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Oct. 24, 2023 - Dr. Oz Podcast
40:58
Jennifer Kesse: The Unsolved Mystery of Her Disappearance | Dr. Oz | S11 | Ep 177 | Full Episode
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Time Text
What do you believe happened to your daughter?
I believe that she got ready to go to work, and at some point from her door to her car, she was taken.
Jennifer Kessie vanished without a trace.
Immediately, we knew something was very wrong.
Why her parents will not give up searching.
Plus...
What's on the label is not necessarily what's even in the bottle.
When diet pills kill.
Coming up next.
Season 11 starts now.
Today, a true crime mystery that will boggle your mind.
On January 24th, 2006, this woman vanished without a trace.
A massive search ensued the same day.
She failed to show up for work.
It's been nearly 14 years since the sudden and unexplained disappearance of 24-year-old Jennifer Kessie.
Today, her parents, Drew and Joyce, are here walking us through the moments that led up to this tragedy and the extreme steps they've had to take to find real answers.
Crime correspondent Melissa Moore has the story.
January 23, 2006, 10 p.m., Orlando, Florida.
24-year-old Jennifer Kessie ends a phone call with boyfriend Robert Allen.
January 24, 9 a.m., Jennifer does not arrive at work.
Unable to reach her, co-workers call her parents.
10.15 a.m., Jennifer's father calls her cell phone and gets voicemail, causing concern.
By 1 p.m., Jennifer's parents, Drew and Joyce, drive two hours to her condo and find the front door locked.
Her clothes laid out on her bed and her shower showing signs of usage that day.
4 p.m., Jennifer's family and friends launch a search and begin spreading flyers around the town.
By 7 p.m., Jennifer is reported missing and police join the search and begin interrogations.
January 26, Jennifer's car is found one mile away, abandoned at another condo complex.
Police received shocking surveillance footage from the condo parking lot, showing an unidentified person dropping Jennifer's vehicle off at approximately noon the day she went missing.
But the suspect's face is blocked by fencing.
Police did not name a suspect or a person of interest.
A $1 million reward was offered by Jennifer's place of work.
Despite Jennifer's case receiving state and national attention, almost 14 years later, she is still a missing and endangered person.
After successfully suing Orlando police and receiving all case files, Jennifer's parents have taken this investigation into their own hands, and they'll stop at nothing to find their missing daughter.
Joining me now is crime correspondent Melissa Moore.
We've covered a number of missing person cases on this show, and many of them face major roadblocks.
But Jennifer's case is different.
Why?
It's very different.
Well, first of all, what's unprecedented is that her parents actually took the law in their hands.
They sued the authorities, got the records, Which I'm actually really proud for them because of several things because authorities didn't take them seriously.
I mean, they know her routine, they know their daughter, and I don't feel like they paid attention to what they knew.
So what are the theories surrounding her disappearance?
Well, there's a couple different theories.
One is trafficking.
One is that she was murdered.
As a mother, as a parent, I look at this case too, as her mother would probably look at this, and the evidence shows me that it's possible she really is out there.
Has she expressed any concerns about what was going on that might have provided a clue?
Right, so there was only, I believe, about three people living in this new apartment complex.
So it was her and a couple other people.
There was construction going on.
There was a lot of undocumented day workers that were coming and going.
She stated that she didn't feel comfortable.
Some of the workers were making comments to her, and I think that's of interest for sure.
Comments, catcalls.
Catcalls, yeah.
This was expressed to the family, so there's something going on here that's not right.
Right.
Did anyone ever follow up with the construction workers in a meaningful way to rule out one potential perpetrating group?
Yeah, the authorities did investigate some of the construction workers, but as you know, it's difficult with day workers.
Their records are not all there, so I don't believe they interviewed the key players in this case.
So on the 26th of January, just two days after she went missing, Jennifer's car was found less than one mile away, abandoned at another condo complex.
This surveillance footage, you can watch it right now, shows an unknown person parking the vehicle and then waiting about 30 seconds in the car before exiting the car.
There you see them walking away.
Now I'm going to show you a different vantage point.
