A Wretch Like Me

0:09 You'd want to believe this sort of thing could never happen to you, But let me tell you it can. If it could happen to me, it could happen to anyone. I was living a totally normal life, and just like that, I descended into a how on earth? This is Nancy Major? One day in two thousand and one, she was working as an executive and married. Not too long after that day, Nancy had lost her job, lost her marriage, and was working as a prostitute. To understand Nancy's journey, you need to know where she started. All that I really remember is he was in and out of my life up until I was five years old. He was very abusive to my mother. He was not great with me. He was not great with a lot of people. He was an alcoholic, He was kind of a gang banger guy. He was very young when I was born. The last memory I have of him is him attacking my mom and starting to come after me and one of my cousins, and him saying, I'm not your dad, I'm not your dad. Stop calling me your dad. I don't ever want to see you again. So my stepfather entered the picture when I was about six years old, only about a year after my biological father had abandoned and said, you know, I never want to see you again. I'm not your dad. So when my stepfather came into the picture, I was really hungry for his affection. I really

1:42 wanted him to love me. I had a younger sister from we're both from the same biological father, but she was just a baby, and he gravitated to her and just lashed on to her. He seemed to really adore her, and she was, you know, just as cute could be, and they really formed an attachment. He did not like me from the outset, and it was very very clear to me. I can remember going backward all the way from the beginning. He was not He just did not want me. It would have been a much neater and cleaner picture, I think in his mind to have had a new little family unit with this little adorable baby girl, and then he and my mother had a child together, and now he had the perfect little family. But it always was he would refer to it as this is Nancy, and then my daughter and my son, so it was always my kids and then this Nancy. It was I was separate.

2:47 I was always an outcast. With him, and he made it very clear, very obvious, he didn't want me eating at the dinner table with the rest of the family. He didn't want me. He did not want me in that relationship, and so we had a very distant and unaffectionate and unloving sort of environment with him and myself. After these challenging relationships with the father figures in her life in her youth as an adult, Nancy would eventually meet someone who seemed like a stable male presence in her world. So in two thousand and one, I was so excited I had met my dream come true. I had met the man of my dreams. I'd been waiting my whole life for this happily hour after and I was so thrilled. He was tall, dark, handsome, he was just all of it. And I was so ecstatic to be marrying this guy. That he picked me, that he wanted me, that he chose me, was really something really special to me. They both found new jobs in a new state, and we're going to move across the country together and start a new life together with Nancy's year old daughter from our first marriage, We set out on a cross country move to start our new lives together to dream new dreams, big dreams, and we both landed fabulous new jobs in this bright, shiny area and it was

4:17 really magical. It really was such a magical time. We were extremely excited about this new life we were building, were kind of reinventing ourselves. We had this whole hopes and dreams and plans, and we were moving towards the Big Apple and we had great, big dreams in that area and a brand new start with my daughter. So I had a young child at the time, and he had claimed to love her almost as much as he loved me. So it was finally the whole fairy tale. Unfortunately it didn't end up that way. Well, this was more than red flags. It was very shortly after and it was right after the tragic events eleven. They had happened the week that I moved to that area, So it was within a matter of weeks he had just point blank said, this is a mistake. I don't want to be married to you anymore, and I need you and your daughter to get out. Yeah. I think he had a psychological breakdown.

5:20 I think the truth is I was still living in Wisconsin. I had to sell a house, I had to pack, I had to get all these things ready. His new job had started before mine, so I had a little bit of leeway because I had a daughter to enroll in school, and you know, all the stuff involved with the cross country move. So when nine to eleven happened, he was all alone in this you know, big study, and he had just started this new job, and then all of a sudden, I mean, the whole world and especially in that area, everybody was just holding their breath. I mean it was just the whole world was on high alert and alone, arms are going off, and all he's hearing about and seeing and everything is all of this tragedy getting all around him, and I think it freaked him out. I think he had somewhat of a breakdown. That's my that's my best guess as to what might what might have happened. Nancy's new job, like her new marriage, seemed like an ideal opportunity. Also, like her marriage, it would end in surprising, abrupt fashion. Right after I got started in my brand new job, very exciting executive position with a hospital in the area. Right after I got started, after just a few weeks after the tragic events nine nine to eleven, happened and a major investor pulled out the funding, and so the CEO of the of the corporation of the hospital center came to me and said, you know, unfortunately, we're really really sorry, but our funding is gone for

