On June 25th at midnight, Panic Button--the hit true-crime-advocacy podcast--is back with a gripping tale of an unsolved double homicide that happened just outside Oklahoma's biggest prison town. Emily Morgan, a Choctaw citizen, and Totinika Elix, her best friend, were found dead under a carport on August 26th, 2016. The case was given directly to the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation--seven years later there are no leads and we are no closer to understanding what happened to Emily and Totinika. Follow attorneys Leslie Briggs and Colleen McCarty of Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice as they investigate this cold case--and find so much more than they bargained for.

The music in this episode is “Let it Burn,” by Oliver / Aberson.

Find the notes and documents referenced in the episode at https://www.panicbuttonpodcast.com/season-2-operation-wildfire/episode-11

This is the finale of Season Two – we discuss the different measures of justice each survivor got in the courts and we ask: is it enough?

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TRANSCRIPT

SPEAKERS

Leslie Briggs, Colleen McCarty, Marci, Heather, Christen, Karrah

Colleen McCarty  00:00

This episode contains references to accounts of domestic and sexual violence, violence against women in particular and language that is not suitable for listeners under 18 years of age. We also discuss suicide, sexual assault, addiction and relapse. Please use caution while listening.

Leslie Briggs  00:35

Welcome to the last episode of season two of panic button operational wildfire. Up to now we've been complaining about a system that fails to hold abusers accountable in a meaningful way. We've spoken to survivors, recanters, law enforcement, district attorneys, restorative justice experts, community advocates, and lawyers. We've reached out to Jim and his family, his business partners and generally tried to find anyone we could, who would give us insight into how these events could have unfolded over three decades, three states and many, many victims.

Colleen McCarty  01:12

Today, we're going to take you through the survivors efforts to seek criminal and civil justice through our courts. Even where they were, quote, successful in having charges brought the actual consequences of those charges were relatively minor. When Justice was fleeting, or altogether absent, several of the women turned toward each other and employed tactics that may raise some eyebrows when you hear about them. You've already heard about the flyer and the defamation case that followed. But what about the others? Heather, Marcy, and Christen. What justice have they seen through the courts? What measures have they relied on the courts failed them? What should survivors do when the system that's supposed to advocate for them doesn't is raising the village and assaulting the earth? The only choice left?

Leslie Briggs  02:06

I'm Leslie Briggs.

Colleen McCarty  02:08

And I'm Colleen McCarty.

Leslie Briggs  02:10

This is panic button season two episode 11.

Colleen McCarty  02:13

Vigilante shit 

Leslie Briggs  02:16

It might just be easiest to take this pre and post wildfire that is before and after the flyers. Before the flyers Christen suffered her her violent assault in 2015. And you heard those details in Episode Six. But after officer Rusty Shouse found her in the park bloody and afraid he arrested Jim.

Colleen McCarty  02:36

Officer Shouse filed a police report and an affidavit of probable cause. And here's what he wrote on 320 to 2015. At approximately zero to 31 hours. I was on patrol in the city of Cleveland. When I saw black Dodge Charger parked up Billy vessel's Park on West Cherokee Street. I gave the dispatcher the license plate information and advice that I would be making contact with the person in the vehicle. When I approached the vehicle, I saw a woman and I recognized her as Christen Rochelle Norris. Christen had blood on her hands and face and her nose was bleeding. I asked Christen if she was okay. And she said that she had just parked there for a minute before she headed home. I asked Christen if she needed an ambulance. And she said no. I asked her what happened and she seemed reluctant to answer. I told Christen that I could tell something had happened to her and that she was safe. Now if she wanted to tell me what had happened. Christen told me that she had stopped to see a friend during her visit. And he had hit her in the face. I asked Christen who had hit her and she said I'm afraid of him. I told Christen that she was safe again. And if she wanted to tell me what happened, she could. Christen began crying and her nose began to bleed more. I asked her again if she needed an ambulance. And she said no. I asked Christen, who had hit her. And she said Jimmy lumen James Carroll lumen second. I asked Christen if she wanted to file charges against him and she asked what would happen if she did? I asked Christen. If her and Jimmy were dating and she said that they had dated in the past but until tonight she hadn't talked to him in about a month. Christen said that she was coming home from Fairfax when she received a text from Jimmy asking her to come to his house. Christen said that when she got there, Jimmy was in the driveway. And when she pulled up he got into the front passenger side of her car. Christen said that they were talking and Jimmy was placed slapping her. Christen said that Jimmy got mad when she told him to stop. Christen said that Jimmy spilled her pop in the car. And she got out. Christen says that Jimmy got out of the car also, and that is when they thought Christen says that Jimmy grabbed her by the hair and punched her in the face twice and then pushed her face into the ground. Christen said that Jimmy told her to keep screaming and see what that would get at her, Christen says that Jimmy did not want her to leave. So he got into the driver's seat of her car and was arguing that he was not getting out. Christen said that she was finally able to get in the car and when she was able to get into the driver's seat and lock the doors, she left and went to Billy vessel's Park. I asked Christen, how much Jimmy had been drinking and she said it must have been a lot, because he gets to a point that he turns violent. I asked Christen, if she would make a statement about the incident and she said yes, Christen made a written statement and signed to the prosecution notification form indicating that she did want to pursue charges. While speaking with Christen she said that she was still afraid of him and would get a protective order. I photographed Christen's hands and face showing clear sign of assault. Carson's face was swollen and she said that she had bit her tongue when she was being hit. At 03. For six hours, I went to the address and knocked on the door. Jimmy's mother answered. Then I told her I needed to speak with Jimmy. Jimmy came outside and I advised him that he was under arrest for domestic violence. Jimmy was argumentative, but did not resist arrest. I read Jimmy the Miranda warning and asked if he wanted to talk about the incident. Jimmy said no but would not stop arguing. I transported James Jimmy lumen the second to the Pawnee County jail where he was booked in. When I returned to Cleveland I had four pictures from Pawnee deputy Darren var. Now, the pictures were of blood droppings in the driveway at the address and a picture of bloodstained piece of paper with Chris's name on it. The piece of paper is an invoice from Tulsa Hyundai for the Dodge Charger, like Christen was driving. The paper was logged into evidence.

Leslie Briggs  06:46

Again, I like it when the police get it right.

Colleen McCarty  06:50

He did a good job investigating.

Leslie Briggs  06:52

He investigated he gathered evidence got the facts made an arrest. And actually that leads to the prosecution by the Pawnee County District Attorney at the time who was Rex Duncan, who people may recognize his name if you're super into what's going on in the Oklahoma criminal justice world. He is actually the individual who was hired by the AGs office to conduct an independent investigation of Richard Glossip case. And he did find that there was prosecutorial misconduct in that case, and he's a DA, he's a DA. So we applaud Da's who will hold their own accountable for sure. So his his assistant DA files, the charges against Jim for assault and battery. But Christen doesn't feel or did not feel at the time that the DA who prosecuted her case took a very proactive approach. Christen remembers the DA calling her the day before the trial to tell her not to come to court. Ultimately, there was no trial, the DA allowed Jim to plead guilty to misdemeanor A and B and received an 18 month deferred sentence that and, Colleen, Do you want to remind everybody what deferred sentence means?

Colleen McCarty  07:54

Essentially, for a layman? It's like probation. It's it's what we call out time.

Leslie Briggs  07:59

So what's interesting is you often hear this refrain from DBAs. And we've talked about this, that there, it's hard to prosecute these kinds of crimes without a victim willing to testify. But I mean, we have that here. Right. And we still we don't get the day in court, we don't get the trial, we don't really get the kind of punitive justice that we think violent offenders should receive through our criminal justice system, or that a lot of people think, you know, violent offenders should receive. She doesn't get to get up in front of a jury and have the satisfaction of retelling the story. I don't know just like it's unusual that we have, even when you have a willing victim, like in this case, the case still doesn't get kind of the level of prosecution that I think a lot of people want for these cases.

Colleen McCarty  08:48

Yeah. And I'll just say like, for the other side of that argument, it's like, you could have a willing victim and you can have all the evidence that you need. But if the person is willing to make an agreement about a plea recommendation, most of the time, a prosecutor is going to take it because trial is hard. Sure. It's big. It's a heavy lift. It's a very heavy lift, you block off everybody's day for multiple days, the judge, you know, I'm not arguing against going to trial. But from a resource allocation perspective, right. You have hundreds of cases on your caseload, and one person is saying I'm ready to make this go away. I've never seen a district attorney turn away a rec that the person was going to agree to.

Leslie Briggs  09:35

Yeah. So in any event for Christen, that she doesn't she doesn't feel that she she got a resolution that really served justice for her. But So Christen actually turned to the civil courts and filed a negligence claim against Jim and his mother, Pat, and I for me, I think there's something a little bit poetic here of like, you know, Jim does PI cases, he's dealing he's in the negligence world, you know, dealing with all of that and then he gets hit with One and his mom gets hit with one and they have to, you know, figure out how to provide a monetary resolution to the assault that he perpetrated. That's a form of justice, right?

Colleen McCarty  10:10

I think most people would say, yes. And they would say, drop it now, like you won, you got the settlement, and you gotta get you got a guilty plea in your and in your criminal case.

Leslie Briggs  10:22

Justice or not justice. Justice is

Colleen McCarty  10:26

really complicated. It's very particularized to the person. And yet it's also very universal. What we've heard from our restorative justice experts, is that a lot of pieces of the legal system actually exacerbate a feeling of injustice, and exacerbate a feeling of non closure, I guess. Because the person is incentivized to never tell you what happened. They're never gonna apologize for what happened, that would be incriminating. I mean, I guess unless they take a plea. But he never apologized. He just took the plea and went on probation. Yeah, I think it continued, frankly,

Leslie Briggs  11:07

to deny the severity of it later on down the road, calling it a nosebleed.

Colleen McCarty  11:11

But if you ask them, why wasn't this enough? I think they would tell you, it's because he kept doing it. And he kept hurting more people,

Leslie Briggs  11:21

right. And that's like, some of what Leigh Goodmark this, like her philosophy on this. And she's the law professor out of law school, she out of University of Maryland School of Law, University of Maryland, she's got that book Imperfect Victims. And a lot of her philosophy is the same as like what what Xavier and aurelius would say, of this idea that like, the criminal justice system,

Colleen McCarty  11:44

the carceral system doesn't serve up justice because it doesn't feel good. And it doesn't feel like enough. And it never feels like it's really over either. Like it continues to reopen the wound and reopen the wound. Every time a person gets out. Every time there's a parole hearing. Every time somebody asked to testify at something every time every court is it. Yeah. And it just keeps the pain alive in a way, which is not what true. Restoration looks like. Yeah,

Leslie Briggs  12:15

I think so. Yeah. When you when you really peel back on Christen, you know, you look at these two cases she had she had a civil case and a criminal case. And she was she got what we what lawyers as lawyers, I would say she got she got a guilty plea to the domestic violence case. And she got a money judgment for the negligence case. And so that's as good as it can get. Yeah, that's like double win. And the fact that it still doesn't feel like justice, because he continued to then go on and abuse other women, just for me, exemplifies why that system, it doesn't really serve the purpose, I think that we all expect it to.

Colleen McCarty  12:54

Yeah, but I mean, the question is, and what we've been posing all season is like what would have? This is something that I've heard from people who are more on the supporters of Jim camp that we've spoken to, it's like, what would ever be enough? What would ever be enough? You think that this person should go into prison for the rest of his natural born life?

