*Content Warning: fraud, scams, disability abuse, false reporting, harassment, driving under the influence, upsetting themes, false personation, psychological violence, emotional abuse, sexual assault, murder for hire, financial abuse. Resources:Free + Confidential Resources + Safety Tips: somethingwaswrong.com/resources Sources:MyCase Indiana: https://public.courts.in.gov/Elwood woman faces multiple felonies in connection with ongoing rental scheme, by Logan Gay, WTHR.com staff, WTHR News: https://www.wthr.com/article/news/crime/elwood-woman-arrested-for-ongoing-rental-scheme-megan-stoner-fishers-indiana/531-2d3b11fa-5c70-4f05-8ea4-0be0c37cf852 Fishers woman charged in rental fraud; 3 scammed in signing lease for same Home by: Izzy Karpinski, Fox59: https://fox59.com/news/indycrime/fishers-woman-charged-in-rental-fraud-3-scammed-in-signing-lease-for-same-home/ Hamilton County Inmate Records - Stoner, Megan Elizabeth: https://secure2.hamiltoncounty.in.gov/inmates2/Jail/Inmate/Detail/-1282383 Protect the community from ongoing criminal activity by revoking the bond of Megan Stoner, Change.Org Petition: https://www.change.org/p/protect-the-community-from-ongoing-criminal-activity-by-revoking-the-bond-of-megan-stoner Megan Stoner Chronicles, X @ChroniclesMegan: https://x.com/ChroniclesMegan Chloe Anagnos on X: @ChloeAnagnos https://x.com/ChloeAnagnos/status/1651260809362784261 Don't Waste This F*cking Podcast: The Story of Megan Stoner, by Amanda Peterson, Excelsior Studios: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dont-waste-this-f-cking-podcast-the-story-of-megan-stoner/id1757463535 Noblesville Chatter Community Based Discussion Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1995427104120331/ Theme Song & Artwork: Thank you to NeonHoney and GIBBANEZ for covering our theme song, Glad Rags’s original song U Think U this season. NeonHoney’s IG: https://www.instagram.com/neonhoneymusic/ NeonHoney’s Website: https://neonhoneymusic.comGibbanez IG: https://www.instagram.com/@gibbanezmusic/ Gibbanez Linktree: https://linktr.ee/gibbanezmusicGlad Rags: https://www.gladragsmusic.com/ The S22 cover art is by the Amazing Sara StewartFollow Something Was Wrong:Website: somethingwaswrong.com IG: instagram.com/somethingwaswrongpodcastTikTok: tiktok.com/@somethingwaswrongpodcast Follow Tiffany Reese:Website: tiffanyreese.me IG: instagram.com/lookieboo
Chapter 1: What is the content warning for this episode?
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Something Was Wrong early and ad free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. This podcast is intended for mature audiences and discusses topics that may be upsetting. For a full content warning, sources, and resources, please visit the episode notes.
Opinions shared by the guests of the show are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of myself, Broken Cycle Media, or Wondery. The podcast and any linked materials should not be misconstrued as a substitution for legal or medical advice. Megan Stoner's responses to these allegations are addressed within this season. I'm Tiffany Reese, and this is Something Was Wrong.
In the second half of episode five, we met Tom. Tom met Stoner through a disability advocacy group that he founded.
Chapter 2: Who is Tom and how did he meet Megan Stoner?
I founded a club in 2019. It was called the Neurodiversity Coalition. It was to help people with autism, Asperger's disorder, which I have, PDD, NOS, OCD, invisible disabilities, and beyond,
They became closer friends when Tom moved to Indiana during the COVID-19 pandemic through Teach for America.
And, you know, we went to hockey games together. We would grab meals together. We were purely platonic, by the way.
Their friendship drifted apart a bit when Tom moved again, and he didn't keep up with her as much online or otherwise.
She would message me from time to time, texts soliciting money for teaching or for walking in a suicide prevention walk.
But after Stoner had been arrested and released on bond for both the OWI and the rental scams, Stoner resurfaced in Tom's life and began spinning her lies and manipulation all over again, trying to get money out of Tom for her Teslas and Yonis. To be clear, Tom had no idea at this point that Megan had gone to jail twice already.
