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When a body is found 600 miles away... Extensive two part write up on the bizarre case of Judy Smith (1997). Part 1 of 2.

Hello everyone, for the last few months I have been creating long form write-ups on a variety of unsolved cases. If you are interested in other lengthy write ups you can find them on my profile- https://www.reddit.com/useQuirky-Moto.
Months ago, I was asked to cover the inexplicable case of Judy Smith, a woman who went missing from Philadelphia or perhaps Massachusetts, only for her body to be found in North Carolina months later. The case was famously covered on the show Unsolved Mysteries, and it is strange enough to warrant a long, hard look at the case and a comprehensive timeline. I hope you are able to learn something new about this semi well-known case.
Background
Judy Smith was born Judith Eldridge in Massachusetts in 1946. Right out of high school Judy married for the first time. Her husband and she had been married very shortly when in an attemot to avoid the draft, he fled to Sweden. Judy went in search of her young husband but soon returned to the states empty handed and filed for divorce. Years later, Judy married Charles Bradford a man who worked in the racehorse industry. They had two children together, Craig and Amy, but unfortunately the marriage did not last and soon Judy found herself jobless and raising two children by herself. Rather than fret, Judy got a job and enrolled in nursing school. Judy was known to study in all of her free time and soon became a successful home health care nurse. In 1986 at age 40, Judy was caring for a man who was recovering from throat surgery when she met her patient’s son, a well to do lawyer named Jeffrey Smith. Jeffrey said he was impressed by how Judy cared for his father and asked her on a date. Judy and Jeff had several things in common, both had been divorced single parents who raised children alone, and Jeffrey worked in healthcare as well, except he was a lawyer. The couple both enjoyed going to plays and Celtics basketball games. After seven years together, Jeff and Judy moved in together and three years later the couple married in Nov., 1996.
According to friends and family, Judy was a rather assertive and independent person. She was no stranger to travelling alone. Judy had been to Europe on her own a few times, and when her children were pre-teens, she took them to Europe for a backpacking adventure. Judy also independently traveled to Thailand where she went hiking and visited friends. While Judy wasn’t the epitome of fitness, she was an active person who enjoyed walking, hiking, and sightseeing. She was also known to be a go-getter who once helped an AIDS patient who was having a medical crisis on a plane. So, while Judy was kindhearted and considerate, she wasn’t thought to be naive and was able to take care of herself in a variety of different situations.
The disappearance
Five months into her new marriage on April 9th 1997, Jeffrey prepared to attend a conference in Philadelphia that was taking place from Wednesday April 9th-Friday April 11th at the Double Tree hotel in downtown Philadelphia. Judy decided to accompany her husband to Philadelphia and planned to do some sightseeing in the area. Afterwards, the Smiths were going to New Jersey to spend the weekend with some friends before flying back home.
On April 9th in the morning, Judy accompanied her husband to Logan International Airport to fly to Philadelphia, but discovered at the gate that she could not board as she did not have her photo ID. Judy encouraged Jeffrey to take the 1:30 pm flight and assured him that she would take a flight later that day and meet him in Philadelphia. According to relatives, the Smiths took public transport to the airport and Judy apparently took the bus back home and retrieved her ID. Jeffrey flew to the conference while Judy returned home and booked a flight for later that day. Judy boarded a 7:30 pm flight and arrived at the hotel in Philadelphia at approximately 9:30 pm.
Once at the hotel, the couple purchased some snacks and went to bed. The next morning Jeffrey awoke and ate breakfast at the complimentary buffet downstairs while his wife was still asleep. When he returned to the room Judy was in the shower. The two talked about several things, and Judy explained that she planned on taking the PHLASH bus in order to see the famous sights such as the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall. The Smiths planned on meeting up at the hotel in the evening to attend the conference’s 6 pm cocktail party together. With that squared away, Jeffrey attended the conference. Sometime in between 9 and 10 am a hotel concierge recalled seeing a woman matching Judy’s description ask how to get to the PHLASH bus stop. The woman was in her 50s, with shortish hair, wearing a dark colored coat, blue jeans, and white tennis shoes, carrying a bright red backpack. (Picture of the Judy wearing the backpack here).
At approximately 5:30 pm Jeffrey who was done with the day’s sessions returned to the hotel room expecting to find Judy waiting for him. Judy wasn’t there, so Jeffrey attended the cocktail hour in the hopes his wife was already visiting at the party, but she wasn’t there either. For the next 45 minutes, Jeffrey floated between the room and the party hoping to find Judy. At approximately 6:15 pm Jeffrey told the concierges that his wife had not returned from sightseeing and the hotel staff began calling local hospitals. At 6:30 pm, Jeffrey hopped in a taxi and instructed the driver to take the PHLASH bus route slowly so he could look for his wife. In one interview Jeffrey recalled that he made the driver go so slow it angered those stuck behind him. After a few hours without any sign of Judy, Smith called the police to report his wife missing. Shockingly, the PPD told Jeffrey that he couldn’t file a report until it had been twenty-four hours since the last final sighting of Judy. After lodging some complaints with some high-ranking officials within the city, a missing person’s report was taken for Judy Smith on the morning of April 11th, 1997 (Lewis, 1997).
Jeffrey called his step children and asked them to check the house in case Judy had gone home, and he also asked that they would check the answering machine, but there were no messages of note and the house was empty.
A check of the hotel room showed that Judy had left with her signature red backpack, her wallet, the jewelry she normally wore including a diamond engagement band and a simple silver wedding ring, and the clothes on her back. Jeffrey estimated that she had approximately $200 dollars with her at the time.
According to later interviews with Philadelphia investigators, Judy, or someone with her name did in fact buy a USair ticket on the 7:30 pm flight into Philadelphia. Her ticket was used to make the flight and her seat was occupied on the flight into Philadelphia (Justiceforjudy.org). At the time of the Smiths’ trip, regulations that required photo identification to board a plane had only been in effect for 18 months and Judy had flown only one other time during that time frame. Additionally, police have a luggage tag from Judy’s suitcase that showed that she took the 7:30 pm flight, and that her bag did not travel to Philadelphia with Jeffrey earlier in the day (AP, Oct 4th, 1997).
Sightings
As news of Judy’s disappearance spread, many people called the police station to report various sightings of Judy.
One PHLASH driver remembered picking up Judy in the early afternoon at Front and South streets, a stop near the Double Tree.
There was also a reported sighting of Judy entering the Greyhound bus station at 11th and Filbert sometime in the early afternoon. This station is a common place for tourists to use the bathroom and is only a 10-minute walk to the DoubleTree hotel. One report claims Judy was seen entering and then exiting the station but most reports mention only entering the station. This area was close to Philadelphia’s Chinatown and Jeffrey speculated that Judy may have gone to Chinatown for lunch as she loved both Chinese and Thai food, but no restaurant owners remembered seeing Judy that day.
There was yet another sighting of a woman who looked like Judy at around 3 pm near the hotel; witnesses claimed this woman seemed disoriented.
A number of sightings were reported over the next few days in the waterfront area of the city called Penn’s Landing. A variety of people claimed to have seen Judy. Some witnesses said she seemed confused or dazed. Judy’s two children, her son in law Jay, and Jeffrey looked into these sightings and discovered that there was a homeless woman in the area who looked strikingly similar to Judy and it is believed that many witnesses saw this woman rather than Judy Smith. This local resident looked so similar to Judy that at one point Judy’s son Craig crossed the street thinking he had discovered his mother, only for it to be the other woman. Police officers and volunteers stopped this woman a number of times as well.
One transient in the area, a man named David, was insistent that he saw Judy, not the other woman, on the night of April 10th in the Penn’s landing area, either resting or sleeping on the bench. He was insistent it was Judy, and not the other woman as he knew the other woman from the neighborhood. Judy’s son believes this story is credible as David was coherent and very willing to be interviewed, even though there was nothing to be gained from his testimony and he was simply happy to help the family. He also identifed Judy from a collection of photos, something many other witnesses were unable to do.
On April 11th an employee at a Macy’s department store in Deptford, New Jersey believed that she interacted with Judy Smith in the morning on that day. She described the clothes Judy wore, right down to the old red backpack. This shopper told the employee, that she was buying some dresses for her daughter but laughed because her daughter often disliked the pieces that she purchased for her. Judy’s family confirmed that this was acurate and affirmed that Judy sometimes shopped at Macy’s. The customer appeared to be slightly disoriented as she asked a young woman in the store to leave with her, thinking that the other customer was her daughter or a someone else she knew. One report says that Judy asked another customer in the store about menopause, a very odd subject to talk about, especially with someone you don’t know in a department store.
This mall complex was in Deptford, New Jersey, a bus ride away from Philadelphia, across the Delaware River. According to newspaper reports, NJ Transit Buses had routes which traveled from downtown Philly to Deptford hourly, and the stop was very close to the mall the sighting took place at, meaning it was possible for Judy to have boarded the bus and ended up in Deptford quite easily. Unfortunately, the Macy’s didn’t have security footage which showed this customer and the woman paid for her purchases in cash.
After a second story ran in the newspaper on April 14th, a variety of other witnesses came forward with stories. The most famous report came from a Society Hill hotel employee who explained that a woman who matched Judy’s description stayed in the hotel from April 13th-15th. The woman appeared to have psychiatric problems and did a variety of strange things during her stay such as touch herself very noticeably in front of the window (it’s unknown if this was in her room or in the lobby), speak in tongues, and finally claimed that “the emperor” would help her pay for her stay at the hotel. This wacky guest was remembered by several employees including the hotel manager, a woman named Abby Gainer, who alerted the police. The strange guest told the employees that she wanted to stay at the hotel for another night but didn’t have the funds to do so. She later said she would get the money via a Western Union wire transfer from “the emperor” (Altman, 1997).
The nearby Best Western Hotel had a similar situation with a similar woman. Concierge Tyrone Taylor remembered that on the 15th, a woman matching this description entered the hotel to use the telephone in the late afternoon. The woman was speaking loudly and said that “the emperor of China” was going to pay for her stay as she did not have the cash to pay for a night at the hotel. Taylor reported that the woman was well dressed and did not appear to be a transient. Both hotel employees reported that the woman was a heavyset blonde in her 50s, wearing heavy dark makeup, eye glasses with tape on the side, and nicer clothes. Gainer reported the woman was sporting an expensive looking scarf with camels and roses on it. The woman, who signed in as "H. K. Rich/Collins," did not have any luggage with her and was wearing very different clothes than Judy was last seen in. When Taylor called the police to report his sighting, he gave the strange guest a call (she must have left a telephone number) and told her she could have a free night at the hotel. She arrived at the Best Western but police decided that the woman was not Judy Smith (Altman, 1997). The hotel sightings were nothing more than a red herring. Over the next few months various sightings were reported but none seemed to pan out. Many of the sightings were believed to be other people who looked like Judy. After all history has shown that false eyewitness sightings are incredibly common in cases of missing persons.
Philadelphia PD’s investigation
Philadelphia PD launched an inquiry into the disappearance of Judy Smith on April 11th, 1997. Jeffrey tried to report Judy as missing in the late evening hours of April 10th, but the police told him to wait 24 hours. Smith, however, was a well-connected man and after a few complaints to both a Pennsylvania state representative and the mayor (both men were attorneys and knew Jeffrey from previous work functions), Jeffrey was able to file a report in the early morning hours of the 11th. The Smith family made and hung flyers in the area. Judy’s children joined the search and followed up on sightings around the tourist areas of Philly. Police interviewed Jeffrey, Judy’s children, and others in order to retrace Judy’s last steps. Judy left behind her passport at her home in Massachusetts meaning she could not have easily left the county. The Smith’s two landline records were checked but nothing out of the ordinary was found.
After interviews and searches of the area, Philadelphia PD announced that they believed Judy had never made it to Pennsylvania at all and speculated that Judy went missing from the Boston area. This speculation was based on a couple of things.
First, investigators did not believe Jeffrey’s story that Judy couldn’t catch the flight due to a lack of photo ID. Police thought that this story was odd and did not believe a seasoned traveler like Judy would forget her license at home before heading to the airport.
Later investigation showed that someone named Judith Smith took a 7:30pm flight into Philadelphia and flight manifest showed that the ticket was used to make the flight that evening, however, the entire incident is still odd to many amateur sleuths and professional investigators.
Another detective thought it was odd that while Judy had clothes and belongings in the hotel room, she didn’t have any cosmetics with her. Further, detectives noticed that there were few soiled items of clothing in the room meaning that if Judy was in Philadelphia on the 10th, she wore the same jeans and coat that she was wearing the night before. Judy’s children reported that this wasn’t uncommon for their mother as she wasn’t a frilly person. They also said that their mother only wore makeup on occasion and not while traveling so these things didn’t seem out of the ordinary to them. (Personally, I have also wondered if Judy did have some makeup, but it was in her backpack at time. I know plenty of women who don’t wear much makeup, but if you looked in their purse or bag you might find some lip stick or powder.)
Investigators went on to say that no one but Jeffrey could place Judy in Philadelphia during this time frame. This announcement resulted in several eyewitnesses who claimed that they had seen Judy at the hotel. One receptionist from the hotel claimed that on April 9th in between 9-10 pm, she saw Judy arrive at the hotel and greet her husband in the lobby. She said that Jeffrey gave Judy flowers and the two appeared to be apologizing to each other. (Jeffrey said this was the case except Judy gave him the flowers). One concierge remembered a woman in her 50s with a coat and old red backpack ask him how to get to the PHLASH bus stop at around 10 am on April 10th. He knew it was after 9 am because that is when his shift started. Finally, a conference goer named Carmen Catazone, who was sitting in the lobby also recalled the flower incident from the night before. The woman did not know Jeffrey personally, but recognized him from the conference. Jeffrey was a moderator for a variety of sessions and was very overweight so he was easily recognizable. These witness’ accounts seem to line up with Jeffrey’s story. As far as I can tell the flower story had not been released to the press at this point.
Finally, Philadelphia PD divulged that Jeffrey wasn’t fully cooperative, as he wouldn’t submit to a polygraph. Jeffrey denies this and said that as a lawyer he knew that polygraphs are fallible. Further, he claims that he was willing to take a lie detector if it was given by an outside agency such as the FBI, but Philadelphia police declined this scenario. These are the four reasons investigators used in order to prop up their theory that Judy wasn’t in Philadelphia at all. Despite witness sightings, this theory is a popular on online to this day.
Aftermath and Discovery