Of this image.
There's a little pool in front of them.
We have a picture from the exact opposite side of that area.
There he is in front of the gate.
And this time you have a better view of the person, but the gate obstructs part of what you're able to see.
We have a compilation that you will see in a second here.
What makes this footage unique?
Well, isn't that incredible how much footage we have on this, and yet we don't see his face?
This is the best we can do.
Yeah, every three seconds.
So these are still photos, and every three seconds they're taking a frame.
But as you can see, his face is obstructed by the pole in each one of those frames.
So this is a very, very lucky individual.
And sadly, this doesn't help, you know, the case for Jennifer.
He does seem to be wearing some kind of a uniform.
There's white overalls.
It looks like you could have been a construction worker and dressed like that.
And I think this also rules out that it was a boyfriend or a guy from work.
I mean, this kind of hones down on what the perpetrator probably looked like.
Recently, there was a new development that appears to be hopeful.
At least it appeared to be hopeful.
What was so promising about the lead?
Well, there was a tip that a lady has seen something very odd at a lake.
She said she saw A rolled up carpet being thrown into the lake a couple, like 13 years ago, about the same time that Jennifer was missing.
She's just coming forward now.
Just coming forward now.
And it was a long time ago that she saw this and that would actually kind of go with the whole theory that a construction worker is actually the one responsible for harming Jennifer in the sense that she saw a carpeted remnant, you know, rolled up and thrown in the lake.
So up next, Jennifer's parents are here speaking out on the painful 14 years they've spent trying to find their missing daughter.
Those details and more when we return.
We are back investigating the unexplained disappearance of 24-year-old Jennifer Kessie.
Jennifer's car was found less than one mile away from her home.
Right?
It's a distance.
Too long to walk, probably.
All of her items were untouched.
Nothing was stolen.
The footage you're about to see is the last major lead in her case.
This surveillance footage shows an unknown person parking the vehicle and then waiting approximately 30 seconds before exiting the car and walking away.
For nearly 14 years, her parents have stopped at nothing to search for answers, hoping to bring their daughter home.
Joyce and Drew Kessie join me now in the studio.
I'm sorry for your loss.
When you first heard the news that she was missing, what was your first fear?
My first gut was that something happened.
We have to find her.
What do you believe happened to your daughter?
I believe that she got ready to go to work, that she was walking to her car, and at some point from her door, when she locked it to her car, she was taken.
So just four years into her disappearance, investigators told the Kessie family that they had exhausted all possible leads into her case.
Drew, from the very beginning, you had issues with how the police managed this case.
Yeah.
Explain those to me, and then what did you do when you're told the cops are done?
Sure.
Our first experience with police when we met them at Jennifer's condo was, well, she had a fight with her boyfriend, she'll be back, and they walked out.
We were very quick because of their reaction.
Or inaction.
Or inaction, really.
By 4 o'clock that day, the 24th, when we got the call at 10.30 in the morning, we were on the corners passing out flyers because of the fact of our first responders Didn't act properly.
So that's what we did.
We became proactive, and we've been proactive ever since.
So after this whole process, four years into it, you've exhausted everything, the family, you know, this This conversation where you learned they were going to stop really pursuing this actively led them to the city of Orlando and the police department.
You took them to court.
Correct.
Unheard of.
And something remarkable, remarkable happened in a missing persons case.
You guys actually won the right, won the right to get all of our case files.
Correct.
I didn't realize what a problem this was, but this is unprecedented.
Especially for an active open case.
It is.
So does the Orlando Police Department have any involvement with Jennifer's case now?
No.
There's no law enforcement agency currently looking for Jennifer.
It is me and our family and whoever we can get to help us.
That was part of our agreement is the number one thing we had to sign off for on was that from that day forward, the Orlando Police Department were no longer responsible for looking for Jennifer Kessie.
How are you funding this investigation?
Ourselves with the GoFundMe account through the kindness of people that have donated services.
But we're not going to give up.
She's our daughter.
We want to know that we...
We want to know before we die that we have an answer.
Living in limbo is hell.
