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Love u Miss u Bye
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Love u Miss u Bye
Justice Denied: The Benjamin Foster Case
How can the justice system allow a known threat to roam free and endanger lives? Join us in this eye-opening episode of the LOVE U MISS U BYE podcast as we dissect the heinous actions of Benjamin Foster, a man with a disturbing history of violence against women, and the harrowing story of his latest victim, Justine Siemens. We examine the failures in legal safeguards that left Justine on life support, sharing personal insights on the crucial role of intuition and friendship during crises. Hear the gripping 911 call from Justine's friend Angie, whose quick actions and awareness may have saved Justine's life.
In a poignant recounting, we traverse the complicated and heart-wrenching relationship between Amber and Ben. From Ben’s seemingly genuine outreach in 2017 to his savage attack on Christmas Eve, Amber's story is a raw testament to the complexities of love, trust, and the immense courage required to leave an abusive relationship. Amber's miraculous escape, jumping off a balcony to evade a violent assault, underscores the terrifying reality many victims face and the profound bravery needed to seek help.
Lastly, we tackle Jamie's distressing journey through an abusive relationship marked by escalating violence and paranoia. Despite her efforts to seek protection through restraining orders, Jamie's cries for help were largely ignored by authorities, revealing systemic flaws that continue to endanger lives. The episode concludes with a critical look at the legal maneuvers that allowed Foster to evade harsher penalties and remain a societal threat. Stay tuned for next Monday's discussion on the case’s resolution and remember to stay vigilant and safe.
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Benjamin Foster has been convicted twice before of assaulting and attacking women, effectively strangling them to the point of unconsciousness, beating them domestic violence to the order of a serious felony, and for some unknown reason, he was able to strike a deal and only serve, I think, about 700, some odd days in a jail in Nevada. But now here we are, a couple of years later, and the allegations are, I mean, just beyond comprehension. The way we've heard it discussed is horrible. The scene where this latest victim was found Her name, by the way, is Justine Siemens and she's on life support tonight. As I mentioned Again, she was found in the same home where they are currently in a standoff with Benjamin Foster. So Benjamin Foster is at her home right now that's what the police believe as she is fighting for her life in a hospital.
Speaker 2:I'm your host, christy Chanel, and this is the Lovey Mishy Bi podcast true crime edition. I feel like all of us in some way, shape or form, have had to deal with a crazy ex. I can identify with being scared in a relationship and I would like to preface this with saying he never was physically abusive to me, but there was this feeling that it could happen, Something wasn't right and if circumstances were just right, I could be in danger and I would be in danger. I remember telling my best friend that, like I don't know what's going to happen when I kick him out. I'm not sure if he will come and try to hurt me, and I know that that caught her off guard. But those are the facts. I felt it that knowing that I've been telling you about Something is not right. Is there love there? Yes, but you know deep down, this isn't a safe environment for me and I need to leave that environment.
Speaker 2:This episode on Netflix really got to me and I think that there's more parts to this series. I only watched the first part. I will be watching the other parts and I'll talk more about those, but I just, I just want to talk about this first story that involves Benjamin Foster by all accounts, a very, very good looking man. I have a thing with long hair. It's kind of gives you that bad boy thing, and these women did too. Remember a pretty male face. It does not mean this guy is okay Just because he's good looking. We're always going to be attracted to. What we're attracted to is just human nature and listening to these stories I don't think these women ever really got that weird sixth sense that this man is not all there. This man is dangerous.
Speaker 2:I did not hear that in the story. So again, it's really difficult to give you that. What can you do to prevent it? I don't know initially if you can do anything to prevent it. Honestly, hearing the stories made me feel like it was the police that I feel really failed. These women more than anyone else in this whole scenario Breaks my heart and the more I listen and watch true crime, the more I realize it's really hard to trust people and it's really hard to know that you're going to be protected. Because I haven't been in any of these scenarios, my first thought is I'm protected. If somebody is stalking me or harassing me or threatening me, I can go to the police and they're going to protect me. Until I started watching these stories, it was upsetting. You may not have that. And then, where do you turn? Who do you go to? How do you get protection? After listening to these stories, you may understand what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1:It's scary.