After several weeks Jeffrey returned to the Boston area and tried to resume his normal life. He drastically cut back his hours at the office reporting that he could not focus on his work. Smith attempted to keep his wife’s case in the spotlight doing interviews whenever he could and eventually landing a spot on the show Unsolved Mysteries. On the show, one friend of the couple called the marriage “tenuous” but modern articles on the case mention that the police could find no one who reported concerns like these about the couples’ relationship. In independent interviews Judy’s adult children denied witnessing any warning signs in their mother’s new marriage. Eventually, Jeffrey hired three private investigators to look for Judy. The PIs faxed over 9,000 missing posters to police departments and hospitals all over the country hoping that someone would recognize Judy.
Five months after her disappearance in September 1997, a man and his son were hunting in the Pisgah National Forest near Candler, North Carolina, a short drive from the city of Asheville. On a steep incline one-quarter mile from a picnic area, which itself was a mile from hike from the nearest parking area, the duo found what appeared to be a human bone. They alerted the police who responded to the scene. Over an area approximately 300 feet in diameter, investigators found most of a human skeleton which had been wrapped in a blue blanket and buried in a very shallow grave. Scavenging animals had dug up the skeleton and a few bones had been carried away. The skeleton was determined to be female. The woman was dressed in thermal underwear under her jeans, hiking boots, socks, a t-shirt, a bra and a jacket. Nearby in two different holes, a blue vinyl backpack and a men’s shirt had been buried. The backpack contained some winter clothing and 80 dollars. The shirt contained a pair of $110 Bolle brand sunglasses, as well an additional $87. A paperback mystery novel was also found nearby. She carried no ID. The slope where the body was discovered was near some hiking trails, but the hill itself was steep and at an elevation of 4,000 feet, the search was difficult. The incline was so severe that one investigator crushed his sciatic nerve attempting to search the area, an injury which required major surgery.
Early coverage of the body’s discovery in the Asheville Citizen Times, initially reported that the police found a body belonging to a woman who they believed to be in her 20s dressed in hiking clothes (Ball, 1997). Several days later, the medical examiner assessed the bones and concluded that the skeleton was that of white woman in her 40s or 50s, who was about 5’3” tall with shortish light brown hair. There were cut marks in the woman’s bra and t-shirt which indicated that she had been stabbed in the chest area, however, no cause of death could be determined. Some reports mention that there was trauma to the woman’s ribs. The decedent also had a severely arthritic right knee (some reports say it was her left knee), extensive fillings and dental work in her molars, and some animal hair on her shirt, which may have been horse hair. The woman did not seem to be a transient due to her nice clothes and dental work. The death was ruled a homicide as the woman had been wrapped in a blanket post mortem and buried. The ME determined that the body had been there for 1-2 years prior. For several weeks the skeleton remained nameless in the ME’s office.
On September 9th, a small blurb about the unidentified body ran in an Asheville, North Carolina paper. 65 miles away in Franklin, NC, an ER physician named Parker Davis was looking at missing poster which had been faxed to the hospital he worked at when he noticed that the woman on the poster had a severely arthritic knee. He remembered the story of the skeleton from the paper who had a similar knee problem. On a whim he called the police who were able to get a copy of Judy’s missing poster. After a preliminary check, the ME contacted Jeffrey in order to obtain a copy of Judy’s dental records. The records were a match, and by the end of September 1997, Judy had her name back. Friends and family were also able to identify Judy’s diamond engagement band with a pear-shaped stone and wedding ring which had been found on or near the body. Some early reports say that the woman had no jewelry and that Judy’s wedding ring was missing, but later reports say that it was found near the body. The area of the burial was searched on at least three occasions so it is possible the rings were not found until later. Missing was Judy’s wallet, red backpack, and some jewelry that she typically wore (it’s unclear what jewelry this is referring to). The coat she was last seen wearing was nowhere to be found and the clothes she was dressed in, as well as those in the backpack were unable to be identified by family or friends. The shirt buried nearby was a men’s shirt and was believed to belong to the killer, not Judy. Furthermore, the sunglasses did not appear to be Judy’s as Judy’s kids said she wasn’t the type to spend over $100 on sunglasses. The sunglasses are an athletic style and to me look like men’s or unisex sport sunglasses.
Buncombe County Investigation
Buncombe County Sheriff’s Department took over the case from the PPD after Judy’s identification. Once it was determined that Judy was the woman in the woods, several residents in and around Asheville reported that they had seen Judy or had interacted with her in the April shortly after she was last seen in Philadelphia. For example, one woman thought Judy had stayed at her hotel from April 10th-12th, one woman who worked at a souvenir shop near the Biltmore house (a tourist attraction near Asheville) thought that she spoke to Judy who said she was from Boston and that her husband was a lawyer. Another woman who worked in a store recalled that Judy with her red backpack. She claims that Judy bought a toy truck and approximately $30 worth of sandwiches. There were two other sightings of a person resembling Judy in the area in a gray sedan. One person claimed to have seen Judy near the Pisgah National Forest in a gray sedan chock full of stuff. This witness said that the woman was looking for a place to camp. Another person saw a woman in a gray sedan in the same area. All sightings occurred in the week or so after Judy was last seen in Philadelphia. Of course, it goes without saying that, eyewitness testimony can be unreliable and the human mind is susceptible to suggestion.
North Carolina investigators traveled to Philadelphia to retrace Judy’s steps. They have said that they don’t believe that PPD did a poor job but simply wanted to cover their bases. Two detectives flew to Philadelphia and determined that Judy probably been there at least briefly before traveling to the Pisgah National Forest. They reported that there was no indication that Judy had been abducted or otherwise forced to travel south. It appeared she at least started the journey of her own volition. In all the sightings of Judy in North Carolina, she was alone.
Buncombe county deputies were able to rule out Jeffrey as a suspect rather quickly, although they concede that anything is possible and Jeffrey could be involved however unlikely it seems. Jeffrey was ruled out based on his size and health. Jeffrey was a morbidly obese man who investigators noted began huffing and puffing when walking quickly or climbing stairs. Because of this they did not believe Jeffrey could have disposed of his wife’s body especially in such an inaccessible area of the forest. Furthermore, they could find no evidence that Jeffrey rented a car in Philadelphia adding to the logistical problems with Jeffrey being a suspect. On top of his lack of car, Jeffrey had less than 12 hours to dispose of Judy’s body as he was seen in the lobby of the hotel at 9:30 pm, and then was moderating a session of the conference at 9:30 am. Driving to the Pisgah National Forest from Philadelphia takes approximately nine hours one way meaning he did not have time to kill and dispose of his wife. One podcast on the case mentions that police could find no large withdrawals of money from the Smith’s accounts which could have indicated the hiring of a hit man or a paid accomplice. (I could find no other corroboration of this claim so take this with a grain of salt.) Jeffrey also kept his wife’s case in the spotlight and suffered many hardships in the wake of his wife’s disappearance. Besides the one woman who was interviewed on Unsolved Mysteries, no other friends or family reported that there were issues in marriage that they were aware of.
Philadelphia police also struggled with Jeffrey’s size as carrying and disposing of a dead body is quite taxing and it is doubtful that Jeffrey could have done this on his own. However, they say that Jeffrey is still as suspect as he could have killed his wife in Boston or had an accomplice.
With the most obvious suspect cleared, investigators moved on to other lines of inquiry. They searched the surrounding areas hoping to find people who had seen Judy which is how the discovery of the woman in the gray car was made. Police also searched a nearby horse farm as Judy was known to like horses and had what could have been horse hair on her body, but nothing definitive was found.
Other information
Suspects
Gary Michael Hilton, sometimes called the national park killer, is a suspect in Judy's disappearance. In 2008 Hilton was arrested for a murder in a national forest and was later linked to three other murders, all of which took place between 2005 and 2008. Hilton, who was in his 50s and 60s at the time, killed hikers in Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina and he is considered a suspect in many other murders in surrounding states such as Arkansas, South Carolina, and Tennessee. Hilton, who loved the outdoors, would often stalk hiking trails, camp sites, and other areas known for outdoor recreation to find victims to terrorize. His crimes were tended to be opportunistic and his motive most often was monetary. Hilton held down a series of jobs from 1997 to 2007 but did not work full time. He was also a drifter who moved from place to place. Hilton usually assaulted and robbed his victims of their wallets, atm cards, cash, and valuables. His victims were male and female, young and old. He seemed to prefer victims who were isolated and alone did not try to find a specific type of person otherwise. One thing that is interesting about Hilton as an offender is that it appears that he did not commit any violent crimes before he was 58 or 59 years old. Hilton has a very long rap sheet but most of his crimes were relatively minor such as possession of marijuana, carrying a pistol without a license, soliciting false donations for charity, carrying a police baton, and DUI. Once arrested several violent incidents that Hilton had been a part of came to light but he had never been convicted of them in the past. Most people agree someone with does not start a life of violent crime in their 60s. Many believe the Gary Michael Hilton has more victims then are currently known.
John and Irene Bryant, an eclectic couple in their 80s, were hiking in the Pisgah National Forest in 2007 when they were attacked by Hilton. Hilton killed Irene, and then kidnapped her husband in order to use their ATM cards and withdraw money before killing John as well. Irene's body was left only miles from where Judy's body was found 10 years earlier. This is one of the most convincing pieces of evidence that Hilton may have been involved in Judy's murder as well. However, it is important to note that Judy was not robbed and Hilton did not bury any of his known victims. Judy's murder also took place 10 years before any Hilton's other murders. Some blogs or more unofficial sources on the case mentioned that Hilton was believed to be in Georgia at the time of Judy's disappearance, but this isn't known for sure. If you are interested in learning more about the crimes of Gary Michael Hilton this reddit post is a really good place to start. This post did a good job of putting it all in one place so thank you u/lisagreenhouse.
Another offender who was in the Asheville area at the time of Judy's disappearance was a young man named Lewis Kyle Wilson. In the early 2000s Wilson was arrested after assaulting and robbing a sex worker he had brought home to his property. There's not a lot of information on Wilson online, but he was living in Asheville and would have been 19 at the time of Judy's disappearance. I cannot find any evidence that Wilson actually killed anyone but he does have a history of violence towards women and was in the area at the time so he is sometimes mentioned online as a possible suspect. One sex worker Wilson was known to frequent was the victim of an unsolved homicide that happened in 2006; Wilson is the prime suspect in that crime.
In 2016, only a couple of miles from Judy's burial site in the Pisgah National Forest, a lone hiker in her 60s was attacked, raped, and left tied to a tree. Thankfully, the woman was found alive and taken to the hospital. Some have wondered if this crime was connected to the Judy Smith homicide but there is no hard evidence of this and the rapist remains unknown.
Theories
Amnesia is one possible explanation for Judy’s disappearance. The family believes that Judy was injured or otherwise suffered a bout of dissociative amnesia which caused her to become confused or forget her identity. This is supported by the sightings of a confused or disoriented Judy in Philadelphia. The family believes this explains why Judy traveled to the Pisgah National Forest apparently of her own free will.
One theory is that Judy and Jeffrey had an argument that spurred an angry Judy to leave the area, whether she left from Boston or Philadelphia. After she left the area and traveled south to North Carolina, she met with foul play.
In a similar vein, some believed Judy willingly traveled to North Carolina to meet up with someone, perhaps a friend or a secret boyfriend. The ID incident at the airport was simply a cover so Judy could converse with this person who she wanted to meet. Once in North Carolina she met with foul play perhaps at the hand of the person she went to meet.
One theory Jeffrey explored was that Judy was suffering from mental illness and had a psychotic break. Being a lawyer, Jeffrey was able with some legal maneuvering to obtain all of Judy’s medical records from her adult life, including a physical she had had only months before hand. There was no indication that Judy had ever had any mental health concerns. Neither she or her doctors ever mentioned anything that would have pointed to any mental health problems, even minor ones such as anxiety. According to Jeffrey, Judy’s newest physical reported that Judy was in good mental and physical health (Lewis, 1997 and Trace Evidence Podcast).
Other sleuths have speculated that Judy traveled to North Carolina because she was questioning her sexuality. Asheville at the time was known for having an LGBT community. This theory is pushed forward by one interview on the Unsolved Mysteries segment as Judy’s friend says, “If you are looking for a mystery man, there wasn’t one.” Some have said that this implied that Judy had met a mystery woman, not a man. However, this theory is full of holes. No friends or family ever had any indication that Judy was questioning her sexuality. Judy had been married to men on three occasions and had other boyfriends as well. This explanation fails to explain why this realization would cause Judy to unexpectedly travel hundreds of miles and cease contact with her children. It also fails to explain who killed Judy.
Others have speculated that Judy was tricked into going to North Carolina. Perhaps she met someone while sightseeing who offered her a ride and that person abducted her or drove her to North Carolina for some reason.
Personally, I have always wondered if Judy was suffering from early onset dementia or Alzheimer’s disease. This would be a similar theory to the psychotic break theory; however, I believe this explains why Judy was described as both disoriented and acting normal in different sightings. I am by no means an expert, but if I understand correctly, patients with these conditions can get very confused and agitated but can also have times of acting completely lucid. I think this theory can explain why Judy forgot her license at home before flying, and can also explain her disappearance. I think it is possible Judy got on the wrong bus and ended up first at the Deptford mall and then eventually North Carolina, simply getting more and more lost each day. Of course, this hypothesis does not solve Judy’s murder, it simply gives an explanation for her travels.
A final theory that is prevalent online is the idea that the doe found in Pisgah National Forest was not Judy at all and was instead misidentified. While this is always possible and something I have entertained from time to time, Judy was matched via dental records, her arthritic knee, and her distinct engagement ring with a pear-shaped stone. If the doe was not Judy, then the mystery becomes even stranger, and now includes the identity and murder of yet another woman. While the odds of a similarly aged woman, with a bad knee, similar dental work, and a plain silver wedding band accompanied with a fancy diamond engagement ring, who was not Judy being murdered in the forest is possible, I believe that it is not very likely. Proponents of this theory point to the ME’s report that the doe had been in the forest for over a year, while Judy had been missing only five months at the time of her discovery.
TO BE CONTINUED...
Full list of sources are in part two- https://unsolved.com/gallery/judy-smith/
link to part 2 https://www.reddit.com/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/kky2l2/when_a_body_is_found_600_miles_away_extensive_two/
submitted by Quirky-Motor to UnresolvedMysteries [link] [comments]