6:55 this position and we have to eliminate it. We just don't have any choice, and hope you understand and will write you a great recommendation letter. You've been fabulous, but there's just nothing that we can do about it. And they just were really on Everybody was just on pins and needles of what was happening in the world. We had a pending war. Things were just really high tense situations. So right after that, I kind of landed on my feet, which I have a pattern of doing. I was a go getter. It was super driven, very ambitious, and I knew, Okay, if I got this really great executive job, I for sure would turn around. I'm going to get another job. I reached back out to the recruiters.

7:36 I started looking at opportunities and I found this fabulous new opportunity, another one where I would be Now at this point, I would be the CEO of a brand new entity that was getting built. It was just in the process of being built, and it was right in the area that we had moved to, so it was really close to the home that we were living in, and it would have it just seemed even more ideal than the initial job. So I got into that job, and about six weeks into it, maybe not even maybe four four weeks or so, the same kind of situation happened where the owner of the company approached me and said, so terribly sorry, this just has never happened before. But the project, it's in the middle of the build. The build has been completely stopped. All of the investors have pulled out at the eleventh hour. Everything was supposed to go through, and now we're stuck with the situation. We love you, we think you're great, and the only opportunity that we actually can can consider would be having you take one of our regional traveling executive roles, where you are traveling five days a week throughout any areas that we need you. And at that point, I had this young daughter, and I had my brand new husband telling me he didn't want me in his life anymore. They needed to get out right now, and that he had made this tragic mistake in his mind and no matter what I did to try and talk him out of that

9:09 and kind of change those things, the new job, all of a sudden was untenable. It was just not going to happen. There was no way I could take that kind of opportunity and travel five days a week with a young child. That just wasn't even an option. So at that time, when I'm recognizing now I have no options left for a job. So I have no job, I know I'm not going to have anywhere to live. I've got this daughter that I'm responsible for, my loved and precious daughter, and I'm looking at my life and everything that I had put all my eggs into this basket. I'd moved us across country. I lost two jobs, not just one, but two jobs through no fault of my own and no safety net. I'd spent my retirement savings, I'd used all my credit cards, I used every time I had and so all of a sudd and I'm faced with my back is one hundred percent up against the wall. And in that part of the country, the requirements, I mean, there was just no negotiation whatsoever. They wanted a month and a half security deposit plus one month's rent upfront. That's a ton of money in an area on the east coast, completely far, far away from the little tiny towns of Wisconsin that I was familiar with, and I just I had no options. There was nowhere to turn. There wasn't any place to look. I had gone to every banking institution i'd got, but I had no Now I had no jobs, so I had no job security. I couldn't offer them any kind of

10:41 here's my job stubs, here's what I'm doing, here's the income I have. I have nothing. I have absolutely nothing to turn to. But then someone came into Nancy's life. It seemed to have a relatively easy to all of her problems. And I'd finally gotten an opportunity to just do a sales rep job at an exposition center where I was repping for an it kind of company that was doing smart home security stuff. And I was supposed to be there for a whole day plus and after after the expo event, which was like a social hour, and my job was to try and sign up as many people as possible for a home walkthrough, and the potential for commission on the sales. Any sales that I made was huge, and so there was a huge upside. I was super excited because I knew I was good at this. I knew I could land a sale, and if I did, this would also be a potential job and I could get hired on, which would be the long term goal because I was so desperate. So I'm at this expo and I'm meeting tons of people. I'm collecting all the cars and I'm talking to customers and I'm doing all the stuff. And then close down the event during the day and we go to the cocktail hour afterwards, and that's where the real socializing is taking place, and I'm really hoping that I

