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Aug. 1, 2022 - Depositions & Trials
01:49:18
Alex Jones Defamation Trial: Sandy Hook 'Hoax' Lawsuit - Day Five, Part One
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Good morning, Mr. Salazar.
Good morning.
Can you hear me okay?
Yes, sir.
Have you really been working today?
Yes.
And you're currently employed by who?
Free Speech Systems, InfoWars.com.
When did you start working for Free Speech Systems?
April 2012.
Why did you apply to the Three Speed Systems?
I liked Alex Jones and the message.
So before you ever applied to the Three Speed Systems, you were essentially an audience member, correct?
Yes.
Mr. Salazar, when you started at Info Wars in April of 2012, did you receive any training of any kind?
Just to, like, learn the backend systems like WordPress and things of that nature.
Okay.
So that training basically involved, you know, learning how to use the software programs that you were going to be using every day Are
you aware of any I
believe it had been thrown around by that point, yeah.
And you knew what that meant, correct?
Yeah, because I think that was starting around during the Aurora shooting.
What did you understand it to mean?
Actors were hired for crisis events.
I think it's an actual job that people do for EMS training and stuff.
People who are hired not to pretend as if they're participating that uh of allegations that one or more of the parents of san diego children uh were crisis actors correct yes that's i heard the rumor at that point yes you heard you heard the rumor um did
you believe it yourself adopted it uh i didn't really go into that so much as everybody else did um evidence actor But I wasn't really interested in trying to figure out whether they were crisis actors or not.
You weren't interested in that?
Not really.
It didn't really matter to the case we were trying to make or prove or any of the bizarre anomalies that I was writing about.
Okay.
Can you let me know, and this will be exhibit number 12, Why on January 6, 2013, you attempted to establish an account at crisisactors.org?
I'm not sure why.
But your testimony here today is that you don't know why you did that.
Well, it looks like I was trying to investigate, see if maybe one, maybe if they're listed as crisis actors on there.
I don't know what, I was just trying to, you know, any avenue I can Possibly investigate.
I wanted to do my due diligence.
Your assumption is that you were trying to gain access to the site in the hope that you might be able Crisis actors appearing on the website were the same as individuals who were family members of Sandy Hook victims, correct?
At the time it looks like I was trying to figure out if any of the people involved in the Sandy Hook event were crisis actors.
That's what appears to us.
Am I correct, sir, that you wrote more than a dozen articles concerning Sandy Hook?
I'm not sure.
Maybe.
Possibly.
It might be less.
You received an email, did you not, in March, on March 7th of 2013, from Daniel DuPont.
Okay.
And Matt DuPont wrote to you, please stay on top of the story.
No names of deceased to be released, etc.
The attack appears to be completely staged.
The public knows that they are being lied to.
And you wrote back to him, thank you for the encouragement, right?
Right.
And you pointed him to a YouTube video that InfoWars had published in January, correct?
Yeah, it looks that way.
One of the articles you wrote introduced the InfoWars audience to Wolfgang Halbock, correct?
Yes.
You see an email from Tom Bastien to you?
Tom Bastien.
Can you vet this guy?
And yes, if you would just ask Alex to bring him on as a guest, okay.
Okay.
Do you know who Tom Baskin is?
I have no idea.
Okay.
And you understood Mr. Bastian to be asking you to vet Wolfgang Helbig, correct?
Yes, it looks like that.
So, in 2014?
Yes, sir.
Do you have the article in front of you, sir?
Yes.
Okay.
And this was published under your byline.
You wrote this, right?
Yes, sir.
And it's dated February 18, 2014?
Yes.
And before you wrote this article, you said you listened to an interview he gave to who?
I believe the publication was American Free Press.
Did you do anything other than listen to that interview?
I believe I looked into Mr. Halving's accreditations.
What do you believe you're looking into Mr. Halving's accreditations?
I think I went to a website where he was, like I had a picture of him or something.
I can recall a picture.
I think it was just the general bio about him.
So you went to a website.
You don't remember which website, right?
I think it was something Halbig put up himself or something.
Okay, your question is that the website you went to to check out Mr. Halbig's credentials was a website that he created?
It could have been.
Okay.
Is that your recollection?
Yeah, I recall.
I'm not completely sure who was behind putting that website up, but it could have been Halvick.
It could have been somebody else.
You don't know?
No, I'm not aware who published that.
And you weren't aware at the time, correct?
And your purpose in going to this website was to do what?
To look up his backgrounds.
And why would you want to do that?
To see if he was credible.
What about his background would tell you whether he was credible or not?
He did say he was a national school safety consultant.
He was a former state trooper, I believe, Florida state trooper.
I thought those two lent themselves to credibility.
Did you know anything beyond that about his work as a consultant or just that there was a title associated with him on this website?
a title on a past history of being a state trooper. - I'm gonna get to the state trooper, but just with respect to the National School Safety Consultant, all you learned about Mr. Halbig's past as a National School Safety Consultant from this website was all you learned about Mr. Halbig's past as a National School Safety Consultant from this website was that there was, the website published a title describing Correct.
In other words, you didn't learn anything about what he had actually done in a consultant capacity, correct?
Yes, you're correct.
You didn't learn anything about how long he had been a consultant, correct?
Right.
You didn't learn anything about particular projects on which you had consulted, correct?
Correct.
And you didn't do anything beyond visiting this website to find those things out, correct?
Is that correct, Mr. Salazar?
Yes, sir.
Okay.
Now, with respect to the Florida State Trooper, you went to this website, which you believe Mr. Halving may or may not have created himself, and then Yes, besides the police car, yes.
So fair to say that the entire extent of knowledge you had about Mr. Halbig's credentials at the time you wrote this article was from a website that Mr. Halbig may have created in which he was described as a school safety consultant and a Florida state trooper, and there was a picture of him in law enforcement attire.
That's the extent of it, correct?
Well, it does seem like he might have described who he was or his background in the interview with American Free Press.
I would have had that knowledge, whatever he discussed in the interview as well, prior to writing the article.
And that came directly from Mr. Palpik himself, correct?
Yes, it would have.
Or the person, the host that's presenting him and giving the bio before he, you know, comes on to the show.
Listening to the interview and visiting the website, Yes.
Did it occur to you how families who had lost loved ones at Sandy Hook would react to an allegation that in fact their children were murdered in an event that was scripted and planned over two and a half years?
Did that occur to you?
I didn't think about that.
Did you ever receive any warning from anybody concerning Mr. Halby's credibility?
No.
Did anybody ever express any concern to you about publishing Mr. Halby's claims about Sandy Hook?
That's right.
Do you see this email from RobertHeathQWritersAtInfoWars.com, dated March 14, 2014?
Yeah, I see that.
And can you read the email?
Wolfgang, How Big's Credentials, Best Wishes, Robert Heath.
If I scroll up in the document, there is a reply from you to Robert Heath, correct?
Yes.
Okay.
And can you read what you wrote?
I said, Robert, thanks, but what on earth do you mean, question mark?
The guy seemingly has credentials up the wazoo.
Your email is much too vague to follow up on.
And you said seemingly.
Why did you say seemingly?
From my surface research, he appeared to have credentials.
That's why I said seemingly.
Unless there was something else that Mr. Heath could bring to the table to The initial email to you did not provide more detail.
You declined to check further into Mr. Halbig's credibility, correct?
It looks like I'm asking Mr. Heath to follow up.
I see.