Why your car was sold with overpriced accessories

So you saw a car listed for an awesome price online. You call up the dealership to make sure it's for real and they confirm over the phone: Yep, we stand by our online pricing! I'll pull the car and have it ready for you. You then drive six hours to the dealership only to learn that "we stand by our online pricing" included the fine print disclaimer price does not include mandatory accessories.
Why do car dealerships advertise like this?
Because most customers go on AutoTrader or CarGurus and sort by lowest price. Dealerships know this and look for ways to make their price the lowest and therefore have their cars listed first. No one's going to buy a Toyota Corolla from the eighth page of search returns so if you want to sell cars, you need to be listed high. No two ways about it.
[Note: the only exception to this is CarGurus. When you submit a lead to Gurus on a Jeep Wrangler from one dealership, they're going to retarget you with ads for Wranglers from other dealerships. A large proportion of Gurus leads are generated from that retargeting.]
The thing here is that all dealerships pay the same thing to acquire a car from the manufacturer and have virtually the same dealer cost when accounting for all revenue streams. If the "true" cost of expenses/revenues differs from two dealership by $500, that's a lot. So for all intents and purposes, two dealerships with the same car have invested the same amount of capital into it, all things equal. While "lowest price" is something of a myth which is beyond the purposes of this post, the floor that most volume dealerships will be willing to discount a car to will be a generally set amount. That's to say if you're looking at the same car with an MSRP of $20,000 at ten dealerships and get apples-to-apples quotes for OTD pricing on each one, the 3-4 best quotes will probably end up within a $200-$300 range which is a pretty narrow band.
So if you want your dealership's prices to consistently appear the lowest on 3rd party aggregator sites, you need to get creative. In pretty much every market there's a dealership that does the following:
  1. Lower the price of the car by $2,000 below the otherwise acceptable price floor.
  2. Add VIN etching to every car for $700 (dealer cost: $5).
  3. Add paint protection to every car for $800 (dealer cost: $50).
  4. Add nitrogen to every tire for $500 (dealer cost: $10).
  5. Add pinstriping to every car for $200 (dealer cost: $20).
  6. Add a security system to ever car for $600 (dealer cost: $100).
The price listed will not reflect those accessories- that would defeat the point of structuring the pricing that way. Depending on the state the standard accessories may be listed in the fine print or it may simply say pricing may not reflect mandatory accessories, see dealer for details. Or something to that nature. Boom- your price appears $2,000 lower than the competition and you're going to start stealing business from them. Sure, customers will be pissed off when they show up and find out the price was fictitious, but they usually still buy when the final price is comparable to what they would have gotten elsewhere.
At this point the other dealerships competing with this one have a choice. Do they want to stick to their moral high ground and exercise transparency in online pricing? In a vacuum sure, but doing so accepts that they will lose a not-inconsiderable amount of business. At the end of the day, employees of a car dealership pay their mortgage and buy groceries with dollars, not moral credits. The dealership with the least ethical practices in a given market will set the standard with which other dealerships will choose to compete with or starve.
Customers don't storm out and buy a car somewhere else when this happens?
Think about this. According to NADA statistics:
  1. The average car buyer makes 1.1 dealership visits before making a purchase.
  2. If a customer leaves a car lot without making a purchase, there's a 97-98% chance they never return. Not tomorrow, not ever, not even for parts or service.
  3. If a customer with the financial means to buy a car steps onto a lot, even "just to look", they're virtually certain to buy a car somewhere within one week.
What does this mean? The dealership with the scurrilous business tactics knows that realistically, the most successful business plan is to do whatever is necessary to gain the edge over its competition in getting customers in the door with the thought of buying a car.
You may say that customers will see what's happening, throw their hands up, read the riot act to everyone in screaming distance, and take their business elsewhere. This usually doesn't happen in this circumstance. More often the customer invested a six hour drive in driving to this shitty dealership and that entire time was getting married to the idea of leaving their old car and taking the new one home. Also, this dealership is going to do everything it can to poison the well and convince the customer that the same phantom accessory package will be added everywhere else they go and that they're still going to be the cheapest car on the market (or at least comparable). Then they'll make a faux-concession (remember I showed that they built in some profit with the accessories) as a show of good faith (hah!) to close the customer.
Realistically, while it goes 100% against everything you dear readebuyer would insist the average customer would do, that's not the truth. Maybe you would refuse to complete the transaction but if so you're distinctly in the minority- and a small one. The fact is that a scheme like this will lose some customers, like yourself, but it will gain more than it loses.
This problem is likely to continue until customers start choosing which dealership to give their business to by a metric other than pricing.
This is bullshit! States should outlaw practices like this!
Some do and it's market suicide because such regulations end at the state border. I work in South Carolina; the TLDR is that our state makes dealerships jump through hoops to have fees in excess of $225. For this reason most dealerships are right at that number and are rarely over $350 or so. So my state actually has this kind of regulation in place.
What's the end effect? North Carolina and Georgia have almost no regulation of fees. This means that dealerships in Atlanta, Augusta, and Charlotte regularly advertise the same car I have on my lot for $3,000 to $5,000 less than what I advertise them for- and in most cases, I'd be able to sell you the car for the same amount. If you're a SC resident I'd be able to sell it for less due to a favorable tax structure. But we lose business to dealerships across the state boundaries for this exact reason all the time. I've heard sales consultants swear up and down on the phone with customers who were otherwise a sure sale that the amazing deal we won't touch just over the state line is a mirage which will vanish the moment they arrive. Most customers assume we're full of shit because of course we're saying that. Then they spend half a day driving out of state and buy out of state for previously mentioned reasons.
All the more reason to allow manufacturers to conduct direct sales!
Imagine a world where, when you want a new car, a dealership just drops one off in front of your house and sends you a bill. Might be a Nissan Versa. Might a Chevy Silverado 3500 diesel. Might be a pogo stick. You do not get to choose what the car is nor can you contest the cost. Your only choice is to pay the bill and make it work. Sounds like a pretty great deal for the dealership, right? While I'll admit I'm simplifying things, this is essentially the relationship that manufacturers have with dealerships now. Let me rephrase this to make it more clear. I'm worried what you dear reader hear me saying is manufacturers don't want to engage in direct sales. What I'm actually saying is manufacturers fucking LOVE the status quo.
Kia Motors of America for example is having incredible success with the Telluride- so much so that Regional managers are using allotments to strongarm dealers into ordering more of less popular inventory. Last year my dealership ordered 20 base Sorentos just to get two more Tellurides allotted. Kia can damn near tell its dealerships to sell X of one car and Y of another car to meet production quotas that fit with corporate goals and dealerships will do it. [Incidentally, that's a big part of why a universal one-price model is unlikely- manufacturers would rather modulate price in many cases than modulate production.]
I don't believe you.
Ok, fine. Let's look at the financials that make direct sales ridiculously unlikely.
Even if manufacturers wanted to sell directly to customers, franchise agreements ban competition from the manufacturer and in some cases create exclusive territories. So to engage in direct sales manufacturers would need to buy out all of their franchises. There are about 16,000 car dealerships in the United States- even accounting for not all of them selling new cars, this would cost tens (if not hundreds) of billions of dollars. For reference, I work at a mid-size dealership with three brands. I would estimate it would take $40-50M to get the ownership family interested in selling. To buy my entire dealership group (three dealerships, eight brands) it would be more like a quarter billion dollars. For one dealership group.
Even if that were to happen, it wouldn't be the end of things. Manufacturers would still need to buy dealership assets. Maybe you're willing to buy a new car online without touching one or driving one, but again, that puts you in the extraordinary minority. Most customers want to be able to touch and sit in and drive a car before a final financial commitment. Even Tesla, the poster child for direct sales, has showrooms for this purpose. They just use different vocabulary.
Beyond showrooms, the manufacturer-owned dealerships would need to reacquire inventory.They'd need to bring service and parts departments (and THEIR inventory) back in-house. Then they'd need to hire all the techs in service, service advisors, sales staff from parts, porters, and the like. This also means hiring people for the accounting office to manage payroll and pay the bills. You know, all the people currently working at the dealership.
Ok, fine, but this still means that we can have a model where the price is the price!
Not a chance. Sales consultants will still exist. Negotiated prices will still exist. Even though Ford Dealership #1 is no longer competing with Ford Dealership #2, you damn well bet the manufacturer will want a sales consultant who can convince a customer that a Ford product is better than a Chevy or a Nissan, and you can also bet that they'll want the sales consultants to be able to sacrifice some profit to capture that business from a rival manufacturer. And they'll want the car on site so that they can have you take the car home that day and remove you from the market.
And another concept I alluded to earlier- the auto market follows traditional economic laws of supply and demand, but the market price of a given car can often change faster than the average time an example of that car sits on dealership pavement. This means that price needs to modulate in real-time to address changes in supply and demand. That said, this is another topic that really needs its own post to fully explore and I don't want to stray too far from the topic at hand.
By the way, there are some corporate-owned stores in the world. They function exactly like franchise dealerships. You don't realize there are corporate-owned stores because there's no functional difference.
You also need to realize that cars are sold with market-based pricing. Everyone likes to say that direct sales will remove the dealership middle-man and therefore eliminate one stage of markup, but no one stops and thinks about that logically. Market-based pricing decouples production cost from sale price. Let's say that the fair market value where I live for a Kia Forte LXS, a mass market unit without any weird economic factors in play, is $19,000. If I snap my fingers and transfer ownership of my dealership to the manufacturer, the car's going to still be sold for what the market will bear. Besides, fluctuations in the car market happen faster than a car might sit on the lot- dealerships need a dynamic pricing model that allows for the sale price of a vehicle to be responsive to non-static market conditions.
Ok, so what should I do when I want to buy the car?
You have a few choices here. As a prelude, we strongly encourage customers to NOT buy from dealerships that engage in practices like this. Unless these advertising practices stop producing sales, they will continue.
If you're still going to go ahead with a purchase there are a few things to consider.
If negotiating a price before you come in, ask them to write up and sign a Buyer's Order and send you a picture. Writing Buyer's Orders and not honoring them is fraudulent. Granted exceptions to fraud exist for honest mistakes, but dealerships that engage in shitty practices know that they can only get away with that so often before it starts to result in fines from the state AG's office. If they refuse, offer to give them $500 over the phone as a partial down payment (refunded at the time of purchase if you're doing 100% financing). Many dealerships that want to be transparent may be unwilling to show you a Buyer's Order before coming in because they're not interested in being your leverage to negotiate down a local dealer. Offering to give them real money will ameliorate this concern and demonstrate you're ready to buy from them right now if they honor pricing.
Remember that this pricing schematic is not a profit-driver for the dealership. Sometimes it results in a modest profit but more often it just results in the car being sold for dealer cost or thereabout. This means that a fair price for the car with no accessories is basically identical to fair price with none of them. If your concern is that you don't want to pay for the accessories, then just ignore them and pretend they don't exist. Think of it as line items that read "Market Adjustments: -$2000, +$600, +$1400. The dealership isn't going to take off the accessory charges without also taking off the fictitious discount that they exist to offset. If your concern is that you literally don't want the accessories, I don't blame you. I wouldn't want flashing brake lights that required cutting into wiring or VIN etching performed by someone making minimum wage who doesn't give a shit about quality either. In this case, do not tell them to remove the accessories- they won't. Tell them you want a virgin car and they can either dealer trade one or wait for the next shipment, and you're cool with them writing you a deal that produces the same profit margin they'd expect from a unit with all the accessories you don't want.
You'll need to go through some fine print to separate out accessory charges from dealer fees and negotiate accordingly. These are very different items in terms of pricing but can appear on a line-item offer sheet with similar verbiage. You can negotiate a virgin car that doesn't have things like Paint Protection, VIN Etching, and Pinstriping (given limitations in the previous step). However, any negotiating about things like Lot Prep Fee and Dealer Closing Fee are 100% untouchable. Just ask if the charge sounds like it represents a product added to the car or a normal part of dealership business operations. The latter will always be baked into the price and you should ignore it. Again, just focus on the out-the-door price of the car.
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[S] Survivor: Cook Islands FINISHED