12:13 can connect more one on one with some of the people who had walked by the booth earlier in the day. And sure enough, a really decent looking guy came over. He's all dressed up in a fancy suit and it just looks really like a dignified, sophisticated businessman. And he comes over and he introduces himself as Joel, and he tells me that he saw the system, and he's like, I'm really really interested in this man. My wife and I really could use a security system like this, And tell me a little bit more about it. So I go into all the benefits and all the features and all the sales pitchy thing, and he's all in. And he says his wife will be down in just a little while. She's up in the hotel getting ready and they're going to go have dinner together. And he's like, I really want you to meet her. Oh my gosh, you are just going to love her, but we really need to talk about this security system. She is going to be all in because this is a really important thing. I'm so excited because this is like, oh my gosh, I'm chomping at the bit. I am desperate at this point. I mean desperate, desperate. I had just been to a food pantry before I'd even gotten to this expo, so I was really desperate for money, and this idea. I had this like fish on the line, you know, I had this potential, this potential customer, and I was really excited. So a little while later, his wife does come down and I need her, and the two of them are, yes, indeed, very excited in this security system. And so we set up a home visit and Joel just starts

13:46 talking to me about the reason that they need this system, and it was really weird. I walked over to Joel, who was putting on the grill outside. Joel and Kelly seemed like a totally normal couple, but they would say some things casually that weren't exactly normal. I guess we don't really trust the banking system, so we keep a lot of cash at the house. I didn't know what to make of that. Oh, Kelly gets paid in cash mostly. She's kind of like a model. In the moment, that made sense, given Kelly's looks. Understood, Well, you won't have to worry about security anymore after we get you set up. What kind of modeling does Kelly do. Well, it's not exactly modeling per se. She's paid to spend time with people. I see. We're very secure in our relationship.

14:45 We just never saw what the big deal was about seeing other people. Are you single? I was deeply embarrassed about the fact that I already had three failed marriages, So I just said I'm single and I want to stay that way. Oh. I wasn't starry, of course, not. That wasn't directed at you. You were married before. I don't really like to talk about it. I understand you have family nearby. It's complicated. Yeah, we're not close to either of our families. It's always just been the two of us. I know how that feels. How long have you been doing sales for your company? It's recent. I used to work in executive leadership. I'm going to get back there at some point. Job market's a lot tougher than I thought. What I was way too humiliated to say was that I had just been to a food pantry to get food and toiletries and I had negative thirty two sixty one in my checking account. We've been there.

15:46 Are you making good money doing the sales job? I'll need to I have a daughter. Well, I'm sure you'll do great. You're obviously gorgeous, you present yourself well, and you know your stuff. I could feel my cheeks burning with embarrassment at that time. I didn't feel deserving of any kind of compliment. Just this is just so you know. The option is there. People would pay a lot of money to spend time with you, like in what way? Dates just wealthy men, probably men who work in executive leadership like you did. They don't have time to really look for a romantic partner, and they'd probably have a lot in common with you. They might even pay more for you for that reason, and you'd pick who you see. I'm not sure. Well, how much money do you think you need to get solid? Whatever stresses you have financially, what would it take to clear those? Well, I owe some back payments on my car.

16:44 I'm behind a couple of months on rent. I borrowed some money. I'd say about five thousand. That would take a lot of the heat off. You'll make that in a week or two. Easy. Oh, look, I'm overdrawn in my checking account. There's no way that I can pay you anything. If that's where this is going. Oh no, not at all. We'll help you get set up and then you take it from there. I just see you have a problem, and I know of a solution. You seem like a good person who just had some tough breaks. I'm just letting you know. The option is there dates, dates, go to dinner, go to a show. If you're some CEO and you're traveling and you're in a new city for just a couple of days and you want some company, that's what this is. They pay a premium for the convenience of having that companionship. What kind of premium five hundred two one thousand per date, just like that, exactly like that. You're talking about being a hanker.