Leslie Briggs  13:14

I mean, it for me, it's this bigger question of like, I'm still I'm not quite I haven't quite gotten to the point where legged mark is on this on this issue of like, I, I still believe that incarceration serves a function in society to sequester violent people away from nonviolent people. I mean, it's best, that's what that does. But there are so many degrees of harm. And we talk a lot about proportionality in our survivor justice work, and we have to ask ourselves, you know what, like, it's like trying to the same concept as putting $1 value on a body on a body part. You know what I mean? What personal injury attorneys do that all the time, it's like, how much? How much is a numb, useless pinky toe, you've had a slip and fall now your pinky toe is numb all the time? How much is that worth? It's uncomfortable and slightly annoying. It's so bizarre. How much is it? I can't talk about it. You can't talk. Five figures. I mean, it could be as little as 10,000 It could be

Colleen McCarty  14:22

okay, but like, Ah, I don't know, there's like so little value to pinky toe. But I would be so upset if I didn't have

Leslie Briggs  14:34

come on. So, but it's the same concept of like, this idea of like, okay, well, it was the song battery, your face in the gravel. It's like our system of justice. And that sounds probably maybe like a little insensitive when people hear you but it's like our system of justice. Basically, does this transaction, it's transactional. It's, it's supposed to be proportional. And so

Colleen McCarty  14:58

well, this is something that I I've been thinking About a lot of something that we've done with this system with the, quote, criminal justice system that I don't think is necessarily correct is we've taken this idea of like, religious justice. And if you read back in jurisprudence from like the 1800s, or the 1700s, like the judges will acknowledge that there's a moral sense of justice, whatever you want to call it, religious justice, moral justice, karmic justice, whatever you want to call it, that exists separate from our manmade system, our manmade system is full of flaws and is full of people. And it can only deliver this transactional type of outcome. That is never going to feel like karmic justice probably to either side. It's like it's this. It's this in between thing that we've come up with, that's better than people going out and stabbing each other in the street, when they don't agree with something is much better than

Leslie Briggs  15:55

better that yeah, it's better than bashing each other with rocks. But it's

Colleen McCarty  15:58

not meant to be and it's not intended to be healing, healing, or take the place of moral justice, you have to do your own personal work with yourself or your priest, or your therapist, or your meditation or whatever, to get to a place where you can forgive somebody. Yeah. And a lot of people will tell you, if you continue to carry this around, it hurts you a lot more than it hurts the other person.

Leslie Briggs  16:30

That's true. I mean, that's true. And as somebody who holds lots of grudges, I am torture, it's heavy. I'm constantly tortured. The weight of these grudges. No, I mean, but like, honestly, when I like, you know, I'm a grudge prone human, you know, me too. But it has an effect on me mentally. And I'm cognizant of that. And I've done a lot of work, done a lot of self work to try and not be that grudge prone person. But I also I have never been beaten by an intimate partner I have, I can imagine it, I can try to empathize with it. But I really don't know the reality of that existence.

Colleen McCarty  17:09

I think he, I don't know what it would take to like, come to a place where you can let it go. I don't know if the system even plays any part in that. If it plays any. Imagine all the people that are like, victims of domestic partner violence, and they walk away, and they never prosecute. And they never want it to be in the record. And they never, it's so many. All they want to do is just get safe...

In this episode, Colleen and Leslie interview one of Jim’s survivors who has never spoken to anyone about the incident (aside from the police and her mother) in thirty years.

The music in this episode is “I Can’t Make you Love me,” by Combsy.

You can find the documents and pictures that support this episode at

https://www.panicbuttonpodcast.com/season-2-operation-wildfire/episode-10

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Episode Transcript

SPEAKERS

Carisa, Colleen McCarty, Leslie Briggs

Colleen McCarty  00:00

This episode contains references to accounts of domestic and sexual violence, violence against women in particular in language that is not suitable for listeners under 18 years of age. We also discuss coercive control. Please use caution when listening.

Leslie Briggs  00:23

Last week we finally gotten to the subject for which this podcast is named Operation Wildfire. Operation Wildfire was the act of a desperate woman, the act of someone who no longer has faith in her justice system to protect victims from her abuser, the act of someone who was powerless to stop someone else from getting hurt. Some would argue that she acted recklessly. Others would argue that she was bold and brave. One reason the courts didn't believe care about Jim's violence is because she made herself less credible by associating with his other victims. For becoming friends with Kristen, going on a cruise with Kristin and Amber, and continuing to go out of her way to warn his girlfriends about his behavior. All gave rise to questions about her truthfulness.

Colleen McCarty  01:11

Welcome to panic button. Operation Wildfire. This is episode 10. Eureka. If you're just joining us, we recommend you go back and start listening from episode one. The idea that by associating with each other they've heard their cases is a harsh reality. It not only calls Kara's case against Jim into question, but all of these women's cases, it allows Jen to continue to say these women are just crazy bitches who are all obsessed with him. Because we already don't believe women, more women compounded together unfortunately doesn't mean more credibility, it means more suspicion. Imagine if a group of men all alleged someone was violent, instant credibility. But multiple women claiming a man as violent. Instantly everyone starts saying witch hunt.

Leslie Briggs  02:07

When you're dealing with an unreliable witness, or one whose credibility has been attacked, or what we would call, quote, impeached in a court of law, you've got to try to rehabilitate them. You can do that through introducing corroborating statements, maybe you have the ability to put on character evidence for truthfulness. That's one of the exceptions to the no character evidence rule, which we talked about extensively in season one. Or, as we have here, you can put on a witness to testify to their independent experiences, untainted by the corruption of having worked as a group, which is the primary source for having attacked the other witnesses credibility in this case. So Arkansas.

Colleen McCarty  02:49

The crazy thing about the Arkansas case is that Kristen, and Cara have known about it for a really long time. It's not really clear to us how they came to know about it. But they put it on the flyer. Right. And it's only a police report. Right? Kristen spent years looking for this person. And they she was told when she called the Eureka Springs police department that you have to be a lawyer to get the full report because they had a partial report that did not include the name of the of the survey. It was like anonymized right. So they had that one, right. But they'd never had the name. They never had the contact information for this person. They could never find who it was. And it would have been incredibly helpful for Kara, in defending against Jim's defamation suit, possibly to have this person if it did go to trial. We were able to find it. We got the full thing, actually with Kristen's help randomly.

Leslie Briggs  03:57

Yeah, so what's weird about this, too, is that like Kristen tried for a long time to get the full report. And they kept telling her that it had to be a lawyer that would request it, which is untrue. I don't know why they would say that to her. So we requested it. And we got the report. And after we did, she went back and tried again and got it independent of us. She just I mean dog it about getting it. So once once she knew that we were able to get it. She tried again. Got it. And she was able to locate what she believed to be was was this individual.

Colleen McCarty  04:27

We had three or four people narrowed it down to that we thought it was and she was able to ultimately find who it was. And we contacted her. She didn't ever contact her right. Kristen didn't reach out to her. She just gave us the info. Yeah, none of the survivors have ever talked to this person.

Leslie Briggs  04:47

Yep. I've sent her a message on Facebook randomly. And it was almost instantly that she responded I asked her I was like, did you ever know Jim Luman? And the message I got back was "yes, he is a monster."

Colleen McCarty  05:02

So the memory was quite fresh.

Leslie Briggs  05:04

I mean, it was an instant response almost.

Colleen McCarty  05:08

Yeah. And like, I feel like you and I always go into people's "other messages." So like, they might not even see it because we're, yeah, we're sending messages without making friends or strangers to strangers all the time. That's fine. We're not weird.

Leslie Briggs  05:20

We're just trying to find people like that just for the podcast, but for many of our projects, we need community. Yes, so

Colleen McCarty  05:26

we look for people a lot. But the thing that's so remarkable about this person is the recall. Yeah, it was still visceral, very visceral. And she wanted to share. She really wanted to share and so let's quickly read what the police report says into the record of the podcast. And then we will hear from her.

Leslie Briggs  05:55

So the full police report from the Eureka Springs police department states that the date and time of the incident report was March 19 1997. The type of incident was a domestic battery third degree and it happened at the Crescent Hotel. In Eureka Springs. The method of attack says suspect bit, spanked, and assaulted victim. The description of the weapon is mouth, belt and hands. It lists the suspects name is James Carroll Luman II. And the complaintant is a woman named Carisa. And here's the narrative. "On Wednesday, March 19 1997. At 9:15am officers Fortenberry Jacobs and I were dispatched to the Crescent Hotel on a report of a hysterical woman in the lobby." I have issues with that right out of the gate again, where it's 1997. "Fortenberry and Jacobs arrived first and found the woman who identified herself as Carisa. She said her boyfriend had assaulted her and room 218 at 7am this morning after she tried to get him out of bed. She said he woke up angry and hit her very hard and lower back. She said he then pulled her onto the bed and began pushing her face into the bed when she tried to scream. She said he then bit her nose and stuck his fingers down her throat telling her to quit screaming she said he also pulled her bottom lip to the point of bleeding and Bit her on her right forearm. She said he then took off his belt and hit her on the butt and legs five to six times, leaving marks on both. She said she finally got out of the room and into the lobby to get help. Mr. Luman was arrested for domestic battery third degree Class A misdemeanor and transported to the Carroll County Sheriff's Office. Mr. Lumen was taken before Judge Kent cocci in Berryville at 4:30pm. And given a bond of $1,000 and a court date of April 18 1997. In Eureka Springs, it appears that they the officers also took Polaroids of the victim and those are in her file. Here's the affidavit of probable cause." And this court this case was in the municipal court in the city of Eureka Springs, so it wasn't even in like a District Court for the state. This was a municipal issue.

Colleen McCarty  08:12

So we're going to play the recording of our interview with her now.

Carisa  08:17

My name is Carisa

Leslie Briggs  08:19

and how did you know Jim Luman?

Carisa  08:24

I met him. Oh yeah, that's the whole Wow. I met him at work. And started dating him probably the day I started when I met him and actually moved some of my stuff into him into his apartment because I had been because we'd been spending so much time together. Really quick. I was young. I was stupid. And I moved in really quick.

Colleen McCarty  08:52

Where were you guys working at the time?

Carisa  08:55

He was a car salesman or worse than some dealership if I remember correctly. And I was working at a at a club in Tulsa.

Leslie Briggs  09:12

Do you know what dealership he was working at?

Carisa  09:22

No, I don't remember. That's okay. Anyway, he was like a car salesman. And there was a bunch of dealerships around. It was like one of the big guys like Ford or Toyota or something.

Colleen McCarty  09:34

Gotcha. And that was in Tulsa.

Carisa  09:37

Yes.

Leslie Briggs  09:39

And what was the name of the club that you worked out?

Carisa  09:41

No, I don't know if it was. Lady Godiva's or.... I don't know which one it was to be honest with you. I didn't do it for very long. And I've kind of put that whole life out of my mind. So I believe at the time I met him, I was 19. He came in with a bunch of his friends one night, I believe. Kind of like, you know, guys night. And you know, they always press "Well, can we get your number? Can we take you home?" first you always say no. And he just came in, and he was just really, like, polite and charming. And he wasn't trying to get me to go home with them. And he was like, No, I really want to just take you out to lunch. And then like, you know, like an idiot 'cause I'm only 19. And I didn't understand the world. I was playing in pretty much. And so I was like, yeah. And he was just really charming. And he took me out. You know, he never pressed anything. And he was just, you know, sweet.

Colleen McCarty  11:02

Do you remember where you had your first date? Your first lunch date at?

Carisa  11:09

No, he was Italian or something. It wasn't like, like, I could tell you every detail on that night. But I can't tell you all the details that led up to it. Yeah, if that makes any sense.

Leslie Briggs  11:24

Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. Well, so how long were you guys dating before you took the trip to Arkansas? couple nights? A couple of Yeah.

Carisa  11:36

I mean, I had I didn't have all my stuff there. But I had quite a bit of my stuff there. Well, I wouldn't say quite a bit, but I had enough. I had clothes and you know, stuff that you would think you'd wake up and go to work. I mean, I'd been spending the night over there, you know, probably three or four nights a week at least. And I mean, it was just good. It was normal. We, you know, we never thought there was it was really good until it wasn't. It was it was fine. It was he. He was He liked his job. I remember that. And remember, he really enjoyed it. It was doing really well. And I was making good money. And we were just having fun. And we went out to Arkansas to celebrate his birthday. I believe. Did

Colleen McCarty  12:29

you know his son or his ex wife, Dawn? No. As you mentioned,

Carisa  12:36

I didn't know he had a son. I knew I take that back. I knew he had been married. And that he didn't like to talk about it at one time we drove out into the country. And I don't know if it was a family member or somebody but he said I think it was like his brother or sister lived there. But I think later it was probably when he drove me by his ex wife's house, I think. I don't know. But that's just kind of what I got when I when some people were telling me stuff a couple years later. I don't know. But he said it was I think maybe it was he said it was his mom's but I thought it was really weird because we didn't stop.

Leslie Briggs  13:22

Right? Yeah, that is unusual.

Carisa  13:23

There's my mom's house. Wave!

Leslie Briggs  13:29

Right. So before the that you were you guys moved really quickly, right from just this date to moving in with him. And then you guys go to Arkansas. And yeah, that's the first to

Carisa  13:43

celebrate something. I think it was his birthday. Or his birthday was like next week or something. Yeah. And I had to be at work the next day. So we just went up there for the night.

Leslie Briggs  13:53

And so was that the first time any? You got any indication that something wasn't quite right.