And we just will keep fighting the fight.
We also have unconditional love for our children.
And she's, you know, she's one of, I mean, last year over 400,000 children alone were called in as missing.
I mean, you know, we have a problem in this country that we have to address.
This is bigger than your daughter.
Oh, absolutely.
Because there are children, as you mentioned, being stolen right today.
If she was caught up in a sex trafficking ring and they stole her, they were pretty good at it.
I'm sure they stole other women.
Otherwise, there's no ring.
You're no trafficking.
If she was murdered, God forbid, that culprit is out there Probably doing it again because he got away with it.
And I was stunned when I started learning more about these crime episodes that 50% of the homicides, roughly, we don't really have the right answers on.
We can't find anybody, got the wrong person, whatever's going down.
What have you guys sacrificed in your own lives in order to catch your daughter's perpetrator?
Peace of mind.
Peace of mind we've sacrificed.
We've sacrificed our careers.
We've put our lives on hold for 14 years.
We sacrifice, still to this day, things that we should have done with our son.
That's a very important piece.
The children that are still left are incredibly important, and they have to be taken care of.
It gets tiring, even for your friends.
It really does get tiring.
It's tiring for us.
So what are you going to do, since you're in charge of the case now, with the tips that are out there?
How are you going to revisit these?
Well, I've had the opportunity.
I have read all 14,000-plus pages.
And there are about six or seven individuals that we will be visiting in the near future that we have to work through and work around.
But it is...
I've become an investigator.
We do have an investigative team now.
I have a legal team.
I have an investigative team.
And we basically, if...
This last month, we needed satellite imagery.
We'll go out and find it.
People are willing to work and help other people, and they're willing to do it for free.
I tell you, to me, it's symbolized something I've been talking about all year, which is the power of one.
When people see your courage and standing up and say, I'm not going to tolerate this, I'm going to fight whatever battles I need to to get there, other folks will own their power as well, and they'll come to be with you.
Listen, everybody, if you have any information on this case, we urge you to reach out and contact the Kessie family with your tips, putting all the information on the screen.
I'm also going to put the case files on my Crime Hunters page so you can take action now and get involved.
God bless you both.
I wish you the best of luck going after them.
Thank you.
The bad guys.
Thank you.
We'll be right back.
It's the little pill some women are passing around with the promise of curbing cravings, burning fat, eating, toning up, and slimming down.
They're diet pills.
And while they seem like a quick fix, the consequences can be deadly.
Today, when diet pills kill, we investigate what's really in them and how quickly you can become addicted and spiral out of control.
And instead of losing weight, you could be on the brink of losing your life.
I started taking diet pills when I was 18 years old and I had some pretty bad side effects.
I first noticed that my hair started breaking and falling out.
I developed an extreme dependency on diet pills that caused severe damage to me physically and emotionally.
I lived for 10 years feeling like I couldn't function without them and now I fear my metabolism may be screwed up for the rest of my life.
Diet pills have been promising an easy road to weight loss for decades.
But ever since their introduction, some have also produced severe adverse side effects and even killed.
We lost Beth.
She was only 21. And, you know, she was encouraged to buy these so-called diet pills online.
You're in the ER room, heating up and up and up until the body can't withstand it anymore, and you just die.
And we watched Beth die in front of us just like that.
Despite shocking headlines and medical case reports describing frightening consequences, Americans continue to spend over $2 billion a year on dietary supplements for weight loss.
And these days, social media fuels the craze, luring people into thinking diet pills can peel away the pounds, saving us the trouble of living a healthy lifestyle.
Harmony, mother of three, got hooked on venteramine at an early age after seeing results from a college friend.
She fed her addiction, hopping from one weight loss clinic to another and finding doctors who would write the prescription she craved.
After 15 years, Harmony hit rock bottom and realized if she didn't ditch the pills, she could lose her life.
Harmony joins me now via Zoom.
As you just heard, you were taking a prescription diet pill that you say you got from a weight loss clinic.
If you could, describe what it felt like when you were on these pills.
Did they change your mood?
Yes, they definitely changed my mood.