17:44 Oh, of course not. It's a date like any other date. You're in charge. If you're into each other and you end up having sex, no biggie, but it's not expected and it's not the main purpose of the date at all. I didn't know what to believe. I wasn't sure this was all above board, But there was one thing I was sure of. I couldn't carry around that pit of dread in my stomach much longer. I had literally less than zero dollars and barely enough guess to even make it home from this dinner. How does it work? So he explained that he would have to take pictures, and that there was a website that we would be using, and he would do all of this. He was just totally willing to help me with everything, and I got the feeling like it just seemed really kind. I was really grateful, and I couldn't believe that him and his wife were being so kind to me, and that they seemed to get that I was in such a desperate situation. And so when we started doing the pictures and stuff like in my mind, this is like a headshot, this is like a business photograph. I'm in a skirt suit. I mean, I was just really really naive. I didn't unders stand. He got me a cell phone that I could use specifically to He taught me how to even respond, how to go back and forth with people interacting with the website.

19:12 There was like a forum where people would reach out to people through the website, and then just the way that you set up like a chatting system and all of that. And so then the very next thing that they offered was his wife actually had a date that was wanting. She thought that he would really like to meet me, and she offered to go along, and that we were going to meet at this hotel restaurant and we were going to have dinner, and it was just going to be just nice, pleasant evening of being and she was going to kind of show me the ropes of how a date work. So we have dinner, we're having this really polite conversation.

19:57 Everything seems very much much kosher. It seems very polite, it seems very professional. The guy is this older man. He's in banking, and I was really into banking and understood a lot about business principles. I understood that from my way of looking at it, after the events of nine to eleven. The whole world was really on its head at that moment, and there was a lot of implications in the banking industry financially from that perspective. So we have this really intense kind of conversation, and I thought that all seemed very legit. And then he said, hey, do you guys want to listen to the band that'll be playing in a little bit And that sounded fine, and she said yes, and I said yes. And then he said that he left his jacket up in the room and would we come up and come up to his room, he'd grab his jacket and we could go listen to the band. And so I'm taking in. This is a really fancy suite at the top of the of the hotel, and it's it's the first time I've ever been in one of those kind of hotel suites, an executive suite kind of thing. And so I'm looking around the hotel and he keeps asking if we want a drink, and he's pouring drinks for him and this other lady, and you know, just casual conversation. The band doesn't start for a little while, and I'm turning around. As I'm turning around in the room, all of a sudden, I open up my you know,

21:29 I turn around and I'm opening up my eyes to him taking off her clothes and her taking off his, and I realized in an instant, i'man just like that, everything is now crystal clear, and I know why I'm there and what this is about, and I'm just horrified and paralyzed, and I don't know what to do. In that moment, I felt that I owed this woman everything I had agreed to this I had agreed, and I don't want to make her look bad. I feel like I want to run, and yet I'm stuck in this place and all I can think is I don't know what to do. And the guy says, come on over, join us, and I did, and that is when everything in my mind changed completely, and I just I didn't see myself the way that I used to, and I knew that I was somebody different. At the end of that experience, the guy says that he wants to continue seeing me, and he had given me of a bonus, I guess you'd say, and she had paid me five hundred dollars so between both of them for one evening.

22:57 I now realize what it would take me in at least a week to make five hundred dollars I made on one date, and the fact that he wanted to see me again, and as disgusting and awful as I felt about it, the alternative of going back to the food pantry, going back to begging and looking at the options which there were none and no. I had nothing. I had nothing to offer, and I had a daughter that I had to support. I had bills that had to be paid, we had to live somewhere, we had to make our way, and there wasn't anywhere else to turn. So for me, in that moment, a decision was made that I was going to just go forward. Nancy soon was making serious money.

23:52 In three weeks, she paid back alone from her mother with interest, and pre paid her rent for six months. She didn't owe any one anything. After the six months, Nancy bought a house and paid for a year's rent upfront. She was financially stable. Finally, I was making more money in any given week than I'd ever seen in my entire life. I was bringing in anywhere between thirty to forty five thousand dollars a month a month, and so for anybody realistically, this was two thousand and three, four five six. It was very It was a very lucrative and seductive business. But at what cost. You're always on alert that there are going to be raids, that you're being set up, that someone could hurt you. In my case, the majority of the time, not a single person on the planet knew where I was at any given point in time with any particular person.