Carisa  14:01

No. We didn't fight. Yeah, but I also didn't want to not because I couldn't argue with them because I'm pretty feisty. I just knew I didn't want to I I can't explain it. You just it's just one of those people used to look at me like now I don't feel like being feisty with this one. I can't. You just didn't. I don't know. Maybe that's why we didn't fight it's because I just okay, I was just like, okay.

Leslie Briggs  14:39

Yeah, no, I think I think lots of women probably make those calculations every single day in their lives of like, am I going to you know, say something here. Am I just going to let it lie and live you know?

Carisa  14:57

Exactly. To me. Jimmy was never Serious. I was there for my own reasons. And I had my own issues going on at the time I had a child myself, that was very young that I was away from. At the time, I knew him and so he was never going to be serious. It was always just fun for me. That's why I didn't like move all my stuff. And I just moved in enough to, you know, wake up the next day, so I had some comfort.

Leslie Briggs  15:27

Yeah, yeah. So would you guys go driving around like quite a bit? Was that a regular activity for you guys?

Carisa  15:35

I think so. Yeah, remember, we've got the country and it's so weird. I thought I would remember every detail of everything about him, but I just I've been so many years since I thought about it. And and it's not something I like to think about tell you the truth. And, you know, I just I forgotten a lot of the stuff but uh, yeah, I think we did drive around, move out so country a few times, and made the drive to Arkansas. So that was like, normal. Yeah. I would say it was normal.

Leslie Briggs  16:11

Yeah. And, you know, I have the incident report. I've been able to get that as part of a public record with from the police. And so I know some of what happened. So why don't you just tell me what you can remember.

Carisa  16:29

He wanted to stay in a haunted place. The whole thing like it was, I'm pretty sure it was his birthday, or was going to be his birthday. or some type of celebration. Anyways, we went up there. We got up there. Six or seven that night. We went to a couple of bars, but he got us a hotel. In this place that used to be like an asylum or something.

Colleen McCarty  16:49

I think it was The Crescent.

Carisa  16:56

Yeah, some haunted hotel.

Colleen McCarty  17:00

It had appeal to him that it used to be an asylum?

Carisa  17:04

Yeah. Yeah, it was supposed to be haunted. Ooh, we're gonna go in this haunted thing. You know? I don't know. I was just like, cool. Because that's kind of how I was about everything. Sure. Let's do it. And we went out, we went out to a, we stopped in a couple of bars. We were drinking a little bit that. I mean, we were walking around, it was still kind of chilly at night. And we got home, we got back to the room fairly early. We didn't shut down the bars or anything.

Leslie Briggs  17:38

It says then that you reported that he grabbed you by the throat.

Carisa  17:44

Like before? Um, yeah, yeah. But it was like, it wasn't. It was scary. But it wasn't. I don't know the sounds so bad. But it wasn't like he was like, at the time, I didn't take it as something I needed to be fearful of it was almost like he was playing around a little too rough. If that makes sense?

Leslie Briggs  18:08

No. A lot of sense. And also, you know, I think I just want to say this that. I called you I contacted you out of the blue today, you don't know me from Adam. And I'm asking you to tell me one of the most traumatic things that's ever happened to you. So like, I just, I want to name that and say that I appreciate your candor and your vulnerability with us because I think it's important. And then like another thing I just want to say to you is you don't have to make any excuses to us for anything that you chose to do or not do with...

The song in this week's episode is "Surefire," by Wilderado.

You can access the show notes at https://www.panicbuttonpodcast.com/season-2-operation-wildfire/episode-9

S2:E9 WILDFIRE follows the story of one of Jim's survivors as she tries to hold him accountable in the court of public opinion. She was told by the Sapulpa police that they would not pursue charges. Once she learned about all the other survivors, she created a flyer to distribute about Jim's past abuses. Can your abuser sue you for spreading the truth? Can he win?

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

SPEAKERS

Leslie Briggs, Colleen McCarty, Josh Kidd, Karrah

Leslie Briggs  00:00

This episode contains references to accounts of domestic and sexual violence, violence against women in particular, and language that is not suitable for listeners under 18 years of age. We also discuss coercive control. Please use caution when listening.

Karrah  00:16

Yes, he retaliated and takes my weed mugshot, which is like hysterical because I got, I got pulled over with a little bit of weed one time and the smile, I smiled in the mug shot, because I was like, I'm gonna take advantage of this mug shot. And I'm like, I'm gonna smile. And like, I didn't even I didn't have to, like, put the clothes on or anything. I didn't have to like go behind bars or anything. He takes that mugshot and makes a he tries to get it put on a billboard. But nobody would do it for him, I guess. And he bought a website, know your neighbors dot biz or something like that. And puts my mug shot on there. But you can't tell it's a mug shot because I was smiling really big. And he put my face all over town and was warning neighbors about me. I got a call. At work. I start getting calls. And they're like, carry out your faces on signs around town. He put one by my daughter's school, which was also a violation of my protective order. I but they didn't. When I reported it as a violation. They didn't count it as one. They didn't count any of his violations as any as a violation. He did. And I found this out. This was like right before, this was in 2021. Right after he beat his wife number five. His house was on Zillow. And somebody sent me a link to his house. And I could see my face on the sign and this yard next to his house. In Iowa.

Colleen McCarty  02:04

Everything in life has a tipping point. No matter what, at some point, the way you've been living becomes too much and something has to get for Jim lumen. The tipping point came when he met Karrah. He didn't know that was the moment and neither did she. But the end of the relationship sparked a series of events that's almost too crazy to believe.

Leslie Briggs  02:34

In Episode Six, you heard the survivors accounts of abuse and harrowing detail. Karrah was the survivor who Jim took to Branson on their first date. They only dated for three weeks in October of 2014. Three weeks that would change both of their lives in immeasurable ways. The thing about Karrah is that she has a very fundamental and pronounced sense of what's right and wrong. There's no compromising, and there's no excuses. So when she found out about all the other women that Jim had abused, including the women who she was told to hate when she was dating, her basic humanity transcended all of the mental manipulation. And she began to reach out to them. She and Christen really became close and they bonded over what they went through. What happens when these women begin to organize is remarkable.

Colleen McCarty  03:22

This is panic button. Operation Wildfire, and you're listening to Episode Nine. Wildfire. I'm Colleen McCarty.

Leslie Briggs  03:33

And I'm Leslie Briggs.

Colleen McCarty  03:35

If you're just getting started with us, we recommend you go back and start listening from episode one. Leslie, one of the most remarkable parts about this story is the companionship that emerges between so many of Jim's victims,

Leslie Briggs  03:51

right. I mean, they were told during their relationships with him that they were each crazy bitches obsessed with him. They're scorned lovers. They just want to get him back. And often that's happening while they're dating him simultaneously. Like he's talking about someone who's actively dating and saying she's just obsessed with me. I broke up with her already. And I guess something we should talk about Colleen is like that culturally in the United States. Women are bombarded with subconscious messaging, and I mean overt messaging as well. That push us to compete with one another for resources, men jobs, romantic attention. I mean, do you agree? Yes,

Colleen McCarty  04:30

I think it's often called internalized misogyny. But it's the idea that, you know, women hold up the patriarchy almost as much if not more than men do. It's the idea that what you're wearing to work is going to be scrutinized not by the men, but by the other women. What your you know, social circles think of you is more important than or what your church thinks of you was maybe sometimes more important than what your husband thinks of you? Or what what are the other women going to say or think or what's the gossip going to be? I mean, I think there's a lot of fear of women's judgment. I mean, when I hear these stories about these genuine friendships that developed between these women that were competing, for the same exact man who all slept with the same man, while had the same exact experience with the same man, it's pretty like it really bends my brain, the fact that they could just like lift up out of their pain and see past the manipulation is one thing. But then, to reach out and become friends with each other is something you just don't see very often. So we talked about this recently together, and we're bringing it onto the podcast, but in a function of their of healing their trauma and growing, becoming friends was actually a great thing for them, they could reflect with each other share stories, and Bond through what were some of the hardest moments of their lives. They needed each other to get through this. But often, they didn't have anyone else. And they didn't feel safe going to family or current people in their life, with what had happened to them. But this is something that frustrates me still, to this day, even after we've heard this story. So many times, legally, their relationships with each other are extremely problematic. And if they associate with each other about these cases, the system looks at that with suspicion. Every attorney when the time comes to go in front of a judge or a jury will hit them hard with accusations that these women are simply getting together and getting their stories straight, organizing their testimony to be consistent making sure that they all say similar things. So they sound more credible,

Leslie Briggs  06:47

right? I think for me, so it's like hard for me to take off the lawyer here. Because if you want to get him in a civil or criminal case, you can't, can't cannot hang with your fellow survivors, you simply can't. Because that would be we don't believe women, we just don't. Juries don't believe women. And so when you when you give the other side an opportunity to to attack your credibility. It's pretty hard to come back from

Colleen McCarty  07:18

Yeah, but that just plays into this perfect victim narrative that like, you have a therapist and a mom and a grandma. And that's their purpose in your life is to go to with your problems. And you don't need anybody else. And you can find you a good man. And you don't need to worry make better choices make better choices like that police told like that police officer told Ember from episode one, it's just, it's not realistic, especially in the face of the systemic indifference that these people are facing at the time,

Leslie Briggs  07:48

right? You have a system that has not done very much. There have been some things but not much. And we were talking about like 30 Day jail sentences, where he gets out in a week for like the abuse that he perpetrated upon Christen. And it's like, okay, well, I tried that. I tried that, that criminal process, and I got jack shit. I'm gonna try a civil process.

Colleen McCarty  08:15

The counterpoint to all of that is like, what is going when is it ever going to be enough for you? When is it ever? You you've got the prosecution? You've got the deferred since he got the conviction, you bought the things you want it, it wasn't enough for you? Why wasn't it enough for you? Why didn't it feel like justice to you?

Leslie Briggs  08:32

Because it didn't stop him. It didn't fix the problem. And like, that's what I would. That's how I think if I could channel any of those women, it didn't fix it. There were several more victims after Christen got the 30 day jail sentence. And, frankly, like, this is like the it's the big overarching criminal justice problem, like problem is that incarceration doesn't solve the root cause of violence, or like the root problems with community safety. And so and we've heard from the experts last week, and we'll move we're gonna move on from this topic here just a minute, but like, I get frustrated, because I don't know. I don't know what the answer is to this.

Colleen McCarty  09:20

I mean, I think a lot of people don't know. But the problem is, we haven't been allowed to study it. We haven't been allowed to try other things. Right. We've been allowed to, like, try restorative justice with these kinds of cases race are looking No,

Leslie Briggs  09:33

like the investment in alternative resolutions. Isn't hasn't happened in Oklahoma. And I'm just not convinced that incarceration has done anything to solve Jim's behaviors.

Colleen McCarty  09:47

No, and like, what are we saying though? Like he needs to go to prison for life then I just like no,

Leslie Briggs  09:53

I just I disagree with that as well.

Colleen McCarty  09:55

I mean, I think that's what that's how Jim's family feels is that these women will be up he until he's in a graver and behind bars for the rest of his life like The Green Mile. Right?

Leslie Briggs  10:06

Right. And I think the problem is that the trauma for them is still so visceral, the system re traumatize them. And there wasn't any healing. I'm just like, gonna say you're like Xavier. And it really is and their take on how to heal those traumas. I agree with. I think that's the only real viable solution.

Colleen McCarty  10:27

I mean, human psychology says the only way to heal things like this is not further separation, further abuse gation further, hiding and stave, pleading the fifth and the things that the legal system is built to do. It is built to bring only the relevant evidence and relevant based on a judge's opinion. It is, you know, only built to do those things and various, it only really works in very limited circumstances, personal interpersonal relationships, interpersonal violence, the solution is probably never, you're never going to feel fully healed. Because you're just never going to feel fully healed after a criminal prosecution no matter what happens. Yeah. Because you never get to hear from that person, how it impacted them that you never get to hear from them that they had, that it had an impact on them what they did, that they recognize the impact that it had on you that they're sorry, they no one ever gets to hear what really happened because the point is to obfuscate what really happened,

Leslie Briggs  11:34

right? Well, I think that the point is also to protect the individual liberty of the defendant, which is like you and I both agree feel very strongly that that needs to happen is one of the most critical facets of our entire legal system. So this has been a huge sidebar. Yeah, I do. I do think that we should hear from Karrah about what she thought about banding together helped her HURT

Colleen McCarty  12:02

Do you feel like your friendship with the other girls in any way undermine your credibility in the courts?

