're 10, 15 years behind.
Speaker 1:Probably everybody else At least and my mother obviously was upset. I mean, I would be too, after being married to somebody for 25 years. All of a sudden they say they're gay, yeah, so Sorry. She.
Speaker 1:If you knew her mother, you'd be like yeah, yeah, well she tried to slam my father in court for bringing up constantly him being gay, and it was like it was constantly being discussed and so I couldn't watch the court proceedings anymore. I just packed up my car and moved to Michigan to go to school out of get out of it. Feel like that's getting better, or does some areas of the country still have issues with that, where people put their more of their personal opinions into the courtroom versus trying to be totally, you know, objective, and there's the facts well, I think that's a good question.
Speaker 2:Um, honestly, I think it depends on the area of the country. I don't think that would be tolerated in the Northeast, no, or California, or, you know, even in the Midwest. Unfortunately, in the Deep South it is still. There's so much prejudice and bias against the gay people that a judge absolutely would not, would really not, countenance that if it weren't relevant to the case. In other words, was she saying that your father was having an affair with another man and then the basis was infidelity, and then she should mention it once. He was having an affair with another gentleman and he's gay. And you know, I want a divorce. But I don't know many judges who would want to hear that over and over and over again, probably in Arkansas, I don't know. Maybe they would tolerate it. I think judges I don't know what they'd tolerate it or not.
Speaker 3:I think it depends. If you're down in Little Rock, it probably wouldn't be tolerated Northwest Arkansas now but if you get down in Newton County or if you go down to Arkansas County or somewhere close to the Louisiana border, you probably would be tolerated.
Speaker 1:Because I just know, as a kid I was.
Speaker 3:How could you even fight that?
Speaker 1:20, 21,. My parents split. I remember that was my first real taste of law, I guess you could say. And so I remember thinking what has this got to do with anything?
Speaker 2:Well, that's what I was saying, a judge would say, or the other lawyer would object and relevancy. I mean it's. It's relevant maybe once, but not over and over and over again. I mean the judge just sat there and let this go on.
Speaker 1:Yeah for a while and basically just said you know he did cheat on my mother for a man let's just put that out there it was but it was like she was trying to slam his business and everything as him being gay and it was not really highly accepted around here in the 2000s.
Speaker 1:Now it's probably not really so much of a big deal, but then it was a huge big deal and so it just kind of as a kid watching all this young young lady, it kind of put a bad taste my mouth in general for all of it, because I looked at my mother differently after that, I looked at the court system differently after that and I just kind of like I'm out, I'm moving up North and I went to school up North but I'm in CASA now and, um, I deal with kids in foster care and I've kind of been a roundabout advocate for other children that are trans and things like that or gay or lesbian within the foster care system. As far as like advice for people, because of my own personal experience with my children, but I've been told that even some judges have a hard very much accepted.
Speaker 2:So is gay and lesbian and queer I mean. But it depends upon different area of the country. You know, arkansas Is still. Some rural parts of Arkansas, as you said are still have a lot of prejudice and bias against people.
Speaker 3:West Memphis is not changed much since they railroaded those four kids.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's probably true. Yeah, I don't know if you know about the West Memphis Four. Is it Four, Six, Four or Six? I don't know? But anyways, they're still trying to go on appealing the situation that got them arrested for way back in the 80s, they had to acknowledge guilt without acknowledge guilt to get out of jail. Yeah, I forget they had to admit.
Speaker 3:They did it without admitting guilt.
Speaker 1:I forget the legal term for it, but it's something like admitting guilt without saying you actually did it. I don't know, it's one thing that got them out of jail, but it's. They were juveniles, though, weren't they? Were they? I think the they were juveniles, though, weren't they? Were they? I think the they were tried as adults.
Speaker 1:Tried as adults. I think they were young adults, maybe like 18, 19, 16, somewhere in there, but I guess what advice would you give for people? Because for where we live, people or anyone lives, they kind of only get this preconceived notion about the law and the police and whatever based upon what they see on TV. It's nothing like TV, correct? I mean real life.
Speaker 2:It is nothing on TV. It's nothing like on TV. And I think the biggest thing is that, as I said before and I stand by it the best thing you can do proactively is to really understand what your goals are. If your goal is to get money from your spouse, the worst thing you want to do is to try to put them out of business. If your mother was after alimony I mean her attorney allowed her to do that to try to ruin his business I mean her attorney allowed her to do that to try to ruin his business she would have been better off just not trying to ruin his business, and you know well.
Speaker 3:Arkansas is a state.
Speaker 1:We're not an alimony state. So yeah, but you can't get alimony.
Speaker 3:in Arkansas you can get child support. That's about it.
Speaker 2:You still can't get alimony in.
Speaker 1:Arkansas. It's very rarely, I was told by an attorney.
Speaker 3:In certain cases you can. Certain cases, yes, but it's very rare.
Speaker 1:It's rare, very rare.
Speaker 2:I know that your statute provides for it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I think it's just extremely rare, basically. I know my ex-husband tried to go after alimony with me because I made more than him and the judge just shot it down as a no.
Speaker 3:That guy's an idiot too, though he's like showing up in court drunk. He's not going to get alimony. The judge is like no, you're an idiot.
Speaker 1:Here's something you might be able to speak to. What advice would you give women out there who are maybe going through a divorce or some sort of marital breakup or separation, where they feel they're being stalked and harassed?
Speaker 2:Well, once again, do you have a statute, a stalking statute, in your state?
Speaker 1:That's a really good question.
Speaker 2:Because I'm not from you know, I'm not familiar with Arkansas law per se. I know that Arkansas, you know, does provide for distribution of property, child support custody.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the basics.
Speaker 2:But not all states have stalking statutes. True police and the police would know if there's a stalking statute and then you know you would ask them to bring an action on your behalf or help you bring an action on your behalf. The problem with the stalking and protection from abuse or restraining orders you may call that in your state is that they're just a piece of paper. That's true. That is just a piece of paper and you have to be really careful about and I hate to say this because I'm very much a woman's advocate in those circumstances but I've seen if you file a restraining order or an anti-stalking order and you have them picked up, it incites them to the extent they become more violent sometimes and that's that. That's the double-edged sword. So you really need to consult an attorney so stalking in arkansas is.