So the way you understand your response to Mr. Heath is you're essentially inviting him to provide additional information so that Yes, that's what it looks like.
Okay.
So if you scroll down further, you'll see that on March 15, 2014, so the day after your email to Mr. Heath, he sends you an email in response to your invitation, correct?
Okay, I see that.
Okay.
Can you read that?
Dear Adnan, thank you very much for your attention and reply.
Yes, he seemingly has many credentials, but do you know that from any source other than he himself, I really hope he's genuine and that I'm being paranoid and wasting your time, but have you tried looking him up in Google as I have?
I don't know, but doubt whether it would make a difference that I'm in the UK, but I use Google as worldwide.
I can find no trace of him except in connection with his current activities on Sandy Hook.
For example, I cannot find him on the list that exists of expert I cannot find any reference in prior to 2012 as a school safety expert or a principal as a comparison.
All teachers or head teachers principals I know I can easily find prior 2012 the same for a sample of the professionals I know.
I tried the same sorts of search for random people I do know who have a much lower profile CV than how big and get many results from If one is, for example, on a committee, no matter how small or local in the minutes of a meeting or online, you will find your name very quickly on a simple name search, especially if it's an uncommon name.
I can't find a trace of him and he has an unusual name, which should make it easier.
I will look again now and spend some more time and try to be more resourceful in finding him in any context If he drags everybody along the lines of no death, which Alex rightly didn't commit to, would not all the questions and doubts be illustrated to the public as just another crazy conspiracy theory?
If it was exposed, definitely there were in fact deaths and that Alvig was a con man.
Again, sorry to waste your time.
If I have, I will look again.
Best wishes, Robert.
So Mr. Heath followed up in his email to you with the results of I wouldn't say he did more, but it looks like he did ample research.
Well, all you did was visit one website that Mr. Halving himself may have created, correct?
He may have created it.
I think I did a little bit more searching, but I think it was mainly based off of that one website.
And you don't recall whether you raised Mr. Heath's concerns with anybody else in force, is that correct?
I don't recall doing that either, yeah.
If you had, do you suspect you would have forwarded Mr. Heath's email along to whoever you wanted to notify about it?
Yes, I probably would have, yes.
Okay.
And whatever you may have done or not done in response to this email, Mr. Halby continued to appear on InfoWars after March 15, 2014, correct?
I believe that's the case, yes.
and you don't recall whether you did any additional vetting of Mr. Halibut, yourself in response to receiving this email, correct?
I don't believe I did any vetting after this email now.
Showing you exhibit number 23.
Does this appear to you to be another email sent by Robert Heath, two writers at Infowars.com, concerning Mr. Halvig?
Can I see that?
He said he's already sent without subject field filled in.
And he repeats his warning to check Mr. Halvig's credentials, correct?
Yes.
And you don't know how to receive this email because it's not addressed to you directly and others had access to the writers.
After receiving Mr. Heath's warning, you did not advise anybody at InfoWars about any concerns concerning Mr. Howling's credibility, correct?
I didn't tell anybody about the email that I received from Mr. Heath and his warnings or whatever they were.
Misgivings, really.
And nor did you, without referencing Mr. Heath's Yes, I knew that was Mr. Halbig's claim.
Other than Mr. Heath, did anybody else ever warn you about relying on Mr. Halbig in your reporting on Sandy Hook?
Maybe.
I can't recall.
Possibly.
Do you know an individual Did Mr. Jacobson ever advise you of his concerns about relying on Mr. Halbig as a source for reporting that Sandy Hook was a scripted event?
Mr. Jacobson I think did raise concerns but I didn't really Yeah, he thinks Michelle Obama is a man, for one.
And you've actually posted on your own social media suggesting that Michelle Obama is a man having I haven't gotten along with that conspiracy theory, yes.
You've actually posted a picture of Mr. and Mrs. Obama kissing and saying essentially Happy Gay Pride Day, correct?
I might have done that, I don't know.
I don't remember.
mr um salazar do you agree with me that mr jacobson advised you that it was unethical to rely on a single source like mr halbig for a claim that sandy hope was scripted without actually investigating it yourself you might have said something to that effect possibly Can't recall.
And did he ever tell you that Mr. Halby could have credibility issues?
He may have raised that concern, I can't recall.
How did you respond to his, your general recollection that he raised concerns about relying I believe I brushed it off.
I might have funded him for saying that.
Did you report his concerns to anybody else at InfoWars?
No.
Do you recall saying in his presence that you wanted to have t-shirts and bumper stickers made and have You wrote an article entitled, FBI Says No One Killed at Sandy Hook, correct?
Yes, sir.
What was the point of the article?
It was pointing out another anomaly.
That an FBI.gov website showed no murders occurred in the town of Newtown in December 2012. And you accessed that FBI report online, is that right?
Yes, the article um Did you do anything to try and determine why Zero deaths were reported in that particular online report that you saw.
Besides looking at the data that was presented on FBI.gov, I didn't do any further research.
And you didn't look any further to see whether those murders were reported under a different law enforcement organization that had jurisdiction to investigate them, correct?
I only was reporting on what the FBI was saying in this report.
The report wasn't just Table 8, correct?
There were other parts of the report.
Did you know that?
I figured there's 1 through 7 at least of, yeah, it was Table 8, so around 1 through 7 exists probably somewhere.
And you didn't think to look for Table 9 or Table 10 or any other tables, right?
I think my story was mainly about Table 8, so I didn't go through the entire list of tables that the FBI has.
And it didn't occur to you that the deaths that you were reporting the FBI did not report were actually reported in a separate part of the very same report?
It didn't occur to you?
It didn't occur to be done.
Thanks for this.
Please call free speech systems by video deposition representing Ricky Paz.
Alright.
Oh, yes sir.
Can I move the water?
Oh, sure.
Yeah.
Is it blocking your views?
Yes.
Yes, absolutely move that.
Your Honor, before we start Ms. Paz, I guess you move to 51 again.
Any objection?
No, you're only.
Plan X 51 is admitted.
All right, ma'am, can you tell us your name?
Sure.
My name is Brittany Paz, P-A-Z. Did you read every document with Star Lewis' name on it?
I don't know that I've read every single document.
Wouldn't it not make sense to you, though, after you read Ms. Karpova's deposition and you saw emails from Wolfgang Halbig directly harassing Ms. Lewis?
Wouldn't you think then, oh, maybe there are documents with Ms. Lewis' name on it?
I mean, there may very well be misdocuments, but that doesn't mean that it was in the company's knowledge.
Many of those documents, after a certain point, were not being opened.
Okay, so from your standpoint, because you don't know whether certain documents were open or not, you just ignored them?
No, that's not correct.
Okay, so you knew the company possessed documents that probably was the same, right?
Sure, there's some emails, but I don't know whether they were ever in the company's knowledge as far as information that was provided by an outside source.
Mr. Halbig, I know Mr. Halbig has sent a variety of emails and copied numerous, numerous people.
They read like spam, and when I talk to various employees, their position is at a certain point, they stopped opening his emails.
Before this lawsuit was filed, the company knew that Mr. Posler was being harassed by Mr. Halbig?
I don't know that, no.
Because I think we talked about earlier, I don't know at what point anybody became aware of what he was doing just because they stopped reading his emails.
Because he's kind of crazy, right?
I think that his email communications got more and more bizarre as time went on.
I think that was the word that Nico used, was bizarre.
Hold on.
You've read a lot of Wolfgang Hobbit emails, I'm taking it.
I did, yes.