I had some trauma in college that I didn't get the help I needed after And in my early 20s, I had untreated depression, anxiety, and PTSD. And when I took my first pill, I felt like I had found the answer to all of my problems.
Instead of feeling sad, I felt amazing.
I had endless energy.
I didn't have to sleep.
I didn't have to worry about what I ate because My appetite was gone, so I could eat M&Ms and chips and still drop weight.
And so, who doesn't want to do that?
Were there side effects you didn't expect?
What was happening to your body this whole time?
It was terrible.
I just ignored the warning signs.
I had heart palpitations.
As the years rolled by and I started having children, I had so much anxiety.
So Harmony, you're having these symptoms, you're probably realizing you shouldn't be taking the pill all the time, but you're on them for 15 years.
Even though they're designed for short-term use, how were you able to keep getting them?
How did you keep tricking people to give you the pills?
That's the thing.
It's not hard to get them.
My biggest obstacle was money because it's expensive to pay the doctor.
You go to the clinic, you pay this doctor $100 or whatever to write the prescription and then the prescription was another $80 or $100.
My biggest struggle was how to come up with the money without my husband knowing, but I had a system.
I would go to one particular clinic, get a month of pills, then go to another clinic.
I bounced around.
I mean, there's tons of them to choose from.
There's super upscale ones where you can get a B12 shot, and then there are super shady There's the ones you don't want to go to.
So every time you got these pills, what was going through your mind?
And what was it like watching the scale while you were on these pills?
Was that a sense of a high?
Did you feel like it controlled your destiny?
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
When I went to get...
You asked me how I felt whenever I went to get the pills.
I felt...
I'm extremely ashamed because I'm an educated person.
I knew what I was doing was wrong.
I knew that it's not normal to hide your pills in special places so that people don't find them.
So I think my need for that high outweighed...
I can't explain it except if you have an addiction, you know what I mean when I say That it doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter how ashamed you feel or how hard it might be to get whatever you're trying to get.
You will find a way to get it.
And I just, I think because I never lost too much weight, all people around me noticed was a change in my personality.
Because over time I In order to compensate and come down from the high, at the end of the day, I started drinking a ton of alcohol.
So I developed an alcohol issue in addition to pill issues.
So what was your rock bottom?
When did you realize that you really couldn't stop on your own and that your life was in danger because of these pills?
I had reached a point that my anger was out of control.
It was I think when it started to affect my children, that was my rock bottom.
That's when I realized that I was going to have to change something.
And stopping the Phenermine was one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life.
So it's a struggle every day.
Harmony, I'm praying for your struggle and that you keep strong as you have been.
Thank you for sharing your story and good luck.
Thank you.
Up next, what's really in these diet pills?
Are you being fed a bottle of lies?
stick around we lost beth she was only 21 and you know she was encouraged to buy these so-called diet pills online She didn't know what DMP was.
Hardly anybody knows what DMP is, even the emergency room staff, until it's too late.
Literally within two, three, four hours mostly of taking the pills, you start to burn up.
You're in the ER room, heating up and up and up until the body can't withstand it anymore and you just die.
And we watched Beth die in front of us just like that.
Just like that.
So tragic.
Today, when diet pills kill.
If you've ever thought about taking diet pills, or if you're taking them right now, you've got to pay attention.
Because what I'm about to say, it could save your life.
When we found out how people's lives are affected by these dangerous drugs, we started to investigate what's really in these tiny pills.
I know the labels tell them the whole truth.
Dr. Jennifer Cardwell is here now to help break down what we found in our diet pill investigation.
So diet pills are sold over the counter, but many argue, including Dr. Cardwell, this is the wild, wild west of medications.
Yeah, so shifting to the over-the-counter ones, you know, you think that everything you get from the pharmacy is safe and effective, right?
Because it's the pharmacy.
But the truth of the matter is that's not necessarily the case.
We have to keep in mind that the Food and Drug Administration, the FDA, doesn't necessarily regulate many over-the-counter medications And especially herbal supplements.
Now what that means is that there are products that we may not know how much active ingredient is actually in them.