Speaker 2:The second thing that jumps out at me is friendship. Thank God for our friends. Out at me is friendship. Thank God for our friends. The 911 call was made by Angie, a friend of Justine Seaman, 39. Angie had received a phone call from her mother saying that Justine called her and said that she needed to go to the hospital, and the phone went dead. When Angie repeatedly tried to call her, she wasn't able to get her on the phone. That's when she took off to head to her house and she is on the phone with a 911 dispatcher throughout this whole phone call.
Speaker 1:I ran up to her front door and her doors are never locked and they were locked.
Speaker 2:She goes around. She can't, nobody answers the door. She goes around to the back and she hears her friend screaming and a bunch of pounding on the wall. She's thinking her friend is saying get in here, I need your help. She doesn't know what's happening inside. She's screaming to her friend Justine, the ambulance is coming. The ambulance is coming. Not knowing she's in actual danger, she runs to her car as she's still talking to the 911 operator and the garage door opens. She's screaming her friend's name Justine, justine. She starts to sprint into the garage.
Speaker 3:And Ben Foster comes out. What the fuck is going on? You're inside now, oh Ben. Why didn't you fucking? I have an ambulance coming.
Speaker 2:He tells her to go inside and get her and he's going to get the car ready and they're going to take her to the hospital. He then gets in the car and takes off. What she walks into is terrifying. She has a noose around her neck and bruises covering her entire body, blood everywhere and she's no longer moving. This takes place January 2023.
Speaker 3:Approximately 30-year-old female, naked. She's been severely beaten about the face.
Speaker 2:Let's roll back the clock to June 2012. In Las Vegas. Amber was working as a server at the Las Vegas Strip Hotel where she met Ben, who was a barback. She says that he was tall, athletic, ice blue eyes, handsome and very smart. They dated for about a year before they decided to move in together. Amber said that they were. They were like any normal relationship. They would go on dates. He would leave her love notes. I mean, what girl doesn't want to have love notes? I know I do. She said that he was kind of closed off, more of a lone wolf type person, and it's those quiet ones you got to watch out for.
Speaker 2:Amber did say that her boyfriend, ben, did have a jealousy streak. She was trying to help an ex-boyfriend stay in the country. This ex-boyfriend was in another relationship. There was nothing going on between them. Ben was not happy that they were talking and that she had anything to do with him. She would later learn that's because Ben himself was talking to an ex-girlfriend. Isn't that typical? I've heard this quote many times. If someone is jealous and suspicious that you're cheating on them nine times out of ten, it's because they're doing it to you. Use that intuition. It's there for a reason Ben really loved to go to gun shows and he would get new guns and new knives.
Speaker 2:He was an outdoorsy person coming from Oregon, which is where Justine was attacked, by the way. I need to throw that out there. He liked to be out in the woods. Okay, collector of guns and knives. Remember that. Okay, collector of guns and knives. Remember that.
Speaker 2:Then, in November 2014, they had been together about two years, when Ben was acting a little bit off. He wasn't his normal self. She decides to push his buttons a little bit and tells him that she threw one of his guns away. He loses it. He pushes her to the ground and slaps her. She was terrified about what was to come. She grabbed her keys. She ran out of the house as fast as she could. When Amber left the house, she immediately called the police and had a report written up. They then accompany her back to the house and arrest Benjamin Foster. Ben gets out of jail within a couple of months. They are no longer dating. This is now Amber's ex. He is ordered to go to domestic violence counseling and perform community service. While he's out, amber does not realize that he begins to stalk her In September 2015,.