Speaker 3:Stalking in the first degree is when someone knowingly engages in a course of conduct that places another person in fear for their safety and either is violating an order of protection, has previous stalking convictions or says they are armed with a deadly weapon, and it's a Class C felony, arkansas Criminal 5-71-229A, not sure. 5-71-229a. And stalking in the second degree occurs when someone knowingly harasses another person and makes a terroristic threat to make another person fear death or serious physical injury to themselves or a family member, which is a class d felony 571-229b. And in the third degree because when someone knowingly commits an act that would normally place a person in fear for another person's safety, which is 571-229-C. So it really you can make threats all day long as long as you don't threaten them with physical harm.
Speaker 1:It's true.
Speaker 2:And then there's nothing anybody can do about it, because it doesn't cover that, because it doesn't cover that Well, I mean you could get a restraining order if, depending upon if they were living together previously and there was any domestic violence in any way, I mean you wouldn't wait until they're stalking. Usually they don't just start stalking. Usually there's a, there's a thread here. It starts with domestic violence, intimidation and, you know, putting a person in fear of their physical safety, and then you get a restraining order, and your statute just mentioned that. And that would be the logical reason why they mention it, because then the stalking starts it. Because then the stalking starts, because if, if you get a restraining order and they can't get near you, they stalk at a distance that's true.
Speaker 1:yeah, that just incites them. So because I've had several friends and people I've known over the years that have had issues with this and they felt like they weren't being heard or or things like that, and I'm always like document, document, keep calling, keep calling, keep calling, to the point that at one of my friends, her uh, the police department told her to stop calling because it wasn't really necessarily through verbal threats, it was through email, like he was completely, 100% contacting all her relatives, all her friends on Facebook, her work.
Speaker 3:All you have to do is get you a really burly looking boyfriend close to Facebook. This is my new boyfriend, you know. I mean notice it all kind of stops whenever I come around.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, right, right You're big and burly, you can scare everybody. So you want to have my friends borrow you.
Speaker 3:I'm scary in the first place. I mean it's weird Babies and puppies, they know better.
Speaker 1:So anybody out there is being socked Babies and puppies love me. What about cats?
Speaker 3:Cats are cats.
Speaker 1:Cats love you. My cats love you.
Speaker 3:Not all the cats.
Speaker 1:Well, cats are like people. They're very unique. You're a cat rancher. I'm not a cat rancher. I live in the country.
Speaker 3:People dump pets I take care of them. I try to find them homes. You don't try to find them homes.
Speaker 1:It's really hard to get people to adopt pets. Anybody want a cat out there.
Speaker 3:You know how to cut a hole of us yeah, and or if you want to give to her nutcracker fund because she needs more nutcrackers. She says she has 472 nutcrackers at her work.
Speaker 1:I do not.
Speaker 3:And about 9,000 of them at home. She had to buy a whole other trailer just for her house so that she could put the nutcrackers in there.
Speaker 1:I like nutcrackers, but I'm not obsessed with them, Geez man.
Speaker 2:You guys are making me laugh.
Speaker 1:I have a few of them that sit on my desk at work. You have more than a few of them that sit on my desk at work, because we're told you have more than a few. It's one, two, six.
Speaker 3:That's more than a few.
Speaker 1:Well, I like them. I can't help it.
Speaker 3:This is not hamsters.
Speaker 1:This is true. That'd be weird. I don't even want to think about that, man, oh Lord. So what is some of the craziest things in family law that you wish people would not do? I know you talked about like. I've had friends that are like wouldn't listen to their attorneys and wonder why things never got done.
Speaker 3:Don't poop on the judge's desk.
Speaker 1:Yes, that would probably get you contempt of court or at least a psychiatric eval.
Speaker 3:Well, you know, if you need a place to stay for three days, you should do that, because it's free room and board at that point no.
Speaker 1:Oh gosh, no, Don't take his advice, people.
Speaker 3:Well, I mean, you can, if you want.
Speaker 1:Because I thought about doing family type stuff as a side work for a nurse paralegal but I don't know, I don't know how you do it. I mean, I'm sure you have people come in there that want to like completely, 100%, take everything from their spouse, or people in there that are wonder why they're going through a divorce because you know they got caught cheating. I imagine you've seen every side of the good, bad and the ugly of life in general.
Speaker 2:I have. I've seen that as a nurse and I've certainly seen it as a divorce attorney. I think the worst thing that a person can do in a divorce is, with all due respect to your mother, is what she did to you. You should never, ever involve your children in your divorce. I don't care how old they are and whether they're 21 or 31 or 51. You don't involve your children in the divorce. You certainly don't bring them to court to watch the court proceedings and have your mother, you know, try to denigrate your father.
Speaker 3:That's just not a healthy, and some people use the children as leverage against each other.
Speaker 2:And I'm telling you that's the worst thing you can do, and I just we just discussed.
Speaker 2:You learn in your family of origin just because your family of origin is getting a divorce, that doesn't mean they don't become your family of origin. They're still your family of origin. Doesn't mean they don't become your family of origin. They're still your family of origin and that you're learning that what you do, what you're in a dispute with someone, is you don't try to resolve it, you don't try to behave in a civil way. You try to destroy the other person. When they grow up and they get in a relationship, that's their excuse me attitude when they get involved in a dispute with their spouse.
Speaker 3:Well, and I know some attorneys that they're like it's interesting because attorneys tend to get very competitive. I've got to win. Prosecuting attorneys are the worst about this. They have to win or they'll dismiss the whole case and just bury it that they even thought about trying to bring something up if they all of a sudden realize they're not going to win. Federal prosecutors are really bad about that. That's why their win rate is like 95 in federal cases, because they'll bury the ones that they just drop because they know they're going to lose. Rather than lose, they'll drop it and make it go away and and pretend it never happened. And so attorneys tend to get really, really competitive with the other attorney across the table and I don't think that's fair to anybody, especially the children. When the attorney's getting that competitive, I know they're trying to do what the what the client told them they wanted, but isn't there some room for the attorney to inject their own you know a little bit of morality into a situation where one spouse is just being a fucking asshole?
