This episode contains disturbing content, including mention of animal cruelty. Please take care while listening.

On February 6, 2018, 27-year-old Lindsey Reichard was at the barn. The barn was normally a place where Lindsey felt peaceful, a sanctuary.

But today she felt uneasy. There was a pit in her stomach. Just one week earlier, Lindsey had made the difficult decision to re-home her horse, Willie. She'd had him since childhood.

It got to the point where I knew what Willie needed that I wouldn't be able to provide for him anymore.

Lindsey put an addout for Willie. And a day later, she got a response from a woman named Fallen Blackwood. Fallen was close and aged to Lindsey, an avid horse person, and she was looking for a horse, just like Willie.

And I was just thinking, wow, this feels really good. This is going to be a great choice. She's in vet school.

Within a few days of Willie leaving for his new home with Fallen, Lindsey was missing him. She reached out to Fallen to check in.

Hey, Fallen. How's Willie doing? Can you send a picture? And I didn't hear anything back.

Fallen knew that Lindsey cared deeply for her horse, Willie. Lindsey had been in tears on the day Willie left. But Fallen reassured her, promising to send photos and updates on how Willie was acclimating to his new home.

I said, you know, it's just really strange. She's been really quick to communicate. You know, she lives with her horses at home. I just don't understand how hard it is to send a photo of him.

It just didn't make sense. But Fallen had signed a contract with Lindsey. And on that contract was her dress.

And so for the heck of it, I pulled up our handwritten contract and I plugged her address into Google Earth. And there was no barn there. And that's when my stomach sank. And I was like, holy shit. Like something is really wrong.

All of these thoughts were racing through Lindsey's mind when her friend Elizabeth arrived at the barn on the morning of February 6th, 2018.

She came in and she was kind of out of sorts and upset. And I asked her what was going on. And she started telling me that she had re-homed Willie with this girl named Fallen Blackwood and that she was a vet student.

And that she had come and picked him up and everything and they had been in communication. But since Fallen had come to get him, the communication had become very poor.

And I'm telling her about it. And I'm just saying, you know, my God just doesn't feel right. Something's wrong. And she said, what's her name?

Elizabeth is in a few horse rescue related private Facebook groups. So when Lindsey expressed her concern with Willie's new home, Elizabeth decided to run a search.

For the name Fallen Blackwood. And I just happened to think to myself, I'm going to look up this name. And it's a private Facebook group and I just went in and plugged in the name and it popped up.

Lindsey watched as Elizabeth read through the conversation happening in the Facebook group about Fallen Blackwood. Before Elizabeth could say anything, her facial expression made one thing clear. This was not good news.

And everything that transpired after that was pretty surreal.

For Lindsey, what started off as an individual betrayal quickly grew spanning across state lines, connecting her to a web of other victims who had suffered at the hands of the same woman.

A woman they'd all trusted with something deeply important to them, their horses.

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