So you've read emails from him like in 2014, and you've probably read emails from him up in 2017, right?
Yes, I've read a lot of emails.
Are you going to tell me that the emails he said in 2014 are any less crazy than the emails he said in 2017?
I think they've gotten crazier.
Okay.
But we can both agree that there are plenty of emails he sent in 2014 that the company did in fact read and thanked him for it, Jared, that are crazy.
Um, yes.
You did agree that Infowars, its coverage did impact that grieving process.
You just don't think they have any responsibility for it, right?
If, over the course of years, InfoWars is telling the world that Sandy Oak is fake, and that controversy stays alive, does the company understand that it might be hard for Mike I don't think that, and maybe we need to talk about what fake means.
So when you said fake, does that mean children didn't die?
Does that mean it is a fake flag?
No, I get what you're saying.
I do.
And let's just go ahead and make sure we both are on the same page.
Sure.
I don't think we do need Sandy Hook is or is not.
And would you agree with me that the reason that we don't need to do that is because many, many times people on Infowars, including Mr. Jones, have unequivocally said that Sandy Hook is completely fake, totally synthetic, manufactured.
Do you agree with that?
I agree.
Those are direct quotes on Mr. Jones' opinions, yes.
Okay.
And certainly when reviewing the production, you saw the volume of emails from Jim Fetzer?
I know Jim Fetzer sent a volume of emails.
I can't speak to whether they were read by the company for the same email for the same reason as Mr. Halberg.
Right, because after a guy sends you maybe your 6th, 8,000th, 12,000th email, you start just ignoring it, right?
Maybe even before that.
Maybe even before that.
That's why I'm saying I understand that he sends emails, but I don't know that anybody really read it or responded to it or anything like that.
So, you would agree with me that by 26, 2017. In other words, before this video, prior to this video on June 26, 2017 that discusses information from Mr. Fetzer,
the company had in its possession an extremely large volume of emails from Mr. Fetzer, which clearly reveal to any rational person Are you asking whether they're in our possession?
Yes.
Yes, they're in our possession, they're on our email site.
And you never read them?
I can't answer as to whether they were ever read.
Unless there's something forwarding it from somebody else, or there was a response to it in any way.
But generally, what he does is, and what I saw is what he does is he copies very many people in his emails.
And before his information was used on June 26, 2017, nobody read those emails, to your knowledge?
Not to my knowledge.
Okay.
But if somebody had, if somebody had taken the effort before putting Mr. Fetzer's stuff on the air in 2017 of reading those emails, they would have come to the conclusion that Mr. Fetzer is not a well man.
You would agree with that?
I mean, I think that that's kind of speculation at this point because nobody, I don't think anybody read the emails.
Have you?
I've read those emails in the production.
I've read some of his emails.
They're not good, are they?
No, they're not.
They're not a man who's not...
My mom used to say, not with a full deck.
You know what that means?
I do know what that means.
I don't think he has full deck.
InfoWars is hands clean for anything they put on the show that they didn't themselves write, is what you're saying.
That's the position.
InfoWars has done absolutely nothing to verify any of that claim beyond just listening to how we...
No, there's been no independent research into those crimes.
You have a note written down there and it says, Alex said these kids didn't die because he has a big heart and he wanted to hold out hope they weren't dead.
That was the company's testimony for Ms. Karpova, correct?
That is Ms. Karpova's testimony.
And that's the company's testimony, right?
She was a representative at the time of the company, so yes.
How does it feel morally?
Does it understand what it did wrong?
I think that there are different opinions within the company as far as the coverage.
I think Mr. Watson made that clear that he felt one way about the coverage.
Well, I don't want to know about consultants.
You want to know about just employees?
No, what about the company?
Okay.
The company has an opinion.
The company is a separate thing from its employees.
The company has subjective beliefs.
I don't know if your company takes a position on the morality of the statements.
All right.
All right.
So, I'm sorry.
You said Dr. Lupin?
Lubin.
Lubin.
this room hallway sir thank you don't worry for me right hand do solemnly swear or affirm the testimony you're about to give shall be the truth and nothing but the truth thank you so much doctor you can come have a seat here in the next stand you'll see we have
We have some water.
It seems like you might be a little soft-spoken, so I might need you to scoot a little closer to the microphone than some other witnesses, but I want you to be comfortable.
So we'll play with it until we can all hear you.
Testifying is a little different than a conversation.
It's a question and answer, so you have to let the lawyers completely finish asking that question before you start your answer.
Can you do that?
Yes, Your Honor.
Thank you.
And then I need you to also answer out loud with words.
Sometimes people shake or nod their heads, and I can't get a good record for that.
Okay?
Yes, Your Honor.
Thank you so much.
You may proceed.
Thank you, Your Honor.
Dr. Lubin, can you please introduce yourself to the jury?
I'm a psychiatrist.
I'm board certified in psychiatry and neurology.
I'm board certified in child and adolescent psychiatry and in forensic psychiatry.
I trained at, went to a medical school at NYU, did my psychiatry residency at Yale, and then child and adolescent psychiatry at Boston Children's.
I then did a two-year fellowship in I was involved with political psychology, which studies certain areas, such as terrorism and leadership, And eventually earned a PhD while I was doing psychiatry in the summers and evenings doing a lot of on-call work.
And then because of writings I had done and learned about organizational behavior, I was hired by a press by Russ Coopers for two years to do organizational consulting During those two years, my contract forbid me from doing anything else, so those two years I didn't do psychiatry, but I did it up until then and after.
And then I went back and did a forensic psychiatry fellowship at St. Vincent's Hospital, which is in the lower part of Manhattan, and it's the largest hospital anywhere in And I happened to be there at 9-11.
And my superior just happened to be a world expert on children's trauma.
And so I did a great deal of...
I learned a lot.
A lot of opportunities came.
A lot of training was brought in.
And then I spent a year there as an assistant professor.
And then I was hired away by Mount Sinai because of my experience with emotional trauma.
And they wanted me to teach for So we're talking about around 2004, I've primarily been in private practice.
I see some patients, do a fair amount of forensic work, do a fair amount of writing.
Dr. Lubin, have you ever been deemed an expert in a courtroom before?
Yes, I have.
How many times?
A hundred, two hundred, I'm not sure how many times.
You mentioned the support that you gave during 9-11 dealing with adults who experienced traumatic events.
Can you tell us a little bit more about what you did?
I spoke to many, many adults, did brief work with them afterwards, did evaluations, supervised Do you take forensic cases?
Like, do you take both plaintiff and defense cases?
Roughly equal amounts of plaintiff and defense cases, and a fair amount that I turn down.
Have you ever been brought onto a case and given a court or an opinion that was actually negative to the party that hired you?
Yes.
I try to turn down the case if I think that my opinion is likely to go against them, but there are times when I am not able to.
I think that's determination and I rendered opinion.
Sometimes that's against the people that retain them.
Are you paid for your work in forensic psychiatry?
Yes.
And you're being paid today, correct?
Yes.
What are you being paid?
The contract, I believe, was for $6.50 an hour originally.
How many hours roughly have you spent on the skills?
Sure.
I expected it was going to be 30. I know that I ran the numbers for about 30 hours for the two cases, basically.
And then, since I didn't testify on Friday, I've been here for the weekend.
And I asked her if there would be some compensation for that, and she said yes.
I didn't ask you how much.
Were you able to come to opinions in this case?
Yes.
And coming to your opinions, what did you review in July?
I did multiple interviews of the two plaintiffs in the case.