Speaker 2:well, the problem is the adversarial nature of, of you know, attorneys is inherent, just like you were talking earlier about you know some inherent things with respect to men versus women. You know there's an inherent you know quality about attorneys they, they're very adversarial, pardon my language, by the way, pardon, pardon my language.
Speaker 3:I didn't mean to throw you off with that.
Speaker 2:In any event.
Speaker 1:I guess with me. When I went to the attorney to seek my divorce, I told him what was going on. I knew what to expect. I figured y'all want to know everything about my divorce. I told them what was going on. I knew what to expect. I figured y'all want to know everything about my life. And they, I kind of told them what I wanted to do and they're like the attorney turned to me and goes what do you want me to do? And I'm like I didn't go to law school, what do you think we should do? And he just kind of stared at me and blinked a little bit and he's like, okay. I'm like no, I'm here to seek your advice. You tell me what is the law, what can we do? What's going to make this fair? I know nothing about this. So is that a? Is it typical? For like to me, the attorney should run the show. You all know better than I do.
Speaker 2:No, when I say you should go prepared, I don't mean you should go and research the law before you get there. I mean, in this day and age everybody knows that if you get a divorce, there are three things that are going to be discussed. If you have children, children are going to be discussed. So you want to know what kind of custody arrangement are you going to? I don't know. I don't think Arkansas has a joint custody statute, does it?
Speaker 1:You could do joint custody. It's just extremely challenging. You have to be so far living close together and things like within the same town or a couple of times away.
Speaker 2:It's not a statute, it's not mandatory, like in Florida, it's automatically 50-50.
Speaker 1:No, with ours. Typically and fortunately which I don't 100% agree with this it tends to go with the mom. I think sometimes dads can be entitled to full custody if the mom's done a good mother, obviously, but um, no, I wasn't even discussed that. Um, the only thing I think has made me slightly angry is sometimes custody goes to whoever makes more money well, yeah, it's totally up to the judge in arkansas at any time a judge.
Speaker 3:If the judge determines that one parent has a pattern of an intentionally creating conflict in an attempt to disrupt or a current or pending joint custody arrangement and there is nothing the judge can order to reduce the area of conflict, then he can change stuff. But it's not. There's no actual, there's no actual statute for it. It's all up to the judge.
Speaker 1:Each county has different. I should say standard order of custody, title IX. So that can get kind of hairy too.
Speaker 2:But the woman or the man, they need to go to the attorney's office, you know, returning to that thread, what is the worst thing you can do? The worst thing you can do is not know what it is you want and go in and expect the attorney to tell you what you should get. You have to know do you want primary custody, do you want joint custody? Do you want to limit or do you want to do a petition to have the other, your spouse or the father or mother, get psychological counseling? I don't know if they have that in your state, but you have to have some sense as to what it is you want.
Speaker 2:You're going to have to discuss custody. If you have children. You're going to have to discuss the house. You're going to have to discuss support. I mean, those three are a given. Then the assets come into it, right. So you're going to have to have a sense of, you're going to have to know what the person has, and if you don't know what the other person has, then you have to go to a lawyer who will do what's called discovery, and you know what discovery is oh yeah, they ask questions, you need to fill them out, you need to turn in information they want.
Speaker 3:They turn your life upside down if they want to's correct.
Speaker 2:But you know most, most, most clients think that the judge is going to read it before they go in the courtroom. The judge is never going to read your discovery, ever, ever, even if it's a big malpractice or an accident. It's got 1700 cases yeah, there's no way.
Speaker 1:You don't have time for that.
Speaker 3:I mean, somebody barbecuing, oh my gosh, what.
Speaker 1:Let me ask you this. This is something that I've had to argue with people all the time with. They're like, well, if he's not paying child support, then he shouldn't have, he shouldn't see his kids, and I'm like that's not how this works. No no it Can't withhold visitation because of back child support.
Speaker 3:That is in Title IX.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because I've had lots of people because I had a lot of issue with not getting paid child support and you know people are like well, just make it not seem. I'm like I can't do that because it's not right for the kids. Number one and like and number two, I don't want to go to jail because I'm withholding custody, yeah, so I can't use custody as leverage. No ever, ever.
Speaker 2:It's not right so and you can't even um, I mentioned prenuptial agreements before. You can't put anything about custody in a prenuptial agreement either. Really, it's just not. You can't deal with it well, any way, shape or form if you don't have kids going into a marriage then, how can you do a prenup on who gets custody, because it's talking about things that haven't happened.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it makes sense. So what is a prenup? I guess my preconceived notion for people out there I'm just going to play like I don't know what it is. Think, oh, I'm going to put in here that you know, joe Blow can't have my big expensive sports car if we divorce.
Speaker 3:First off, you married a guy named Joe Blow.
Speaker 1:Excuse me.
Speaker 2:You guys are making me laugh so much. You guys are, so are you dating? I mean you seem so informal.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we are, we're engaged.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, you guys are so hysterical, I guess.
Speaker 1:I'm just curious because to me, I think, maybe because I still have some sort of traditional values in my head feels like a prenups, like well, when we do decide to divorce the kitchen up a lot.
Speaker 3:is that not what you're talking about? No, Okay.
Speaker 1:When we do decide to divorce. This is what I'm going to get.
Speaker 3:You get the dishes.
Speaker 1:I get the dishes.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'll get stewed paper plates.
Speaker 2:You get the dirty kitchen then Well, you know, a prenuptial agreement isn't what people used to think it is and, frankly, more millennials are getting prenuptial agreements because they're getting married older and I don't know again, this is, you know, there are 50 states. Every state has a different population, different culture, different thoughts, but in California and the East Coast they're getting, they're coming to the marriage later in life, between 28 and for women is between 28 and 30 and men is between um 30 and 34.