After lots of thought, I've decided to finish the season up in the summary form, with confessionals to go along with it to keep things detailed. I hope you all understand, and if you have any constructive criticism, let me know in the comments, as it's my first time using this method, so it'd be nice to hear it if you have any. With that being said, let's get to the season!
MEET THE CAST
Aitutaki Tribe
Manihiki Tribe
Puka Puka Tribe
Rarotonga Tribe
​
THE SEASON: https://brantsteele.net/survivocookislands/r.php?c=Pm0Eh0dI
THE WRITEUPS: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VEKjX_cJTh6CY5X_nI0nFSAwQFNVsn0IO8NLYZV9Xhk/edit?usp=sharing
THE CHARTS: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/19jjCmIPcgFjCNxVRxLL8l48gPscVJWn7jqAoaxwqoIs/edit?usp=sharing
​
My thoughts (I'll only be talking about 11th onwards, as I had thoughts when I released my episodes the old way)
11th: R2. R2 had the potential to be great, as he's a legend in the sub (he was just in the Legends bracket). And by no means do I think he was a bad player. I don't think any of the final 11 was truly a bad player, although some were better than others. I loved his love hate relationship with Bao, and I think it resolved very nicely.
10th: Bao. I really think Bao got robbed by the double elimination twist. Do I think he could have won? Potentially, but it's hard to think that far ahead. The one thing I can say is that he maybe should have tried to get other people to bring up R2 for him, as once R2 went, he was seen as the one who made the move, which probably made him go. Great player and personality though!
9th: Big T. It was really sad to see Big T go here. He was a fun personality and also a fun player, surviving alone at the start of the swap to the merge. I can't really say much about his elimination episode, except that he maybe could have avoided it if he sided with Justine in the swap, however who knows if he would be able to make the merge if he were to do that.
8th: The Leviathan. I think The Leviathan was an okay player. Not great by any means, but not horrible. Things mostly just went down hill when he insistently targeted Derrick, and he ultimately paid the price for it. I do think it was impressive that he managed to survive after getting so many votes pre merge though.
7th: Justine. Where do I begin with Justine! I really loved her as a character and as a player, even if as a player... she wasn't the best. Socially at least she wasn't, as she burned people with her mutiny, and didn't make an effort to try and talk to them again. However that doesn't take away from how entertaining and fun she was.
6th: Nicole. It broke my heart to see Nicole be medevaced. If she wasn't, she had a really strong chance of winning. She was playing a pretty good game, she spearheaded most of the merge votes, and a good chunk of the votes on her old tribe. She can arguably be seen as the best player of the final 11, but it depends how you see it.
5th: Alexa. Although not the best player, she was a fine character until Nicole was medevaced. If you think I made her like she was for no reason, I was planning on doing something like this ever since I read her backstory. I'm happy that she is going to change and has realized her wrongdoings though, even if she has a long way to go.
4th: Matt. Again, a pretty good player, although he may have been seen as Nicole's lap dog, I do think he was an alright player individually and he proved that after he survived until the final 4 after her medevac. I think it was really interesting that he voted against Andrea at the final 4, and if Luis did as well, he could have made it to the end.
3rd: Derrick. It made me sad that Derrick didn't get any votes, since I think all of the final 3 players played good games. That being said, against Andrea and Luis, I see why he didn't get votes. While he did well, especially in the immunities, Andrea and Luis had him outplayed in one way or the other, although it would have been nice to see at least 1 vote for him.
2nd: Andrea. Andrea was a favorite of mine for her emotional growth throughout the season and her gameplay in general. She had the idol ever since the final 11 and never needed it, she won 3 immunities, had a pretty decent social game, and while a bit lacking strategically, I think she made up for it otherwise.
1st: Luis. Luis is the underdog winner that we needed. He's also the Hispanic winner that we needed, as we didn't have one until he won. He played masterfully socially, rivaling or maybe even besting Blair. He was only immune once at the merge and only got 1 vote the entire game, it just goes to show how good he was. I think he's a great player and character so I'm glad he won!
Thank you for another great season! Stay tuned for sign ups for Survivor: Ecuador, our 14th season! <3
submitted by dramaking_22 to BrantSteele [link] [comments]

Housewife highlights/Daily shit talk - January 28th, 2021

SALT LAKE CITY
"Mary Cosby entered The Real Housewives canon with a bang… well, a whiff. A whiff of "hospital smell." With an unexpected dig at co-star Jen Shah ("You smell like hospital"), the pastor with a passion for fashion cemented herself in the reality TV annals… but then, she slowly showed up less and less in each new episode of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City's freshman run, leaving viewers perplexed, wanting to know, where is Mary?!
"I don't know that people want more Mary," Mary herself quips to ET over video chat from her Utah home. "However, I want more Mary."
There is speculation out there that Mary was only a "friend of" during filming of RHOSLC, turned into a full-time Housewife when it came time to edit the episodes. While Mary won't divulge whether that was the case, she does offer a hint.
"How can I say this without being blunt?" she ponders. "It just wasn't purposely done, but they kind of tried to fade Mary out and didn't know Mary was going to be more wanted."
Mary missed out on a group snowmobiling trek, a few dinners and, most surprising, the all-cast trip to Las Vegas, but she says she's not one to get FOMO. Most of Mary's appearances have been solo, at home with her husband, Robert, Sr., their son, Robert, Jr., her housekeepecousin Charlinda and copious amounts of clothing in almost every room; she seems to only interact with the other women over FaceTime -- and that's seemingly by design, on Mary's part. According to her, any opportunity she had to avoid on-screen foe Jen, she took.
"I feel like if I go in to do an event, or go to do something fun or enjoyable, dinner and vacation, that’s super touchy," she offers. "I'm gonna go with someone I enjoy, someone that enjoys me. That sounds fun. But to go with this group? Every escape was, like, literally an escape for me. I was like, ahhh! Especially when I didn't have to go to Vegas. I was so happy, I was so relieved, 'cause I didn't wanna be in trouble. I want to abide by the rules, but … no, I didn't feel left out and I was at peace, very happy."
Mary did have to face the ladies in-person at the season 1 reunion, taped in New York City earlier this month. Ahead of the shoot, Mary appeared on Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen and let it slip she hadn't been keeping up with watching the episodes. She says she wound up binging the season after that in order to get up to speed for reunion day.
"I think what surprised me was when I wasn't on [the episodes]," Mary admits when asked what she learned by finally watching the show. "The spark that comes with me. Oh, is that bad? … Like, my absence? It's clearly there."
Mary says the 12-hour filming day warrants a three-part reunion, as the women worked through all the issues from their debut outing. She says there will be resolution to the drama she sparked for the rest of the cast after claiming Lisa Barlow and Meredith Marks are "afraid of Jen" ("Does Mary Cosby lie? No, she does not lie," she purrs, alluding to where things go), as well as a number of unexpected apologies. Mary says she both gave and received apologies, which might mean a truce for her and Jen. When Bravo released the cast photo from the shoot, Mary and Jen were side by side and smiling -- but Mary's lips are (mostly) sealed.
"It's safe to say that says something, it says progress," she teases, but also notes she does not regret the "you smell like hospital" comment in the least. She says the remark, which Mary made before filming started, was never directed at Jen, like Jen assumed (Jen had been looking after her sick aunt, who underwent a double amputation on her legs around this time). In fact, Mary is adamant that she said "it smells like hospital," speaking about the general atmosphere of the restaurant she was in with Jen and Meredith at the time, not Jen nor her aunt. Mary also claims she had no idea about Jen's aunt's condition, nor their close bond, until after the fact.
"No regrets," she declares. "I know my motive, I know where I was coming from. It can [seem like] a dig, and I see that, how it can come across as rude. What I do regret, probably, is the way I got so frustrated. I feel like I was being blamed for her [aunt's] legs and it was for all year, before we even aired. So, as soon as it aired I was like, I am not responsible."
Mary's distaste for the scent of medical buildings left viewers a little confused, though, seeing as a few episodes into the season, fans spotted Mary’s housekeeper, Charlinda, clad in scrubs and delivering Mary a meal on a tray, each item individually wrapped in cellophane as if it came from a hospital cafeteria. Mary says that's always how she's taken her food, a germ-free style of serving she learned from her late grandmother, Rosemary.
"It's how we were raised," she says, noting that when she was in the hospital herself to have "all [her] odor glands removed," her meals actually came on a cart and under cloche domes, like room service at a hotel.
As for Charlinda, Mary's cousin whom she claimed to not actually know all that well, despite being her employee for two decades? She's no longer in the picture.
"I don't know, she got the green eye and she turned on me and she left," Mary reveals. "She lived with me rent free for 20 years and then to turn on me it's, like, I really don’t know who she is."
While she still doesn't know Charlinda, Mary says she's never been more sure of who she (meaning Mary) is as a person. She says it's a relief for her story to be out in the world.
"This is Mary, and you accept Mary and her life or you don't," she says. "I don't have to hide. I don't have to steal. I don't have to cheat. I don't have to be someone I'm not -- and not only do I live by those morals every day, but now I can live it to the world."
Mary's home life became a hot topic as soon as her Bravo bio hit the internet, Housewives fans honing in on one a quick line about how Mary is married to her one-time step-grandfather. It was her grandmother's wish that Mary take over her life -- the church she pastored, the businesses she ran, the homes she owned and, yes, even her marriage -- upon her death. As Mary said when the revelation made its way to TV, "Don't think it wasn't weird, 'cause it was! But I did it because I trusted my grandmother, and I'm so glad I did it."
"Life's just going to take you where you're supposed to go," Mary says. "It's up to you to follow it. [Joining the show] felt good. It felt right. I’m like, people think I'm weird [already]. They say it behind my back, they talk behind my back, let me just tell them in their face: This is Mary and, yes, I am married to my grandmother's ex-husband. How about that?"
Ahead of the season, Mary joined The Real Housewives of New Jersey star Teresa Giudice for an Instagram Live, and proclaimed she had no skeletons in her closet. Then, allegations and accusations about Mary's life popped up online, with Reddit threads running rampant with rumors that Mary runs a cult, lives off of tithings given to the church by its parishioners, and only preached for the congregation when TV cameras showed up. She says it's all just nonsense.
"Clearly I’m not gonna get on national television, be a Housewife and be in a cult," Mary scoffs. "Like, come on. I believe in my church."
"They've been saying that since my grandmother started at the church," she says of the cult allegation. "There's no cult. ... My church members, they know those are false allegations. Those are ridiculous. It’s the people that are looking for fault."
Alleged audio of Mary demanding her congregation to give more offerings recently surfaced online, but Mary says she never takes funds from the church for personal use. The parish does believe in tithings, however, but that money stays at the church. It's not Mary's.
"That's so cruel," she says of the idea she would steal from the temple. "I feel like it's so judgmental, because I am African American and a woman and I do have an eye for finer things in life."
"I have intelligent church members and they know that was all to God," she adds. "I'm so not in it for the money. Oh my goodness, I believe in what I do, I believe in what I'm saying, and I love my church and I love what they are. … Money can't fulfill that, not for me."
Mary says she's happy to provide proof that she's preached at Faith Temple Church for more than 20 years, promising she would never have filmed one of her sermons for the show just as a performance. As for where her own money actually comes from, Mary says one, she's "blessed" by generational wealth passed down by her family and two, she and her husband own a number of businesses, including a successful printing company, which focuses on large-scale jobs, like billboards and mass production of shopping bags.
"But it's not like I just have money coming out of the walls," she cautions. "These [designer] things that I have are collector pieces."
Mary's "designer things" have also been much-talked about, as she shows up on the show in out-of-the-box fashions -- for the record, her favorite look is the one she wore to Park City Fashion Week, and she "hated" her makeup at the reunion, which is why she says she FaceTuned her posts from that day so much. On a recent episode, Mary revealed more than one room in her house doubles as a closet. Co-star Whitney Rose dubbed Mary a "high-end hoarder." While Mary threw out the idea of renting out a condo for a closet, she says she’s yet to pull the trigger, which would actually make for a fun season 2 story… that is, if she comes back for round two.
"I don't know if I'll do this again," she confesses. "That's a strong question, and I think I need a little harvesting. I think it's premature. I mean, would they want me back?"
Yes, Mary, they would."
ORANGE COUNTY
"RHOC alum Jo De La Rosa has revealed her father, Juan, died aged 63 from Covid.
The devastated reality star, 40, said she buried her 15-year feud with Juan shortly before he died of the virus last week.
Jo - who starred in the first four seasons of RHOC - shared a video montage of sweet photos with Juan on Instagram, which she titled, "The Story Of Us".
"It is with the heaviest of hearts I share I lost my dad to Covid last week," she wrote.
"This pandemic has been life-changing for many people and unfortunately, Covid won this time. My father, Juan Carlos Contreras, was only 63."
The Bravo star added: "I’ve never cried more tears in my life than these last few days but today, I want to celebrate him and remember all the happy times we shared so I made a video called 'The Story of Us' which captures our story when my mom met him all the way until they got divorced."
Jo described Juan as "the type of person that would walk into a room and instantly capture people’s attention".
"He was the most charming, outgoing, playful and most 'people person' of all people persons you would’ve ever met," she said.
"He was a high school teacher, the most gifted musician, and had the silliest personality which I now realize is where I get it from. To put it simply, he was JOY."
Jo explained that her mother met Juan "at 14 as her guitar teacher and they fell in love through music ".
"He could do no wrong in my eyes and although my heart is filled with so much love for him, it’s also shattered and feels so heavy for not being able to reconcile sooner as it’s been 15 years since we last spoke," she added.
Jo explained that she ended their estrangement with an email when she found out Juan was ill - but isn't sure if he ever got it.
"That’s as much as my heart can share about our situation but I sent him an email when I found out he was in the hospital. In it, I told him I loved him and I wanted him back in my life," she explained.
"I don’t know if he ever got it but I was reminded by one of my best friends I’ll see him in Heaven again one day and we’ll have the rest of eternity to be able to reconcile. Thank you Doni for that truth as your words have been a light in my darkness."
She concluded: "To my dad - I love you. I forgive you. You meant absolutely everything to me. I can’t wait to see you when God finally calls me and says it’s time.
"All I want is to be able to tell you see you again and tell you these words face to face."
Jo shared a series of heartwarming memories of her and Juan, including them playing guitar and piano together, as well as posing in front of a Christmas tree and out in the snow."
"Kelly Dodd may be done with “The Real Housewives of Orange County.”
The Positive Beverage founder, 45, said in an Instagram Live that she would not return to the Bravo series if castmate Braunwyn Windham-Burke comes back for Season 16.
“I know I cannot film with Braunwyn,” she started telling fans in the Instagram Live (captured by a fan account). “I know for a fact that I cannot film with her. There’s just no way and if she comes back then I’m out because I know for a fact that I cannot. She’s dangerous and calling people racists and homophobic.”
Dodd and Windham-Burke, 43, have been at odds since Dodd accused the mom of seven of using her sobriety for a storyline. She also questioned Windham-Burke’s decision to come out as a lesbian after over two decades of marriage to her husband, Sean Burke.
Off camera, Dodd accused Windham-Burke of once being placed under a 5150 psychiatric hold, a claim Windham-Burke denied.
Dodd added, “And … saying I’m a bad mom, I’m running around, like, traveling, well I was traveling, yes, but I was also selling two homes. And thank God I did because I’d be stuck with four mortgages, right?”
She then took a jab at Windham-Burke, adding, “I wasn’t going to party it up with the Salt Lake City chicks.”
Windham-Burke jetted off to Utah in September to hang out with Kary Brittingham from “RHOD” and Heather Gay from “RHOSLC.”
“If I’m coming back next year, I just can’t come back next year filming with somebody so reckless,” Dodd said. “I just can’t. If she’s on, I’m probably out. So, that’s probably the way it goes. And by the way, she says she couldn’t film with me, so there you go.”
Vicki Gunvalson claims that a Real Housewives of Orange County producer was out to get her, alleges the same producer was also the reason she and Braunwyn Windham-Burke got off to a rocky start.
Vicki has been very vocal since her RHOC departure and has openly admitted she was deeply hurt when she was fired after 14 seasons on the show. She’s now revealing some behind-the-scenes tea and discussing one particular producer that she still loathes to this day.
“There is a producer that’s currently on this cast, the last two years, that does not like me,” she claimed. “And I don’t like him. It’s public. I mean, I think he’s a snake in the grass and I think he’s always stirring up conflict that is not real conflict. So him and I had it out and I’m sure he probably said ‘she’s a problem, let’s get rid of her,’ you know? Because I saw right through his bullsh*t every time. Like why are you telling her to say that about me? Oh, he purposely just kind of tried to stir the pot and manipulate the situation.”
The Coto Insurance founder admits that she still “can’t stand” Braunwyn, but she explains what really went down the first night she met her at Tamra Judge‘s house.
“She came after me the first time at Tamra’s and I’ll never forgive her for it ever,” she told David Yontef on the Behind the Velvet Rope podcast. “[But] off-camera she told me, ‘our producer told me to go after you.’ Cool! I took him by his earlobe, put him up against the wall, and said, ‘what the heck are you doing? I’m a quote-unquote friend this year and you’re going to do this to me the first time I get together with everybody? F*ck you!’ I was livid,” the grandmother-of-three shared.
“He’s just not a good guy. When you know that about a producer, you just don’t give them your all,” she continued.
Vicki was then asked what she regrets the most about doing the show and what advice she would go back and give herself in season one.
“I did everything right except falling prey to divorce,” she shared. “I mean, I think that in hindsight, I know for a fact that if I wasn’t on a reality show, I wouldn’t have been divorced. And that cost Donn and I both a lot of money because we had to split assets and alimony and all that stuff, so I paid more to him than he did to me because I had the business. So that’s hurtful and that’s hard.”
She goes on to reveal that because of her popularity from the show, she thought she “could have it all,” and that frame of mind paired with the fact that she and Donn were already having trouble is what led to an affair with Brooks Ayers.
“[Briana Culberson] and I talked about it because, [full] disclosure, I had an affair with Brooks,” she revealed. “I was traveling a lot with work and I had been in Atlanta and he was Mr. Southern gentlemen. And when we started to chat at that time, Donn and I were disconnected, my love tank was empty, [and] we were not having sex or anything. I felt very alone and so when another man started giving me attention, Donn and I were so distant, I just know it was an influential time in my life where I thought I was popular, I thought I could have it all. And you know, I ruined the family,” she humbly admitted.
Vicki claims she was so busy with both work and the show that she simply did not put the time into her marriage that she needed to. As a result, she and Donn grew extremely distant, and she wasn’t the only one who began to stray.
“I knew I didn’t bookend my relationship, and through counseling, I figured this out. When you travel the way I do and did, I would wake up, go to my meetings, go do my thing during the day with work,” Vicki explained. “Then at night, we would party and I would go to bed [at] one or two o’clock alone, but I never called Donn, or I never reached out to him and said, ‘I’m waking up, I’m going to meetings, or I’m in bed and I’m safe.'”
“And so what happened was one day went into two days into three days and I get home and he was like a stranger to me,” she continued. “And it was, you know, I’ll take the blame for it. He started straying, I started straying, and everything became more important than him and that’s not a marriage. You can’t do that.”
"If Heather Dubrow earned a dollar every time she was asked about The Real Housewives of Orange County, she’d have enough cash to build 10 more extravagant houses.
While the RHOC reference tickles her now, Heather said she wasn’t always thrilled to be constantly asked about the series. “You know, at the beginning when I first left the show, it was annoying because I just wanted it to break free and do my own thing and take my brand back and, you know, kind of move on,” she admitted to Showbiz Cheat Sheet.
“And I just couldn’t because everywhere I went, that’s all they asked about,” she said. “Now I feel like four or five years after leaving the show, I’ve done so many other things now. [Husband] Terry and I have written three books together. My podcast has has over 101 million downloads. My YouTube channel, TV shows I’ve done and hosting and whatnot.”
“And with a new show coming out [The Seven Year Stitch], I feel like in my heart that people see me as Heather Dubrow now,” she reflected. “And not a member of RHOC. It’s just part of my history. So now what I get asked about it, I think it’s kind of amusing.”
Heather’s teenage daughter Max, who recently launched the podcast, I’ll Give it To You Straightish, said she’s never identified as a Housewives kid.
“I think that my mom specifically like she’s not just an ex-Housewife,” Max told Showbiz Cheat Sheet. “She does so many amazing things and will continue to and did before that.”
“So, you know, when they’re like on every article is like ‘Heather Dubrow, former Housewife,’ it’s like she’s more than that,” she continued. “And so that’s you know … let it go. But for me personally, it hasn’t really bothered me. I’m just Heather Dubrow’s daughter. Not really a former Housewives kid.”
Heather shared how she continues to supervise Max’s foray into the world of podcasting without being too heavy-handed with her guidance. “I came from really very nice parents, but my mom was controlling. And I’m controlling too but in a different kind of way. Like, I always felt like I needed her help,” Heather said.
“And if I didn’t get her approval on something … it’s just not the kind of relationship I wanted with my kids,” Heather admitted. “I always like to say, you know, my job is to develop [and] to raise these healthy, functioning, independent children.”
“And to me, any of the kids want advice and help. I don’t tell them how to do it,” she added. “I guide them so they can figure it out themselves.” For example, when Max started her own podcast, she quickly learned that it was a huge undertaking.
“People think these things that it’s easy and think, oh everyone should do that. It’s very difficult to do,” Heather shared. “But I love that she’s working it out and figuring it out on her own because that’s how not only is she going to learn that, but she’s going to succeed.”
NEW YORK
"Former “Real Housewives of New York” star Barbara Kavovit has officially announced she’s running for mayor of New York City — adding to an already crowded field of Democratic candidates.
The Bronx-born Kavovit made it official on her Instagram Wednesday, saying her beloved Big Apple “is in a state of crisis” under Mayor de Blasio’s watch.
“I may not be a politician, but I’m a Bronx-born New Yorker who isn’t fearful of the hard work and tough decisions that lay ahead,” she wrote. “It will take a builder to rebuild #NYC, and I’m the woman to do it.”
In September, Kavovit, the CEO of Evergreen Construction, floated her dreams of Gracie Mansion, telling Page Six she was ready to rebuild the city.
“Number one is rebuild a safer and more inclusive New York City,” she said at the time. “So I feel like the city is not a safe place. So if it’s not safe, people don’t want to come to New York City. People don’t want to stay in New York City.”
Kavovit, 55, said her company, which she launched at age 21, is one of the largest female-owned commercial construction firms in the city.
Last year, Evergreen took a sledgehammer to Harvey Weinstein’s old offices at 99 Hudson Street.
“As a Bronx girl who’s paved her way in the male-dominated world of construction, I know something about overcoming adversity, creating opportunity and building something out of nothing–both for myself and those around me,” she said on her website. “And that’s why I’m running for Mayor of New York City.”
Kavovit starred in Bravo’s hit “Housewives” series during Season 11 in 2019.
In June’s Democratic primary, she’ll square off against hopefuls including Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, former presidential candidate and businessman Andrew Yang, New York City’s former sanitation commissioner Kathryn Garcia and former Citigroup executive Ray McGuire."
ATLANTA
NEW JERSEY
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Shanann Watts Was Human