Karrah  12:11

Absolutely, I do I feel like I feel like like me going in to I went with I had Christen with me a lot of times when I would be filling out violations of things or when I would be filing all my court filings or anything Christen would come with me sometimes Amberwood in the beginning and they basically would just look at you like you two crazy girls that are teaming up against this poor guy like it was pretty much like leave the poor guy alone at mentality and and they would ask me well, why are you even friends you and it was really where do you even therapist seem to not encourage me and Christen being friends. It was really strange like the the way that our friendship was looked down upon. It has been for a long time.

Colleen McCarty  13:16

So even despite the suspicion phrased and Karen knowing that this raises the hackles of of all the legal participants in this situation, it doesn't stop her from forming a plan after she realizes that her case is going to get dismissed against Jim are basically is not even gonna get investigated at all. She decides to take matters into her own hands.

Karrah  13:42

The minute I found out my case was dropped a day before my mom died. And when my mom died, I did not get sad like most people do when their mom dies, I felt like a big badass warrior. All of a sudden, I felt like my mom would die if she knew I was freaking rolling over to this guy if I was just not doing anything to stand up to him. And so I I didn't know that I was going to hang the flyer at the time. I made the I was going to make a flyer I just wanted to make a graphic that had at least a warning. Yeah, I was thinking about making a website honestly. And I was and I knew that if I just put it and I was having a hard time searching for him. I couldn't prove that he was any kind of criminal when I was with him. I couldn't look into his background to see that he had any kind of violent history. And so I learned that if you actually put in lumen to like when you're searching for him It pulls up a lot more stuff. But so, but people don't know that. So I wanted a way to condense some information, some public information about him, also with people. And I wanted to use women that personally told me things that he had done with them. So I made a flyer, I put his one of his mugshots on it, I made a list of some of his crimes that you could find online, including, like the casket stuff, just because it's creepy. I put that one in there just because I wanted someone to pull it up and see that he has a casket lawsuit. Yeah, I know that. I mean, I just threw that in there. Because everybody needs to know about the caskets. No. And so I, I just put a list of the allegations from the women that I had personally heard from. I I just Christen and I talked, it was it was right after my mom's funeral. It was the weekend of my mom's funeral. And we were going to do something that we were going to do something to because the police weren't doing anything, we were at least going to hang one flyer, like we were at least going to put one flyer up. And so I ended up going. We talked on the phone the night before Christen and I and we said okay, we're doing this tomorrow. And I didn't think we were actually going to do it. And she didn't think we were actually going to do it. And last thing I knew I was at the place that she was house sitting at, we were on our way to make 200 copies, color copies of the flyer after I made the flyer after we made the copies. I realized that my email address was at the on the bottom of each fucking one of them. And I had to tear off my email address off of all 200 of them before we hung them. But anyway, sorry, that was a long story. So we we didn't want our cart her car to be seen on camera. So we went to the airport and we rented a Mustang. And we named it wildfire because we were about to be spreading the truth like wildfire. And we took the Mustang to Cleveland, gems hometown, and we hung fliers pretty much everywhere that we could think of including his sister's grave. We hung one at the Hickory House Restaurant is favorite place to eat. We hung one at the police station at the library at the place that they get shakes. I can't remember what it was a really good like ice cream place but the dairy barn, we put one at the dairy barn. We put one at his sister's house. I think we threw a few out there at the school at the park where Christen was found. And then toward the end we we went up we put them up we I think Kristin put it judges house because she used to clean for him. At the end we had a few leftover and we went up to the top of this hill and we just throw them out and watch them fly up cross this golf course and over this hill it felt fucking amazing. It felt like we had finally we laughed so hard that day. I was wearing sunglasses, a black hoodie, black everything because I didn't want to be on people's cameras, because I knew Jim would be coming after me. And so I mean, it was truly like vigilante justice. And you know, neither one of us are like, you know, it was like we both have jobs and stuff. So it was like we were really felt like we were getting by with something and and we were probably well, a few days later, I started to get a lot of angry messages from the women on the flyer. I started to get angry messages from a lot of people in general, saying How dare you put this up? Basically, he had a lot of women blaming each other for he didn't know who did it. And everyone was blaming each other for it. Everyone was freaking out thinking he was going to come after them. Because he was kind of livid. And he was blaming every woman on the flyer and they kept coming to me and they're like, he's coming after me because of this flyer. And I'm like, Well, I gotta take it. I got I take full responsibility for it because I can't handle all these poor women going through more trauma because of this flyer. I did not even like think that through at all I did, I did Black their eyes, like put a bar across their eyes and like, covered their names like I mean, it was completely anonymous. Like they...

This week's episode is a break from the heavy story telling to ask the experts. Our expert panel features: 

• Ashley Nix, Assistant District Attorney and Director of the Special Victim's Unit at the Tulsa County DA's Office
• Xavier Graves, Executive Director of the Restorative Justice Institute of Oklahoma
• Detective Amy Hall, Supervisor Family Violence Unit, Tulsa Police Department 
• Aurelius Francisco, Co-Executive Director of Foundation for Liberating Minds 

Listen as they discuss the real on the ground realities of dealing with domestic violence in a state like Oklahoma, that has some of the highest rates of interpersonal violence in the country.

The song in this episode is Nightmares by Keyland.

Documents and Resources for this episode are available here: https://panic-button-episode-7-show-notes.tiiny.co

Episode 7 “Didn’t Think It Could Get Worse” follows the survivors of Jim Luman after their breakups. Nails in your driveway? DHS showing up at your house? A professional complaint filed on you at the Board of Nursing? The abuse never seems to end, even when you leave.

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TRANSCRIPT

Colleen McCarty  00:00

The contents of this episode includes topics that cover separation abuse and legal abuse as well as violence against women, and potentially bestiality. It's not suitable for children under 18.

Heather  00:21

So after I left him, he made a formal complaint to that I worked nursing. So I had to go and sit in front of the board and answer to everything that he said I did. There was a HIPAA concern, because I looked at his files, which I was consulting, so whatever, um, there was a, an accusation that I was guilty of Beast reality. There was, there's like six things. The number one thing that stands out is he said that I cut the GPS locator off of my state car. I left that office, I drove to our state garage, went to the mechanic and said, Tell me my GPS is working. He in fact, told me my GPS was gone. They looked back. My GPS was disabled in October. So he took that GPS off my car in October, I don't even know where the damping is, I wouldn't know how to take the thing off. So this was before we got married, that he cut this locator off.

Leslie Briggs  01:28

That was Heather, Jim's fourth wife. Extracting yourself from an abusive relationship is difficult, even when you have an incredible support system and everything falls in place. But with Jim, he makes every effort to interfere with manipulate and threaten other aspects of your life that make it much more difficult to leave. And with Heather, you can see he tried to get her nursing license taken away. It's a form of coercive control, post separation, abuse, Colleen Do you want to tell us what legal abuse and post separation abuse are?

Colleen McCarty  02:09

Yeah, so there are some kinds of abuse that are so covert and misunderstood even now that we're just as a society starting to build a language to even talk about them. And two of the types that are particularly prevalent in Jim's cases are legal abuse, also called litigation abuse, and the second one is post separation abuse or also called separation abuse. So firstly, legal abuse and domestic violence relationship refers to instances where the abuser is using the legal system to manipulate or exert control over their victim. And this can range from frivolous filings of lawsuits protective orders, falsely accusing the victim of crimes, manipulating custody agreements or arrangements and potentially withholding financial support. The abuser can use legal means to further isolate the victim from friends and family, such as by falsely obtaining protective orders, or making false complaints to government agencies like in our state, it's called DHS, like making child custody or saying that you're not parenting your child appropriately. Right. And then the second one host separation abuse is particularly in domestic violence relationship where the abuse continues after the victim leaves. And this can include harassing the victim through phone calls, text messages, social media, stalking, making face, sorry, making false accusations to friends, family, or law enforcement and using custody arrangements as a means of control. It's also like, using threats against someone's life, against their children's lives, threats or future violence to try to keep someone from leaving. Because we know that once someone does leave a relationship like this is the most dangerous time. Right. And we know he likes to also use suicide as a threat to live in who may be preparing to leave or or making an attempt to leave. Yes. And so it makes essentially for post for post separation abuse. It makes people stay in violent relationships, which is something a lot of people don't understand. It's like I hear this all the time. Like why do they stay? Why do they say in the such a trope for me? Because I've heard it so many times but also I feel like we kind of woke up to this as a society in like 2016 but people in Oklahoma are still asking me why did she stay and it's like post separation abuse is usually the answer. Because if they try to leave they I think in our first episode Kate waits Professor Kate waits describes this idea of like there are a lot of reasons why people say and situations they shouldn't stay in --  take all of those and then add the threat to your life.

Leslie Briggs  04:57

Right yeah.

Colleen McCarty  05:00

And then the fear of being alone to face this kind of abuse can just make leaving seem kind of like, insurmountable and daunting.

Leslie Briggs  05:09

Yeah, and, you know, I will just say that I go I find myself cycling through when we you know, not not just with some of the stories on this podcast, but with all a lots of our work on domestic abuse cycling through the "Why did she stay? Well, I wouldn't do it that way." And then remind, you know, it's like a, it's a it's so ingrained in our culture and society that those cycles play through my mind on occasion, and I have to catch myself and go, you know, why she stayed? Yeah, you know, the the having the ability to leave and leave successfully without dying is -- it's a monumental task and post separation abuse to your point is generally the reason that it's so so difficult.

Colleen McCarty  06:02

And the fear of the unknown to you, it's like that whole thing about the devil you know, is better than the devil you don't I think a lot of times, and we say this in season one that survivors know how to keep themselves safe. And oftentimes the ways that they keep themselves safe are staying

Leslie Briggs  06:18

right. And also to you know, Angela Beatty who's an expert on this issue to her point in season one as well that like, most times, people want want the abuse to stop, they want the person that they love to just do what you said, I think in the first episode is like be the person that they can see that they're capable of the potential potential to be a good person and to stop doing this is also a factor in leaving, but in case you didn't know, I'm Leslie Briggs,

Colleen McCarty  06:48

and I'm Colleen McCarty, this is panic button, season two, Operation Wildfire, you're listening to episode seven. Didn't think it could get worse.

Leslie Briggs  06:59

If you're just joining us, you'll want to go back and start listening from episode one.

Colleen McCarty  07:02

One of the most important things to remember about Jim is that he fancies himself a legal expert and works closely with attorneys. His sister was an attorney. And he, according to his friends, learned how to practice law from working with her. Through his work with PI and Associates, he is always connected to an attorney who could represent Him in exchange for his services, on the PI consulting work. So in all these cases we're looking at he was never short, any legal help if he wanted to file a lawsuit. Conversely, his victims or survivors don't have the money to hire lawyers don't know which lawyers would be good don't have access to just free legal help anytime they want. And so it ends up becoming a very huge imbalance of power for them. And anyone who's like embedded in the legal community in any ways that they're putting forward, can inherently be an intimidating for people who are not familiar with the courts or with legal processes. And his relationships with attorneys are also helpful in getting him favorable plea deals in some of these smaller counties where the attorneys that he has work with the judges and the prosecutors a lot. And it's just sort of this off the bat advantage that he has in any type of legal proceeding, I would say.

Leslie Briggs  08:29

Yeah, I think, you know, there's like a running joke from folks like folks who, who practice mostly in federal courts then find themselves in a state court called Getting hometowned. You don't I mean, you're in front of the local judge who deals with the local bar, those attorneys are in that courthouse every single day. And it's not to say that, like judges are just not applying the law, although

Colleen McCarty  08:56

the other day said, Well, in federal court they care about the Constitution.

Leslie Briggs  09:01

Well, the truth hurts wake up, wake up Oklahoma do better. But I will say like so it's like these relationships, these relationships impact the proceedings for sure. Like it just not that the law doesn't get applied, but it can make, you know, if it's a close race, it can it can impact the final decision.

Colleen McCarty  09:20

Plus, it just makes it easier. It's like when your attorney goes in to talk to the prosecutor about your case about trying to get you a deal and it's a prosecutor they work with every day and they know you always bring them reasonable deals and they make recs to you because you know, I did five recs from yesterday I have to do a rec for him today like it's just it ends up as human nature does. It ends up being this like I'm familiar with this person and this is what I did for them yesterday and this is what I did for them the day before and so that's what I am expected to do for them today. And if yesterday I gave his guy a six month plea on deferred for or domestic assault? And today I'm gonna give his guy a six month deferred.