Speaker 2:It's a rainy day. It's kind of cold outside. She's going to go watch some football games with her friends and she needs to go home to get a jacket. She pulls up to her house, it's pouring down rain and she sees Benjamin Foster screaming, running at her car, banging on the windshield to open the door. Open the door. He wants to talk to her.
Speaker 2:That is terrifying. I would have hit him with my car, I would have. The only problem is is there's love there somewhere? You know there's, there's, there's love, and that can cloud judgment. I'm not saying that she did. We're going to find out if she did or not, but that gets that. That gets in the way of a rational thinking Like I'm not going to hit this person in the car. If it was a stranger, we would have pressed on that gas and kept going. And I'm not telling you to do that, please. No, I'm not telling you to do that. I'm just saying, knowing that this guy's a scary human being, I would have hit him with my car. And the reason she didn't was because there's still a little bit of love there, I'm sure. As small as it may be, they loved each other once. They were together two years.
Speaker 2:So Ben is freaking out, screaming at her get out of the car, get out of the car. And she yells back you need to leave, just leave now. And he does. She sits in her car. She waits about 15 minutes and then she feels like it's safe to go in her own home. She would soon learn it was not. She would soon learn it was not. She would go to unlock the door, walk into the house, go to the closet and she will get grabbed from behind by the neck. He starts dragging her like a rag doll. He goes to slice her face. She puts her hand up and he almost slices her pinky off. Blood starts going everywhere. She is laying there defending herself, thinking this is it, this is where I'm going to die.
Speaker 2:He takes her to the garage and he's beating her the entire way there. He gets up. She realizes this is the only chance she has to survive this attack. She crawls her way to the garage, hits the garage door opener and kind of army, crawls out of the garage and runs as fast as she can, with all her injuries to the leasing office. When she gets to the leasing office she's covered in blood and they call the police.
Speaker 2:When the police arrive, they go straight to the condo where Ben is at and they start to question Ben. Get ready to be enraged, like I was when I saw this. Okay, the police get to Ben Foster. Ben Foster has cleaned up the scene. Okay, sliced his own face and said he was attacked by Amber. The police then go to a second. The police put Amber in handcuffs and take her to jail. You know what I was saying at the beginning of this episode. Naive me would think that they're there to protect me. They just put Amber in jail. She is covered in blood. Did they do a check on Ben Foster to see that there was already a case there against him by Amber?
Speaker 2:No they believed the man and handcuffed the woman, infuriating Amber would go on to stay in jail for 18 hours until she was able to see the judge the next day. The judge, however, did do some investigating, did learn about the case against Benjamin Foster brought on by Amber for domestic violence. The charges were dropped. After Amber is released from jail, she goes back to her condo to discover everything she owns is gone. He has stolen everything, down to her social security and birth certificate. That's how Amber was protected. Makes you sick, doesn't it? September 2017 Ben Foster meets Jamie in Las Vegas, nevada.
Speaker 2:Jamie met Ben at a mixed martial art class. She describes a mixed martial arts class, but a little bit more violent, and I can't pronounce the word that she says it is, but she meets him there, so they meet. They start going out with friends. She describes what's kind of called a situation ship where they're not really boyfriend and girlfriend. They are able to see other people. It's very open and Jamie suspects he's seeing other people, but she said he would never admit it. It is what it is because they were never like a committed relationship. She says they'd see each other a few times a week. Maybe sometimes they did, sometimes they didn't. It was just, you know, sporadic. She says that when he, whenever he was there although he doted on her little Shih Tzu, maya and bought her dog, you know, clothes and a little backpack and she just she said I think he actually enjoyed being with Maya more than he actually enjoyed being with me. She says when he would come over, he would be distant, he wasn't really engaged very much. She says that Ben was probably thinking about his exes and she would later come to find out. That's exactly what he was doing.