I spoke with Dr. Crouch, who has done therapy with Neil Heslund since 2013, and saw Scarlett more recently for about 10 sessions.
I've seen various videos.
I watched three videos of Neil Peslin speaking on the air.
One in 2012, one in 2017, and one in 2022. I reviewed their depositions that they've given in this case.
From Dr. Crouch?
No.
Is that common for you to form opinions without actually looking at the records?
Most of the time I just speak to therapists.
I've found that the records are generally illegible, and often don't say as much as the therapist can say to me.
And how much were you able to communicate with Dr. Crouch about Neal and Scott?
A fair amount of time, a couple times during the last few days.
Did you do any independent research?
Yes.
Well, it's complicated.
For the last few years, I've been working on two papers.
One is on the impact on forensic evaluation of emotional trauma, which is a rewrite of the paper from 20 years ago, done with the professor that I mentioned before, who was an expert.
And the paper is essentially done.
I just have to do the last minute editing and hopefully grab minutes a couple of days.
It would have been up the past weekend.
And also important was a paper on trail trauma that is finished.
It's a review of the trail trauma.
And it's basically what happens when people who you expect to support them would be fair to you either fail I
want to talk about the specific facts that this hits now.
Is it, do people heal from the loss of child, typically? - It depends what you mean by feeling.
Do people ever, does the pain ever stop?
Does there ever cease to be a bit of a hold in one's heart?
No.
Is there going to be sadness around holidays and times?
There's going to be.
But it's a pretty traumatic event, at least to lose a child.
It's completely against nature and our expectations.
Usually our folks go into our children and they die.
It's a terrible loss.
And people often then have post-traumatic stress disorder or a major depression.
They're going to have symptoms.
Usually after a few years, people are able to move on to a degree.
They're able to enjoy things again.
They're able to find pleasure in life.
They can often have withdrawn at first.
Now they're able to Do things with people.
Their sleep will improve.
Their concentration will improve.
They won't be obsessing or illuminating about the loss all the time.
And hopefully also, and in general, they'll also start being able to focus more on happy times they have together.
So, you know, if you get a wound, it heals when you have a scar.
It's healed, largely, and you're able to get on with things again, but there's still a scar that may be annoying at times.
You mentioned the symptoms that people experience when they lose a child.
What affects the severity of different types of symptoms?
The severity of all traumas, all emotional traumas, depends tremendously on how much positive social support versus negative social support.
I remember hearing this many years ago and I was sort of surprised and a little bit shocked to hear that The magnitude of the trauma is often less important than the amount of social support, but there's now plenty of literature showing that.
And even supporting it more, there's very specific trauma-focused therapy.
More recently, people have tried interpersonal therapy, which is not focused on the trauma at all.
It's on strengthening the person's social connections to other people, and it works as well as trauma-focused therapy.
Let me stop there.
Sorry.
You used a couple of terms that we might not understand.
I know I don't.
But you started with positive social support.
Tell us what that is.
Positive social support is feeling that other people care and are concerned about you and sympathize with what you've been through.
Also what's found is that the emotional part is more important than doing concrete things for them.
I want to apply that to why we're here today.
Can you give us some examples of the positive social support that Neil and Scarlett initially received after the murder of their son, Jesse?
I mean, Obama came down to, went across to Newtown, Connecticut.
There were vigils.
There were many, The funeral.
That's showing sympathy, showing concern, and for people to not feel alone with a terrible loss.
So positive social support doesn't just come from your loved ones or your close friends, but can also come from society as a whole?
It can come from society as a whole.
It often comes from officials, people of power.
This is sliding into negative social support.
How a doctor and how the police treat a rape victim has a tremendous impact on how that person does.
Tell us a little bit more about what you think.
Again, this is very strong literature that, unfortunately, doctors and police often ask invalidating questions of people who can victimize, people who can rape, and say things that are Some shocking, such as, you know, didn't you want it?
Or look how you were dressed.
You caused this to happen.
And so victim blaming.
Or are you sure it was rape?
Are you sure you, you know, you weren't interested?
Now you're changing your mind.
That would just be invalidation that they've been harmed.
And that does tremendous damage.
And you mentioned invalidation.
Is that a type of negative social support?
Yes.
Tell us a little bit more about what negative social support One can have a hierarchy from minimizing how significant it was, oh, it's no big deal, he'll get over it, to, you know,
it didn't happen, no one did anything wrong to you, to vilification, Tell us the difference between invalidation and
vilification.
Invalification is saying it didn't happen or it's not a big deal.
Whereas vilification is blaming the person, is saying that they're a bad person, that they did something terribly wrong and they deserved it, or for other reasons that they're a bad person, it's attacking the person.
So can negative social support start as invalidation and invalidification and then morph into vilification?
Going back to the example of a rape in a policeman, if they start questioning what happened and was it really what you're saying, and then they go ahead and file charges against the person because they don't believe it was a rape and they file charges against them.
In one case I have, they put it on the internet that this woman was arrested for filing false charges, which in fact had been raped.
Male Speaker 1 So, you know, the realification are both subsets of negative social support, correct?
They're negative social support, yes.
Male Speaker 1 Can you tell us some of the examples of negative social support that Neil and Scarlett received following the murder of their son, Chesney?
Saying that it didn't occur is negative social support and really sets up all sorts of triggers in the brain and increases the pain.
Going and saying that there are crisis actors, the children were killed by the CIA, and they have criminal intent, this is vilification.
Does that invalidification say that correctly?
Invalidation.
Invalidation, vilification.
I knew I was messing up one.
Is the invalidation, is that just doubting someone's feelings?
It's not just doubting their feelings, I mean, doubting that it occurred.
And, um, I mean, one can, it's more on the borderline saying that, you know, it didn't occur, it's somewhat of a facilitation, because it's saying they're lying.
I'm sorry.
It's saying that they're not It's, I mean, I think that denying that the event occurred is,
I mostly think of it as invalidation, but it, saying the person is lying, sliding into vilification, and to more directly say that they're lying, or they're crisis actors, or they're criminal intent, that's straight vilification.
During your review and coming to your conclusions, did you find instance specific Well, there were videos that have been shown here on Friday when I was here.
the statements that they were crisis actors, criminal intent, and they were trying to take people's guns away, etc.
This was a location to attack on them.
And it led people to then confront them and...
Neil Hesslin had a bullet shot at his home, at his car.
They've gotten phone calls with threats.
Scarlett also has been confronted and very anxious.
Neil is telling me that, you know, On dozens of occasions, people have come up to him and started challenging him about his claim that this actually occurred, he's been shoved.
This is all pretty frightening.
What's more significant?
Positive social support, or is that outweighed by negative social support?
The research, unfortunately, is unfortunate.
But the research shows pretty clearly that negative social support is much more powerful than positive social support.
And I think we all experience that in some ways, or we've seen it.
If a child has, you know, loving parents and good friends and teachers like him, but When someone at school, one, two kids start teasing him, hassling him, insulting him, he's probably going to feel pretty badly.
And all the love from his parents and friends and teachers is still valuable, but he's very likely to feel pretty badly and worried and scared.
When we're dealing with the different types of social support, which one lasts longer?
Well, it depends.
I mean, in terms of Neil and Scarlett, you know, Obama was there for a day.
The vigils, the funeral was there for a few days.
But in time, that stops.
And then the negative statements about them, about it not happening, and them lying, went on for years.
And after In 2017, it's greatly increased with more direct attacks on neo.