Leslie Briggs  10:04

Yeah, you like naturally people fall into patterns and those patterns play out in the courthouse. No lawyers are no different from regular humans.

Colleen McCarty  10:12

What What?

Leslie Briggs  10:14

No, but many survivors are afraid to leave violent situations, right, as we're just discussing that they know the system will struggle to separate them from their abuser, particularly if you're married, and particularly if you have minor children, that can just add to the difficulties. And oftentimes, the system, as we've seen throughout this podcast will fail to really hold their abuser to account or fail to stop that abuser from hurting them. Like, on the one hand, you have this idea of accountability that this person needs to answer for what they did. But on the other hand, you just have like immediate safety issues that need to be dealt with. And so it's like, this system is kind of shitty at both, unfortunately. And so but when abusers particularly abusers, like Jim continue to escape consequences, it continues to put survivors and future victims in danger. And something we hear a lot a lot from prosecutors and courts is that they can't prosecute cases where victims don't want to cooperate.

Christen  11:09

They told me that it was likely going to get a jury the assault charge. And they said, you know, we're not going to let him buy or we're not going to produce or whatever they were telling me, they weren't going to let him off or whatever. And then they called me on a Sunday, and said, Don't come to court tomorrow, we're not even going to hear the case. And then I got a call on Monday that said, we settled or whatever, and he pled not guilty. And or, you know, he pled guilty, and we reduced to, but like anger management or something, whatever. I just like collapsed, like right there, I can remember exactly where I was whenever I got that phone call.

Colleen McCarty  11:53

So go off girl,

Leslie Briggs  11:55

you know, I feel about this going. We've talked about this, in this case, particularly like let's take Christen's case, I have never met a woman more ready to get in front of a judge and a jury and take this man to task. She's ready to tell the story of what happened in that driveway. And you had a prosecutor who had a victim who would testify and what did that prosecutor do? offered a plea the night before the jury trial, and just told her not to show up? And what was the plea?

Colleen McCarty  12:26

At 90 days,

Leslie Briggs  12:28

so that the plea was 18 months? 18 months deferred. Now. He's on he's on that deferred sentence, when the shit happens with Heather and Iowa and he gets arrested. Oh, yeah. And so they then Christen being unwilling to give up, goes back to that prosecutor and says revoke, revoke that deferred sentence, because he's been arrested in Iowa, hold him to account in Oklahoma. And you know what happens?

Colleen McCarty  12:56

We're like, hey, you know what, and other states already doing that. So I don't really want to.

Leslie Briggs  13:01

 what we get, though, we do get we do get a revocation, we do get a revocation. But do you know what the court sent? sentences him to? Is it the 90 days, 90 days? So we've gone down from gone 18 months, 18 months to 90 days? And then and then and then you know how I feel about this?

Colleen McCarty  13:20

Oh, it's very bad.

Leslie Briggs  13:22

And then he actually So Jim, having access to those lawyers, allows him to do something that is pretty much unheard of, in a case like this, you get 90 days in jail, credit time served, buddy, credit time serve. So if he got arrested, he spent five nights in jail. It's only 85 days. He appealed that decision. I still have questions logistically about how all of this happened in 90 day. I think he probably isn't retroactive. I think he probably what probably happened was like a bond was posted in the desert, like the sentence was stayed pending appeal. But the he lost the appeal. However, however, in the interim, he goes to anger management for 52 weeks, at some point, he has little certificate of completion that he presents to the court. And he goes and he files a motion for judicial review. Okay, he's saying he goes back to the trial court loses on appeal, goes back to the trial court says, Hey, Judge, check out this certificate from 52 weeks of anger management. And and by the way, in the interim, they've started bullying me these women have started bullying me on the internet and calling me an abuser online. How That's so unfair. I deserve 30 days instead. And he gets it and he gets it and he fucking gets it.

Colleen McCarty  14:41

You know what's crazy about this, like we're putting all the pieces together for you and letting you build the puzzle yourself. But if you listen to episode two, you might feel like this is a little bit familiar because it's a pattern Jim's father throughout the 1970s and now 1980s and early 1990s had a lot of his sentences reduced through these types of post conviction filings. And I don't think that's a coincidence at all. Every prosecutor I talked to you about this, every single one of them, every single one. I mean, it's like they're trained to say says domestic violence victims need to cooperate and prosecute their abusers. They walk away, they drop everything, they dropped the POS, they want to get back together with him. This is a toxic relationship, and she needs to just balls up, and go sit in front of a jury and testify against him if she really wants him to get time. And I would like to proffer to our listeners that that is bullshit.

Leslie Briggs  15:47

This this, these cases prove it.

Colleen McCarty  15:50

Not only that, but have you ever seen a murder victim testify at a trial? Oh, they can't. They're dead, they're dead. There's also an entire type of prosecution, which I know is now kind of happening in Tulsa County, at least, called Evidence Based prosecution, where you use all of the evidence, what a fucking concept, to prosecute the person, and you don't need that person's first hand testimony saying he hit me, you can actually just use the pictures and the medical records. And you can fucking get somebody prosecuted like that you don't have to force people to come back to the courthouse and go through this very traumatic process where they feel scared and in danger, right. And it's, it's also just this other form of victim blaming, we talked about in the last episode, but our whole system is this whole thing about not only are you a victim of violence, but you need to be the person that's solely responsible for doling out the consequences. And if you don't want to do that, and you don't have balls up, then you can just expect him to get out and hit you again. And that's your fault. Fuck yeah. I mean, yeah, that's what this is. That is what this is. That's been their approach for the whole history of time. Yeah, the whole history of of like the criminal justice system in the state of Oklahoma since we were first formed.

Leslie Briggs  17:07

But again, to reiterate, these women are ready, get them in front of a jury because they want to tell, they want to tell the public what happened. And there's evidence and there's evidence, lots of photos, lots of medical records, lots of voicemails, lots of text messages, lots of emails. The list goes on. But addition to the problems that we have with how prosecutors approach this often, many of the victims have tried to go to police to report what's happened in them. Only to be told, we're not here, not only are we like, not, you know, we're not only are we going to defer this person out, but we're not actually even going to make we're not going to charge them. We're not going to pursue this in any way.

Colleen McCarty  17:50

When Karrah tried to go to the police for her assault and rape. Her report what had happened to them. And to be fair, we'll talk about this in a later episode. It was several months after it happened because he threatened her only child and told her that if she told anyone he would kill her child. But she goes to law enforcement only to be told that the officers were not going to bring him in for questioning because he just didn't want to go.

Leslie Briggs  18:15

 Is that right?

Colleen McCarty  18:16

Yeah. They said he doesn't want to come in for questioning. So there's nothing we can do. That was from the police. And then she went to the district attorney. And now you'll get to hear some from that meeting.

Karrah  18:25

When I was dropping him off. I told him I was gonna go to the police station. And he said that he would kill if I did. He said, If I tell a soul, he will tell it will kill. And my only child and I 100% believed him because he was very much capable of killing. And so I didn't tell a soul. I say that. It turns out I did. I told my sister I told my boss. And other than that, I went on to teach piano and pretend like it never happened. After all of this happened with Luman, he told me he was going to kill ___. So I didn't come forward a few months later, I actually got he started reaching out to me. And I actually would reach out to him because I kind of wanted a little bit of closure a little bit like I wanted to, I didn't want to meet him in person at all. I just wanted to be like, Hey, I know. I know. You're an abusive motherfucker kind of thing. And so he he sent me a message one night that said What's up? And I said...

Panic Button, Season 2 Episode 6: Plenty of Fishhooks in the Sea

The music in this episode is Wicked Games by Desi and Cody. Show notes and resources are available at https://www.panicbuttonpodcast.com/season-2-operation-wildfire/episode-6

Most true crime stories are about one of two things: solving a mystery, or learning about how you can avoid being killed. Women around the world have become consumed with true crime, to the point that some of our listeners have admitted to listening to true crime podcasts as they fall asleep–because it soothes them. Usually, you’re watching and listening to stories about killers who have either been killed or been put in prison–so they’re no longer an active threat. Killers like Jeffrey Dahmer or Jack the Ripper. We can pick apart their methods, study the psychology, and run scenarios in our minds of how we would get away, or how we would solve the crime.

In truth, these kinds of sensational crimes represent less than 1% of murder crimes committed in the US. Far more common are women killed in domestic partner offenses. And even more common than those are women hurt and assaulted in domestic assaults. Oklahoma is ranked number two in the nation for the number of women killed by men.

Twenty people per minute in the United States are physically assaulted by an intimate partner. Perhaps the reason we don’t tell these stories, and the reason they don’t make the true crime top 100 list is because these incidents are so common. They hit pretty close to home, especially in Oklahoma. It’s interesting that psychologically we would rather focus on the 1% of sensationalized murder cases than on the 99% of intimate partner violence cases that gum up every criminal docket in America.

This episode is going to be tough. In a way I think we’ve been trying to protect our listeners from the particularly intimate and horrific details of Jim’s abuse. But here we are, it’s Episode 6, and we have to dive into the details of the domestic violence assaults that form the basis of this podcast.

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TRANSCRIPT

SPEAKERS

Heather, Christen, Leslie Briggs, Rusty Shouse, Marci, Colleen McCarty, Karrah

Leslie Briggs  00:00

This episode contains graphic accounts of domestic and sexual violence, violence against women in particular, animal abuse, and language that is not suitable for listeners under 18 years of age. Please use caution when listening. So since starting this podcast, we have had lots of different people reach out to us with their thoughts, opinions, and just impressions about what we've done. Over the last five episodes, we've actually heard from a couple of people who I would call on Jim's side, people who believe that the things that we're saying are untrue, or not factual. And unfortunately, none of them are willing to go on the record, or provide us or they have yet to provide us with anything that we could look at to verify or even consider as something that would warrant us issuing a correction. But this is my message to everybody listening. If you have information that refutes the things that we're saying, if you can provide us with documentation or personal lived experience that we can corroborate or consider, we'll issue a correction if it's warranted, we've always been willing to do that. So you're a little frustrated.

Colleen McCarty  01:19

I'm a little frustrated that people who claim to have information that would refute any of the information in this podcast are not willing to provide us documentation or records, or messages. And I think it's worth like going through how much time and effort we have spent trying to gather the truth. We spent 1000s of hours ourselves personally going over court records documentation. We've spent financial funds getting records from courts, we've had two interns working on this from January until May gathering information and sources and talking to everybody that we could find.

Leslie Briggs  02:08

Yeah, yeah, we cast a really wide net.

Colleen McCarty  02:11

And people continue to come forward. And whenever someone comes forward and says they have information, we always talk to them.

Leslie Briggs  02:20

My whole day gets eaten up, I will walk into the office at you know, nine in the morning, and I'll get a message and it's like, I need to talk to you today about this. And then my whole fucking day centers around getting that information to us, that's happened to me multiple times during this process where I had no plan, I was going to work on some other project, you know, and suddenly, I, I've just spent four hours confirming information and discussing it with somebody. And, you know, like making sure that we consider that perspective or that data.

Colleen McCarty  02:53

And part of the reason we're doing that is because there's been so much hearsay, there's been so much rumor and there's been so much gossip about this, that I think from all sides, it's important to have the record straight. And it's difficult in a situation like this. And so we've really taken a lot of time to do that. And I feel like we've done that justice. And if there's information that you or anyone you know, has about this case, or any of these cases that you feel like adds to the story, or contradicts, or rebuts, any of the information we've provided. It will be helpful for us to have that.

Leslie Briggs  03:39

And let me be clear, if you have an opinion about us doing X, Y or Z, it's not the same as having some evidence to contradict, so that's fine, you can send us that opinion, it doesn't mean it's gonna make it on the pod. Now on to your regularly scheduled episode.

Marci  03:57

I don't remember the ambulance ride to the first hospital. But I remember I think they took me and did a CT and then that's when they decided to transfer me to the trauma hospital. And I remember that drive because every bump we hit I hurt. I didn't realize at the time that I had four buckle fractured ribs, and one that was broke all the way through on the other side. So every bump we hit, it was like excruciating pain. Plus I had to compression fractures in my spine, from what I'm assuming from when he tackled me. And I had a broken nose.