Speaker 3:That's the average age now in the united states makes a lot of sense, because women tend to marry old they. They look for someone who's already more established exactly which means they're going to look for an older man. That's always the way it is.
Speaker 1:Makes sense.
Speaker 3:It's strange, but the statistics bear it out.
Speaker 2:Sorry, Also, women are coming. Women, for the most part, are coming to a marriage with more equity and more you know they may have an inheritance.
Speaker 3:I'm okay with them owning their own car before I mean I mean if I don't have to buy them a car I'm good I have my own car.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's okay, it works for me well, my point is it's worth discussing because even if you don't go through with signing it, you've gone through the exercise of learning what the other person's attitude is. And if the other person's attitude is strictly about gender roles, if you have children and they're not going to be involved with any parenting and the woman is working with a full time job and he's expecting her to return to work after her maternity leave, that puts a tremendous burden on her. I mean forewarned, right Forewarned. That's what you are. If you discuss a prenuptial agreement, you're forewarned about what to expect. Let me put it this way If you got on an airplane okay and you heard the pilot announce you have a 50% chance of reaching the destination, what would you do?
Speaker 1:Oh hell, no, I'm getting off the plane.
Speaker 2:I don't like to fly anyway, that's the same percentage that you have of reaching your destination in your first marriage, your destination being a lifelong journey with this person that you're marrying, your destination being a lifelong journey with this person that you're marrying You've got a 50% chance.
Speaker 1:Those are the statistics For a while divorce was on the downside.
Speaker 2:Now it's going back on the upslide and COVID has caused such an uptick in divorce.
Speaker 1:Really, I guess.
Speaker 2:Arguments over vaccinations masking getting the children vaccinated. Oh yes, really, I guess it's over vaccinations masking getting the children vaccinated Weird. Oh yes, really, it's tremendous uptick.
Speaker 3:So it's weird because my divorce is like completely opposite of anybody else.
Speaker 1:No, yours was pretty. When you told me about it, I'm like wow, you were very lucky. How was I?
Speaker 3:lucky. I don't have any children, I don't own any real property other and I have a car and a bank account that was depleted because dumb ass kept spending all the money. Right, yeah, that's why you guys were well, one of the reasons for divorce I didn't have nothing and and I was thinking to myself for like the five years before the divorce I hope she sleeps with somebody and I find out about it so I can kick her ass out.
Speaker 1:It's true, I know it just makes it sound like cheat cheat, cheat, cheat cheat, cheat.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I wanted her gone, but because I'm not an ass hole, I'm just an ass, you know, you know you took vows. You took him seriously. I did what I was supposed to do and I waited for her to break them.
Speaker 1:Well, I, I can't say that anybody I know other than you that would do that, but it gives credit to your character.
Speaker 3:Yeah and people say how do I know you're going to leave me? Whenever I was, whenever I was dating, they're like how do I know you're not just just seeing me and leave me? I said, well, I got 20 year relationship that I just got out of that I could have bailed on at 11 according to your standards, but I waited until it was just really over, wow and. But I had nothing. I told the lawyer. I said I want her debt to be her debt. Anything that's in her name debt, anything that's in her name. She claims, anything that's in my name as the primary grantor. Right, I take responsibility. She takes responsibility. And I gave her her car because it was partially in my name and I took my car and she didn't even read it, she just walked inside and went on.
Speaker 1:That's another thing we should probably stress to people Read your divorce paper, yeah, even read it. She just walked in, signed it and went on.
Speaker 2:That's another thing we should probably stress to people Read your divorce paper. Yeah, read it, oh my God, yes, read it.
Speaker 3:But I wasn't going to screw her. You get your debt's your debt, my debt's my debt and we're done, because I knew exactly what I was going to do. The next thing I was going to do that she had a bunch of money because she had somebody hit her car, so she had a bunch of cash. She didn't fix your car, but she just spent the cash. She could have taken 1200 bucks and filed bankruptcy, just like I did, and now she wouldn't have any bills to pay. Well, but you know, I told her before we got divorced. This is where it's going to end up if you keep. She was putting our groceries on the credit card. So yeah, there was a real problem Because she decided she wanted to work for $9 an hour. She was minimum wage in Arkansas at the time.
Speaker 1:Now it's $11, but you know me yeah $11.25.
Speaker 3:But leave it on me to pay for everything. Hell, I was only making $14.
Speaker 1:So a prenup is a good way for you all to have those very serious.
Speaker 3:Candid discussions, yes, but what if you don't have anything? What's the point If you're walking into it?
Speaker 2:the point is okay. The point is if you don't have anything, if neither of you have absolutely nothing, okay, and you're saying you don't even have debt. If you don't have anything, you're going to have debt. How are you living? So the one thing you should discuss is debt.
Speaker 1:I don't know. For some people, yes, but that's true. I guess those candid conversations, though, though you should already be having before you get married.
Speaker 3:but I was to if we were to get married.
Speaker 1:She's saying that we need a prenup saying the house stays due because you own a house true, but I mean in arkansas, they, they always they told me what you came into the marriage with is what you pretty much get for sure, but yeah, the house would be, but I mean her land what about the appreciation and? The value of the house. That's true. You do get appreciation for living there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, she's right about you should appreciate me if I live there you in the country.
Speaker 1:It's hilarious.
Speaker 3:I like I would hope I would be appreciated for living there.
Speaker 1:You are. I'm trying to think.
Speaker 3:But yeah, my divorce just went smooth because it was over, there wasn't anything to do. But I decided, you know I? Basically six months into my marriage I guess I already had planned for divorce, if you really think about it, because six months in, at 26 years old, I was already like no, I'm not having kids with this person.
Speaker 2:So I was already planning for divorce, thank God you said that to yourself, yo.
Speaker 3:No, I realized what it. She almost killed the cat.
Speaker 1:I knew this was coming.