Speaker 2:He's in a situationship with Jamie and then, three months later, in December 2017, he reaches back out to Amber. He tells Amber I've been going to see a counselor, I'm working on myself, I'm making all of these steps. I want to be better. I want to be better. I'm sorry that I hurt you. One of his things was I needed to for for this program, I need to reach back out to you so that I can make amends, which everybody knows. That's part of the 12 steps, I believe, is to reach out to the people that you know you've hurt. So he's obviously very informed on the steps. So, if you're keeping track, the last thing Amber does is she goes home and he's emptied out her whole house. Okay, he's taken everything from her. That is September 2015. So it's now two years and a few months later.
Speaker 2:When he's reaching back out to Amber and still kind of hanging out with Jamie, he asks Amber if he could just have a face-to-face meeting, just for closure. Can we meet? I know you're thinking inside Don't do it, absolutely not. No, I know you're all screaming that right Internally, because of course that's what we would do. We would say no.
Speaker 2:When you love someone, it's not always clear thinking. It's just not. And if we meet in a public place, everything's going to be fine. So why not? She agrees Don't get mad at Amber, don't get mad at her. You don't know what you would do in that situation. We know what happens. We know we're the outsider, just like friends in a friend group. All the friends can see what's happening in this one relationship, where maybe the guy cheats or is not the best, friends always know. Do you always listen? I don't. I barely listen. I barely listen to my own intuition. So I'm going to barely listen to my friends. I've gotten better. I've gotten better. Age and experience help that. So we don't know. My point is we don't know what we would do if we were in the same situation.
Speaker 2:She said, yes, he tells her at this dinner that she is the love of his life, and that may be true. She is the love of his life, and that may be true. I mean, obviously he can't stop thinking about her. He's messed up. He's sorry. Can she forgive him? She sees in this conversation that he could be telling the truth. He is trying to make a change. Who am I to not allow that growth and to think that he's not changing and to think that he's not going to be a change? Who am I to not allow that growth and to think that he's not changing and to think that he's not going to be a better person? Will I regret not giving him another chance when he's clearly done the work and she still loves him? I think she never says that.
Speaker 2:I think this is my own opinion, because to get to the place two years later to sit down at a restaurant and have a talk at all after you've been beaten and almost killed, it would have to. There would have to be love there. There would have to be. It wouldn't make sense otherwise, because the opposite of love is indifference. Is, I don't care, you do not evoke any feelings from me at all. She wasn't indifferent. She agreed to go see him and now he's getting an opportunity to manipulate Amber, says she starts to feel bad for him.
Speaker 2:She says she wants to be there for him as a friend. I you know, and maybe that's true. These are her words and these are several years later. These are her words. She wants to be there for him as a friend. Part of me thinks she may be hoping he is a changed man. She will be there as friends and maybe that can grow back into something. Again, not her words, they're mine, they're my words. Maybe there's a little bit of embarrassment by telling the full emotional gamut that she may have been going through, because that opens yourself up to judgment and stereotyping, and that is not at all what we do here. We are not judging anyone and that is not at all what we do here. We are not judging anyone. We are trying to figure out the mindset of what's happening that puts you in these situations. So if we were to dig deeper, my guess would be that she doesn't want to fully admit that maybe there was hope still. This leads into text messaging back and forth on a regular basis, hanging out on a regular basis.
Speaker 2:It's now Christmas Eve, 2017. Amber leaves her cell phone on the table while Ben is on the couch. She goes into her room to change. Ben picks up her phone and starts to look through it. I'm not sure what he saw Doesn't really fucking matter. He then, in a rage, comes up from behind Amber and strangles her. He strangles her to the point of being unconscious. When she wakes up he is hitting holes in walls and walking around furiously in a complete rage. She gets up and she makes a run for it to the back door. She then jumps off the balcony of the first floor to escape. She starts running. She runs to the first car she sees and starts waving for help. It was a female who has a dog in her car and she's telling her to get in. She's got no shoes on.