Colleen McCarty  04:52

Most true crime stories are about one of two things, solving a mystery or learning about how you can avoid being killed. And women around the world have become consumed with true crime to the point that some of our listeners have admitted to listening to True Crime podcasts as they fall asleep. Because it Soothes them. Usually are watching and listening to stories about killers who have either been killed or been put in prison, so they're no longer an active threat. killers like Jeffrey Dahmer and Jack the Ripper. We pick apart their methods and study the psychology and run scenarios in our minds of how we would get away or how we would solve the crime. In truth, these kinds of sensational crimes represent less than 1% of murder crimes committed in the US. Far more common are women killed by domestic partners. And even more common than that are women hurt and assaulted in domestic assaults. Oklahoma is ranked number two in the nation for the number of women killed by men. 20 people per minute in the United States are physically assaulted by an intimate partner. Perhaps the reason we don't tell these stories. And the reason they don't make the true crime 100 list is because these incidents are so common. They hit pretty close to home, especially here in Oklahoma. It's interesting, that psychologically we would rather focus on the 1% of sensationalized murder cases than on the 99% of intimate partner violence cases that come up every criminal docket in America. I'm Colleen McCarty,

Leslie Briggs  06:30

and I'm Leslie Briggs,

Colleen McCarty  06:32

and you're listening to panic button Operation Wildfire. This is Episode Six, plenty of fish hooks in the sea. If you're just joining us, we recommend you go back and start listening to the story by starting with Episode One. Leslie, this episode is going to be tough. In a way, I think we've been trying to protect our listeners from the particularly intimate and horrific details of Jim's abuses. But here we are, it's episode six. And we have to dive into the details of these incidents.

Leslie Briggs  07:06

Yeah, it is disturbing. And so what we've decided to do is to allow these survivors to tell their stories uninterrupted by us as best we can. In this episode, we're going to hear straight from four different survivors' mouths about what they experienced with Jim. On one hand, it is tough to hear it all in one episode. On the other hand, if we string each story out across the season, we're worried our listeners will become desensitized to the violence. Another benefit of doing it this way is if you're sensitive to this kind of content, and you want to skip the worst of it, but still hear the rest of the story. You can skip this episode. So go ahead. We'll pause right now if you want to turn us off and go do something fun instead.

Colleen McCarty  07:51

So let's rip the band aid off and get started.

Leslie Briggs  07:55

First, we're going to hear from Christen. Christen is one of the survivors that you've heard a little bit throughout this podcast so far, episodes two, four and five. She was dating and talking to Jim around the time that he was also dating and eventually married Amber, and was he was dating one of our other survivors Karrah. Christen grew up in Cleveland and has known Jim since they were little kids. Christen and Jim started hanging out when they were both going through difficult periods in their lives as adults. Christen liked Jim, she wanted to be close to him. But Jim always seemed to be keeping Christen on the side. Christen grew up in Cleveland and has no gym since they were little kids. And Christen is well respected in that town even today. She's a realtor. When we visited the Cleveland lounge, some of the characters there spoke extremely fondly of her. I think if you ask anyone about Christen, they'll tell you that she's a good woman. Reliable, steady. least that's how she seems to me.

Colleen McCarty  08:59

She seems like she's got a good head on her shoulders. You know, she runs a business. She's responsible. She shows up when she says she's gonna show up. She's not like you would assume how a lot of victims of these situations are like I think a lot of people think these kinds of victims are like drug addicts or extremely impoverished, or they're just kind of desperate. I don't get that kind of a vibe from Christen.

Leslie Briggs  09:25

No, no, I think that those stereotypes. I mean, those stereotypes obviously are not the reality. And we know that but I definitely like Christen certainly doesn't fit the stereotype. As you heard in episodes four and five, Jim would take Christen on road trips, they would hang out together sometimes all night. Here's Christen's account of the last time she saw Jim, outside of a courtroom.

Christen  09:50

So I had been like on a little holiday with my sister and my mother. We rode that Heartland flyer. I think that's what it's called  it a train from the city to Fort Worth, we did a day trip. And we'd actually stayed the night the night before we boarded then and drove back, whatever. And he saw my Facebook posts and sent me a message about, you know, where I was at or whatever. And then I think there was an ask for me to come by, and I was coming through Cleveland on my way home anyway, so I thought I'll stop in. And when I got there, his brother in law Gene was parked in the driveway at Patsy's and, and he gets out there drinking beer all day, or whatever. And he gets out of his truck and gets into my car. And I can just kind of tell like, he's had too much to drink, so not going to be any fun. And he gets in my car, and we're just sitting next to each other. And before he had done like a buddy punch like this, what he would call it, where you punch in the arm just to kind of get you started, you know, to see if you want to fight back or gripe about it, or whatever, I guess. And I was like, Don't do that. And he did it again. Don't do that. And so I took a drink of my cup, and he flips the cup. And the drink spills down me. And I got out of the car and walked back to the trunk to get I think it was a blanket or something to dry off with. And then I walked to the passenger side where he was sitting, I opened the door, scared as hell and asked him, you know, I said, you know, maybe I can come back and see you another time. And what are you trying to kick me out of your car? And I said, no, no. And he like, very casually, like goes for a mint in my console first. And then punches me in the nose twice. Yeah, helping like by by the hair on the head back here. Like he took him in, stepped out of the car, I had the car door open now. There it was being nice, like maybe I can come another time, right. And he just pops him in and then starts kicking my ass. So punched in the face twice. And then I think it was immediately He takes my head like I he still has me by the hair. And he's pulling my pulling my head down like this way. So it's like almost like my chin is like so far into my chest like I can't, like I can't, you know. And so he goes from that position on down to the ground. And I'm right by the back wheels of my car. And it's in the gravel. And he's smashing my whole, like he saw this the back of my head and he's smashing my whole face into the gravel. And I can hear like things breaking in my face or whatever. And I can't speak because he still has me in that like locked in the fight, my mouth is closed still, you know, too, and I'm smushed down there. And he's kicking me in the ribs. So he pulls me back up, then I can speak again, I think I'm screaming. And we struggle. And he kind of stumbles down the ditch. And that's when I get free of him a little bit. I think that's when I went across the street. And then I changed my mind about waking those folks up. And I came back. And when he gets a hold of me the second time, he's we're somehow near like, he's in the driver's seat of my car. And he's holding my head again, in my hair, pushing it against the steering wheel of my car and the horn is honking and as mothers in the house and I'm thinking she's gonna hear this and see this and come out, not. And she's even up at that time getting ready for work or whatever. So this is whenever he does the fish hooking, which is what I call it, where he pulls, puts his fingers in my mouth and then pulls the skin away from the gum line and rips it. And so he does that. And then I think while he's doing that he's he beat me in the show on the farm. And he dropped his phone I think right about that time. Or he noticed that his phone was in the passenger side floor, so he must have dropped it previously. And that like catches his, you know, distracts him. He's got to get that phone. So he lets me go. It gets out of the driver's side, walks around the front of the car and I was like I'm out of here and I hopped in and I think it was already running. And I put it in reverse. And he was like, I think he grabbed his phone. And enough time. And I backed out. It's like, all at the same time, I almost ran over him. And then he threw a full beer. But like he was stumbling from, like, we're almost ran over him. And as he's falling down, he grabs a full beer and pitches it and throws it and I'm back. I'm like, going like this driving out from the driveway. And the beer hits the back of my trunk. Like, that's how crazy he's being. So I drove. I was in shock. I thought, Well, I'm gonna go to the police station, at the time the police station, and like they had just moved it from one location to the next. And when I drove by and saw that it wasn't at the place, I was like, oh, yeah, it's another place. And I was like, well, maybe I should just go home down to the park. So I went to the park, and was sitting there, and then the police drive by. And like, but this is the same street, but I mean, just three blocks up, where I couldn't use the police just moments earlier. So but anyway, they come in, they're like, you know, they see me with the blood. And they take my picture. Sure, I didn't even know they meant to say, hey, we're gonna take your picture, you know, they just took my picture. And I still haven't seen that, but not that I want to, but it didn't get brought to our hearing for some reason. Yeah. But, um, so then they asked me, you know, who did this to and the officer. I felt comfortable with him because he knew Jim. And he knew me, we don't go to school together. So I just told him it took it took me a little bit to want to say you know who it was, but I told him when they asked me if I wanted an ambulance and suggested I get one and I I refused. And then it was the next day that I went to emergency the emergency room rental.

Leslie Briggs  17:10

What do you think about that? The most like horrifying part of that to me. I just was sitting here she was describing him like smashing her chin into her chest. I just put a little bit of pressure on the back of my head and it was like really painful. So I really that just is horrifying.

Colleen McCarty  17:27

The weirdest thing about this assault to me is how just blatant it is like outside in front of the neighbors not even thinking about it. And also how casual of the relationship it is with him and Christen like it's just like a thing where we're highschool buddies and we go driving around you show me frog rock, we do it sometimes. It's not like this heavy sheet of passion. Like I'm beating you because I found I'm deeply in love with you like that's not what this is. It's just so like it's such a casual just violence for the sake of violence

Leslie Briggs  18:04

right and to be clear, like not that like I'm beating you because I love you is a better excuse. But like like there's something so insidious about him doing this to someone who is casually dating I mean

Colleen McCarty  18:17

there's a whole like whole jurisprudence about heat of passion murders and...

The song featured in this episode is Street Light by Branjae.

Season 2, episode 5 of Panic Button brings us face to face with the red flags in Jim’s relationships. Bringing dates to a graveyard? Talking about leaving your fiancé in a field to get eaten by animals? Following fetish accounts on Instagram? Going through your girlfriend’s phone? These are just some of the red flags the survivors who have dated Jim saw waving as the walls of their abusive relationships began to close in on them.

Pictures and source documents available here: https://www.panicbuttonpodcast.com/season-2-operation-wildfire/episode-5

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Transcript

SPEAKERS

Karrah, Tisha, Colleen McCarty, Jim Luman, Leslie Briggs, Kimber, Marci, Branjae, Operator, Christen, Heather

Leslie Briggs  00:00

This episode contains graphic accounts of domestic and sexual violence, violence against women in particular, and language that is not suitable for listeners under 18 years of age. We also discussed coercive control. So please use caution when listening.

Tisha  00:16

And you know, we sat and talked, you know, everything was good. And yeah, something in his little brain flipped after we left that's because we were already back to my house. You know, he was dropped me off. And yeah, it something triggered, and he showed up, bit me on my bit me on my cheek completely out of nowhere. I mean, when I say it's like you flip on a light switch. That's exactly what it what it is, you know, and I don't I really don't remember what happened other than we were talking. And the next thing I knew, I thought he was grabbing me to kiss me. And he grabbed me and said, my face, I have never had anyone like, nibble my face. This was straight up, I had teeth marks and a bruise, somebody was like, You need to call the cops. And I'm like, what for? What are they gonna do? Oh, you went out with this guy, one time and he bit you. Don't go out with him again.

Kimber  01:11

So when you start seeing red flags, acknowledge them and let it go before you really get hurt. It's too good to be true. It probably is too good to be true.

Leslie Briggs  01:24

Have you ever been in a relationship that seemed to be going so well? And then out of the blue? Your partner says or does something that goes up like flare in your mind? Was that a red flag? Does that mean I need to leave? Is that the last straw? Maybe it's just a bad day. When you are in relationship with an abusive person. The red flags come in many forms and those behaviors are deployed for different purposes. There are a million books and research papers on abuse and why people are abusive. The most recent research confirms that abuse is about control. And there are a lot of different tactics to get control over someone. Some of these tactics are minor and almost undetectable. Others are violent and scary.

Colleen McCarty  02:11

On last week's episode, we showed you what it was like to fall in love with Jim lumen. This week, we show you what happens when that love turns toxic. This is panic button, Operation Wildfire, and you're listening to Episode Five bloody red flags. I'm Colleen McCarty.

Leslie Briggs  02:32

And I'm Leslie Briggs.

Colleen McCarty  02:34

If you're just getting started with us, we recommend you go back and start listening from episode one. For ease of listening, and also for anyone listening who might be living with these behaviors at home and who hasn't been able to put words to your experience. We've categorized the types of red flags in this episode by the types of behavior Jim exhibits with his victims. The types of red flags are low empathy, dishonesty, coercive control, sexual violence and physical violence. We'll start with low empathy red flags. Typically people like Jim who are chronic abusers have very low empathy for other people. Empathy is defined as the ability to understand and share the feelings of someone else. Having low empathy is not necessarily against the law, and it isn't a basis for saying someone was abusive. However, it is an indication that someone might be abusive or can be used to explain abuse after the fact.