Shan’ann Cathryn Rzucek formally known as Shanann Watts, was once a child. A little girl with big dreams like we all fantasize about as young children do. I stumbled upon an old image of Shanann as a toddler and she was the spitting image of Bella.
We don’t know extensively about her childhood background or what it was like growing up with her 2 parents and sibling. Only a small handful of people stepped forward to speak about Shanann from her early years.
Matt Francis was interviewed in September 2018. Francis was not only her theatre teacher, but Shanann’s confidant who she remained in contact with throughout her life. Francis says, “She [Shanann] was a very insecure young lady who didn’t have a lot of friends, but she was brave enough to sign up for beginner’s acting and I think that’s where (laughs) she made a big mistake. She realized she was going to be around a lot of outgoing people most of the time.” The interviewer then says something like we must not be talking about the same person because she seemed like such a confident woman. The interviewer then says, “She’s was teased a lot and had a low self-image?” Francis replies, “Yes. Her self-esteem was low. She did not have a very good self-image and I used to joke a lot with her.” The interviewer scrunches up her face and asks something about the different theories out there about how Shanann pronounced and spelled her name. Francis called her “Shanna Anne.” where “I broke it up into 2 syllables. She could’ve changed the spelling of her name in later life.” The interviewer moves on to read a letter Shanann wrote to her beloved teacher. In it she says her thanks and says, “Not only have you been there as a friend, but also you have been like a father figure to me.”
As young adults, we start to learn more about ourselves and what we want. In Shanann’s case, she got married to a man named Leonard King from 2002-2008. Shanann was still in high school at the time. She was young and in love before the turbulent marriage collapsed in divorce. According to police discovery, King claims Shanann spent too much time at work and they just drifted apart, even though they tried marriage counselling. They had no children together.
Shanann has held a variety of jobs straight out of high school: cell phone sales; store manager for a tire shop called Dirty South; sales at a Ford dealership; call center and human resources at a children’s hospital; to a long list of Multi-Level Marketing companies such as: LulaRoe, ItWorks!, Thirty One, Younique, Carsen Books, Monat, DoTerra, AMWAY, Thrive, and more.
Rewinding back the tape to 2009, now single again, Shanann had her own home built in Charlotte, North Carolina. But she wasn’t there for too long before her life changed when she met Christopher Lee Watts.
Christopher Shit Watts was 25 when he met Shanann Rzucek, who was almost a year his senior.
In an interview on the Dr. Phil Show following Shanann Watt’s death, Sandi Rzucek mentioned that, in 2010, her daughter wasn’t really looking for a relationship, because she was dealing with severe health complications. Sandy was told Shanann had been diagnosed with lupus and diabetes.
According to Chris Watts, Shanann said he wasn’t her type. But as time would have it, she caved in and things progressed rather quickly from there. Chris was a quiet guy, an introvert who liked to go with the flow and avoid confrontation; a good foil to Shanann’s domineering personality. As she put it, “Yes, I wear the pants in the relationship.”
After two years of dating, the couple married on November 3, 2012 in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina—much to the chagrin of both of their parents, it seems. Chris’ side of the family, with the exception of an uncle and his grandmother showed up to Shanann & Chris’ wedding. Drama between the two families created a wedge that eventually ended in tragedy. Shanann and Cindy, Chris’ mother were always butting heads throughout the marriage. In many ways, contrary to popular opinion, the 2 women are a lot alike. We see the first signs of narcissism around the wedding and every event thereafter. It’s very common for a child of a narcissist to then go on to marry one. Of course, this is my opinion. Everything we know or don’t know about this case is up for debate.
The couple was eager to start a family. Their first daughter, Bella Marie Watts, was born in Colorado on December 17, 2013. Their second, Celeste Cathryn “CeCe” Watts was born on July 17, 2015, also in Colorado.
According to Shanann’s Facebook and social media accounts, her second pregnancy was a particularly difficult one, worsened by her Lupus, so Shanann’s parents lived with her and Chris for 15 months to help out. Sandi wrote that between her and Frank, they sold everything but their home to move to Colorado.
According to Shanann, both of her two little girls had major health issues that required a variety of medical appointments, hospitalizations, procedures, and surgeries in their young lives. Both girls allegedly had asthma and CeCe had serious allergies to tree nuts. CeCe was born with an underdeveloped esophagus, so had to have several procedures. Their medical care added to their parents’ growing debt.
On June 2015, the Watts’ ended up filing for bankruptcy, with apparently less than $10.00 in their bank account and a whopping $448,000 in debt, including what was owed on their mortgage and unsecured debt, much of it from their wedding and medical bills for Shanann and the girls.
And their financial situation didn’t get much better over time; in July 2018, the couple’s homeowners’ association filed a lawsuit against them for $1,533. Apparently, Shanann had been sending their HOA payment checks to the incorrect address. Their court date was set for August 24, 2018…11 days after Shanann and the girls went missing.
Could their financial woes have played a part in the eventual unraveling of their seemingly happy marriage? Possibly. But there may have been even greater factors.
We now know more about the complicated family dynamics between Shanann and Chris’ family. Shanann’s family openly embraced Chris as their “son” and were very loving and helpful to him and Shanann. Chris Watts’ parents, Cindy Watts and Ronald “Ronnie” Watts, didn’t want their son to marry Shanann Rzucek, because Cindy said she and Shanann “just didn’t get along.”
According to a statement by Sandi Rzucek, Chris’ mother Cindy didn’t like the idea that Shanann had been married previously. Cindy also confided to her that she felt that Shanann was truly love Chris. She also complained that her daughter-in-law was controlling. So Cindy and Chris’ sister Jamie Watts were both distant in their dealings with Shanann.
Also according to Sandi, Cindy and Jamie sabotaged Shanann and Chris’ engagement party by not sending out invites to much of Shanann’s guest list. This apparently caused some bad feelings between the new couple and the Watts family in the time leading up to the wedding.
In an interview following her son’s sentencing trial and arrest, Cindy Watts claimed that Shanann was too much of a perfectionist, constantly belittling Chris.
“I didn’t like the way she treated him,” Cindy stated. Cindy also claimed that her son always seemed “anxious” around Shanann. Cindy alleged that Chris was always “at her beck and call,” because he was afraid to disappoint his wife. And some of Chris’ statements do support this view. And some of Shanann’s social media posts, images and videos support this view all the same.
However, as stated earlier, it seems apparent that Cindy Watts herself was the leader in her family, so perhaps she also resented having another dominant woman enter her son’s life. She certainly didn’t like the fact that his marriage led to him moving to Colorado.
There was a more recent incident that triggered a further rift in the relationship between Shanann Watts and her in-laws, causing stress between Chris and Shanann. It’s now known as NUTGATE.
In early summer 2018, Shanann and her daughters spent six weeks visiting with both sets of grandparents in North Carolina, going back and forth between the two homes. Chris stayed behind in Colorado, except for one week when he joined them.
On the second weekend at Cindy and Ronnie Watts’ home, Shanann and Cindy apparently had a falling out over Cindy’s lack of concern in giving ice cream that contained nuts to CeCe, who was deathly allergic. We still don’t have a full grasp over what really happened on NUTGATE.
Shanann was so upset over this that she wouldn’t go back to see her in-laws the rest of their time in North Carolina. Shanann posted all about it on Facebook. She openly criticizes Cindy online and tells Chris “The girls and I will never step foot in that house ever again.” Cindy, Ronnie, and Jamie were supposed to attend CeCe’s birthday party at the Rzucek’s home, but they skipped it.
According to a 2019 interview with Chris and the text messages Shanann had told him at this time that she would never let his parents see her daughters ever again.
Over the course of her marriage to Chris Watts, Shanann Watts became increasingly active and popular on social media. She was regularly posting multiple personal and promotional videos, livestreams, and other updates for her various MLM companies.
In her videos, Shanann and Chris were often seen wearing Thrive-branded vitamin-releasing skin patches, which allegedly helped Chris lose a lot of weight. When Chris and Shanann first dated, they were a lot heavier than in recent times according to the pictures of the couple through the years.
Chris, being an introvert, appeared quite uncomfortable with all the videos and social media exposure, but it seems he went along with his wife’s desires.
From what social media showed, they seemed to have a very happy life together. They had the ideal family unit, along with a large five-bedroom home in Colorado. They went on Le-Vel “lifestyle getaways” to Mexico, Las Vegas, San Diego, and other destinations.
Chris Watts seemed like a “happy, loving, and well-adjusted family man who just wanted to provide for his wife and kids.”Of course, looks can be extremely deceiving…and that certainly ended up being true in this case.
Upon first viewing the seemingly fun and lighthearted yet blatantly self-promoting videos Shanann Watts posted to her social media accounts, it seems like she had the perfect life and the perfect family.
Watching them now, however, is like seeing them through a completely different lens. There are moments when her smiles and interactions with her husband and even her children seem almost strained, particularly toward the end.
Weeks before Shanann and her daughters were murdered, she began to sense that something was wrong in her marriage. She even confronted Chris via text about it.
On August 8, 2018, she wrote: “If you are done, don’t love me, don’t want to work this out, not happy anymore and only staying because of kids, I NEED you to tell me.”
He replied back: “I’m not staying because of the kids. They are my light and that will not change…I’m not sure what’s in my head…”
Shanann confided in her best friend, Nickole Atkinson, about her troubled marriage. She also texted another friend: “Chris told me last night he’s scared to death about this third baby and he’s happy with just Bella and Celeste and doesn’t want another baby,” followed by a series of crying emojis. She later wrote to that same friend: “He has changed. I don’t know who he is.”
Some say Chris’ lack of excitement about Shanann’s third pregnancy is apparent in the video she posted when she surprised him with the news.
Although he claims to be happy, some say his tone of voice is very telling. There’s a total lack of emotion behind Chris’ words and he seems very distant. And when he asks if Shanann knows the sex of the baby, she almost sounds irritated with him when she responds by saying, “I don’t know.”
Many people believe that at this point in their relationship Shanann suspected that Chris was cheating on her. If this were true, she certainly wasn’t wrong.
At the beginning of June 2018, Chris Watts met a female coworker from Anadarko named Nichol Kessinger. They started flirting at the office, then texting casually, but the texts soon took on a more-than-friendly tone. Their relationship turned physically intimate at the end of June/beginning of July.
While his wife and children were in North Carolina during the month of July, Chris stayed at Kessinger’s place. They had long talks, went to a drag race, and went camping. Things he felt he couldn’t do with Shanann. Their affair was also very passionate.
Chris confessed to police later that his feelings may have gone beyond a simple fling. He said he felt like himself around Kessinger and like he was more in control. Living with Shanann, she was the one who made most of the decisions in their relationship.
Allegedly, Chris had told Kessinger that he and his wife were already separated, in the final stages of getting a divorce. He even asked Kessinger to help him find a new apartment for himself and his daughters.
Shanann Watts may have started suspecting her husband’s infidelity after receiving an alert on her credit card statement about an expensive dinner at a local sports bar.
On the morning of August 13, 2018, Shanann Watts and her two young daughters, Bella Watts, 4, and Celeste Watts, 3, were brutally murdered by Chris Watts. Shanann was 15 weeks pregnant at the time with the couple’s unborn son, whom they were planning on naming Nico Lee Watts. Shanann was just 34 years old.
The year 2018 was supposed to be a very big year for Shanann Watts according to her Facebook.
She seemed to be “thriving” at work and was busy raising her daughters with Chris. Even with their financial difficulties, things seemed to be moving along.
That summer, Chris and Shanann went on a business trip to San Diego. Then, Shanann and the two kids spent six weeks visiting their families in North Carolina, with Chris joining them for a week. Shortly thereafter, Shanann went on a business trip to Arizona with a few of her colleagues from Le-Vel, including her best friend, Nickole Atkinson.
At approximately 1:48 a.m. on the morning of August 13, 2018, Atkinson dropped Shanann off at her house from the airport. Atkinson waited to make sure her friend got into the house before driving away.
Shanann had an OBGYN appointment later that morning around 9 a.m., then she was supposed to attend a business meeting in the afternoon.
Atkinson called and texted Shanann repeatedly to see if she needed a ride to her doctor’s appointment, but her friend failed to answer the phone or her texts. This was very much out of character for Shanann Watts.
When Shanann missed the business meeting, Atkinson decided to check up on her friend to make sure everything was alright. So she showed up with her son and daughter at the Watts residence around 12:10 p.m. that day. Atkinson repeatedly knocked on the door. She called and texted Shanann…all to no avail.
And we know what happened next. We often examine reasons to support why Chris did what he did on August 13, 2018. Based on Chris Watts’ 2019 interview with investigators, it seems like the most likely motive is a combination of anger, guilt, and fear. According to his account (if it’s to be believed), he felt out of control, like he couldn’t think straight and couldn’t stop himself.
“Like, the whole—everything that happened that morning I just don’t—I don’t know, like…like, I try to go back in my head…I’m just like, I didn’t want to do this, but I did it…everything just kinda like…it just felt like it was… I don’t even want to say it felt like I had to, it just felt like there was already something in my mind that was implanted that I was gonna do it and when I woke up that morning it was gonna happen and I had no control over it.”
Before Shanann got home early that morning, Chris was probably convinced she knew about his affair.
Chris knew Shanann was no pushover. She would leave him and take the kids if she found out about his infidelity.
Chris was already angry with his wife over her conflict with his parents and sister, and the fact that she’d said Cindy and Ronnie would never see their grandchildren again. He felt like she may have coached him into “cussing” at them and cutting them off for a few weeks after Nutgate in July. And the problems between his mother and Shanann went all the way back to their engagement, so Chris still had resentment over that.
He also admitted to being scared about the new baby.
Moreover, the couple was still dealing with financial stress in the wake of their second bankruptcy. Shanann was even considering selling their house; whether or not she was looking at doing this in anticipation of a separation from Chris, we’ll probably never know for sure.
If you add all of these factors up, it seems we have a pretty strong motive for murder. Given the right state of mind on Watts’ part, of course, because the average person wouldn’t strangle and suffocate their loved ones.
Nothing’s been proven about Chris Watts’ psych profile, though many armchair sleuths believe that he must have been a narcissist or sociopath or psychopath to have been able to murder his wife and young children so brutally in what’s called a “family annihilator” crime.
Chris Watts’ parents put forth an alternative theory to why their son may have lost control in such a violent way: they believe that the Thrive “Duo Burn” patch Chris was using could have caused some kind of temporary psychosis.
They claimed to have accounts from other people confirming that the transdermal patch can alter one’s mind.
Chris confirmed to the investigators that he suffered serious insomnia and altered energy levels while on the Duo Burn patch. There’s been no confirmation of the Duo Burn claim though.
Some armchair sleuths claim that the “other woman,” Nichol Kessinger, had a hand in the violent demise of Shanann, Bella, CeCe, and Nico Watts.
However, Kessinger maintains that she was under the impression that Chris and Shanann were already separated and they were close to finalizing divorce proceedings when she started seeing him.
Chris’ former mistress also claims that she had no clue Shanann was even pregnant. She says she only found out that the couple were expecting and that she and the kids had gone missing when she heard about it on the local news. We still can’t decipher between what’s truth and reality when it comes to NK’s witness statements.
However, Shanann Watts was very public about her whole life on social media, with the fact of her pregnancy being visible to anyone who looked at her Facebook profile. So it seems odd that Kessinger didn’t know that the couple was still together or that they were expecting.
Nevertheless, there’s no proof that Kessinger was involved in the murders. Through the years, there’s been a lot of speculations made about Kessinger.
In closing, Shanann was human. She had her faults, we all do.
Works Cited: crimeola.com
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Frequently see 529 Plan questions here. Here's a quick guide.