And is this positive and negative social support, is that backed by research?
Yes.
Tell us a little bit about that.
There's research that's looking at people after traumatic events and how people treated them and how they He did afterwards.
There were a number of studies I've seen.
I can't quote the details of the studies at this time.
Now that we know that Neal and Scarlett both experienced negative social support, I want to talk about how they affected it.
I'm going to start with Neil, because before we do that, did Neil and Scarlett experience different impacts on their lives from negative social support?
Did they-- different types of negative social support or different impacts on their functioning?
Did it affect them differently?
There are some differences, but there are also a lot of similarities.
Tell us about the similarities first.
They both have a very strong concern about the damage to the memory of Jesse, to Jesse's legacy.
And that's a major similarity and a driving force for them.
They also carry a great deal of anxiety about being killed.
Scarlett, I think, talks about it a bit more, just that she's constantly anxious.
A car will go by, down the street, just drive down the street and she gets nervous.
She has a fairly sophisticated surveillance system and multiple weapons that she sleeps with.
And are all of those directly related to The effects of the negative social support that she's received since the murder of her son?
Yes.
Is it common, you mentioned that Scarlett talks more about it, is it common for females to be more open in sharing the effects that they're having internally versus when a male has to be?
Absolutely, and there's a difference between individuals within the same gender, but in general women are probably going to be, are a little bit less There are different types of people.
Neil is more inclined to close up and not share versus Scarlett is okay opening up and sharing her feelings, correct?
Yes.
You talked about Scarlett and some of the specific effects that she has.
I want to talk about Neil and some of the specific things that he has.
There's a lot more to say about Scarlett.
I can do it later at some point.
I think it's a lot more than what I just said.
Before we get into, actually, go on a little bit about this topic.
For the past three years, Scarlett's been having episodes in which she sort of spaces out, doesn't know where she is or what's going on around her, can't think.
She said that she has frozen on stage in these episodes and it had to be walked off.
She said it's happened on conference calls.
And she said she closed the computer.
And I asked her why don't you just press the button for the tab for turning the video off.
And she said she wouldn't be able to do that.
She can't think at those times. - What is it called when someone starts having that?
- Well, it could be just various things, In her case, to a reasonable degree of medical certainty, she's dissociating.
What is dissociation?
Dissociation is a defense mechanism against extreme distress and usually comes with PTSD caused by traumatic incidents.
It's a complex mechanism that's quite hard to understand.
It doesn't quite make sense to me, but we know what happens.
I assume all of us in this courtroom know who we are, where we are, and what our history is.
In dissociation, those three mental functions are split apart.
So, at the most extreme, we have multiple personality disorder.
Not quite as severe is our fugue states, in which people for hours to months, potentially weeks, could function and drive their car, they can do things, But they may not remember who they are or anything about their history.
I want to ask, the negative support that's causing all of these things in Scarlet, is that stemming from the conduct of Alex Jones and Scarlet?
Yes.
Now I want to talk about Neil, because you said that they were experiencing differences.
I have not heard about Neil dissociating.
Correct.
Tell us what you have heard about.
Neil has many symptoms.
One thing I found striking when I looked at the videos of him speaking six days after the tragedy, 2017 at some point, and 2022, and how he's behaved to me, which is like what I saw in the 2022 video.
He showed emotion in 2012 and 2017. There was sadness.
You could see there was feeling there.
He had a sense of a person there.
In my interactions with him frequently and in the video in 2022, he was sort of almost expressionless, looking up Much of the time, not making eye contact.
It didn't seem like he was making eye contact with who he was being interviewed by.
And facial muscles were pretty flat, and the voice was flat.
And I asked him about this, and he said that the emotions are all drained out of him.
Is it common for you to be able to see the toll that negative social support has on a person?
Well, if I do a psychiatric interview, yes.
But in terms of It was striking to me.
I've rarely seen someone have that huge change in the way they present, where they're just so overwhelmed that they stop feeling it.
Earlier you told us about betrayal trauma.
Is what's happening to Neil and causing that change, is that considered betrayal trauma?
I'd consider it an aspect of type of betrayal trauma.
It's not done by an authority.
Or some you know, but there's a line of research called institutional betrayal.
And so, even if you don't know the people, if, for example, if someone is assaulted, raped, And they feel that the institution had done all that it could to protect them and prevent this and it would be easy to report it.
They will have less severe symptoms than if they feel the organization didn't do things to support them.
That it wasn't easy to report.
That people didn't treat them that well when they reported it.
And that they didn't have call boxes put around campus.
Can you tell us What specific things happen to Neil to cause that reaction?
I think the anxiety drains us.
There's a term that's important in medicine called allostatic attrition.
Which is that after long periods of stress, our ability to deal with stress goes down.
We see that some people don't develop PTSD until months after an incident.
In almost all cases they have symptoms at first, but the symptoms get worse in time because their ability to handle it, they just get more and more exhausted emotionally.
So you mentioned PTSD.
Yes.
What is PTSD?
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is one of the things that can happen after an emotional traumatic event.
Many people just become depressed.
Many people develop anxiety disorders.
Many people meet many, but not all, of the symptoms of PTSD. After the World Trade Center, there were roughly equal numbers of people who developed an anxiety disorder, depression, and It's important to remember that just because you don't meet the diagnostic criteria for PTSD does not mean you're alright by any means.
It's used to a lot of extent for research.
They have a fixed set of symptoms and they can do studies on people on what I've talked around it so far.
Sure.
There are several things that you need for the diagnosis.
Unlike most mental disorders, you need a particular type of cause which currently is defined as being exposed to a threat of serious injury or death or sexual violence.
And then there are a number of symptoms.
You need one or more symptoms of intrusive recollections.
This could be nightmares.
This could be experiencing rock distress when there are reminders of what happened.
This could be flashbacks in which you feel as if it's occurring again.
Or it could be that it keeps coming to mind When you don't want it to come to mind.
Then you need a symptom of avoidance, which could be avoiding thinking and talking about it, or avoiding the place.
So, then you need two or more symptoms of negative alterations in mood and cognition.
And these include feeling irrational guilt or rational blame for someone, or having many dysphoric emotions, a lot of anxiety or depression, or both.
A much harder time enjoying things, withdrawing from activities and people who are cut off from people, detached.
It can also be much more negative feelings about the world and yourself, and also not remembering part of what happened which you think you should remember, and that usually in the case there's some dissociation occurring.
And finally there are Trauma-based changes in arousal and reactivity, which are decreased sleep problems, concentration problems, irritability, increased startle reaction, and being on edge.
So to diagnose someone with PTSD, they have to have a number of different signs, symptoms, I want to make them individual because Neal and Scarlett have been affected differently.
Does Neal have PTSD? Yes.
Does Scarlett?
Yes.
Tell me how you determine Neal has PTSD. They also both have, they're also quite depressed.
Neal, it's, he's thinking both of them are, it's on their mind.
All the time.
What's on their mind is not the death of their child.
What's on their mind is threats.
The attacks, the purple attacks on their son, by denying that he existed, by denying this had occurred to him.
Attacks on them as lying and deceiving the public.
They both try to avoid thinking about it.
And talking about it to the extent they can.
And avoiding doesn't mean that you never do.
It means that unless it's an important reason, you try to avoid it.
So going to trial doesn't mean that you don't have PTSD. Sure.
But it's quite painful to do it.
At this moment, I'm forgetting which one told me that they avoid Newtown completely.