Speaker 2:Amber credits this lady as saving her life, and I believe she did, because a lot of us, if they see a woman screaming with no shoes on running down the street, wouldn't really know what to do. Because who can you trust? You know. Who can you trust? You know. Who can you trust? You don't know. And this lady trusted that there was a situation that she needed to help this person and I applaud her. She saved her life.
Speaker 2:Would you, would you open the door and let this person in your car? If that was you, she came across. Would she have been so lucky? If it was a man screaming down the street with no shoes on, would you let him in the car? These are the questions I ask myself. You never know what you'll do until that situation happens. If it was a man, I for sure would not let him in my car because he can overpower me. If it's a woman, I might've. Now I'm going to read another true crime and they're going to talk about how a woman let a woman in a car and she killed her. You can't win, but Amber was lucky and Amber did win because she found somebody that would let her in the car and help save her life scratches, deep scratches on my hands that are bleeding.
Speaker 3:What is his name? His name is Benjamin Foster. This is not the first time it has happened.
Speaker 2:The police show up. One of the police officers goes up to her, puts his hand on her shoulder and says you cannot see this man anymore. He will kill you. First good thing I heard from a cop. So far those are just words. They may not have saved her life, but she remembered them. They were impactful. They meant something to her to hear it from a police officer. So good on him. The state ended up pressing charges on Benjamin Foster. It doesn't sound like there was any urgency behind prosecuting him. So I think it sounds like he was out and Amber was scared. She was always looking over her shoulder, wondering when he was going to try and finish the job that he started. She hadn't moved. She still lived in Las Vegas. He was still in Las Vegas. And then I know, every time I hear this, the first thing I think of is why didn't you move? I know you thought it too. Don't tell me you didn't. I know you thought it too. Why didn't she move? There could be a hundred reasons why she didn't move.
Speaker 2:We don't know, it could be anything. Maybe that's where her job was, that she loved, and there was no way to move to another state. Maybe her best friends were there. There's so many different reasons why somebody stays. Maybe she couldn't afford to. Let me take it as simple as I can. Maybe she couldn't afford to. Let me take it as simple as I can. Maybe she couldn't afford to. It's like, though, you know, hearing all these stories, I think I would and my dad's here and my family's here, and my job's here and my kids are here If I am scared for my life, I don't want to live that way and I will find a way to move. I'm not so rooted in a place that I won't do it. I like to move. I don't have a problem with it. Other people may, so I don't. I don't want us to put judgment on her because she didn't move. She probably put security in place to make sure that he would not hurt her again, but still she was looking over her shoulder every day.
Speaker 2:In September 2018, benjamin Foster loses his job, had a series of things happen to him that caused him to be down on his luck. I wonder what those were. Moves in with Jamie. Remember Jamie? The one who has the cute little dog, maya. He moves in with Jamie and they had been seeing each other about a year and a half. Again, it's a situation ship. You can tell when she's telling this story that they weren't in love with each other. She may have liked him a little bit more than he liked her, just based on the way she tells the story. Now it could be because she's trying to disassociate with anything that has to do with him. But she said that they were still not serious. He needed help. She helped him so he moved in.
Speaker 2:She says he was always sick, always depressed, always had anxiety, couldn't even get out of bed, so there was no real way he was going to find a good job. She kind of confronts him and says what are you going to do? I don't mind being here and helping you out, but I'm not going to be able to carry this load forever. The first time he ever put his hands on jamie was not over serious. There wasn't an argument. They weren't fighting. She was trying to reason with him about something. You know a debate that we have in relationships. He comes up behind her and just throws her to the ground and she kind of just laid there in shock Like what is this about? Because it didn't. It didn't fit the environment that they were in at that moment. It was out of nowhere.
Speaker 2:She says he started to get a little weird now because he's paranoid. He thinks people are following him. She's telling him no, nobody's following you. And he's sure they are. And and I don't know if that is due to a mental illness like schizophrenia, or if that's because he was worried about his life because of all the damage he has done Are police watching him so he doesn't make a bad move or doesn't make a move and hurt somebody else? It could be a multitude of things. So I'm not sure exactly where this stems from.