Or products where we may not even know if they work or not.
Or we may not know if there are actually harmful or dangerous chemicals in them.
The Food and Drug Administration to that point has identified around 70 different diet pills where they found that we're actually spiked with potentially dangerous chemicals.
So there are risks.
You guys discovered, working with my producers, some incredible insights.
As an example, this discovery is shocking.
Looking at online products that are being sold, there are banned products that still seem to be sold online.
How does that happen?
That's right.
I mean, this is absolutely scaring.
It's devastating, too.
So, the medical unit, we found that there were products being sold, diet pills marketed as ephedra, or ephedra-type products.
The problem with this is that ephedra was actually banned from the United States in 2004. And then when we look closer at the ingredient labels, it was not necessarily just ephedra, but sometimes it was the extract.
Now, Dr. Oz, that means there's two problems I have with this, two big problems.
Number one is why are we talking about ephedra?
It's been banned.
We shouldn't even be talking about it at all.
The second thing, however, is that what's on the label is not necessarily what's even in the bottle.
Bingo.
All right, let's go over some of the over-counter diet pills that I'm seeing quite a bit of.
These are on the market because you don't really know what you're getting when you take them.
The first is bitter orange.
Yes.
Explain what kind of a diet pill this is.
So bitter orange is marketed sometimes as a dietary supplement.
It has a chemical called synephrin in it.
Now the chemical structure of synephrin is similar to ephedra, what we just talked about.
However, this one's not actually banned in the United States.
And that's pretty concerning to me.
It is.
Easy to pick up.
Absolutely.
And the next one is caffeine.
Now, y'all drink caffeine with a cup of coffee, but when it's given as a diet pill, it's a little different.
Yeah, it is.
First of all, caffeine is not usually marketed as a diet pill in the first place.
We have to keep that in mind.
But there have been some studies that suggest that the use of caffeine can lower or decrease fat stores, which might be why some people abuse this.
But the truth of the matter is, I mean, caffeine can be pretty concerning.
I mean, think about this.
If you drink coffee, if you're a coffee drinker, let's say how many cups of coffee you have, and you're taking diet pills on top of that, I mean, you could be taking in Mounds and mounds of caffeine.
Multiple cups.
And of course we know that caffeine is not intended for weight loss.
So if someone wants to lose weight and they just don't think their metabolism is there, what do they do?
How do you use these pills safely?
Well, I would take one step back.
I wouldn't even necessarily say use these pills.
I think the first thing you've got to do, especially if you're seeing things online or even over the counter that are intended for diet and weight loss, Talk to your doctor first.
Do not assume it's safe just because it says natural or herbal or things like that.
Now, we did talk about before that there are FDA-approved medications for weight loss, but those are intended for certain patients in the right circumstances.
Talk to your doctor about that, too, to make sure, to see if you qualify and how those might be taken.
Yeah, the things that are helpful, use those.
Don't waste your money on stuff that's fraudulent.
Dr. Carter, as always, thank you.
Thank you, we'll be right back.
Good job.
I always love going to the zoo to see wild animals like lions and tigers.
But what happens when humans get a little too close?
That's a woman inside of a lion's den, taunting the ferocious animal.
Today, caught in the act.
Unbelievable videos capturing frightening moments of adults gone wild at the zoo.
A trip to the zoo was supposed to be about giving us a glimpse of wild animals from a safe distance.
But what happens when it's the people at the zoo acting wild?
She hopped a fence to feed a giraffe and ended up getting kicked in the face.
This woman said she felt compelled to feed the animals despite the barriers.
He licked me and then that was sweet and then I'm standing there and I just get knocked in the face.
In an alarming Twitter post, another woman actually enters the lion's den at the Bronx Zoo.
Thankfully, she survived.
But a man who entered a tiger's enclosure in another zoo was not so lucky.
Despite efforts to drive the tigers away, the man was mauled and died at a local hospital.
This woman jumped the tiger fence so she could retrieve her hat.
she made it out only to face fellow zoo goers outraged by her behavior.
Onlookers often seem to forget zoo animals are still wild animals.