In terms of, you know, the altered level of arousal, they both have sleep problems.
Scarlett wakes up multiple times at night.
She used to sleep very well.
Neil said that, you know, after the death of his son, he was getting two to four hours a night, and now he's getting less than two hours a night.
Both talked about concentration being down.
Ms. Scarlett said that other than the work she's doing, and that work she's doing is a problem.
It's a defense against the pain.
She can't look at her book and read it for any length of time.
Concentration's not there.
She's scattered.
You said that all stems from being exposed to a threat.
Yes.
What's the threat in this case?
The physical and psychological, the statements that the attacks on their reputation, the attacks on them as people, that they're lying, the attack on Jesse's memory, the claim that he didn't exist or he wasn't killed, the attack on his legacy of who he was.
He's a remarkable young man, little boy, six years of age.
And what he did is not what little boys do.
He was quite a young, special person.
And both there's the pain of the denial and the attack.
Neil talks more about the attack on his reputation and the ability of people to trust him and think well of him than Scarlett does.
But the anxiety, Scarlett is, has by her bedside, she has a gun, she has a knife, she has pepper spray.
You know, she put her in a big security system.
She's very, very, she's constantly worried about her safety.
And Neil also is constantly worried about her safety.
When Scarlett and Neil wake up, do they live in fear?
Yes, it's throughout the day.
You were in the courtroom on Friday when Mrs. Lewis testified.
She was the expert in what sounded like the entire internet.
You remember that?
Did the fact that billions of people were Reaching this type of material, these messages from Alex Jones, did the size of it, did that impact me on Scarlett?
Yes.
I don't know if people outside the US matter to them that much, but certainly within the United States, that they talk about both of them have withdrawn from people.
Scarlett used to have large dinner parties and enjoyed that.
And now she doesn't want someone in her house.
She stopped at dinner parties.
Both of them talk about how not knowing when someone's going to bring this up.
Neil has been against, he said dozens of times, people have confronted him, sometimes shoved him.
Friends will ask him, what about this Alex Jones stuff?
Is that true what he's saying?
And this is very painful.
For one thing, it's a traumatic trigger to the loss of her son, but it's a traumatic trigger to all these people and their reputation is being damaged.
When Mr. Jones' message finds its way to Neil and Scarlett, it doesn't make them relive the murder of Jesse.
It causes them a different pain, right?
On some level, it may remind them and trigger them, and I think that what has happened is that They were both healing quite well, and then this new trauma reversed a lot of the healing that had occurred.
And this does happen at times.
Something happens that just undoes the healing, the progress, and so now they're struggling both with the constant threat to their safety and more trauma from It's 1024. We'll break for 20 minutes.
This is just a break.
No conversation.
You know my distractions are still in place.
So just a break for 20 minutes.
All rise. All rise.
All rise. All rise. All rise. All rise.
The complex PTSD, Neil and Scarlett have complex PTSD, which is also called DESMOS, disorders of extreme stress not otherwise specified.
It's the PTSD that comes from having chronic threats, being in a war zone, being an abused child, Where it's not one, simply one incident, such as in the World Trade Center, you don't have a car accident, someone hits you in a bar.
It's constant, draining threat and anxiety.
And the amount of anxiety they have Scarlett doesn't use the air conditioner because she's scared that the noise will prevent her from hearing something she needs to hear to protect her safety.
She constantly works.
In the middle of the night she starts texting her staff.
She's just...
At general activities, she's going to have to ride, she doesn't.
If she has a boat, she goes out on the boat, she's going to be texting people.
And the reason that she's working so intensely is to block out the fear and the pain.
This is something that happens to people.
I've seen it before.
Where it's just so, things are so painful that you block it out by just constantly making yourself busy.
I want to be clear for everyone.
All of the fear that they're living in, all of the steps that they're taking to protect themselves, all of the feelings that they're experiencing in a negative way, none of those are from the murder of Jesse.
They're all stemming from Alex Jones, correct?
Yes.
They were both doing much, much better before.
Joan started focusing and attacking much more strongly, which occurred after Neil went on Megyn Kelly and said, no, this actually happened.
My son was killed.
I did hold my son with a bullet in his head.
It was kind of shocking to me that one of the media people who said it couldn't have happened I didn't think that there wasn't an inconsistency.
Yes, it's true that, in general, people did not see their kids, but the first thing I thought was that Neil was something that was likely an exception.
And I then went back and asked him, and he said that he stayed there until midnight, after midnight, I'm not sure, and that at some point a compassionate The guard let him go and hold his son.
Not a word that happened to anybody else, but I assume something like that must have happened as opposed to the saying he was lying.
Why would Neil have to go on national TV to a giant audience to say, I did hold myself.
Because people were denying it and they were saying that he was a liar and that he was doing these bad things.
He was hoping that if he got on TV that this would stop, that Jones would stop.
Did Neil genuinely think that Doing the first interview was going to make this all go away.
Excuse me, not the first, the interview with Megan Kepler.
That this was all going to go away.
At least decrease markedly.
I didn't ask him whether he thought it would all go away.
But he thought that it was going to deal with it largely.
And when you say decrease it markedly, it's because this isn't just a small group of people, correct?
Correct.
This is a massive million of people, correct?
Correct.
It's every fourth person.
So roughly, we heard it throughout the trial, probably 75 million people believed some sort of theory that what Neil was saying was not true.
I'm going to object to this part.
He's not an expert on statistics.
I think we had Ms. Lewis the other day, Your Honor.
Overruled.
Yes, I mean, it's the idea of walking down the street And every fourth person that passes you, you don't know which one, but out of every four people, one of them likely believes that you're a liar and trying to fool the American people and that many of them, you know, shove him, confront him, etc.
And this is anywhere they go in the country?
Yes.
When a person deals with a traumatic event and is suffering from PTSD that stems from a person influencing that large of a number of people, what does that do to the severity of what Neil and Scarlett are feeling inside?
It creates a great deal of anxiety.
It creates terror.
I see that in the things they've said to me and the precautions that I mostly sit down more with Scarlett when they're having.
Gun and knife and pepper spray and this big alarm system, not even being willing to use the air conditioner despite how hot it is this summer.
In all of those things that she does every single day of her life, none of them have to do with the death, the murder of Jesse, correct?
No, they don't.
They all have to do, they all stem from what Alex Jones did to her.
Yes, from Alex Jones stirring people up and then people Believing him and believing that they are lying.
and trying to take away their guns.
You used the term anxiety here.
Yes.
That's a clinical term, correct?
That's the term psychiatry, yes.
In the courtroom today, when you're saying anxiety, you're talking about the fear that Scarlett and Neal wake up with every single day because of what Alex Jones did.
Yes.
I'd say very high levels of anxiety.
Probably more in a non-clinical right, I would say they're terrified.
And this isn't just one instance of Mr. Jones and his show spreading these lies.
They're confronted with different people who've seen different videos or stories, and that all fuels the abuse that they receive, correct?
Object to the leading, Ron?
I'll sustain the objection to leading, but you can ask the question in a different way.
What fuels the different fears when they're out in the world around other people they don't know?
Thank you.
That knowing that roughly one in four people believe they're doing something terrible.
The criminal, immoral, lying, et cetera, and trying to take away their Second Amendment rights, and not even knowing which one of those four people, or which one of, you know, you see eight people, you don't know which two are the ones that despise you.
After experiencing that out in the world, do Neil and Scarlett withdraw from society to existence?
Oh, tremendously.