Speaker 2:Having an ex with schizophrenia, I understand paranoia is a very real thing. She says the paranoia didn't stop. It just went from zero to 100. It escalated really, really fast. So now we're in September 2019.
Speaker 2:So it's been a year since he's moved in with her. I don't know how she lasted a whole year. She says that he would go on to attack her several times and each time it would be a little bit worse than the last time. So she's being abused. Now she's in a house with a man that it does not pay for anything, is not married to her, is essentially living off of her and abusing her. So she's a prisoner in her own home. There is no logic at this point. He is a completely different man than he was when he moved in with her, or at least shows to be. She can't get him out. She doesn't know what to do. She's terrified. This was key for me. She says she did not tell her friends because she was embarrassed. She didn't want to be one of those girls that stayed with a guy that was beating her and that that breaks my heart. It really. It really. It breaks my heart because people are so afraid of being judged by their choices that they would rather keep themselves hidden and in danger. And I'm going to put a hotline number to domestic violence and abuse at the end of this episode. So if you're in that type of situation and you're scared and you don't know what to do about it, I'm going to put it on the bottom of the screen now and at the end of the episode.
Speaker 2:She would go and stay at hotels to try to avoid him. So she had some freedom there, but she didn't have enough money to actually get away from him completely, because that's her house. He's in her house. She's just trying to survive at this point. But in Vegas if you know anything about Vegas during the week is cheaper than it would be on the weekends, when the tourists come around. So she could not afford the weekend hotels. She did, however, go and file a restraining order against Ben. This is another time that police will fail her and it will enrage you too.
Speaker 2:She goes to file a restraining order against Benjamin. He's in her house, she wants in her house. She's tired of this, she doesn't want to live this way anymore. So she goes to get the help of the police. The police talk to Jamie and she asks him a very honest, true question when you go and serve him this restraining order, what if he doesn't answer the door, what happens next? He says nothing. I will leave. Well, she says can't you come in there with me and at least let me get my stuff? I need to get my stuff. Can you help me? We don't do that, ma'am. We need another moment of silence for that. We don't do that, ma'am. We don't protect you. Ma'am, if he doesn't answer, you're shit out of luck. If he doesn't answer, you're shit out of luck. It breaks my heart Because what you're about to hear next, this officer should be fired. These laws should be changed. This is unbelievable. What does a woman have to do to get protection? The police officer did go to the door, tried to give the restraining order to Ben. He never answered the door. That was that.
Speaker 2:So, jamie, having no other choice, no other money to go out and do something else, she had to go into her place. She had to go back into the hell she was living because she couldn't get him out of her house. She then, after debating with herself for hours outside of her own home, she decides she has to go in. She doesn't have any other choice. She's tired, she's angry. She goes into her house, she goes down to her room and lays down to go to sleep. And lays down to go to sleep.
Speaker 2:When she woke up, this monster was sitting on top of her, shaving her head. She didn't even fight him. She knew if she fought him she would lose that fight. So she let him shave her head the whole time. He's shaving her head. He's telling her no man will ever look at you or think you're pretty again. She now was being held captive. When she slept she would either be tied up or have a gun to her head. She was not allowed to leave his sight. He stripped her naked so she couldn't hide or keep anything on her that he couldn't see. She had no access to the outside world. He had her phone. Three days into this captivity he told her he was going to kill her.
Speaker 2:September 24th 2019, eight days into her captivity, they take a trip. They have to go get food, so they need food. Their credit cards are maxed so high that they can't like order Uber Eats or DoorDash. They have to actually physically go to the store and use whatever money's left to get some water. She's able to talk him into that, but not because they need water, but because Maya, her dog, needs water, and we already know Ben loves Maya. So they pull into a small grocery store. When they get in he starts to say Maya has to use the bathroom. Maya has to use the bathroom. So Benjamin gets out of the car with the dog to take her to go to the bathroom.