Oh my God!
Oh my God!
And everybody remembers the frightening and controversial viral video of a little boy being dragged around the Gorilla World moat at the Cincinnati Zoo by the 17-year-old gorilla Harambe.
The boy survived, but Harambe was put down during the episode, sparking a public outcry about how we humans behave at the zoo.
That horrifying video went viral, especially after the 450-pound endangered gorilla Harambee was put to death in efforts to rescue the little boy who fell into his enclosure.
There was a lot of outrage and controversy, and even today there are still questions as to what really happened.
Joining us now via Zoom is Kimberly.
She's the woman who took the cell phone footage that went viral around the world.
Kimberly, please take us back to the horrifying moment when you were at the exhibit with your family just a few feet away from where that little boy and his mom were standing.
At the time of the incident, the Cincinnati Zoo stated this was the first breach of the gorilla ward since it opened in 1978. Now, Kimberly, you've watched tape over and over again like the rest of us.
What have you noticed from the video about the gorilla's actions that made you realize this boy was really in big time danger?
As I see the events unfold in my mind over and over, and I watched that video over and over, and of course now experts chiming in, I realized that as the crowd screamed and as people moved around, the gorilla was becoming agitated.
He was becoming scared.
And that's when you would see that he was dragging the boy from one location to another to try and get away from that noise.
He had a complete disregard for the fact that this was a little human boy who may not know how to swim, who may not know not to take in water as he dragged him through and he pulled him way down as he carried him by his ankle up the wall with his head hitting the wall, you know, and...
Sorry.
Oh, my goodness.
Sorry.
It's okay.
It's okay.
It's hard to watch it.
I'm sure being there was 10 times worse.
But the gorilla, he didn't understand that this was a human boy, not a baby gorilla.
And at that point, he was completely distraught.
Well, the video sparked outrage when it first surfaced, and there were petitions for justice for Harambe.
I know, Kimberly, you saw all this, and you didn't even share the footage initially, but you changed your mind.
Why do you say, now that you look back on it, that it was the right thing to release the video, and you've already expressed confidence that the zoo did the right thing.
Do you think folks are mistaken who argue justice for Harambe?
By the time I got home, I don't remember leaving the zoo and driving home, but by the time I got home, social media had already taken over.
I tweeted out a bad day at the zoo, and I had the video, and it was everybody else who formed their opinions.
The animals are protected.
We're supposed to stay out of there.
That's the whole premise of their environment.
But when we didn't, it did put the animal in harm's way, and he didn't respond.
They can be as angry as they were.
The events unfolded and we can take the next steps to stay out of their habitat.
Listen, thank you very much for sharing your story.
I think you did the right thing by sharing the video as well.
Joining us now is Sam Wegman, the general animal curator at Essex County Turtle Back Zoo.
We just saw the Harambee video.
I'm going to ask about this in a second, but we also earlier saw another video of a gorilla charging the glass at the zoo.
Watch this carefully again.
If you were standing there and you were a mom with some kids, what would you do?
Watch this.
This is slowed down.
I mean, that is...
I mean, it broke the pain.
Sam has 14 years' experience working with over 120 different species, each of which has their own behavior and personality.
What types of behavior provoke these animals?
And thinking about Harambee and the gorilla that charged the pain, what probably got them riled up?
Most often when guests come to the zoo, some of the most common issues we see are that people want to feed the animals, they throw food to the animals, or they tap on the glass, or they're yelling at an animal to get their attention.
In extreme cases, guests are putting themselves in danger by climbing on a railing or crossing a barrier to get a photo with an animal.
So our keepers are spending their days caring for these animals and training them to be prepared for an environment in which visitors can come and view them.
It's when guests introduce a variable into these animals' environment that the animal isn't prepared for that can provoke some of these reactions that you see.
So those things are, you know, when an animal is just showing its natural instincts, but it can be in a very negative way.
So in the case of Harambee, a child in the enclosure.
Earlier we saw women inside a lion's den.
I try to process this.
How easy is it actually to get access to an animal enclosure?