25:00 I could be walking into a room that I could be not knowing at all what's on the other side of that, who was on the other side of that. And there were many, many, many dangerous situations that I was faced with again and again and again, and one time in particular, there was this guy that just came into the room and just set the whole thing on its head. Everything that I ever was afraid of came full circle came right there. During one of my trips, I went to three different hotels in and around the airport, and on the last day I was exhausted after seeing date after date, I only had one date left. He just wanted to talk. That would have been a small mercy, except for what he wanted to talk about. I see women at the store, at the coffee shop, walking their dogs, and I find myself playing out in my head what I would do to them. Like if a woman is going for a jog around my neighborhood and I'm driving home from the store, Well, maybe it's nine o'clock at night, most everyone's home, it's quiet out. I'm in my truck, and I could just pull my truck over to the side and ask that blonde jogging for directions, like I'm from out of town and I'm lost, and she'd stop jogging and I could just open my door,

26:33 grab her by the neck, lock one arm under her armpit, and just hoist her up into the truck. No one would even notice, not drive off. There was no punchline. It wasn't a joke. I was alone in a hotel room with this man. No one, no one on planet Earth had any idea that I was here. And I've got myself a secluded lot just about five minutes away. There's never anyone there. I keep a bowie knife in my truck in the glow compartment. I'd open the door and hold her out so not to get a mess in the truck. You know, she'd scream, but I'd slid her throat before she could scream too much. He was on the little couch closest to the door. I'd lock that door. I'd put myself here. The only way out of this room was through this man. Wayne, when you bleed a deer, you might hang that deer up for a day before you butchered up. Obviously, I couldn't do that here, so I'd just put a tarp in the back. Two tarps, I suppose, one to protect the bed of the truck, the other for discretion. Of course, I realized the only chance I had was to talk Wayne down. What do you do for a living? Wayne?

27:41 A living? Huh? Yeah, I'm a lawyer. What firm do you work for? Sanderson and Sanderson. I'm not a Sanderson, but I'm about to be partner, so I guess soon it'll be Sanderson and Sanderson and Pike. That's a big accomplishment. Congratulations, Thank you. Did you always have an interest in the law. It was the only thing that got him to switch topics. He was proud of his work. After another hour, he looked at his watch. Thank you, miss Nancy, Thank you kindly, my pleasure. He handed me the standard envelope with payment and left. Other interactions with clients would pivot around how much of Nancy's time they could demand, to the point that they wanted her all to themselves. So I had this guy that i'd been seeing for a couple of years. We had gotten pretty close, and the more and more that we got to know each other in the first year, he just continuously was asking me to be exclusive. And that's a particular word that's used in that line of work. When somebody wants to be exclusive with you, you take yourself off of the market for anybody else for dating. The men I had been seeing for quite a while, Paul seemed genuinely interested in knowing more about my life. He would often ask me what I wanted where I saw myself going professionally. And then one day

29:15 he asked me this, you should just see me. I don't think you could afford me, try me. I this is what I do. Paul, Do you understand what you're asking for? No, I completely understand. I think you don't understand what's behind me. Give me the number and it's done. Whatever you want, all I ask, is that you only see me. I have a boyfriend outside of this, a real boyfriend. I hesitated, not wanting to offend him. Someone outside of this that doesn't bother me. But in this, I want to be the only person you see.

30:00 And I want to be able to see you for more than just a day or a night here and there. It's going to be a lot. I mean what I say anything. And I want to get you a car too. I have a car. No like a real car, it is a real car. I know you want to get into business in a major way. You need to look the part. You're crazy. I'm crazy about you. Hey, just because it's cheesey doesn't mean it's not true. And you walk me into it and another thing, and I don't want you to take offense. You know, I think you are the sexiest thing I've ever seen. If you want that surgery, I'll cover that too. From our many long conversations, Paul knew I was self conscious about some of the scarring I had from childbirth and the toll that the extreme weight gain and weight loss had taken on my body. I wasn't offended. It was something I had wanted for years. I could hardly believe he was willing to give this incredible gift to me. You're sure this is it's too much. Hey. When I make a decision, I make it carefully. I'm not playing around here.

