Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Stacey Flaster and Dori Goldman are two ladies obsessed with cults and true crime. Join them as they take us into the depths of some of the most notorious cults, crimes, and killers that the world has ever known. They consume content and ask deep dark questions that only a certified expert can answer... enter Dr. John Mayer. Dr. John is an internationally known Forensic Psychologist and expert on violent behavior and crime prevention, with 35 years of experience consulting to law enforcement and testifying in hundreds of court cases as an expert witness. He is the "Real Deal" and will help Stacey and Dori get to the bottom of of their curious criminal minds.
Pod candy. A podcast about cults, crimes, and killers. Imagine thinking you found the love of your life, a handsome cardiologist, kind, attentive, and deeply connected to your world, only to find out nearly a decade later, he never existed. That's what happened to Kirat Asi, a radio host from London who was drawn into one of the most elaborate and disturbing catfishing schemes ever uncovered in The UK.
Dori:Despite the emotional and psychological devastation, no criminal charges have been filed. The story raises big questions about digital abuse, coercive control, and the limits of the law, and it's all unraveled in the documentary, Sweet Bobby on Netflix.
Stacey:I'm gonna give the origin of the term catfishing. The idea of a catfish being placed with cod to keep them lively during shipping is a metaphor for deception. The catfish, in this case, was the false identity used to attract and deceive the target. Oh my god. Sweet Bobby.
Stacey:Sweet Bobby. Okay. Bubby. Bubby. I love how she said Bubby.
Stacey:Bubby.
Dori:Bubby.
Stacey:Bubby. So, Jory Yes. This was your pick, and it was so fascinating. I didn't, you know, I didn't know what to expect. I had no idea, no preconceived information or knowledge about this idea, about this case.
Dori:Yes. I found it last year. I'm so glad we're talking about it now because nobody that I know has seen this. I Me neither. I've I've suggested to friends, to family, watch sweet Bobbie.
Dori:Nobody has seen it, so I'm so glad we're talking about it today. But, yes. So there is a I mean, the crux of this story is it's a huge spoiler. So I think we should suggest that if people want to listen to our podcast maybe after they've actually watched sweet Bobby, that that would probably be best. So now we're gonna dive into it.
Dori:So Yes. Please let's reveal the the big elephant in the room, Stacy.
Stacey:So her cousin her cousin, Cimran, was the person catfishing Kirat.
Dori:And Her own cousin.
Stacey:Own cousin. I have the chills thinking about it. For nine years, this poor woman was seeking you know, it's very important in the culture, Indian Indian culture. Marriage and family and and all these and and her parents are lovely. And they just wanted her to be happy, and she was in a long term relationship before.
Stacey:And then this thing starts happening. This this this thing starts creeping in where she she sees Bobby at a bar because Bobby exists. She Yes. This is Kiara. This is Kiara.
Stacey:So the story
Dori:is about yeah. So it's Kiara who is giving away the best years of her life because of this man who is a real person who she has seen in a club after they've been kinda talking back and forth for for for three months. So it all seems realistic only to find out that for nine years, she has been communicating with her cousin Cimran who creates 64 other profiles and people. I mean, this is a full time I mean, think about this, Daisy. You run a thief we were just talking, like, we have a lot of stuff going on in our lives.
Dori:Yes. Right? You're a big mom. You've got your business. I'm I I have to work.
Dori:I've got a foster dog. We're just one fine time to sleep with the phone on all night long to maybe text in the middle of the night something to your beloved that you really have never had a personal conversation with ever, ever.
Speaker 3:Instead of messaging, Bobby and I have stopped using Skype.
Speaker 4:Yes. You do. Many times have I caught you out.
Speaker 3:But because he's in witness protection, we weren't allowed to have a video call. It was just too risky. Even though Bobby couldn't speak, he would communicate just by making some kind of noise, whether it was a tap, a grunt, or whatever it was. And we'd just fall asleep with the line open.
Speaker 5:Good morning, sweetheart. We've been Skyping all night. I stayed with you all night. That was so lovely.
Stacey:I don't did she, Dory, did she ever talk to her on the phone, or was it all through text to talk to him on the phone? No. Remember, it was
Dori:the soft voice. There was a time before Bobby went into the Witness protection. Protection program, and that's why he couldn't ever meet with her. And then he had this I mean, there's just so much. I know we're just, like, throwing shit out there.
Stacey:I know. We're, throwing shit out.
Dori:People are following along. They're probably not. You gotta watch this. But then he's in the hospital, but the only way that he because he had this devastating injury, the only way that they could communicate was really through Facebook Messenger. Or at maybe some point, there's been some whispering from Bobby.