Marci  03:34

And I can tell you know, he kind of disconnected from me a little bit. I figured he's probably texting Amber again, or whoever else. And he tells me it's just best that he goes or whatever, and I was like, okay, all right. You know, we have and he got all of his things. And I felt like he had Amber come and get him. Now, he stole my truck. Yeah, he just took off in my truck. And so I call he doesn't answer think I tags. And, you know, he like, tells me like, doesn't care Fuck off, or whatever He tells me, you know, and I like have a pretty good idea of like where he is. And so I called the police and the police told me since I know the person who has the vehicle, but it's not stolen but there's nothing I can do criminally that it would be a civil issue. So I decided I would go get my truck. And I took my pistol my daughter, and we went to the trailer park over at Amber's and the keys were in it. And he was asleep inside I guess or whatever. So without incident, I took my truck back.

Leslie Briggs  04:51

He's married to Amber the whole time you guys are seeing one another.

Marci  04:56

I just remember when I met him at Torchy's It was for like a divorce party, but I think it was his divorce from Misty. If the timeline matches up, and then he tells me like we're dating, and he tells me that he's got to be with Amber because, you know, it's divorce and it makes it look better that he has someone instead of being alone, and yeah, he, he tells me that's why he's marrying her, whatever. But he, and the whole time, you know, she's aware that I'm in the picture too. He tells her that we're just friends.

Karrah  05:37

And then I noticed, I remember seeing her headstone and thinking it and I remember it sticking out because he said she was a crazy bitch. And, and I remember thinking, well, he's already said Amber was a crazy bitch. He said, Misty was a crazy bitch. So that's weird. You know? Why is he calling his dead sister a crazy bitch. And I just I remember the back of her headstone. It was pretty much like, "sorry, I was so crazy." I mean, I don't remember exactly the words that said it was something something poetic, but it was pretty much I felt like it was just sealing the deal that she was crazy. For some reason, like, I don't know. Anyway, so he took me to her house that she used to live in, where his brother in law and his neices still lived. They were not home. So we went in by ourself where he told me to play her piano. And you, I was like, it's kind of weird. He's like, No, sit down. Just play her piano for me. I was like, okay, so I sit down and I played November rain by Guns and Roses. And he stared at me the whole time. And then we went to Boston Pool Road, again, went around a few more times, and it was getting dark. And I was really sad because I wanted to make catch my mom's bed time. Because you know, she had a bed time. She was on hospice at that time. And he was really weird about like, controlling my time, he wouldn't he wouldn't stop. He wanted to go around one more time. One more time. And I'm like, but I want to see my mom. And sure enough, when we got to my mom's my mom was asleep in her bed in the living room. And Jim Luman walked up to my mom, it was laying there asleep and kissed her forehead.

Leslie Briggs  07:32

The next group of stories illustrates the gym is generally dishonest. Some of these have to do with infidelity or cheating. Now, we know that there are folks out there who might be in an open relationship or a non monogamous relationship. And that's not what we're talking about with this. What we're talking about is the way in which Jim will pit women against one another, or use other relationships to make someone jealous. It's a classic abusive tactic,

Karrah  07:57

the first conversation I ever had with his girlfriend, Christen. I had been on a first date with him. And we got back from our first date. And his girlfriend at the time, which I did not know he she existed. I just found out that he had a girlfriend. Well, she was saying that she was his girlfriend, and she was asking me about my pumpkins. And she said, Well, my boyfriend Jimmy likes your pumpkins. And I was like, he's my boyfriend, late and lady. And she's like, Well, I'm gonna block you. And then we stopped being friends for a while.

Colleen McCarty  08:34

Sometimes the dishonesty can be about something small, like lying about where you got your couch.

Heather  08:38

There was a lot of little like, fights trying to make me jealous with certain things. And it was it was interesting to me, because when I first went to his place, I didn't think anything of it, but he would make comments like, on the couch that was in his living room. He's like, Well, that was here when I moved in and they couldn't move it out. That's why I have that couch. Um, his bed was an air mattress didn't have a real bit like he had no real possessions. The first time I ever went up to his apartment and met the kids I went up to help him set up a bunk bed for the kids, which come to find out. Shannon summers from Oklahoma, had driven up and bought with him, and then ended up driving home. It's so twisted and tumultuous,

Colleen McCarty  09:26

or lying about creating something that you clearly didn't create.

Karrah  09:31

I found out later on, he was taking pictures of my pumpkins and telling women that he was carving them.

Colleen McCarty  09:40

Sometimes lying could seem like it's supposed to be a joke.

Marci  09:44

So Leroy called me to tell me and oh my God is with me like I don't know why like all of a sudden I'm just so mad but there's one more girl in the picture I guess. I can my car and driving right Over. And by this time she's gone. Jim's passed out upstairs and the door's unlocked. I don't bother knocking. I'm like in some kind of autopilot craziness. And I go straight upstairs and there's a dildo on the floor that I stepped over. And what I'm there for is a T shirt that is a blouse that I had hung in his closet. And if that blouse was not going to hang in that closet, while another girl's and that was like, all that matters me is I needed that blouse. So I go up the stairs. And step over is still though and he opens his eyes about this time to see me in his room. And he's like, what, what are you doing? I said, Nice dildo, and I grabbed my shirt. And he was like, hell, what did he say? Could have been using that on Leroy are counting like, because he knew then that I knew he had a girl over so he's trying to say it was like him and Leroy

Colleen McCarty  11:02

then there's big lying, like creating fake people online. Remember Vikki Brochan? Jim's personal assistant from the last episode.

Karrah  11:13

Vicki Brochan Well, she's no longer with us. We she's dead now. Vikki Brochan is actually does not exist and never did exist. She was a he had a picture of a mail order Russian bride that he used as her profile picture. He had maybe one or two other pictures of her that he used and he she had a LinkedIn page with 1000s of followers. And I'm talking on Vicki's birthday. She would get so many birthday greetings from all these men. And she just be like, Thank you. Thank you. And turns out Viki Brochan is Jim Luman. Viki Brochan was Jim Luman posing to be a woman to make other women jealous of his beautiful assistant. Jim, he used her to triangulate to he had on her Facebook page. There's proof of well, it's not proof ish. She's got post. Well, she sorry. I don't know. Vicki has post of Jim taking her flying on his plane. She has posted of the of the Corvette that he bought her. She has posted of the little teacup chihuahua that he bought her you know, because he loves me. And so I'm sure Amber was seeing those and being really jealous because he didn't buy her a dog or a Corvette or an airplane. Anyway, Vicki Brochan was Jim Luman.

Leslie Briggs  12:59

How did you guys find out that it was him?

Karrah  13:04

I found I found out it was him. Because I learned it was Google started to allow that feature where you could search for images. So I searched for the Russian mail order bride photo that he had as his profile picture. It came up as Martina something but then he had another LinkedIn page after Vikki died. That was something Victoria Smithson. And he also used the same picture of Vikki Brochan from use those same pictures as well. And so LinkedIn kind of took both of those down for us, because you guys reached out to LinkedIn and said, We did reach out to LinkedIn. And I actually I had a couple of friends that were reaching out to him and saying, Hey, this is kind of confusing. This girl looks like this girl, you know, just to kind of jab him a bit. One of my piano movers would always would always do his kind of kind of jab a little bit.

Colleen McCarty  14:23

Other big line examples are saying you have a certification for professional occupation.

Leslie Briggs  14:30

Yeah, so did he actually say to you, I am a licensed attorney.

Heather  14:34

What? Okay, I don't know if he ever said those words to me. But I will tell you that he never corrected me. He at one point when we very first started talking, we were supposed to spend the weekend together and he had to cancel he had to go back to Oklahoma. And the reason he gave me was because his niece had been picked up for fighting. And he had to go defend her and get her out of jail. No, when he was on the phone talking to clients. There was one instance in particular when we were in Omaha. And he was laying on the bed naked and talking to a client. And I got off of he got off the phone. And I said, I wonder if she has any idea that her lawyer is laying on the bed naked and talking to her. And he just giggled. So I don't know that he ever came out and said it. I know his plenty of fish profile used to say that his job was legal, but I was never corrected. I was never told no, no, I'm just just this or just that. He told me multiple times he doesn't he didn't take the Iowa bar. And what the rationale for that was.

Colleen McCarty  15:50

For the record, Jim is not an attorney has never been an attorney has never been to law school and has never taken a bar exam anywhere that we could find. He is not certified to practice law in any state,

Leslie Briggs  16:01

but just want to chime in and say that Bar Association's in the states where he's operating should care about the things that he's doing. Because we don't in Oklahoma, we may have paralegals, but we actually don't have a requirement for a certification for a paralegal, you can go and you can get like an Associate's and that can like help you get a job. But we don't have anybody overseeing those people other than the lawyers. And that leaves open this unregulated territory for someone like Jim to call himself a, quote, legal consultant, and do whatever it is that he's doing in the personal injury game. You know, when I tried to call him recently to get his interview and his version of these events, this is what his voicemail says.

Jim Luman  16:44

I'm not able to get the phone right now, I'm either  with clients. On the other line, or possibly in court, if you will, please leave your name, number and a message and I'll return your call as soon as possible.

Operator  16:59

At the tone, please record your message. When you finished recording, you may hang up or press one for more options.

Leslie Briggs  17:06

Hi, Jim, it's Leslie over at Oklahoma Appleseed. I was just trying to give you a follow up to see if you had you wanted to still kind of give us your side of the story. You can call me back anytime today. And I'll be this is my direct line. So you can catch me here. Thank you. So I just want to say I think that Bar Associations should care about regulating the non lawyer legal space, and take steps to ensure that people who are engaging in Paralegal type activities or quote legal consulting type activities, either have some kind of like, certification requirement or an oversight requirement that can be tracked and controlled by the bar.

Colleen McCarty  17:51

Yes, because like this, like we found, as we researched all this, this is sort of falls into a gray space like he's, it's he could easily say he's not doing unauthorized practice of law. And I don't think other attorneys or judges or people affiliated with the Oklahoma bar, or the Iowa bar would be comfortable with the gray space that this person is operating in, especially when they let people believe that they are a practicing attorney and don't correct that. Even more big lies would have to do with money.

Heather  18:24

I was I was cashing the checks. Like I was working the cases with him. I watched him on the phone with insurance companies like I had no reason to think he wasn't, we were pulling in 30 grand a month. So I'm like, why would I even question that?

Colleen McCarty  18:43

Or whether or not you have a criminal history, that he

Marci  18:47

had explained it away and the son had explained it away. My understanding, and he'd even show me a court document  that he had told his ex wife Heather to go fuck yourself, because of the word fuck that put it into the sex registry offense.

Leslie Briggs  19:08

And you...

Our first bonus episode this season features an interview with Forrest Smith. Forrest ran for sheriff of Pawnee County in 2010. He hired Jim Luman, the subject of this podcast, to help him with his campaign. Forrest opens up about his experiences with Jim and the aftermath of a separate assault against a woman named Brandi. 

Forrest also speaks about the system's response to domestic violence, and the tragic consequences that happen when we don't get it right.

The song played in this episode is "Getaway" by Bandelier. 

To access pictures, maps, and other sources, click here: https://www.panicbuttonpodcast.com/season-2-operation-wildfire/episode-4

Welcome to the newest episode of Panic Button: Operation Wildfire. This is Episode 4: Not Hard to Fall in Love.

Last week, we told you about Jim's professional life and a little bit about what was going on in his life while he was also simultaneously physically and sexually abusing numerous victims. This week, it's all about the love, baby. Anyone who's ever fallen in love will tell you that falling in love can depend a lot on where you are in life, and what you've gone through and how you perceive yourself. Sure, it matters a lot what the other person is like, if you're attracted to them, and how you interact together. But if you're in a particularly emotional or vulnerable place in your life, like if you've just had a painful breakup, or a divorce, or if you've just lost someone--falling in love can make you vulnerable.

_____________

PB S2:E4 Not Hard to Fall in Love (Transcript)

SPEAKERS

Colleen McCarty, Karrah, Heather, Marci, Leslie Briggs, Christen

Leslie Briggs  00:00

This episode contains graphic accounts of domestic and sexual violence, violence against women in particular, and language that is not suitable for listeners under 18 years of age. Other themes that you may hear in the following episode deal with suicide and addiction. Please use caution when listening.  Finally, we've heard from some people who were at the high school at this time that Dawn and Jim were not really high school sweethearts, but they did end up having a son and getting married. We also want to make it clear that the two women who shared the conversations Jim had with them about necrophilia were doing just that, sharing topics of discussion that Jim brought up. No one has ever come forward to allege that Jim actually did have sex with a dead body and that they have some proof. As Colleen and I stated in episode three, we have no opinion on whether or not he ever committed necrophilia and we would rather not think about it now on to our regularly scheduled episode.