31:15 And all you want is just more time with me? Is that so bad? No? No it's not. Then just say yes and it's done. Yes. He would lay down fifteen thousand dollars for this, twenty thousand dollars for that, five thousand dollars here, two thousand dollars here. I mean, it was just grand amounts of money, and he was just displaying it over and over again. So I really didn't have any reason to not believe him until one day, these three FBI agents start up at my house. They knock on my door. I'm completely flabbergasted. They bring up his name and they ask if I know him, and of course I do, and they say he's been arrested for wire fraud and money laundering, and we've been investigating his spending patterns and all of these huge bolos of money that he's been taking out our link directly to you. And so he's telling us that it's all been alone and that you actually owe him this money what is the true nature of your relationship? And so I'm stuck trying to figure out really quick on my feet with these three FBI agents in my home. Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, How am I going to

32:46 answer this in an honest way? How am I going to tell them? I don't know this guy anything. You've got to be kidding me. I can't believe he would say that. I was horrified at the thought that he was telling them I owed him money. So they had just wanted to know the nature of the relationship, and I had to admit that we had an intimate relationship. We were dating, which was really far fetched. This guy was much much older than I was. It would have been really unseemly for the two of us to be together in a relationship. And it was kind of a wink wink. Everybody knew what this kind of was. Eventually, Nancy started to build her own legitimate business, a fruit bouquet delivery business.

33:38 It seemed like a way out. My ticket to freedom out of that life was to open my own business, and an opportunity presented itself out of nowhere in my hometown. I can now be home every night. I don't have to travel. I've got full carte blanche opportununity here right in front of me, because all of the men that i'd been seeing, had all of the money that I had been receiving, was going toward launching this new business, and this was a fabulous opportunity. I did all of the really hard heavy lifting of getting this business opened and off the ground, and part of that was marketing it like a crazy person. And I registered with every chamber of commerce, every business networking group, every professional business association throughout my entire home area, as well as the sixty mile radius surrounding it, so about thirteen counties in total. And this is back in the time. You know, you got to remember social media marketing wasn't a thing at all. It didn't exist. I had a fax machine, and I thought I was pretty cool because I had a fax machine. Most of everything I was doing was in person on the phone, a lot of product sampling, a lot of word of mouth, word of mouth, word of mouth, and one day out of the middle of no in the middle of a really hectic morning rush, I got a phone call from the president of my local Chamber of commerce.

35:08 My cell phone rang. It was one of the officers of the large networking groups I was a member of. She asked if I had received a packet in the mail, and I said that I'd been so busy I hadn't even checked the mail. She explained that she had received an unmarked envelope containing some very disturbing information about me that she thought I needed to see. She went on to share that she had received several phone calls already from other business leaders from the group, both from our city and others nearby. Asking if she knew anything about this packet, I said I'd be right over and hung up the phone, shaking so severely that I dropped the phone, my head spinning dizzily as I felt the air in the room disappear in one giant whooshing sound.

35:59 It was as if everything went dead, silent, and time froze. Somehow, I managed to get into her office building and found the elevator. My body was shaking uncontrollably as the elevator moved from floor to floor. I tried to calm myself enough to be somewhat professional. When I arrived at her office. She was waiting for me and hurried me inside, closing the office door behind me. I sat down in one of the chairs at the front of her big desk. As she handed me the thick envelope. The outside of the envelope appeared dirty, with smudged fingerprints all over it. She'd already opened it, But as I took out the stapled packet and unfolded it, I realized I had been holding my breath, making my lungs feel as though they were ready to burst, my heart beating wildly out of control as it tried to force my brain into action. My mind was racing with the words run, run, Just get up and run out of there as fast as you can. Why are you just sitting there paralyzed? I couldn't move, I couldn't breathe. As I opened up the packet and saw immediately right there on the front page the ugly, disgusting, vile words that I knew would be there, The words that caught in my throat, blurred my vision and made my face burn red hot with shame. They were the final nail in

37:34 the coffin. Nancy is a prostitute, an escort. I just knew in that moment that everything was over. My business was over, my life was over. Everything was over, and I discovered that the packet had not only been sent to every business leader in my home area, it had been sent to business leaders throughout the entire thirteen counties. So I don't remember how I got out of her office. I honestly don't. I was so hysterical and panicked and shaking after realizing that all of these people had this packet, and this packet listed out line after line the name of the website that all of us that were service providers used, as well as people who utilized those services, so you had to pay for a membership. So this website is all over this packet, and all I can think about is anybody receiving this packet is going to type in this website and the whole thing. It's irrefutable.