Speaker 3:What, what I went on a business trip for five days, came back and the cat's like I'm like what the hell is wrong with the damn cat? And and I looked at, the cat had no food, no water. The cat was starving to death. She hadn't fed the cat or give it water since I left. Oh my god, yeah. So I'm like, no, not having kids with her, absolutely not.
Speaker 2:She'll kill the kids.
Speaker 3:She's lucky the cat didn't eat her.
Speaker 1:This is true. I don't know.
Speaker 3:Maybe it was probably what noticed, but I don't know, chunks of flesh messing she might notice.
Speaker 1:So do you ever like get clients that you will if they ever come back to you? You're like no, are attorneys allowed to do that? Like I'm not going back to that person again.
Speaker 2:Actually, uh, I have said that to people who come, not returning clients, but people who come to me the first time and, um, don't want one spouse or the other spouse to have any custodial rights, want me to rake the other person through the coals. You know you can't really do that. I was practicing in Pennsylvania. I'm actually retired now but I used to say you've got the wrong lawyer, you're not going to get what you're looking for. The courts will not countenance this. They don't want to hear that he's a narcissistic asshole. They don't really care. Yeah, and they're gonna say you were the idiot, you married him that's.
Speaker 1:That's probably true. It's a true statement.
Speaker 3:I mean, judges have said that yeah what do you think about women getting the custody of the children almost no matter what it's changing? It's changing, but in the past that's a real thing, and where the men gets no consideration at all for getting the custody of the children?
Speaker 2:Well, that really, you know that's not. I don't even think that's true in your state. I mean, most states now have statutes that talk about the best interests of the child and the judges have to weigh and balance each one of those things. For example, which parent is going to be the parent able to take care of them emotionally, physically, give them, you know, the health support that they need. You know schooling. Sign up.
Speaker 3:Well, there's a there's a lot of. There's a there's a school of thought out there, with a lot of men who feel like they've been just raked over the coals and they don't get any visitation with their kids, either because they had a poor lawyer or you know. The judge just said no, the kids go with mom. And I know a lot of guys 10, 15 years ago that this was happening to and it didn't matter what they did.
Speaker 2:10, 15 years ago. No, you're right, paul, it has really changed, though, okay, mostly because of the men's groups. The men have been fantastic in terms of consolidating and lobbying different state legislatures, and I don't know any states now that say you know a mother? It used to be called the tender years doctrine, where automatically the mother got the children. That hasn't really been enacted, you know, for probably 15 years. So your, your, your timeframe is correct, but I find it hard to believe that, um, a man would be totally, um, cut out of a child's life just because the woman has ovaries. I just don't believe that.
Speaker 1:I think some of the situations I've seen some women I've encountered over the years do is they make it difficult where he doesn't want to come around and they make it difficult for pickup, or they just make it difficult period for the man to see.
Speaker 3:Every time he shows up, she comes out in the yard and screams at him he's not going to show up anymore.
Speaker 1:But my always advice to these girls is number one knock it off. And to the guys it's number two go get an attorney and fight for your children. But then they get the response back to me is I can't afford it. And that's where I feel like maybe some men feel stuck, and some women too. Sometimes you know situations where they feel like they can't. They can't afford an attorney to fight for it, so they just accept their fate. And if you make a certain amount of income, you can't really get free legal aid either. So it's it's kind of a vicious cycle to some people.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, there's no question. I think at the core of what your question is is the system broken? And absolutely the system's broken. There is no question. You know courts were never intended to really deal with all the custody cases that are before them. You know they were originally orphans courts and they were courts that really were supposed to adjudicate. You know, the needs of children who were literally orphaned to adjudicate the needs of children who were literally orphaned. And none of the courts in the United States are funded sufficiently to take into consideration all the needs of every family that comes before it. I mean there should be wraparound services for some families and in some states like New York, which is a very wealthy state, they have different services within the court system to deal with some of the problems that you're talking about. A man who is underrepresented, they would send them to mediation and basically tell the lady at that point look, if you continue to do this, the judge could switch custody and give him the custody, and things like that are happening more and more. That's good.
Speaker 3:I'm glad it's becoming more fair.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. It's becoming more fair, but a point well taken. If you have to hire a lawyer, I mean lawyers have to pay a lot of more malpractice insurance than they ever used to. They have to pay higher wages, all of the, all of the things that they need. With respect to the computers and everything. I mean. It's so much more expensive to product, to have the product for, to give the service to the, to the client, and you know they don't appreciate that, but the reality is you're going to pay through the client and you know they don't appreciate that, but the reality is you're going to pay through the nose. If you go through a lawyer, it's always better to try to go to a mediator.
Speaker 3:I don't think we have the option for mediators in Arkansas? Do we?
Speaker 1:I don't know. I mean it makes sense. I mean a mediator is supposed to be a non-bitus and party. I know they do it a lot in CASA when we're having issues okay, kids placements but that I don't know.
Speaker 1:that's kids in foster care versus you know where are we going to put them at, and it's you know, I've been a cup sat in a couple of those and it's usually someone from like the law school in arkansas donates her his or her time and come up and we have, like the other family who lost their children, on one side and then we're sitting on the other and we're trying to come to consensus of sometimes we're the best place to put the child. But I know the divorce courts have it, but I don't know if you could do it ahead of time, but to me it sounds smart, I mean, but you got to hire the mediator, correct?
Speaker 2:Well, in many states the mediator is free. If you file for divorce, it's automatically triggered that before you go to court you have to go to the mediator.
Speaker 3:They're trying to keep some of this BS out of the court and get it done ahead of time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the bottom line is I don't know any judges. You know I don't know any judges. You know, I don't know any judges and I have an ex-husband who was a judge and I don't know any judges that want to hear custody cases. Oh yeah, they just feel as if, even though you know they've got the law in front of them and the case law and the facts, who am I to decide this child's life? I mean, it's an awesome responsibility that the judges take seriously, but they don't really relish it. They don't really want to feel responsible for making the wrong decision.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I guess people lie in court. Oh yeah, they lie and they tell these kids. Look, if you tell the judge, if the judge wants to hear what the child's opinion is or what their choice is, who they would prefer to live with, and some cases in some states take that into consideration. The judge we were going to go in front of was the judge in his custody case and his mother had told him that which he wanted to live with his father. But his mother threatened him and said you will never see me again If you tell that judge that you want to live with your father. Ouch. So he went and lied to the judge.