Dori:So you even the mother talked to Bobby. It's just this quiet There's a whisper Yes. It's like, hello, Stacy. I've never met you before, but you're the love of my life. Can you hear me?
Dori:Can you hear me? It's been nine years. We've never met.
Stacey:So we're not making fun of this. This is not a joke. We're just it's just fascinating, and I love this woman, Kirit. I think she is very she's gorgeous. Gorgeous.
Stacey:But it's so sad, Dory, because she's chasing this dream of this idea that she becomes it's almost cult like in that she gets indoctrinated. She gets convinced, and it just keeps escalating and escalating and escalating. More calls. She's in touch with Bobby's cousin. Bobby's she knows who Bobby's wife is.
Stacey:He has a baby with this woman who he says he's divorcing, but he's never he's been with her the whole time because he's a real person that doesn't have anything to do with her. It was all fabricated by her cousin who made up a story about some guy's life.
Speaker 3:When I think back to the club in Brighton, when I bumped into Bobby, which was the real Bobby, that is a sliding balls moment, but there's so many moments like that. I find out when Bobby's brother JJ added me on Facebook. It was actually Simran. Simran had dated JJ in real life, but they had broken up and the version of JJ that I'd been introduced to was fake. Starting from there, every character connected to JJ, Bobby, everybody is all Simran.
Dori:I think you touched on the point, though, that, you know, I am a single woman who is older, and I never had children. And I think, like, you touched on this with, like, you know, the Indian culture, a lot of people do get, like, married early. They get set up with with people that maybe they don't know. And but you mentioned, you know, she had a relationship before this whole Bobby thing, but she literally gave up her, like, you know, quote, unquote birthing years for these nine years where you don't know is she ever going to have a family now because of her cousin who at 17 years old started this ruse. And, you know, once doctor John gets out here, or doctor John, as we like to say, I have so many questions for him.
Stacey:Oh, so many.
Dori:All lead to simran. Like, how could somebody do that just in general, but then to a family member that you have a good relationship with Yes. That you love. Is some psycho level shit going on.
Stacey:Yeah. And I think it escalated. I think it got worse, but I'm gonna talk to doctor John about this, or we're gonna talk to him. I can't wait to ask him. She seems to have borderline personality disorder.
Stacey:Don't know if she's yes. Simran. Maybe she has maybe she has some sort of you know, besides having a personality disorder, Simran.
Dori:You see, because it must
Stacey:have been very, very well constructed because Kirat was, like, hanging out. I mean, she was hanging on to this. She never and even when her parents said to her, you know, are you sure? Are you sure? She was adamant.
Stacey:This is the man. This is
Dori:the man. And I have to
Stacey:say her parents were lovely, and so they almost seemed progressive in the fact that they weren't trying to set her up. They weren't trying to make it a, you know, a a match like they usually do. And well, I shouldn't say usually. Just in some, you know, Indian culture, they do sometimes have a match. In a a lot of cultures, that happens.
Stacey:And sometimes, it's for good because the family knows the family. I mean, I'm not saying it's the right way to fall in love, but the family knows the family. They know where they're from. They know what they have. They know all these things.
Stacey:They have a nice boy. You know what
Dori:I mean? Ugh. My mother fixed me up with a couple winners back in the day. I wish that I was in the culture that they really knew what they were doing because Exactly.
Stacey:So, you know, our our parents, you know but, you know, my I have so much to say about that. But, anyway, back to Skabi.
Dori:To see Another episode, Stacy.
Stacey:Sweet. Exactly.
Speaker 6:Marriage is important. I've always said, Kira, look. You have to get married. And every parent wishes to be a grandparent. You know?
Speaker 7:She had quite a number of proposals as soon as she came back from uni, and she always declined.
Speaker 6:It's not that we haven't helped. It's for her to make up her mind.
Speaker 7:I want to make sure she's happy, but if the girl does not get married, I think you'll look down upon. And I think she feels pressure from the community, from the friends, from the families when they think, oh my god, why is she still not married?
Stacey:The issue with is like, what is her what is she she's gotta be sociopathic and borderline.
Dori:Yeah. What does she get out of it?
Stacey:Like She's even psychopathic. A rush. A rush of it's I think it's similar to when people are making a phony phone call or, you know, steal something. It's like a rush of adrenaline of this thing I'm doing, and I'm like, god. I'm getting so good at it.
Stacey:I think Simran believed it. I think there was a part of Simran
Dori:that somehow thought she was doing something good. I mean That is true. Because in the in the doc Mhmm. They do say that that, like, that I think that they, she and Kyrith had like the, a separate, you know, discussion obviously, you know, personally after all this happened. Mhmm.