He had no idea she was a scam artist and Stoner had never given him personally any reason to doubt her credibility. Then, in May of 2023, Stoner began reaching out to Tom asking for money.
may the 6th i got a number of random texts throughout the day saying i'm in a crisis i need help it's not mental health i said oh what's up she says oh i'm at a i'm at a low point in my life i need money for bail yeah i wish i was lying so me being very surprised considering this is a former government employee and now whom i presume to be a teacher i say okay explain what is going on
She says they're charges from three years ago, 2021.
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Chapter 3: What manipulation did Megan Stoner use to ask for money?
On August 2nd, Mike Neal messaged me for the first time and said, do you know Justin Sexton? And I said, yes, I do. And you know, Megan Stoner? Yes. Have you been giving her money? And I was reluctant to tell him how much I'd given because it was shockingly large, embarrassingly large, insanely large.
And so I thought, OK, well, I'd like to see a badge number or something because, you know, Indiana State Treasury officials or agents don't just message you like that out of the blue. And so he sent me his personal profile on the Indiana State Treasury page. So I said, OK, wow, this guy's top brass. And I messaged Justin after and said, is this guy really top brass like for the state?
Justin verified it. And he said, all right, how much have you given her? And I told him everything. I spilled my guts. And he said, all right, do you have any information on her? And I said, am I in trouble? And he says, absolutely not. If anything, you're more in trouble in that you got screwed by someone you thought was your friend. And I thought, oh, God, I'm such an idiot.
And I didn't even know what I was an idiot for yet. I just knew, wow, I'm an idiot. It's a miserable feeling when that happens. Then Justin texted me a few hours later. I looked down on the message and I couldn't believe where it all went. She just wasn't the person I thought. First time I heard that came from Justin. And then he said the word scammer, just as Mike had.
And instantly my mind said, she's a liar. I couldn't speak. Four years of friendship in a minute, completely gone. It took us years to build up what I considered a friendship or even an acquaintanceship. Trust who your friends are and can't be too careful. But Justin and Mike said, do you want to join the support group? And I said, oh, okay.
And that's how I got in the Megan scam awareness Facebook group. I had actually just joined the group when Alyssa made the first botched attempt to catch her.
Hi, my name is Alyssa, and I was introduced to Megan through a Facebook group that was created to bring awareness to her scams that she had been committing over the last few years. Once I got into the group and realized what was going on and that I'd actually encountered this person in the past, I kind of became enthralled with the idea that
this small but large group of people on Facebook that were local and non-local would be able to bring justice to some of these victims, victims that I knew, victims that I didn't know, but that I became friends with along the way.
I'm so thankful that I met all the people I did on this journey, but also that we were able to stop her crimes along the way, prevent her from doing more crimes in the future. And now being able to come on here and share my voice and tell people that there really are evil people out in the world, then it is possible to stop them the legal way.
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Chapter 4: How did Tom realize he was being scammed?
All of these things happened after she had been bailed out of jail. So she was out on bond. It took almost a year for her to get charged for the original rental scams. And in that year, that was when her crimes really kind of went crazy. Like the scamming of Tom, like all of that happened after her first arrest when she was out on bond.
There were two different sets of movers that she scammed during that time because she kept getting kicked out of the places that she was living. The Teslas happened after her first arrest. So like the bingo group was guessing what crime she was going to commit next. And we would all be in this chat and like talking about it, closely monitoring what she was doing.
That's when we really started to unravel that something was way worse than what we could have ever imagined. I had sent her a text and I said, I'm a reporter and I want to pay you for your life story.
Coming up this season on Something Was Wrong.
Then when I realized what she had done, I think that's when I like hit it into high gear and I was like, no one deserves to be treated like this. No one deserves to put trust in someone and then have someone completely ruin that trust.
She's posting on social media every day. Somebody needs to give me money so I have a place to stay. My lawyers are telling me not to turn myself in. And we know she's taking the money from Tom. How many more of him are there that we don't know about? Because how is she affording all of that?
Amanda and I are on the phone one day and we're connecting like friends, just laughing. And we're like, how has no one caught her yet? Amanda says those Yoni massages are the one thing she would risk it all for. That's the thing she's obsessed with. Could we maybe come up with a fake business that does that?
We just need one of these fake Yoni people. I was like, I swear to you, if somebody approached her pretending to be a fake Yoni person, she would bite in a heartbeat.
Once we started messaging, it didn't take long for her to just start trauma dumping in a way that you would not believe.
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