Do you have kids? Are there children in your life? Were you once a child? If you plan on helping pay for a child’s future education, then you’ll benefit from this complete guide to 529 plans. We’ll cover every detail of 529 plans, from the what/when/why basics to the more complex tax implications and investing ideas.

What is a 529 Plan?

The 529 college savings plan is a tax-advantaged investment account meant specifically for education expenses. As of the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (in 2017), 529 plans can be used for college costs, K-12 public school costs, or private and/or religious school tuition. If you will ever need to pay for your children’s education, then 529 plans are for you.
529 plans are named in a similar fashion as the famous 401(k). That is, the name comes from the specific U.S. tax code where the plan was written into law. It’s in Section 529 of Internal Revenue Code 26. Wow—that’s boring!
But it turns out that 529 plans are strange amalgam of federal rules and state rules. Let’s start breaking that down.

Tax Advantages

Taxes are important! 529 college savings plans provide tax advantages in a manner similar to Roth accounts (i.e. different than traditional 401(k) accounts). In a 529 plan, you pay all your normal taxes today. Your contributions to the 529 plan, therefore, are made with after-tax dollars.
Any investment you make within your 529 plan is then allowed to grow tax-free. Future withdrawals—used for qualified education expenses—are also tax-free. Pay now, save later.
But wait! Those are just the federal income tax benefits. Many individual states offer state tax benefits to people participating in 529 plans. As of this writing, 34 states and Washington D.C. offer these benefits. Of the 16 states not participating, nine of those don’t have any state income tax. The seven remaining states—California, Delaware, Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, New Jersey, and North Carolina—all have state income taxes, yet do not offer income tax benefits to their 529 plan participants. Boo!
This makes 529 plans an oddity. There’s a Federal-level tax advantage that applies to everyone. And then there might be a state-level tax advantage depending on which state you use to setup your plan.