Speaker 3:Wow.
Speaker 2:That makes sense. I moved to disqualify that judge and that's. And that judge said to me and that's. He slapped his desk and said and that's the reason why I hate this, because I don't know if these kids are lying. You go through the standard. Do you know what the truth is, do you?
Speaker 1:know what the lie is.
Speaker 2:You know, the kid's scared to death.
Speaker 1:Especially if they have to face the other, all the kids are trying to do in a divorce is survive, yeah, and especially if a kid has to sit up there and do it in front of open court, in front of both parents.
Speaker 2:That's just Well, they don't do that in Pennsylvania. They do it in chambers where, just before the judge and the lawyers and a court reporter.
Speaker 3:They don't do it here.
Speaker 2:They'll do it.
Speaker 1:They. They don't do it here, they'll do it. They do it there. An open court. Yeah, yeah, it's open court here, but it is barbaric. But I have extreme respect for the cost of judge that I have to be under when I do the cost of cases because I could you could people kind of give him a lot of flack because he tries extreme hard, hard time with. He waits until he absolutely has to sever parental rights. He goes, rides it all as far as he can and you could see the look on his face that he struggles with making a decision that I don't know how they do it. I can understand why they hate the three ring circus, but I would not want to be a full-time, you know, foster care judge, so to speak, family law or whatever. But it's a lot of weight on y'all's shoulders, especially for the attorney to try to argue what's best for the kid or the parents. It's just, it's a. It's a three ring circus.
Speaker 2:Well, I was guardian ad litem for a young girl. I became her guardian when she was about I guess she was about eight or nine years old, and they took her away from her mother because she literally lived in the backseat of her mother's car and woke up every morning in a different the parking lot of a different bar, and she was extremely bright. She did exceptionally well in school and all the teachers came in and said that when they learned her circumstances they couldn't really believe it Because she was so focused in school and even if she was hungry she was focused and she was polite to the teachers. But they're the ones who reported the mother to children and youth, which is what we called it in Pennsylvania Make a very long story short, tried to give the mother some rights to come and see this child, you know, under a setting where there would be a psychologist to discuss with the mother what the child's needs were and the little girl with the mother. That went on for a while. Then the mother stopped showing up and we all know what happens. I mean, I can tell you this is probably, you know, the same song you've heard over and over again she was drunk, she couldn't show up. So eventually the court had to terminate this mother's rights because she started to become so disruptive to this little girl. But the little girl was growing up, because time doesn't stop when these cases, who are very slow to move through, they go through a glacial space pace.
Speaker 2:Rather Sorry, my allergy is to your audience. I do beg your pardon, netting it all out. I followed this little girl until she was a senior in high school. She went to a large high school. She was the valedictorian Wow. To a large high school. She was the valedictorian Wow. She got a scholarship to Yale University. She was there for six months and she killed herself. Oh, my gosh, jeez, what was the reasoning? Do they think they just felt that she, she felt like she didn't belong there. She felt like she in the, in the community that she, you know, flourished in. Everybody knew her circumstance, everybody. That was her community. You know everyone at school knew what her circumstances were. She lived with a foster family, obviously, but you know people would invite her out. You know the foster family would let her go. I mean, she had this close community of support. And then she went to yale and you, you can imagine what that was like, right yeah, all the shadow water.
Speaker 3:When you hit college, all your support system was gone. You gotta start over yeah, you do.
Speaker 1:You have to find your way, you have the skills.
Speaker 2:Once again, we're talking about the skills you learn in childhood, right? Yeah what skills did she learn? You know, the question is did she, was she high on something? Did she do what her mother did when things were bad and she felt down and out? Did she do drugs? I don't know, they never could really.
Speaker 3:I mean, I yeah and that's neither here nor there. I mean, we've done a couple episodes on suicide and it's just suicide. Is it that men commit suicide, at what I'd rate it, 10 times as women do? I think that's something like and it makes sense when you get down to it. Why men do that? Because you know they got nothing left. But if you're all alone by yourself, it's you know. It's. It's just you got to learn to reach out and talk to people. Find someone to help you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean it's definitely a story that I'll kind of keep in the back of my head with some of the CASA kids Cause. Once the case is done I don't really know what happens to them. I mean, occasionally I'll find out information. But our job is done and we go to the next case.
Speaker 1:But um, I've always tried very hard to like at all my CASA reports to make sure they have counseling, that they have permanent placement, that you know the big things that I can think of. But, like with your case, everybody thought that you know with this young lady every she probably had every outward of parents of being perfectly fine and then gets out on her own and doesn't.
Speaker 1:So it's. I've always been a big advocate with all my cases of, yes, they're being adopted. I mean they may not be with with family, but can we have some sort of ability for this child to figure out who they are when they turn 18? Can we make sure records are available, put away somewhere, so if this kid comes to you can you be able to tell him who he or she is? I've thought of like every different way to try to make think of what could these kids could possibly need. That's in my control to help, so. But this case will definitely be something I'll be thinking of as some of my cases get older and I think about them every now and then.
Speaker 3:So I just thank god, I don't have to deal with any of that well the re, the reality is.
Speaker 2:it's so important when you remember this case and this is what I would tell my clients who are, you know, going through divorce. If you have to put, I mean, you're a role model. Now you're going through a bad time, but you are a role model for your children and they're going to look at you to see how you're handling this and if you can handle this in a way that you're not bitter but you're getting better, then it's that's how they're going to approach these problems when they hit a real bump in the road and we all hit bumps in the road Sometimes we fall into a sinkhole. A sinkhole, you know, the reality is nobody's nobody comes out of their childhood 100% without some issue. You know we're raised by humans.