Neil, both of them have pulled away from people tremendously.
Neil has withdrawn from his historic friends.
I think he maintains full contact with a couple of people he still has contact with, but much, much less social.
And I mentioned earlier, Scarlett used to have large dinner parties and enjoyed that.
And now, she doesn't.
And she just doesn't really want Interacting with people when she doesn't have to.
And prefers not having anyone in the house.
Why are Neil and Scarlett isolating?
It's a very common thing to find after any trauma.
But more so if the person is scared of people.
But in general, frequently with emotional trauma, people withdraw.
They feel depressed.
They feel anxious.
They want to be alone.
It's a classic symptom of PTSD. When they're dealing from the trauma that Mr. Jones has caused, is that a natural feeling to want to withdraw in isolation?
I think it's much more intense.
The tendency to withdraw is much more intense when you have a situation where you're scared of who out there may be going after you.
And does literature support that?
Yes.
Tell us a little bit about that.
One of the diagnostic, one of the possible diagnostic criteria.
I mentioned that one of the four categories is negative alterations in cognition and mood, and one of them is withdrawing from activities in people.
Have humans evolved to react this way?
Yes.
Much of what they're experiencing is a result of evolution.
Tell us more about that.
People don't simply make decisions based on logical, instrumental reasons.
An instrumental reason we go to work, we want to make money, et cetera, et cetera.
There's an actual danger out there to avoid the place.
But we've been programmed by evolution to want certain things and to be scared of certain things.
For example, there are many people who are terrified of spiders and snakes.
And even if they're in an area that doesn't Have a ground recluse or a black widow who doesn't have poisonous snakes.
And when a person knows that it's not one of those, just a common garden snake, some people are terrified.
Because our ancestors, who were scared of snakes, were more likely to survive if they were just scared of snakes and bugs and they stayed away from them.
And so they didn't get poisoned by one of the poisonous varieties.
And similarly, our ancestors, our brains are hardwired by evolution to need relationships with others for a variety of reasons.
Our ancestors were not going to survive on their own outside of the community.
They certainly weren't going to survive and have children who would survive to adulthood.
And even within the community, They needed to have people think well of them, because people think well of you, they'll help you when you're in trouble, they'll give you assistance, they'll treat you well, they'll want to marry you, they'll want their children to marry your children, and so those people were able to bear more children than would live to adulthood.
If someone was disliked, not respected, people would not want to marry them, marry their children, And so even though today things are not quite that dangerous, we still have that in us.
And so this is where the power of negative social Support and a positive social support partially comes from.
And there's still an instrumental value now.
There's still a tendency to, you know, help or nicer.
But the intense amount that people seek it, the amount of distress people have around damage to their reputation, which is something Neil talks a particularly large amount about, is sort of hardwired by evolution.
So, it's as if there's these hard wires in our brains that developed far before any of us were born.
Yes.
One dealing with kind of being cut out of the society and the want to be wanted, correct?
Is that what you're saying?
Yes, correct to what we're saying.
Overall, yes, that's what I'm saying.
And it sounds like the other one has to do with everyone's natural feeling to want to protect their reputation.
Yes.
Why?
Let's try those one by one.
I want to start with feeling alone.
Where did that come from?
Well, there's alone and there's isolation.
And they're both in the same direction.
But feeling alone is scary.
And it's, you know, there are people who have separation anxiety.
And many children have separation anxiety.
And hopefully it decreases over time.
But, again, that's in Bournemouth.
Um, Fairhorn said that, you know, the innate drive is not for sex, it's for relationships.
Discreate with Freud.
And that there's a very strong drive to connect with people, to be around people, for most people.
And to not be isolated in the world.
Does that kind of go back to being exiled?
Yes.
Exiled...
In the past, there's a different meaning than the current society, but can you explain why humans feel pain when they are exiled?
Our ancestors were pushed out of the community.
They were exiled.
They were very unlikely to survive.
We don't have claws and we don't run that fast.
Or have strong jaws.
And they were likely to be killed.
And they certainly were unlikely on their own to have children.
That would pass along their genes.
Have you ever treated a patient in your entire career who has had that feeling stemming from 75 million people in the country?
Not from 75 million people who felt cut off and isolated and generally feels extremely painful.
But feeling that one in four people Anywhere in this country you go is going to reject you, think poorly of you, despise you, could, well, you know, hassle you, verbally assault you, or physically assault you.
No, I'm not seeing anything like that.
Does that make a person, excuse me, let's ask this, has that made Neal and Scarlett doubt who they can trust?
Oh, completely.
Tell us more about that.
Neal generally talks about withdrawing from friends.
And very much not knowing who's going to say what or on the street who's going to confront him.
And Scarlett stopped her visiting her dinner parties and her socializing with people.
The reason we were talking about the number 75 million is that this case isn't a run-in-the-mill case.
Correct.
This is probably the largest number of people questioning a single person Are any of the questions that those 75 million people are asking, or excuse me, or the lies that they're believing, any of those related to the murder of Jesse?
Well, related in the way that Jones claims that Jesse didn't die or didn't exist, but in terms of would this have happened if If Jones wasn't pushing it, there would be a much smaller number and there would, for my studies in political science, for my studies on organizational behavior, very few...
I'm going to object to an opinion on his studies on organizational behavior and organizational studies.
I think what you can do for us, Doctor, is just tell us about how Mr. Hesson and Ms. Lewis have reacted to this situation versus how they would have reacted were the numbers much smaller.
without telling us what might have caused that.
That makes sense.
- Sure. - So you can go ahead and answer.
- Did I have a question again then?
- Sure. - The number of individuals that are down, that impacts the enslavement much more.
Yes.
I want to talk about reputation.
As you mentioned, that affects Neil more so than the staff, but it affects them both, correct?
Yes.
Why is their reputation being affected?
Many people have come to believe that they are lying, that they're actors with criminal intent, that this didn't happen, that they're trying to take people's guns away, trying to deny them their constitutional rights.
And that's all coming from Alex Jones's lies.
And there would be some people who I would like to believe it without Alex Jones, but the vast numbers and the support that people have for acting strongly, the intensity of their belief and their belief that they should do something, people get roused up by orators like Alex Jones.
How have Mr. Jones' lies actually affected people's reputation?
Many people have challenged him.
He was shot at.
His house was shot at.
His car was shot at.
Bullet cases found in his driveway.
There are many people who really think very intensely and have very intense negative feelings about him and are willing to act on it.
How have Mr. Jones' lies impacted the memory that Neil has of his son's reputation?
That's very important too.
There's a desire to feel that a piece of us, our legacy lives on.
That there's a piece of a child that's died lives on, that will affect the world, had significance, made a difference.
And the statement that he didn't exist, that he wasn't that extremely brave boy who saved nine classmates, That's very painful.
It feels that this legacy is being destroyed.
And we see this with many people.
Some people set a large foundation.
Some politicians care about their legacy, what they've done.
People give huge amounts of money to institutions to get their name on the institution.
We're symbolic creatures.
And I think it's a way of We're trying to live on past our death.
Is it inherent for a parent to want to protect those memories of their son?
Yes, and it's not that common that parents have to bury their kids.
But if they do, they're going to be very protective of the legacy as they would have been, as they tried to be protective of their child.
Both parents feel some guilt.
They failed their child, that they're supposed to protect their child in this world.
And this is part of the irrational guilt of post-traumatic stress disorder.
Neil had stayed, after dropping Jesse off that day, he had some phone calls to make.