38:45 There's damning evidence. There's no way I can deny that this is real. And so I ended up going back to my house. I don't, like I said, don't remember how I even got home. I I couldn't tell you. I don't remember the trip at all. I ended up back in my house. My daughter was at school, and I'm alone, and the only thing I can think is I am so panicked and full of hysteria, and I am just sobbing and just what am I going to do? Oh my god, Oh my god, what am I going to do? What am I going to do? Oh my god, God, please please, please, You've got to help me. And I'm just saying that my in my head, I'm thinking my daughter is going to be so much better off if I'm not here. There's no possible way. How am I going to face her? She doesn't need to be part of this. How do I keep this from her? How can I protect her with all of these people knowing? And how am I going to go to the local gas station?

39:52 How am I going to face anyone in this entire community? And so I sighted that the only answer was for me to kill myself, to take myself out, because I just couldn't live with it. I didn't think there was any way to live with it. So as I'm trying to open this pill bottle, the bottle of the pills just kept flying out of my hands and it would roll underneath the bed. It would I'd get it back of my hands and it would roll over by the night sound, and then I'd grab it again, and I just could not get the top of this pill bottle open. It was just the strangest thing. I'd taken these pills every night to go to sleep. My boyfriend is walking in. He caused his parents and he has them pray the Daniel and the lions Den and I don't even know what kind of pra that is. I'm not a religious person. At that time. You have to picture this. I'm on my bedroom floor.

40:49 I am hysterically sobbing. I'm trying to kill myself, and all I can say is, oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my God, God, please help me, God, Please help me God. I don't know what else to say. I don't know who else I would call on in that moment of desperation. But that's what I'm saying. So I'm saying that again and again. And that's why my boyfriend says this prayer, has this prayer said. It's basically to try and calm me down. It's the only thing he could think of. Then he leaves, and that's when I get this call, and it's this crazy thing that the whole website's crashed and all of my stuff is erased. The website where Nancy had communicated with clients displayed her photos. The entire digital trail of her time as a prostitute was gone permanently. There's no way that's not a miracle. There's no way anybody nobody could tell me that's not a miracle. That was miracle. It seemed like Nancy might be able to deny the truth without the hard digital evidence of her secret second life. She moved on. Life continued, and along the way, Nancy will be married a total of five times. The fifth time was the charm, and finally I met the wonderful man in my dreams.

42:10 It's my fifth marriage. I finally I feel like fifth is the charm. He's my I call him my fifth and final Valentine. He's my forever Valentine. And my daughter just absolutely adores him. He's become her dad and that has just been such a wonderful experience. And in our new home community, I've been able to return to being an executive. But Nancy eventually grew tired of hiding this part of her life story. About a year ago, God started talking to me personally about sharing my story and that it may help other people. It would set other people free from similar episodes of shame. Guilt and fear because they think that those things are universal. My story my slightly different than someone else's story, but anything that people are hiding from or feeling that they've run from, I think that this story sets people free. And the number one reason why I'm sharing my story through this podcast is to get hope out. I think I'm a hope dealer today, and I think if anybody could say anything about me, that'd be a great thing to be thought of as a hope dealer. I wanted to share the message that there's always always hope and that no matter how far down you might feel you are, or how far away from hope you might feel, believe me, there is

43:40 hope on the other side of whatever your situation is. Allegedly is a production of Voyage Media. The series is produced by Nat Mandel, Robert Midas, and At Benemore. This episode, A Wretch Like Me, was written, directed, and produced by Dan Benemore, Executive produced by Nancy Major, based on Nancy's book A Wretch Like Me, A Modern Day Mary Magdalen Saved by Grace. The book is available on Amazon. A link is in the show notes. Original music by Dirls Gonzales edited, sound, designed and mixed by John Higgins. If you're enjoying the show, please leave us a five star review on Apple Podcasts or anywhere you're listening, and subscribe now for future episodes.