Speaker 1:This is true.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, humans make mistakes. I always say that I mean, that's that was I read. I'm a little reductive, I'm a little reductive in a lot of things that I do, probably a lot reductive, but I but I always tell people they say why don't you trust government, why don't you trust this, why don't you trust that? And I said well, because ultimately, it's run and administered by human beings and as long as there's a human involved, there is a really good opportunity for it to be fucked up.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and once you understand that, then every you'll realize why we need to have as little, uh interference in our lives by outside entities as possible, because those outside entities are just another human who sometimes has no clue what they're doing and they just want to go home.
Speaker 1:Today, I wish people had that same sentiment with malpractice stuff, because as a nurse perspective on that side of it you'd always be like, well, the rumor is they're going to sue. You know that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3:Not everybody's perfect man. People make mistakes.
Speaker 1:And some people do dumb mistakes. You know that cost people their lives.
Speaker 3:At least you're not Dr Death. Oh gosh, that guy in Texas.
Speaker 1:Have you heard about that guy in Texas?
Speaker 2:The guy who was in what he was in intensive care or something wasn't he.
Speaker 1:He was a neurosurgeon that was doing surgery on patients.
Speaker 3:He decapitated his friend by, you know, by accident mostly.
Speaker 1:What? No, I did not hear about him. It's called Dr Dunch.
Speaker 3:Dr Dunch, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was working in Dallas. You were in the other hospital, we were in the other hospital, not the one he was in, but rumor was at the time that we almost hired him in our hospital. And the sad thing is is this podcast came out? I think what is it it's called?
Speaker 1:Dr, Death, dr Death. Yeah, they put their sign for the podcast right across the street from the hospital this doctor practiced in. Oh my God. So I mean I drove past it every day going to work and you know it's. I guess. Tell people. If you think things are kind of going strange, report it and ask questions, because he could have been caught long before he was.
Speaker 3:Well, it took another neurosurgeon.
Speaker 1:What year was that? Mid-2000s, mid-2000s, let's see, I can find it Dr Dunsch, doctor, he was a neurosurgeon, was great on paper, was great everywhere else. Christopher Dunsch, christopher Dunsch, yeah, he was born in 71.
Speaker 3:He's younger than me.
Speaker 1:Born in 71. He's younger than me.
Speaker 3:When did he practice, or older than me Barely. Let's see here. He was accused of injuring 33 out of 38 patients enlisting two years before his license was revoked by the Texas Medical Board. His license was revoked by the Texas Medical Board In 2017,. He was finally convicted of maiming one of his patients and sentenced to life in prison. He, basically he was at Baylor yeah, baylor yeah, and you were at Medical City, which is the opposite, yeah, but I think Baylor Plano was where he was.
Speaker 1:Plano, yeah, where he was at.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I drove past that hospital every day. He worked on his friend's neck and basically decapitated him while still being alive.
Speaker 1:I think he's not completely decapitated in the sense that our listeners yeah, his head's still attached, but his spinal cord is severed. Yeah, he's pretty much like he's totally dependent upon others from now on out.
Speaker 3:It took 38 patients for somebody to figure that out.
Speaker 1:Listen to his case is what got me interested in paralegal. It's because I'm like, oh, I want to help people who are suing. That shouldn't be and I want to help that. You know I law has always been interesting to me, so well, and another neurosurgeon there.
Speaker 3:He was the guy that was on a, he, he, he was on a. He would go to the board. He went two or three times and no one would listen to him. And he's like this guy Dunst has got to go and no one would listen to him.
Speaker 1:Neurosurgery brings in money.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but you know what else brings in money. You can sell cars in the parking lot and have a lot less problems.
Speaker 1:I agree with you there, oh gosh. So I don't know how we are on time. We're right there at the end. So any last advice, any last insights, nuggets of thought for our listeners before we wrap this up.
Speaker 2:My advice for people who are thinking about getting engaged or thinking about getting married is to read the book that I just wrote. There's so much information on it about you know the questions you should ask and the things that you should look for Again. It's called Around which All Things Bend.
Speaker 3:It's on Amazon, barnes and Noble and it's a narrative form of how to do it at what you need to know, right, exactly. So it's entertaining and it's much easier to read than just a you know a textbook.
Speaker 2:Well, that's why I wrote it as a novel, but my other my other. If you are married and you're thinking about divorce, the worst thing you can do is to talk to your spouse about the fact that what your intentions are. If you really are thinking about getting a divorce, go and get a consult with a lawyer and you may say that you don't have the money, but you always find money for what you really want to do. Borrow it, you know you'll pay it back when the divorce is over. A consult shouldn't be more than like two fifty three hundred dollars in northern Arkansas.
Speaker 2:The reality is you've really got to get your head straight. If you were in an automobile accident, you wouldn't talk to the person who you hit. We call them plaintiff and defendant. The plaintiff and defendant aren't going to talk to each other. They're not going to tell each other what each lawyer is saying about the case. You know, I mean there's no communication when you're getting divorced. The clients are talking to each other. They're telling each other what each lawyer is saying to them. That's the worst thing you can do. You really need to keep your thoughts to yourself and if the person who you're living with starts to get very abusive again. Get a restraining order. Do not have that model for your children to emulate. Well, one thing is you have.
Speaker 3:you can always go to a woman's shelter if you're a female who's being abused Absolutely. There's tons of women's shelters. Unfortunately, on the man's side there are no. There are very, very few, if any, men's shelters for men that are being abused, and men do get abused too.
Speaker 2:Oh, they absolutely do.
Speaker 3:They absolutely do. I don't want to negate that, but there's not a whole lot of places for them to go, don't? You know they want to negate that, but there's not very not a whole lot of places for them to go. But you know, if you have to rack up a credit card bill staying in a hotel because she's throwing stuff at you or trying to, you know, burn your clothes or something, then I guess that's what you got to do, man well, my bottom line is educate yourself and be cautious and allow your children to model you to go through it rationally and without a lot of hostility.
Speaker 2:And even if the lawyers want to, you know, get adversarial, you're hired them. They work for you. You can pull them back and say is there such a thing as a mediator? I think we need to go to a mediator. You're the them back and say is there such a thing as a mediator? I think we need to go to a mediator. You're the one who controls the case. That's my party.