Right.
We try not to make it that easy.
Zoos across the board do have to follow both federal and state regulations as far as barriers go.
So this here, this is an elephant habitat.
So the fence you see, that's designed for the elephant.
In addition, there would be a railing back or something like that to keep adults and children from approaching that area.
So there's at least two barriers right there.
So it's when guests choose to break the rules and go around all the obstacles that we put into place that we see these dangerous situations develop.
And just because you can put your baby in our stingray pool doesn't mean that you should for a cute photo.
Not at all.
Thank you for what you do.
I love zoos, but I recognize that we put those animals in harm when we don't follow the rules.
Up next, you've heard of dog bites man, right?
Even man bites dog.
But why would a woman bite a camel?
You won't believe where she bit the camel either.
It's all caught on tape.
We're back with Caught in the Act.
Adults going wild at the zoo.
It's a story I never thought I'd hear.
A woman jumps the fence at a petting zoo, gets trapped by a camel who sits on her.
She escapes by biting him in a very sensitive area.
I know it's unbelievable, and I would've had issues myself, but we actually have video, so let me take you through the security footage from the Tiger Truck Stop Petting Zoo, okay?
So there's a couple up here.
They're way up there, zoom in here.
There's a couple right there, and look over here, right?
This is their dog, Tiger Lily, is hearing impaired.
Now, Tiger Lily suddenly darts under the fence and begins interacting with the camel, who comes over and starts stopping.
The wife gets nervous, sleeps under the fence, and then the camel Stomps on her.
The husband comes over, starts swatting the camel, can't get a wrist, and finally the camel gets up and runs away.
Why?
Because the camel was sitting on a woman who bit his testicles, and that got him off her fast.
So joining us now via Zoom is Gloria, the woman who lived to tell the tale.
Gloria, you say you stopped at the truck stop for some gas and a quick meal.
How'd you wind up inside the camel's enclosure?
My husband and I drove the car to the back and we were just walking a few minutes.
We were coming from my husband's brother's funeral and we just stopped and we ate and we got gas.
And I walked back there and was loving the camel and Edmund put baby girl down to let her walk.
I don't know why, but she walked right under the fence.
And the camel started stomping her and when she cried, it was just something that clicked in me and I went under.
I said, she's not dying like that.
So what happened once you went under the enclosure fence and you were right there with the camel face to face?
He started stomping me.
He raised up and he stomped me.
I booed the little dog to my husband and I felt this on the side of my face.
And I just, I did not know until I got my hand free what it was, but I had bit his testicle and he got off of me.
Yeah, that would tend to be effective.
So, just so I'm clear on this, you're underneath the camel, the camel is sitting on you, crushing you.
I hear every bit of it, too.
You hear the bones breaking?
Yes, sir.
Oh my goodness, that's...
So, but as you're sort of in and out of consciousness, you feel this flap of skin on your face, because you can't move your arms, right?
Your arms are trapped under you.
Yes, sir.
And why did you decide to bite?
He could have been biting his leg.
That wouldn't have hurt him.
I couldn't reach his leg.
So you just bit what was near your face.
Yes, sir, and if you're fighting for your life, you're gonna do whatever it takes.
Well, I'm proud of you for doing that.
Now, you say you sustained some injuries.
I've got some pictures of them.
How are you recovering now?
I'm still having trouble, but, you know, by God's grace, I'm getting by day by day.
Well, I'll tell you, there's probably the only place in the camel you could have bitten to get free.
Was your husband proud of you?
Yes, sir.
He said he knew I was alive when I hollered.
You beast, get off of me.
Oh, my goodness.
Well, he knows his wife.
Gloria, thank you for joining us.
God bless you.
Thank you for having me.
The sheriff told us that Gloria and her husband were given misdemeanor summons for cruelty to an animal and trespassing.
The police have ruled that the Tiger truck stop was not at fault since they had no trespassing signs and that Casper did nothing wrong.
But they have received a lot of negative attention since the story broke.
And I wanted to check in on Casper the Camel and the Tiger Truck Stop family to see what they had to say about this crazy ordeal.