Two Types of 529 Plans

The most common 529 plan is the college savings program. The less common 529 is the prepaid tuition program.
The savings program can be thought of as a parallel to common retirement investing accounts. A person can put money into their 529 plan today. They can invest that money in a few different ways (details further in the article). At a later date, they can then use the full value of their account at any eligible institution—in state or out of state. The value of their 529 plan will be dependent on their investing choices and how those investments perform.
The prepaid program is a little different. This plan is only offered by certain states (currently only 10 are accepting new applicants) and even by some individual colleges/universities. The prepaid program permits citizens to buy tuition credits at today’s tuition rates. Those credits can then be used in the future at in-state universities. However, using these credits outside of the state they were bought in can result in not getting full value.
You don’t choose investments in the prepaid program. You just buy credit’s today that can be redeemed in the future.
The savings program is universal, flexible, and grows based on your investments.
The prepaid program is not offered everywhere, works best at in-state universities, and grows based on how quickly tuition is changing (i.e. the difference between today’s tuition rate and the future tuition rate when you use the credit.)
Example: a prepaid credit would have cost ~$13,000 for one year of tuition in 2000. That credit would have been worth ~$24,000 of value if usd in 2018. (Source)

What are “Qualified Education Expenses?”

You can only spend your 529 plan dollars on “qualified education expenses.” Turns out, just about anything associated with education costs can be paid for using 529 plan funds. Qualified education expenses include:
​
Student loans and student loan interest were added to this list in 2019, but there’s a lifetime limit of $10,000 per person.

How Do You “Invest” Your 529 Plan Funds?

529 savings plans do more that save. Their real power is as a college investment plan. So, how can you “invest” this tax-advantaged money?
There’s a two-part answer to how your 529 plan funds are invested. The first part is that only savings plans can be invested, not prepaid plans. The second part is that it depends on what state you’re in.
For example, let’s look at my state: New York. It offers both age-based options and individual portfolios.
The age-based option places your 529 plan on one of three tracks: aggressive, moderate, or conservative. As your child ages, the portfolio will automatically re-balance based on the track you’ve chosen.
The aggressive option will hold more stocks for longer into your child’s life—higher risk, higher rewards. The conservative option will skew towards bonds and short-term reserves. In all cases, the goal is to provide some level of growth in early years, and some level of stability in later years.
The individual portfolios are similar to the age-based option, but do not automatically re-balance. There are aggressive and conservative and middle-ground choices. Thankfully, you can move funds from one portfolio to another up to twice per year. This allowed rebalancing is how you can achieve the correct risk posture.

Advantages & Disadvantages of Using a 529 Plan

The advantages of using the 529 as a college investing plan are clear. First, there’s the tax-advantaged nature of it, likely saving you tens of thousands of dollars. Another benefit is the aforementioned ease of investing using a low-maintenance, age-based investing accounts. Most states offer them.
Other advantages include the high maximum contribution limit (ranging by state, from a low of $235K to a high of $529K), the reasonable financial aid treatment, and, of course, the flexibility.
If your child doesn’t end up using their 529 plan, you can transfer it to another relative. If you don’t like your state’s 529 offering, you can open an account in a different state. You can even use your 529 plan to pay for primary education at a private school or a religious school.
But the 529 plan isn’t perfect. There are disadvantages too.
For example, the prepaid 529 plan involves a considerable up-front cost—in the realm of $100,000 over four years. That’s a lot of money. Also, your proactive saving today ends up affecting your child’s financial aid package in the future. It feels a bit like a punishment for being responsible. That ain’t right!
Of course, a 529 plan is not a normal investing account. If you don’t use the money for educational purposes, you will face a penalty. And if you want to hand-pick your 529 investments? Well, you can’t do that. Similar to many 401(k) programs, your state’s 529 program probably only offers a few different fund choices.

529 Plan FAQ

Here are some of the most common questions about 529 education savings plans. And I even provide answers!
How do I open a 529 plan?
Virtually all states now have online portals that allow you to open 529 plans from the comfort of your home. A few online forms and email messages is all it takes.
Can I contribute to someone else’s 529?
You sure can! If you have a niece or nephew or grandchild or simply a friend, you can make a third-party contribution to their 529 plan. You don’t have to be their parent, their relative, or the person who opened the account.
Investing in someone else’s knowledge is a terrific gift.
Does a 529 plan affect financial aid?
Short answer: yes, but it’s better than how many other assets affect financial aid.
Longer answer: yes, having a 529 plan will likely reduce the amount of financial aid a student receives. The first $10,000 in a 529 plan is not part of the Expected Family Contribution (EFC) equation. It’s not “counted against you.” After that $10,000, remaining 529 plan funds are counted in the EFC equation, but cap at 5.46% of the parental assets (many other assets are capped higher, e.g. at 20%).
Similarly, 529 plan distributions are not included in the “base year income” calculations in the FAFSA application. This is another benefit in terms of financial aid.
Finally, 529 plan funds owned by non-parents (e.g. grandparents) are not part of the FAFSA EFC equation. This is great! The downside occurs when the non-parent actually withdraws the funds on behalf of the student. At that time, 50% of those funds count as “student income,” thus lowering the student’s eligibility for aid.
Are there contribution limits?
Kinda sorta. It’s a little complicated.
There is no official annual contribution limit into a 529 plan. But, you should know that 529 contributions are considered “completed gifts” in federal tax law, and that those gifts are capped at $15,000 per year in 2020 and 2021.
After $15,000 of contributions in one year, the remainder must be reported to the IRS against the taxpayer’s (not the student’s) lifetime estate and gift tax exemption.
Additionally, each state has the option of limiting the total 529 plan balances for a particular beneficiary. My state (NY) caps this limit at $520,000. That’s easily high enough to pay for 4 years of college at current prices.
Another state-based limit involves how much income tax savings a contributor can claim per year. In New York, for example, only the first $5,000 (or $10,000 if a married couple) are eligible for income tax savings.
Can I use my state’s 529 plan in another state? Do I need to create 529 plans in multiple states?
Yes, you can use your state’s 529 plan in another state. And mostly likely no, you do not need to create 529 plans in multiple states.
First, I recommend scrolling up to the savings program vs. prepaid program description. Savings programs are universal and transferrable. My 529 savings plan could pay for tuition in any other state, and even some other countries.
But prepaid tuition accounts typically have limitations in how they transfer. Prepaid accounts typically apply in full to in-state, state-sponsored schools. They might not apply in full to out-of-state and/or private schools.
What if my kid is Lebron James and doesn’t go to college? Can I get my money back?
It’s a great question. And the answer is yes, there are multiple ways to recoup your money if the beneficiary doesn’t end up using it for education savings.
First, you can avoid all penalties by changing the beneficiary of the funds. You can switch to another qualifying family member. Instead of paying for Lebron’s college, you can switch those funds to his siblings, to a future grandchild, or even to yourself (if you wanted to go back to school).
What if you just want you money back? The contributions that you initially made come back to you tax-free and penalty-free. After all, you already paid taxes on those. Any earnings you’ve made on those contributions are subject to normal income tax, and then a 10% federal penalty tax.
The 10% penalty is waived in certain situations, such as the beneficiary receiving a tax-free scholarship or attending a U.S. military academy.
And remember those state income tax breaks we discussed earlier? Those tax breaks might get recaptured (oh no!) if you end up taking non-qualified distributions from your 529 plan.
Long story short: try to the keep the funds in a 529 plan, especially is someone in your family might benefit from them someday. Otherwise, you’ll pay some taxes and penalties.

That's it! Hope it helped!

Edit: since a couple have messaged me... This is my site. I publish every Friday. Cheers.
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Housewife highlights/Daily shit talk - December 31st, 2020