Speaker 2:At this point Jamie unbuckles the seatbelt, makes a run for the store as fast as she possibly can, finds a clerk at the desk. She asks her frantically do you have an office or a room or somewhere I can lock myself into? And they say no, we don't have that. In my head I'm screaming protect this woman, protect this woman. He's still outside with the dog, but she starts to see his shadow, that he's starting to walk into the grocery store. She says is there? Do you have a back door? Then? Is there anywhere I can run to? She says yes, we have a back door, it's right here. She runs out the back door, she runs into this apartment complex. She never looked back, she just kept running. She sees a guy sitting in a car in this parking space and he looks at her and goes are you okay? Do you need a ride to the hospital? She says, yes, I need a ride to the hospital. She ends up going to the hospital and the nurse calls in the report to the police.
Speaker 2:Now Jamie is very hesitant. She doesn't believe that she's going to be able to be protected. Hesitant, she doesn't believe that she's going to be able to be protected. She's jaded. Look what they did. They didn't protect her the first time. She's terrified. They're not going to protect her the second time. This woman is terrified. She won't even say the name of the man that assaulted her. She is that terrified. When she was at the hospital she was treated for seven broken ribs, two black eyes, lacerations all over her body, cauliflower ear and damage to both of her eyes.
Speaker 2:When the police arrive, she's afraid that if she says something against him or says his name, that they're not going to be able to hold him that long and that he's going to be out and he's going to kill her. She's not really responding well and it's because she doesn't trust the judicial system to protect her, and I don't blame her. She gets a ride home from an officer from the hospital. They're driving there and they had already gotten a search warrant for her home. Her door's on the front lawn. They have got him. There is a news team, there are helicopters, there are drones, there are police and firemen and a SWAT team. They're taking her seriously.
Speaker 2:All the windows were blown out with tear gas. When Ben walked out, he was carrying Maya. The officer took the dog from Ben and gave her to Jamie. They ended up taking Ben away to jail and it became national news. Who's watching the news? Amber. She sees what he has done to his ex-girlfriend and can't believe that she was so lucky to escape. I think the hope I'm thinking that the hope is that this is big enough to actually put him behind bars for life. That's what Amber's hoping, you know like yes, this is it. This is what we need. Get this monster off the streets so he can't hurt anyone else. Ben was charged with battery, domestic violence by strangulation and kidnapping in the first degree.
Speaker 2:It turns out that Jamie did not want to go to court and testify against him. She was not willing to be in that same room and to feel that same energy. She just wasn't willing. She was a victim and she had PTSD and the last thing she wanted to do was put herself in that room with him. I don't blame her. Yes, we're screaming at the TV and we're screaming at her saying do it. You could put him behind bars for life, for life Testify. And she just couldn't do it. And part of me says why don't they have something for the victims that don't want to be put in a room? Why couldn't they do it? Virtually, it was in 2018. I am sure they would be able to do something where she doesn't have to be in the same room. Put a microphone in a different room and let her speak. There was something they could have done to protect her. They had already failed her so much, but because she couldn't get in that room physically with the same man that held her captive for eight days, he was able to get off and not have to be in prison for the rest of his life. Again, they failed her.
Speaker 2:The DA cut him a deal. Attorney combined Amber and Jamie's cases from 2017 and 2019. Foster pleaded guilty to lesser domestic violence charges in both cases. So they combined them because they had to make it stronger. Without her, without Jamie, they didn't have a case. She had to testify and she didn't. She had to testify and she didn't and unfortunately that would lead us to a very dark place. He was a danger and he was on the street. It would only be a matter of time until he hurt someone else. We will get into the end of this case and what happens next next Monday. Until then, stay safe. Love you, miss you, bye.
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