Speaker 3:They work for you, your lawyers work for you. You don't work for them. So if they they're bullying you with what's you know what's what's going on they say, yeah, I think it'd be okay, but I think you could do more, think we should do this. You know. You need to ask yourself do I really want to burn that bridge that badly? You know, and sometimes if you just put it out there what you want, you can get it done and over with, like I did with my divorce. I said this is what I want. Lawyer drew it up and and uh, the my ex-wife, who I call ass face that's her name is ass face I didn't know her name for the longest time she asked my mom has said her name and she's like who?
Speaker 3:it's like no, that's ass face, um, it's um, you know she, she knew better, she knew that it wasn't going to be worth the fight, so she just signed it and walked.
Speaker 1:Well, unfortunately mine wasn't that way.
Speaker 3:His kids involved is different story.
Speaker 1:Well, mine was just the fact that he just was, well, just mad and angry, and he hates everybody.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Because he hates himself first.
Speaker 2:It's probably true. How did he grow up? How did he grow up?
Speaker 3:A dysfunctional family probably right, uh, madison county yeah no, actually he's in lowell.
Speaker 1:uh, I'm kind of an overbearing father, a very meek mother, and he felt very um, I guess you could say felt like everybody was like I guess he was very jealous of everybody else. Put it to you that way, best way I could put it.
Speaker 2:So he became jealous of you.
Speaker 1:I guess maybe. So I mean he was that and he liked booze too much. So you know he had to go.
Speaker 3:Booze or booze Booze Beer.
Speaker 1:Evan Williams and Coke, Because you know, liking boobs really doesn't have that hard.
Speaker 3:It's Okay, Evan Williams and Coke, Because you know locking boobs really doesn't have that hard. You know, it's really not that big a deal. Well, yeah, but I mean you can get addicted to boobs, but it's much different. I mean there's no, you know.
Speaker 1:There's probably a support group for that.
Speaker 3:Really, I don't know. I need to look that up, oh my God. Oh, you mean To get them off the boobs?
Speaker 1:Oh my God, Paul Stop.
Speaker 3:All right.
Speaker 1:I said it you feel better now.
Speaker 3:Always make her say that, at least once.
Speaker 1:Yes, this is true, I said it. We're going to get t-shirts made that say, oh my God, paul, stop, stop.
Speaker 3:So what's coming up, paul? Oh my God, I don't know. We got tons don't know.
Speaker 1:We got tons. We're booked all the way to end of january. Uh, the one that I have. I haven't updated my little notebook here because I'm still old school.
Speaker 3:Um we are late kristen horn, that's true, uh, diane hagerty, which is a going to be here at the table that's correct she's going to be in the room with us because she's a personal friend of mine. She is an enrolled agent with the irs. She has the ability to argue in tax court as a lawyer without being a lawyer. That's pretty cool. Yeah, she's really on top of that.
Speaker 1:So we'll ask all the nitty-gritty questions about the IRS.
Speaker 3:And Mr John Foley, megan Campbell and Mitchell Yoss he's going to talk to us about he's a doctor. He's going to talk to us about chronic pain. So my fix for chronic pain was divorcer.
Speaker 1:I'd like to know what he thinks about the opiate crisis and all that good stuff and opiates, and Montgomery as well. Because if you have surgery anymore, you only get seven days worth of narcotics, and sometimes seven days is not enough if you've had your chest cut open.
Speaker 3:That's true. Well, I think you know we always go too far when it comes to this. You know the opioid crisis started because they let everybody have it, I know, but let's save it for the podcast.
Speaker 1:Save it for the podcast.
Speaker 3:But you in a hurry to go somewhere. No, I'm just saying you want to go look at Nutcrackers over at the thing, don't you?
Speaker 1:No, I have to buy two little gifts for my cost of kids who've never had toys.
Speaker 3:What else is in TJ Maxx?
Speaker 1:I promise.
Speaker 3:What else is in TJ Maxx they?
Speaker 1:sell Nutcrackers, and I'm going to refrain from buying one unless they have one, that's cool have one. That's cool, that's different, see see, see, I told you your motive is you want to go look at the nutcrackers and nobody has to contribute to my nutcracker.
Speaker 3:Yes, paul just thinks it's nutcrackers are like 12.99 and with tax it's like 14 something. You know there's a link at night link on the thing. You can just go there to paypal, boom done and I'll show.
Speaker 1:I'll go buy her a nutcracker with it there to paypal boom done, and I'll go buy her a nutcracker with it and we'll mention your name on the air or you can buy me a fifth of booze to put up with the nutcrackers.
Speaker 3:At the same price I get a whole giant two liter bottle of vodka for 12.99. No, who's cheap. I'm cheaper to deal with okay so I consume my present while she gets to look at hers every year.
Speaker 1:That's true. They go in a box until next year, so is that it?
Speaker 3:I guess I don't know. Okay, is that it? I think so, all right, bye, bye, I'll see you next time and a good review from you. So go to wherever you're listening to your podcasts Apple, itunes, spotify, iheartmedia, wherever and hit that five stars.
.jpg)
Podcasts we love
Check out these other fine podcasts recommended by us, not an algorithm.
Small Town Murder
James Pietragallo, Jimmie Whisman
Morbid
Ash Kelley & Alaina Urquhart
True Crime Garage
TRUE CRIME GARAGE
Tides of History
Wondery / Patrick Wyman
Killer Psyche
Wondery | Treefort Media
The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe
The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe
Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities
iHeartPodcasts and Grim & Mild
American Scandal
Wondery
Gone Cold - Texas True Crime
TTC Productions
Paul G's Corner
Paul G. Newton
American History Tellers
Wondery
Astonishing Legends
Astonishing Legends Productions
Culpable
Tenderfoot TV & Audacy
Dr. Death
Wondery
Crimetown
Gimlet
Project Unabom
Apple TV+ / Pineapple Street Studios
Inside Psycho
Wondery