He stayed at the school and left, I think, shortly before Adam Lanza arrived.
And he feels that he had only stayed longer.
He couldn't have known.
But that doesn't change the fact that the person in that position is going to feel, why didn't I stay?
I stayed.
He said I would have rushed in there, and it wasn't me, not my child.
And this girl would also talk about just feeling she failed her child.
How have Mr. Jones' lies impacted Dylan Scarlett's ability to heal from the murder of their son?
Well, it's more than just interfere with the healing.
Back into some of the earlier pain.
And I've seen this, again, I've seen this with others, where an individual is healed in the form of trauma, sexual assault at a restaurant, overextended assaults over a period of time, and pretty much their symptoms had gone, and then at deposition they were badly roughed up and challenged and invalidated by the defense lawyer.
And they fell back to the original symptoms.
Just so we're clear, the original symptoms are similar, but they're different in the fact that they're upset from the lies that are being told.
They're not going back to step one.
It's a different pain.
It just hurts as much.
Well, it's...
It prevented them...
It reversed some of their healing, but...
The primary cause of their trauma and stress now is not the loss of their child.
I mean, I think there's some from that still.
The primary thing now that they speak about is this terror for their own physical safety.
What they obsess about is Jones.
Neil told me that he has nightmares about Jones, not about him.
They asked him, do you have nightmares about your son?
No, I have nightmares about Jones and what he's done and what he does.
So the overwhelming cause of the pain is what Jones is doing and there's also some addition from When you say some of the healing, how is that affected by a new trauma that's coming in that's different than the healing that you've already done?
Having had a prior trauma makes It makes you very vulnerable, makes the individual less resilient and very vulnerable to future trauma.
So it weakens the person and so it speaks to just how overwhelmed they are and how I don't see them feeling very much, ever feeling fully from the Jones events.
That because this happened on top of someone who was already weakened by early trauma, the symptoms are going to be worse than they would otherwise have been.
And they'll last a lot longer than they otherwise would have lasted.
And you weren't asked in this case to tell us why Mr. Jones decided to attack the vulnerable people in this situation, were you?
No.
What about the statement, sticks and stones may bring my bones, but words will never hurt?
Oh, I wish that was true.
Oh, but it's not.
Unfortunately.
We say that to people to try to get them to step away a bit from the pain of verbal statements, but the reality is that verbal statements are far more cutting.
We know that verbal abuse of children is worse than physical abuse of children.
The magnitude of the harm, the longevity of the harm is usually much worse.
Because it attacks the sense of themselves, who they are, what they believe about themselves, what they feel about themselves, their self-esteem.
And they can come to see themselves as bad people and get some brains into their self-image.
And again, I think that goes back to evolution, that we're programmed To care a great deal about what others think about us.
Because those who didn't would likely act in ways that would alienate others and lead them to not get help, not get married, kicked out of the community and not procreate.
Those who did care about what others thought would mold their behavior in ways and treat others in ways that would lead people like them.
We talked about Neil having to go on national television to try and get this to stop.
Remember that?
Yes.
How did Mr. Jones react when Mr. Haslam did that?
The attacks focused on him, became much more intense and frequent, and particularly picked him out and then made him much more of a target than others.
That was specific to Neil, correct?
Yes.
They named him, correct?
As Neil started being attacked individually, how did he react?
He was scared.
Tell us a little bit about that.
He's talked a lot about his reputation, the legacy of his son.
And here for safety and develop multiple symptoms.
His sleep got much worse.
His concentration got much worse.
He was through much more from people.
More depressed and anxious.
Earlier you mentioned Neil's last memory of the son.
Yes.
And that's a hard memory to have, but it was his.
Yes.
The video that we saw last week with Mr. Schroyer That it's a painful memory, but it's still his last memory of me and his son.
And we are generally programmed that if people start challenging us and questioning us, that no matter how sure we are about something, many people would start wondering and start being unsure of themselves.
And that makes things very uncomfortable.
When a memory like that is ruined, it has nothing to do with what happened to Jesse.
It has everything to do with what Mr. Jones and his company did in response to him, correct?
Yes.
How do Neil and Scarlett currently feel about their personal safety?
They're terrified.
Again, to the point that It's rather unusual.
I've treated 1,000, 2,000, 3,000 people.
I don't know how many in my career.
I have not before heard someone with a gun and a knife and pepper spray by their bed, much less they can't turn on the air conditioner during extremely hot weather because they can't risk not hearing something they need to hear.
If they could, would Neil and Scarlett hire security to be with them at all times every day?
I guess.
You've interacted with Mr. Hesslin and Ms. Lewis a number of times over the past few days while you've been here, correct?
Yes.
Have they hired security for this specific case?
Yes, there's quite a strong security detail.
Why?
Um, they are very, very frightened.
Of who?
Someone, some follower of Jones trying to kill them.
And is that based on the history of what's happened to them by other Jones followers over the last five years?
Yes.
Is it unreasonable for them to feel that way?
No, it's not reasonable.
I think it's a real threat. - I want to talk about the scarf.
One more thing on Neal.
Neal has and continues to seek mental health treatment, correct?
Yes, he continues to work with Mr. Crouch.
Mr. Crouch is in the courtroom right now, correct?
Yes.
You've spoken with him at length for both healings?
A couple times.
Scarlett does not treat with Mr. Crouch anymore, correct?
Correct.
How much did she treat with Mr. Crouch?
I think she's started for 10 sessions, but she's had a number of therapists, and she said that she has generally been in therapy, but she finds each person just isn't helping her enough, that her symptoms continue, so she's bouncing from one to another to another, trying to get the help.
She said that the great majority of the time she's in therapy with different people. - Neil and Starlett, they don't medicate for their symptoms of depression or for their anxiety, for any of the traumas, correct?
Correct.
Why?
Concern about the side effects, Scarlett in particular had said that she was concerned about that she wouldn't be able to be there for her son and relate well, that it would cloud her thinking.
Is another reason why, because The things that are causing the depression and the anxiety are still going.
A pill's not going to make crazy people stop coming after them.
Correct.
It's one of the well-known facts about treating emotional trauma is you must be in a safe place.
The first thing you do with people who've been through a trauma, community disaster, whatever, is Neil finds it's best to deal with a clinical psychotherapist like Mr. Crouch.
Scarlett doesn't, and she's not currently treated now.
What does she do to deal with this?
I don't quite agree with that.
Okay.
It's that she hasn't, with person after person, she hasn't gotten the benefit she was hoping to get.
And to some extent, it's not surprising because the And so, it's not surprising that someone who doesn't feel like they're getting much therapy to try somebody else.
But in that case, I don't know who people are, but she saw, it was Mr. Crouch, and when I've seen him, Mr. Crouch, he was very experienced and seems very knowledgeable trauma therapist.
But she quit with him too.
What, after evaluating me on school, in your expert opinion, what would make their pain and their mental anguish stop?
Or at least subside greatly?
It's not going to stop.
And it would subside significantly if the attacks stopped and people kept knowing that this is all a part that it can't ever occur.
But also, one of the...
It's very hard to survive after a disaster such as they suffered.
One of the ways, or actually the main way, that people survive it and go on in their life is if they can somehow use it to do something good out of it.
And Scarlett is working very hard at a social-emotional learning program that she started.
What's it called?
Love.
Choose.
Choose Love.
Thank you.
And that's what, again, she does every waking minute and when she wakes up during the night.
What is the Choose Love Foundation?
Tell us about that real quick.
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