NEW JERSEY
"Dolores Catania is ringing in the new year with a bang.
Yes, we're all eager to leave 2020 behind, but The Real Housewives of New Jersey cast member has an extra special reason for wanting to celebrate the year's end: a milestone birthday!
She turns 50 today, Dec. 28, and E! News made sure to get the exclusive scoop on her post-pandemic party plans, in addition to the upcoming 11th season of RHONJ and much more.
"I have a lot of groups of different friends," Dolores explained, differentiating her Real Housewives castmates from her kindergarten besties; both cliques she intends to invite to a big party "as soon as things open up," even though the idea of celebrating herself on that level makes her nervous. "When I thought the other night when I was going out to eat that my friends might be having more than just the two people...I wanted to pull my hair out. I was pacing my house. I was like, 'Please don't let this be for me, bigger than I think it is.'"
The pre-birthday dinner's guest list did indeed end up being limited to Dolores and her two friends, but it was her mini freak-out beforehand that helped her realize it's time to get out of her "comfort zone."
That, and the work she does with brands like Pulchra. The reality TV personality partnered with the luxury boutique to try and "make women feel sexy and confident and good about themselves."
"And that's not for everybody, but I try to tell people to get out of their comfort zone," Dolores shared. "Having a party and that kind of attention on myself is so out of my comfort zone. So I'm going to push myself...I'm going to make myself do something for this birthday when things open up."
In the meantime, the birthday girl is enjoying the holidays—from the Jersey Shore since her home is currently being renovated—with her boyfriend Dr. David Principe and her ex-husband Frank Catania, along with their two children, Gabrielle, 24, and Frankie, 21. Despite being divorced for 20 years, Dolores and Frank have remained friends while co-parenting, and the two, along with David even live together.
The couple is doing great, and while detailing how she and David keep their relationship fresh, Dolores shared an adorable anecdote. "David doesn't know how to show it on camera, but David tells me every day, 'You're beautiful, you're sexy,'" the Bravolebrity gushed. "Like last night he goes, 'You know, you're the most beautiful woman I know.' That's what he said to me as I was walking out the door with my pajamas on and my Uggs to go eat with him."
Perhaps a second marriage is in the cards? "I don't know," she began. "Life brings the craziest things. Like, you can never say never and you don't know what could happen."
"Look at Teresa [Giudice]," Dolores continued, referencing her RHONJ co-star who split from her longtime husband Joe Giudice in 2019 and is currently dating Luis "Louie" Ruelas. "When you hear the story, you're going to be like, 'wow.' You'd think he fell out of the sky...But you just never know what life brings you. So, can I see myself married again? I guess with the right person."
In addition to teasing what's to come for Teresa on season 11 of RHONJ—which has officially wrapped filming and will premiere sometime in early 2021—Dolores revealed that fans can expect a lot of drama.
"You're going to see fights that you haven't seen in years," she told E! News. "Like visceral, visceral, emotional fights. After the episode[s] and after these certain scenes—and every single f--king one of us has [them]—you're gonna have to take a nap. It's draining. It's draining!"
Dolores added, "The things that have gone on this season, the next day we were still, like, knocked out, emotionally drained. Every single cast member."
BRAVO
"In February, the Bravo host and executive producer Andy Cohen sent his beagle, Wacha, to live with his animal trainer in Connecticut. Experts said Wacha needed to be rehomed for his safety and that of Mr. Cohen’s one-year-old son, Benjamin. “It truly was so traumatic, and so upsetting.” Mr. Cohen said recently. “I thought, ‘Wow, 2020 really stinks. Like, it could never, ever get worse than this.’”
He had no way, of course, of knowing that the next month, and the next nine months after that, things would get so much worse, unbelievably worse, just so, so bad, and that he, specifically, was going to experience those things — coronavirus; stay-at-home orders that forced the workplace online; figuring out how to parent during all of this; social justice, the election and cancel culture — in a deeply personal way.
And so, in the realest year in recent history, things got really real for the king of reality TV: Andy Cohen.
In the waning days of 2020, a man who presents himself as an intuitive psychic on Instagram posited that the Real Housewives series will “end up emerging as one of the most evocative living records of these unprecedented times.” The suggestion is so preposterous that you’ll be tempted to dismiss it completely. In a day or two when you realize how deeply right it is, you will laugh in quiet devastation. But let’s put a pin in that.
If any year has bent our sense of reality, it’s been 2020. You think you know someone and then all of a sudden a pandemic hits and you find out your neighbor Lisa is deeply into QAnon. And that guy you went to law school with? Oh, now he’s a left-wing radical prepper. Your mother-in-law won’t wear a mask to the grocery store.
At the end of this brain-melter of a year, because of filming schedules, people who watch Bravo are watching March and April unfold all over again, but this time it’s through the network’s wine-splattered lens.
“It’s a bummer to relive,” Mr. Cohen said of the Covid-19 shutdown arc at the center of three shows currently airing, “but it’s kind of sociologically fascinating to see how people that we are invested in dealt with it.”
Mr. Cohen, 52, isn’t humble about the cultural significance of his shows, and he thinks anyone who doesn’t value them appropriately is clueless.
His friend Anderson Cooper, a year minus a day older, with whom he hosts “New Year’s Eve Live With Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen” on CNN, agrees, up to a point. “From what I’ve seen of time capsules, frankly, they’re generally disappointing,” Mr. Cooper said. “So this would be the most entertaining and compelling time capsule that one could possibly imagine opening up years from now.” Entertaining the idea of Mr. Cohen as Ken Burns, he added with a laugh, “I would hope for our future generation that that is not all they would see. But it’s certainly part of who we are.”
In production in March when stay-at-home orders were issued, “The Real Housewives of Orange County,” is in Mr. Cohen’s view, “a microcosm of a rainbow of sentiments relating to Covid, from wacky theories to the Fox News perspective, to just trying to take care of your family.”
He points to a similar tableau unfolding on “Southern Charm,” a show that follows a multigenerational group of friends living in South Carolina. “Now, let’s go down to Charleston and that show that started as a kind of romp through a beautiful city about a bunch of lovable and sometimes clueless fops” — but in the past two years, has tackled story lines that include sexual assault, the glorification of Confederate culture and the summer’s social justice movement.
“As much as you might try to tell a story of X, Y or Z, real life will come barging through the doors,” Mr. Cohen said. “And that’s what these shows are about. Those are sociological intersections that I can appreciate and celebrate.”
In 2020, sociological intersections turned into collision courses, and cancel culture came for Bravo. Consequences for racist behaviors, both on- and off-camera, were that several stars there lost their places on our TVs.
Mr. Cohen called the firings “decisions for that moment,” but he’d much rather the shows’ stars — and we — stick around as their journey plays out. Some fans in online forums thought Bravo should take the show “Southern Charm” off the air, and he bristled at the suggestion. “Why shouldn’t it be on? Do we want to cancel the South?”
In an increasingly polarized country, Mr. Cohen is making good TV in the murky, mucky middle by doing, in the language of 2020, the work with people. “I’m the guy that people have their reckonings with. On Bravo, I’m the designated debate moderator.” Some think Mr. Cohen lets his stars too easily off the hook for their transgressions, a complaint which he dismissed because he sees it as his job to remain neutral and let the audience do the judging.
He has another reason to maintain neutrality: While the predominant “voice” of the Bravo viewer leans blue, the network’s audience is actually split fairly evenly between conservative and liberal. “Tomi Lahren, the great conservative voice, was advocating that Bravo should do a ‘Housewives’ of all conservative woman,” he said. Mr. Cohen’s response to that was, “Watch ‘The Real Housewives of Orange County,’ watch ‘The Real Housewives of Dallas,’ watch ‘The Real Housewives’ … maybe … of ‘New Jersey’ and maybe ‘Salt Lake City.’ I would argue, even, maybe a little ‘New York?’”
Mr. Cohen’s name was even invoked as a potential moderator of the 2020 presidential debates.
“Mainly by Andy,” Mr. Cooper said with an audible twinkle.
“Whether people were kidding or not — and I think there’s a big leap there — that’s a conversation I’m flattered to be a part of,” Mr. Cohen said.
If it sounds ridiculous that the face of Bravo seriously aspires to one day host a presidential debate, consider Mr. Cohen’s uncanny ability to shape-shift. Some people find him pernicious and manipulative; others think he’s hopelessly corny. He’s like the Macarena in that way.
Another way in which he is like the Macarena is that he’s just a lot of fun.
Mr. Cohen quarantined in New York while he was sick in March. Of course Mr. Cohen got Covid. If it happened in 2020, it happened to Andy Cohen. “It was lonely,” he said of being isolated in his apartment, “hearing my son down the hall but not being able to see him. I don’t want to overdramatize it, because I didn’t think I was going to die, but there were a few moments at the beginning of feeling like, ‘OK, well, this is incredibly isolating, this is scary.’”
He stayed even after recovering. “It was important for me to stay. Everyone else — ” Mr. Cohen stopped himself — “I mean, not everyone — a lot of people that I know, you know, went to the Hamptons.”
He talked about walking Ben, who loves to clap, through the West Village to applaud frontline workers every night at 7 p.m.; about the 9/11-feeling of it all; about handing out sandwiches to homeless people because “it became a way for me to kind of feel useful.” And just when his storytelling veered into treacly self-aggrandizement, here comes Mr. Cohen with his big “Hey, macarena!” energy, doing a bit about how an empty New York City made for desperate paparazzi.
“There were paparazzi every time I walked outside. I kept saying to them, ‘Well, you guys must be really — I mean, honestly — there must be no one here.’ And they were like, ‘There’s no one here.’ At one point they told me a list. They go, ‘It’s you, and Amy Schumer, and like two other people.’ I was like, ‘Oh, I’m sorry, guys. Listen, this is bleak. This is really bleak.’”
After the long New York spring, Memorial Day weekend arrived and an exhausted and thin Mr. Cohen (“I was, like, my high school weight. Which I didn’t hate!”), decamped for his home on Long Island where he and Ben frolicked, and where Mr. Cohen indulged. He grew his hair out. He hit the rosé and the carbs. He said, quite proudly actually, “I got lazy.” Mr. Cooper disapproved of this period of post-Covid sloth. “Why would you ever do that?”
Mr. Cohen slips easily into a really very good impression of Mr. Cooper, sputtering in full WASPy indignation when Mr. Cohen told him, totally unapologetically, “Look, I just want you to know I eat like almost a pint of ice cream every night.”
For all his openness about his fame, his waistline, and his place in the discourse, when asked if he’s single — possibly taking a note from the Housewives and remembering that if you don’t say it, it can’t be held against you — Mr. Cohen went literally tight-lipped.
He typically has not liked to speak about his personal life, but he softened when asked what choices he made knowing he was entering fatherhood single. “The only thing that I knew was that he had to live in a home that was alive, and that there were people around,” Mr. Cohen said, “and that I was going to need my friends and family to help me.”
His guard thus dropped, Mr. Cohen charged headlong into the matter of his dating status (his last public relationship was with John Hill, a musical theater actor). “In terms of what did I decide about dating? I didn’t decide anything. I just decided I’m going to let this happen.” He described himself as a complicated person to be involved with romantically, even before he had a kid. “I’m fairly set in my ways. There’s a lot of baggage that comes with me, whether you want to call it good baggage or bad baggage, it is baggage. And add a child to that? That’s like, whoa.”
Mr. Cohen talked about going on dates, about excitedly taking out his phone to show off photos of baby Ben, “which I think wound up freaking people out?” He paused. “Yeah. You know, whatever. I’m still single. What can I tell you, OK?”
Part of his challenge is having to adjust, to consider new boundaries, as the line between Andy Cohen, reality TV executive and Andy Cohen, star of actual reality (?), blurs.
While lamenting the state of Mr. Cohen’s hair, Mr. Cooper noted that “short of living in a TikTok house, this guy produces more content than anybody I know. He goes around the corner to the grocery store and he’s produced three incredibly funny Instagram stories.”
Mr. Cohen made a pact with his family to stop showing his son on social media, but then real life came barging through his doors, too. “That totally went out the window when I started doing my show from home,” he said. (His coterie of Bravolebrities, he said, also needs a social media check.)
Evaluating on- and off-camera behavior is what Mr. Cohen called a “delicate balance” for producers when making casting decisions.
He thinks affronted Bravo fans asking ‘why her but why not him and her and them?’ or ‘why is this still on?’ are overcorrecting, unwilling to bear witness to ever-changing norms, no matter how uncomfortable it may make us.
“It’s more interesting to sit in the moment with people that you have a rooting interest in and watch them find their way than it is just turning out the lights and forgetting it existed.” he said. This is his own measured approach, even with issues that are personal to him. “This is an unpopular opinion,” he said of a certain controversial arc on “Vanderpump Rules.”
“It didn’t seem so shocking to me that someone’s family pastor in Kentucky was homophobic,” Mr. Cohen said. “I’m not condoning homophobia. I’m saying it exists.” He’s proud of Bravo’s willingness to show reality — not just reality as we might like it to be — and consider different viewpoints. “We’ve been able to build a big tent.”
Indeed, in 2016, his talk show ran a poll that showed Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump evenly matched at a time when the predominant narrative on the left was that Mr. Trump had absolutely no chance of winning. Ask to similarly play soothsayer for 2021, Mr. Cohen sighed deeply.
“I mean, I’m scared to predict.”
POTOMAC
“I think that Karen doesn’t understand a woman of my pedigree. She comes from a time and place where women are defined by their husbands — like she is. She’s on the show because of her husband not because of anything else,” Wendy shared on the Behind the Velvet Rope podcast with David Yontef. “I’m on the show because of my background and what I bring as an individual. Yes, my husband is an attorney, but I stand on my own outside of my husband. I don’t need him nor do I need his money… Karen doesn’t understand that. She doesn’t know what that means to have a status without a husband and I think that’s what the issue is.”
Wendy went on to suggest that Karen may have had a problem with her since she didn’t “kiss the ring” when she came in as the season five rookie, potentially causing an issue for the series OG.
“She’s used to these younger women coming in and wanting to show deference to her like, oh, you know, ‘The grand person, I bow down to you,’ and it’s no disrespect. I respect all of the women equally. I don’t need to bow down to you,” Wendy stated. “We’re women, we should see each other, eye-to-eye, toe-to-toe and I don’t think that she liked that about me. She didn’t like the fact that I was okay standing on my own and I didn’t need her to take me under her wing.”
The newfound reality star and political commentator has recently hinted at a return to the franchise, but she first admitted during her interview that thinking about that return has been somewhat of a struggle, considering what went down this year.
“I think it all gave us time to really think about our role on the show,” Wendy said of the epic altercation that happened between Monique and Candiace. “You know, I know I definitely stopped and thought long and hard and sent a text to one of the executives, like I want to have a conversation. Because again, this is not what, this is not what I signed up for, and I don’t think that was an isolated incident. And to me, I think we all, we all did that. Everyone was just like, well, whoa.”
She continued, “And so those were my first initial thoughts were like, were people okay. Like there was blood, there was broken glass. There were punches. Like it wasn’t just someone pulling the hair. You have to know that that is what you signed up for, right? Like that’s what I mean. We didn’t sign up for a physical altercation, but I have to come into this knowing season six, guess what? It could be all guns blazing against you and you have to be okay with that because that is what we signed up for.”
Although her first season may have been somewhat rough, the mother-of-three did share that she received plenty of encouragement from housewives across other franchises, including one in particular whose reaching out held a certain kind of importance.
“One that really touches me is Kenya Moore from [Real Housewives of Atlanta]. Kenya to me is that girl. She is that girl. She just gave me some great advice and why I love Kenya is because growing up outside of Housewives, I looked up to Kenya,” Wendy remarked. “Why I say this is [because] Kenya was in the era where for me, I watched a lot of music videos and I’m a brown-skinned girl, and a lot of the music videos didn’t have people who looked like me. But I always remembered this one beautiful girl with this beautiful chocolate complexion and I’m like, ‘God, she’s so beautiful,’ and it made me say, ‘Oh okay, there’s someone that looks like me on the TV,’ and it was Kenya Moore.”
She went on, “To now see her in Housewives and just love her but then to see her give me words of wisdom … it’s like a full circle moment for me because I absolutely adored her outside of the Housewives. I looked up to her, admired her, thought she’s so beautiful, this chocolate beauty, chocolate Barbie doll, and now she’s telling me, ‘Keep doing what you’re doing,’ I’m like, oh gosh, you’re amazing! I love you!”
DALLAS
*"*The Real Housewives of Dallas ladies are showing their support for D'Andra Simmons after she tested positive for coronavirus (COVID-19) and was admitted to the hospital.
The newest Dallas Housewife, Tiffany Moon, gave an update on D'Andra's condition in a tweet on December 29. "I spoke to dandrasimmons she’s still very sick but on the mend," Tiffany shared on Twitter. "She wants to thank everyone for their love and prayers."
Tiffany also included a red heart emoji in her tweet and noted that it's "#timetoheal."
Kary Brittingham shared a similar sentiment in a tweet on December 30. "[I've] been asked by so many how D’Andra is doing?? [I've] been in contact with her everyday and is feeling better today," she wrote. "Please keep her in your prayers."
ATLANTA
ORANGE COUNTY
NEW YORK
BEVERLY HILLS
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can you get married online in north carolina video

Getting your Real Estate License in North Carolina - YouTube DMV North Carolina Driving Test, 2019! LATEST! - YouTube North Carolina and South Carolina Compared - YouTube Online Traffic School answers In 15 Minutes 2020 & 2021 ... How To: GET A GIRLFRIEND IN GTA 5 - YouTube My Wedding: Getting Married by Court Marriage in India ... The Can I Carry a Firearm in My Car in North Carolina? - YouTube Finding Love in an Arranged Marriage Can Ask Meh? - YouTube How to Get a Certificate of Existence in North Carolina ...

North Carolina does not recognize common-law marriage, even if legally established in another state. Cousin Marriage Am I allowed to marry my cousin? You can marry your first cousin or double-first cousin, but no family relation closer than that. Proxy Marriage Can I get married by proxy? North Carolina law does not permit marriage-by-proxy. If you're headed down the aisle in North Carolina, you'll need a marriage license. You can get one by filing an application with a County Register of Deeds Office. You will both have to appear at the clerk's office, fill out an application, sign it, and pay a license fee, usually $60. You can get your marriage license immediately (there isn't a waiting period). Couples getting married in North Carolina must get a marriage license before the wedding. If your wedding will be in North Carolina, you can get a marriage license from the Register of Deeds in any county in the state. In general, both partners must visit the Register of Deeds office, though some counties allow online applications to be You do not have to be a resident of North Carolina to get married in North Carolina. LICENSE TO MARRY Before you get married you must apply for and receive a marriage license. Marriage licenses are obtained from the Register of Deeds office of the county where the marriage is to take place (people can get married anywhere in NC with a marriage Below you will find state-by-state links to marriage license requirements and related information. Where no state-level marriage license information is available online, you will likely need to obtain information at the county level, so the listed link will take you to county clerk/recorder office contact information in your state. North Carolina Vital Records 1903 Mail Service Center Raleigh, NC 27699-1900 . You can also drop off the form at the Vital Records Office in Raleigh between 8:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m., Monday–Friday, except on state government holidays. Walk-in service is temporarily suspended due to COVID-19. Before you can get married, you must first apply for a marriage license. Today you'll find out where to go and what to do. North Carolina NC. Requirements for getting married in The Tar Heel State. North Dakota ND. Requirements for getting married in The Peace Garden State. Ohio OH. In North Carolina, you can apply for a marriage license through the county's register of deeds office. It's best to do this about a month before your wedding date so the legal formalities are taken care of. When you're ready to get your license, there are a few requirements that you'll need to follow. You can get your license and get married the same day. You must obtain your North Carolina marriage license at the Register of Deeds office in any county in North Carolina. Both parties must apply, in person, at the same time, Monday - Friday regular business hours. You can easily find out how to get married in North Carolina to help make the whole process fun and cost-effective. In order to get married in North Carolina, you need to get a marriage license, finish marriage paperwork, and plan and have the wedding ceremony.

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Getting your Real Estate License in North Carolina - YouTube

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can you get married online in north carolina

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