Dori:And I think that she had told her, I thought, you know, like, I was kinda helping you because, you know, you probably had the relationship before that you knew wasn't gonna work. And then there that's delusion to me. That is complete and utter delusion Yes. To create I mean, Kira was, like, online talking to made up people about Bobby constantly and having intimate moments.
Stacey:That was what
Dori:I was gonna catch. Yes. Well With her cousin. With her cousin, not Bobby,
Stacey:and that's disgusting. And and, you know, she said, you know, when in the in the doc, they said, you know, did you have any, you know, intimate conversation? And she kinda you know, she was like, I don't wanna say you know? So you get the you get the impression that there was a lot of that about a lot of, you know, maybe, you know, texting,
Dori:you know, text. Sex. Yeah.
Stacey:Texting sex, phone sex, and that's twisted. That's another level to me that she allowed like, her cousin was sitting on the phone or texting her back and, like, playing with her with that. I mean, that's just that's just so abusive and so it's so manipulative and and, like, it's deceitful deception. It's betrayal. It's awful.
Stacey:And it and then then Kiran's left with this, like, sick. Now I'm sure she feels so this is the thing with cognitive dissonance. When you realize you've done something for a long period of time that, you know, and that you didn't understand or come to terms with until you actually did. And then when you do, you look back and you go, goddamn it. What's wrong with me?
Stacey:Like, what kind of psychological damage has this done?
Dori:Well, and I think the sad thing is, like, you know, when she Bubi? When when she confronts Bubi at his house Mhmm. With his wife, Saanj, and the baby there
Stacey:Beautiful girl, by the way. God. Beautiful. He's gorgeous. He's gorgeous.
Dori:Gorgeous. Hello. Hello, sweetheart. Hello, Robin. That's sweet puppy.
Dori:Attractive, Jenna.
Stacey:I'm in my fifties.
Dori:Yeah. Come on over to America. But I think, like, when, you know, when the the sad thing is, like, when it all came to light and the fact that the police were very interested in Bobby's side, because we have to say, like, Bobby was also shystid during this whole thing. Simran was using his and his wife's personal and the baby's personal photos for this crazy ruse, but that the police were so interested in the Bobby side and and really, like, wanted to help him with his charges. But poor Kira, there's nothing that they would do for her.
Dori:So she had to take matters into her own hands to bring this some type of of of legality. It
Stacey:is so like, I have the chills the whole time we're talking. Because I'm thinking about, you know, a topic of mine that that is re regret is always something that I think about, and I don't like to have regret. And I always talk to my students about, like, regret. Like, you took a path. You chose a path, not this path.
Stacey:But if you didn't choose this path, you wouldn't know it was on this path. So you gotta go to this path and just trust that path. And don't think about what could have happened. You gotta go to that path. And there's this poor woman, Kirit, who who goes on this path and keeps going.
Stacey:It's like being in a an abusive marriage. You're like, well, I guess I'll just keep it going, and I'll wait until the kids are older. And I feel like if nine years from your thirties to your forties or, you know, somewhere in that area is is just mind
Dori:You said it's awful. You had said it before. It's very cult like because
Stacey:She isolated her. She quit her job. I mean, she was she was crying all the time. I mean, it's awful.
Dori:Yeah. All of her time was centered around not only Bobby, but also around all of these, you know, quote, unquote characters that Cimran created. Because we have to say too, this all is plausible because Cimran, the cousin, dated Bobby's brother. So it is that connection of reality. So why wouldn't this be realistic?
Dori:But like we're saying, it became cult like because her whole life was insulated by all these people that then Simran created.
Speaker 4:That didn't exist.
Dori:Group of four of us that chat about Bobby once he went into witness protection program. And now we have three of us that are in another Facebook group that we always chat about, you know, when he had that terrible accident. Or now we have a couple others that we talk about when, you know, he's getting divorced from Sanj. And now did he get back to get I mean, it's just Yeah. It's mind boggling.
Speaker 3:Ultimately, I find 60 profiles.
Speaker 4:60.
Speaker 3:60. Six zero. She used all these different guises to control me and hold my fears against me.
Stacey:The other thing that was so depressing and sad to me is that this was not Kirette's baby. This was Bobby's baby. But she was willing, Bobby and Sandra's baby, which a whole story was made up about them by from Cimran, but they were always married. This baby and they picked out clothes for the baby and got her a gift, got the baby a gift, him a gift. And then they had a picture.
Stacey:Of course, they didn't show his face. Thank God. But they had he had the outfit on, she thought, oh, he's wearing what I bought.