Joining us now via Zoom is Diana, who is the manager at the Tiger Truck Stop.
Diana, tell me more about this camel.
His name I know is Casper.
Had you ever experienced any issues with him in the past?
No, sir.
He's kind of just like a big, gentle dog.
He's very friendly.
He enjoys the people coming to see him.
He loves to take selfies.
We have a caretaker that goes in there that's probably about a third his size, and he'll just lay down.
He cut his foot last week.
She went in the pen to treat the foot.
He laid down, put his foot across her legs, let him treat her foot, and got up and was fine.
He's as gentle as can be, but, you know, ultimately he is a wild animal, and if you provoke that animal, they're going to react and protect their territory, and his territory was violated.
So the woman escaped by allegedly biting the camel in a very sensitive area.
What did you think when you heard that?
I didn't hear it until I arrived on scene.
I just got a call telling me that the camel had attacked somebody, and that's all I knew.
So I had a 10-minute drive of all these scenarios running through my head.
But when I was told, I was kind of shocked.
It was like, oh, my God, really?
And even if I did that, I never in a million years would have admitted to it.
That's right.
You know, unfortunately, I feel bad for her, because it did make her the brunt of jokes, and there were a lot of memes.
It blew up.
It went viral.
It was on Saturday Night Live's Weekend Update.
Jimmy Kimmel, we had radio stations, TV stations, all calling us.
They were making up songs on the radio.
It was absolute mayhem.
Of course, fortunately for us, we were ruled not responsible.
Something else I understand they were cited for was having the animal off lead.
And from what I understand, the dog was deaf.
So why was that dog off lead?
Yeah, why would any dog be off lead?
Why would you have, especially if you claim to care about that animal, was it off lead and around, you know, if you watch the tape, there's a point in the tape where they're not even watching what the dog's doing.
Until he's up under the pen.
Well, thankfully, they got the dog out, got the mom out, got the father out.
Since the event, the Tiger Truck Stop says that they've done their best to make light of a wild ordeal.
We're going to show a sign that you guys have put up.
Is this really your sign?
It says, Tiger Truck Stop, home of the famous Casper, stopping for gas and a bite.
Yes, it is.
Well, I'm glad you have a sense of humor about it.
Thanks for sharing your story.
We'll be right back.
How many times have you gotten popcorn stuck in your teeth?
One man did, and according to this story that has gone viral, he ended up with a deadly infection.
Everyone's been asking, how could this happen?
He was so desperate that he started to poke and prod.
He began with toothpicks, which is not a bad idea.
I would probably do that, right?
Then he started using the caps of pens.
Who's done that?
Yeah, I know that.
All the men put their hands up.
Then little pieces of wire.
God knows where he found it from.
And then he started using nails.
A nail!
Who used a nail?
Oh, thank goodness.
All right.
He then developed a toothache, but didn't go to the doctor for a long time for that infection.
And here's how the problem may have traveled to his heart.
So when you start poking and prodding your mouth, germs and other bacteria from other parts of the body in the mouth can get into the bloodstream, right?
And when it gets in the bloodstream, guess where it goes?
To your heart, which is pumping all the blood.
And there are valves in your heart.
And those valves, the aortic valve, the mitral valve, they're very fragile and they're moving.
So the bacteria latches in there.
They fly in there from wherever in the bloodstream they are, like from your mouth, and they can infect those valves and destroy them.
So I'm a heart surgeon.
I've had to do this operation for endocarditis, infection of the heart.
It requires open heart surgery, and this one took seven hours.
It's a big procedure.
So, what's the takeaway message?
The next time you get popcorn stuck in your teeth, use floss, which several members of my audience, smartest in television, acknowledged is the way to go, congratulations, right?
It gets right in there.
And then, after you floss, put some salt in water, and use that salty water to help gargle.
It'll actually reduce the inflammation, reduce the chances of infection getting into your gums, and you won't traumatize yourself like a nail will.
You all clear on this?
Yes!
Hallelujah.
Remember, the power of change lies in the power of you.
One person with one voice speaking the truth.
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