Karrah  01:38

Here also you didn't want to be like the others you wanted to be in the beginning was his big thing was he wanted you wanted to be his unicorn. It's like he had this.... one of the first things he asked me was, "Are you my unicorn?" and he, for some reason, you wanted to be his fucking unicorn, you wanted to be that cool girl that could hang out and be cool and watch him do his millionaire business deals. You know, you wanted to be that girl.

Leslie Briggs  02:14

Last week, we told you about Jim's professional life and a little bit about what was going on in his life. While he was also simultaneously physically and sexually abusing numerous victims. This week. It's all about the love, baby. Anyone who's ever fallen in love will tell you that falling in love can depend a lot on where you are in life, and what you've gone through and how you perceive yourself. Sure, it matters a lot what the other person is like, if you're attracted to them, and how you interact together. But if you're in a particularly emotional or vulnerable place in your life, like if you've just had a painful breakup, or a divorce, or if you've just lost someone falling in love can make you vulnerable, or if you've had a traumatic childhood, if you're abused or belittled as a child, or if you have particular insecurities about your body because people teased you. Each of these things, which happened to almost everyone can create the basis for future relationships. If you're in a healthy relationship, you can fall in love with someone who creates a healthy attachment. And that person can actually help you heal your past emotional wounds. You can become the best version of yourself when you fall in love with a healthy person. But when you fall in love with someone who is also hurt and damaged, or worse, someone who is actively cruel and pathological. They can use your pain and vulnerabilities against you. One of the questions we've had over and over again, as we researched the story is how someone like Jim Luman can get so many smart, dynamic professional women to fall in love with him and continue being hurt by him. His victims are lawyers, artists, realtors, nurses and musicians.

Karrah  04:03

At the time I met Jim Luman, I was working as a piano teacher for a music company and also as a graphic designer for that same music company. And I was teaching adult beginner recreational piano lessons and I absolutely adored my job.

Heather  04:25

I have been a nurse for 25 years. I am a nurse practitioner I currently practice as a family nurse practitioner. I work in my own practice and have my own established group of patients that I care for. Occasionally I fill in at the walking clinic and handle more acute situations. And then very infrequently, but I still do continue to work in the emergency room setting patients in that capacity.

Christen  04:51

I am a licensed real estate agent in the state of Oklahoma. I help people buy I am still home some lands, and I enjoy that greatly. So,

Marci  05:07

in 2009-2010, I was a 911 dispatcher. After that I worked in the medical field as a medical assistant. And when I met Jim, I was working for a chiropractor.

Leslie Briggs  05:22

These kinds of professions are taxing. They require empathy, technical knowledge and hustle. Most of us probably have some stereotype of a domestic violence victim in our mind. If we sat and thought about who we think these crimes happened to. Maybe your own preconceived notions make you think it's generally something that happens to people living in poverty, or people addicted to drugs. But we know the statistics show that is not true. In gyms, victims bear that out. They have a wide range of socio economic statuses. Some are multi degree professionals, and some are high school graduates. But all of them found themselves in abusive circumstances. Thanks to Jim. And here's where we're going to break the fourth wall for a minute. This kind of story is very difficult to tell there are so many victims so many tragedies both great and small, that weave in and out of so many people's lives. If we told you all of them in succession, you would begin to get desensitized and it would feel repetitive. So what we've decided to do is tell you each of the phases of Jim's relationships through all of his victims words, we want you to feel what they felt and understand their journeys into the relationships with him. This week's episode details falling in love with Jim over and over and over in almost the exact same way. Welcome to Panic Button. Operation Wildfire. This is Episode Four. "Not Hard to Fall in Love." I'm Leslie Briggs, and I'm Colleen McCarty. The best place to start is at the beginning. Jim usually meets his victims online, either on an online dating site like Plenty of Fish or on Facebook. He always uses messaging on platforms like this to flirt and arrange a meeting. For one of his victims. He knew her from his hometown. This is Christen talking about how Jim came back into her life

Christen  07:12

where my sister in law invited Jim to my brother's 40th birthday party because they were on you know, we're friends and played football together or whatever. So at that time he was dating. Christa, he brought her to the party at my brother's.

Leslie Briggs  07:31

After the party Jim posted to Facebook when I asked people to meet him at a local bar in Sand Springs called Torchy's.

Christen  07:38

And he was on Facebook talking about you know, everybody's here, some kind of maybe episodes divorce party or something like that. And I was under the impression like, there were a lot of our mutual friends there. But I get there and it's just him. I can't remember the girl's name now. Nikki, maybe that he was there with and then as soon as I walk in, she says well, I guess this is who you're waiting for. And then leaves. We had a few drinks and then went driving around Sand Springs back roads and talked and watched the sun come up or whatever. And he was trying to encourage me to pay let's go to Dallas for the weekend. Just like all of a sudden, you know,

Leslie Briggs  08:34

another one of Jim's victims. Karrah received a random message from him one day about her side business. Pumpkinbrainz.com. Karrah is an incredibly skilled pumpkin carving artist and she has carved pumpkins for oh you football coach Bob Stoops Peewee Herman and even one for William Shatner. So, pumpkinbrainz.com is kind of a big deal.

Karrah  08:55

And then I met Jim Luman, I met him on Facebook. He found me on Facebook where he, my my niece and his son went to school together. So we had something in common kind of thing. And he was really so confident and so cocky that I liked it. And I'm not used to people like talking to me like they own the place, you know, and I liked that. But I also was kind of put off by him and I was kind of weary of him at first as well. But we talked for about a week before our first date. I'm also a professional pumpkin Carver. You can see my work at pumpkin brains.com No, I am a professional pumpkin Carver and yes, that is a thing. I've I've been I've carved pumpkins for ComiCon I have carved William Shatner for William Shatner. That was one of my cool Learn wins. Pee Wee Herman actually I've carved Pee Wee Herman once on a pumpkin entered it in a concept contest for TMZ Pee Wee Herman ended up like getting all of his followers to vote for me and I won the contest because of BB urban and then and then he kind of became my like weird online friend in it's my pumpkins have gotten me in weird situations, including Jim Luman. Jim Luman actually, he was all about my my pumpkins. They're all about my gourds, y'all. I know that he was really big into my pumpkins at first and was was like, Oh my gosh, we can you can sell these everywhere. And I found out later on. He was taking pictures of my pumpkins and telling women that he was carving them. Like, literally Clank I can't make this. I carved Bob Stoops on a pumpkin. And he sent it into Oh, you and said he did it. That was one fun thing. Yeah. And the other one. They're like, Thanks, Jim Luman for sending this and I'm like me, but okay.

Leslie Briggs  11:10

Heather, a more recent one of Jim's victims who went on to marry him in 2016 met him on a dating site called Plenty of Fish.

Heather  11:20

So I was coming out of a 20 year marriage, which didn't really know how to do his dating thing and ended up on the dating site, plenty of fish came across Jim's profile, and just started talking to him through there, um, I was kind of seeing somebody else at the time. But that really wasn't gonna go anywhere. And I figured that I thoroughly enjoyed the aspect of being a wife. Um, not that I was quick to, to jump on that wagon per se, but, um, I liked that role in my life. And I wanted somebody who wanted a wife down the line. And Jim kind of took that and ran with it once he figured that out.

Leslie Briggs  12:09

There's nothing inherently nefarious about meeting someone online. Especially if you're dating and you want to meet people, it's one of the easiest ways to find new people. Here's Heather again, talking about one of Jim's favorite things to do with a new flame.

Heather  12:23

So it was he lived in an apartment in Hubbard, Iowa. And it's just outside of Hubbard. It's this little gravel circle. And it's literally like the same probably five, six mile trip. And it's just in the middle of nowhere. It's kind of an idle thing. We got nothing else to do up here, but drive around, look at stuff. And he he really likes deer. So the route that we would take is just covered in deer like we would go out a lot of times at night and just count how many deer we could see while we were out.

Leslie Briggs  12:58

And Christen.

Christen  13:00

So Emporia Kansas was just another like I picked him up from his mom's house. And we had no like reservations or plans or anything. And it was pick him up and then take him to go get beer and then a highway 99 We went into Kansas, he had a whole list of songs and song lists for different things. But he you know, there was a song called Jolene by Ray...

Leslie Briggs  13:37

Oh, Ray LaMontagne.

Christen  13:40

And I would sing sometimes and he, you know, liked for me to sing. And he told me that he was a that he managed a band or helped like cowrite a song. But yeah, I had a certain you know, set sunless and stuff like that, that that was important to him. Sometimes he would bring even like a USB speaker thing to, to play it better wherever we were going.

Leslie Briggs  14:08

Karrah also got to experience the thrill of driving with no real schedule or destination in mind.

Karrah  14:13

So he, we ended up he's like, let's just go drive around and we'll go, we'll go I'll go show you some stuff. So we ended up driving to his home town area. And he takes me to a place called Frog rock, which is this big rock that looks like a frog. I know. It's a surprise. It's a big green rock. But he eventually took me to another place and I think it was called Sandy Point. It was just this little beach area that he took me to. Then he took me to a place called Boston All rode. We were going to go to my mom's house and see if we were gonna go stay the night at my parents house. Because my, my parents actually had a big, nice house, they just built kind of close to where he lived. And we're kind of close to where his mom lived. And my mom was dying of Alzheimer's. And we were like, let's just go see her while we're out. And he's like, okay, that's fine. But first, let's go do some a couple more things. So we went to Boston Pool Road, where he showed we, it's basically this eight mile road where you drive around in circle, and he drinks beer. We only went around three, three times. And then he wanted to show me where his sister lived. And so one thing at Boston Paul road that he did point out to me, was this place that he wanted to buy, was right across like this body of water from my where my mom lived. And like this place that he wanted to buy, was a stone's throw from where my dying mother was. And so I'm like, he wants to live out here by my mom, you know, I mean, that was something also that I was like, Yeah,

Leslie Briggs  16:18

so you're hearing something that's important for a number of reasons. One is because these folks live in very rural areas in both Oklahoma and Iowa, something rural places all have in common is there's not a lot to do. In a more urban area, you might go to a park or a bar, or a restaurant or a gym, or go to an event that's happening nearby. On any one evening in Cleveland, or Sao Paulo, Oklahoma, there just isn't a lot to do. Plus, driving has become one of the common threads of living in a rural community. Anyone based in a rural town house to get really comfortable spending hours in the car?

Colleen McCarty  17:09

Good job

17:26

Wow, loud draw.

Leslie Briggs  17:49

There's something else interesting about spending so much time in the car with someone you don't know very much about. After looking into this a little I believe there is a method to this. Being in a car with someone is a fast way to create intimacy. You're physically proximate, but you don't have to look into each other's eyes, you share a destination and are prone to reveal things about yourself and a long drive conversation that you might not if the date were in a restaurant or coffee shop. Here's the thing about my theory, it seems to bear fruit for Jim, his partner starts to feel some type of way about him really fast.

Christen  18:58

Well, it was fairly, you know, the familiarity of him knowing as many people that I know, and a lot of history of, you know, things that are funny, like teachers that we knew, and, you know, it was very captivating, and familiar to be with him during that time. And of course, he's telling me all these things like that he's doing all these things where he's successful in business. And I think at that time, he had just sold gripe with me.com or something like that. And he showed me something about the the news did a segment on him selling that or whatever. And then then he hadn't like, I think it was beloved voices he had going on or it was just something about what was going on. It He had something going on in his mind all the time. So it wasn't a boring conversation, I guess it's all was always there, you know,

Heather  20:11

for that first, probably four to six weeks that we talked, I would come up after the kids would either go to bed, or there were no kids there. So it was usually like 10 o'clock at night. So I'd go up and I would spend three days just wrapped up with him in bed, like, we'd just be in bed for three days, he'd wake up, and he'd go make me something for breakfast, he'd bring it into me, we'd lay there and talk and just cuddle and it was just something just out of this world,

Christen  20:42

intrigued by him. And when we kissed it felt like you know, was passionate.

Heather  20:52

And I'd been in a marriage where I was responsible for all the finances, every decision that ever had to be made was mine. And suddenly, I have this man who's cooking for me who's saying, hey, pack a bag, we're gonna go for a trip this weekend. Like, like, and he's the lawyer so he makes money. So I had all this security in one man. And then it just derailed.

Leslie Briggs  21:17

By all accounts, Jim makes the women in his life feel comfortable and listened to. Here's his most recent wife,...