Speaker 3:In pictures sent to me, Bobby's son was wearing clothes that we'd picked together. Unbeknown at the time to me, those baby photos already existed on the real Bobby's Facebook page. Somehow, she had reverse engineered it to lead me to pick those clothes. There's even been times when I've been with Simran and she'd be fiddling on her smartwatch, and I would get a message from Bobby. Now I realized that she was messaging me as Bobby while with me.
Stacey:This woman Simran or this child or whatever she was when she started, I cannot the the to have a mind like that, to be
Dori:able to create false identity stories, you are so good at being bad. It's so funny that you say that because I was just thinking, like, with all these, like, cults and all these, like, masterminds from true crime, like, if they just use their evil for good. Like, they're brilliant people. This woman is a digital mastermind. Yeah.
Dori:Yeah. Creative writing mastermind. She's ruined her a Simran, she's ruined her whole life. Right. I knew you were talking
Stacey:about Simran because I don't even think she was in college yet. I mean, she was pretty young. It's really hard to keep those things consistent when you're lying a lot and making things up. So you have to you yourself have to be aware of the consistency of the lies. Okay.
Stacey:You know what, Dory? Who are we bringing in? We're bringing in the most important therapist on the planet, doctor John Mayer.
Speaker 4:The doctor is in. Doctor the doctor is in.
Dori:The doctor?
Dr. John Mayer:As always, I've been chomping at the bit to to
Stacey:I know you're chomping in. Chomping in.
Dr. John Mayer:I'm chomping at the to get in here.
Speaker 4:Anyway John, what
Stacey:do you think of what we've been talking about?
Dr. John Mayer:My god. Well, first of all, as always, you both have excellent instincts and and empathy with what's going on here. One of the things, you know, from the start here is I'd love to see a real picture of this simmer on because I just have a a theory that, you know, they they put a actor's picture in the documentary. You got a feeling she's not that cute of a girl. Everybody else in this documentary is so I mean, they're beautiful people from a to z.
Dr. John Mayer:The parents are even just, you know, various
Dori:Yeah.
Dr. John Mayer:Older parents. But, anyway, I wanted to see Cimarron because she had a theory that this is a girl. What else does she have going on in her life?
Dori:That's the thing that is so confounding. She had a relationship. They talked to, like, some, you know, school friends, like, that she just like she she was not like somebody
Dr. John Mayer:kept ended, which just gives you a clue, you know, what's going on with her that she couldn't hold this relationship. That's certainly I mean, that's the low hanging fruit here is that the Cimarron has nothing going on in her life that she's gotta be obsessed with ruining her cousin's life, who, like you both said, they made a good case in the documentary, she loved her cousin. You know? But her cousin became a plaything for her. But I also was thinking that, does she have to take this in cultural context?
Dr. John Mayer:I know, not only in in some patients that I've treated, many patients I've treated, but I have some personal friends who are Sikhs, and they're of the religion, the Indian religion of Sikhs. And this whole thing of the pressure to get married, I don't think there's another cultural entity that I've ever witnessed that has such pressure that marriage and children are, you know, it's everything. I think the parents even said in the documentary that that's everything, and Kirit constantly said at the beginning when when this first started, I want so badly to get married and have children. You know, we have to look at it in this cultural context of how much pressure there is for this. So when you wonder why Curit got so deeply involved and was hanging on to this, it was because of that family and cultural and religious pressure to make this work.
Speaker 3:Marriage is a big deal in our culture. From a very young age, I dreamed of getting married and having a family early. That's what matters to me more than anything else. There's a picture of me as I think I was two. My auntie dressed me up in my mom's wedding outfit.
Speaker 3:That's their hopes and dreams as well.
Stacey:Let's just talk about Simran's personality. I mean, I mentioned borderline. I mentioned sociopathic. I wanna I wanna hear from you, John, a doctor. What is Simran's personality disorder?
Stacey:What is her issue? What is her psychological problem?
Dr. John Mayer:Brings up that brings up a good note for all of our episodes. Per the ethics in my field, I can't diagnose her over the the media, but I can give some some hints and some ideas. And there's just speculation, everyone, in the audience. This is not a official diagnosis because that would be unethical. But Correct.
Dr. John Mayer:You both hit it on the head. You both threw out some terms, which I think are certainly in the ballpark of what Simran is is dealing with. Is she sociopathic? Yeah. Probably, I underline, probably borderline.
Dr. John Mayer:You know? Maybe. That's a very, by the way, serious mental illness. It's not just something to throw out.
Stacey:Oh, no. Did I throw out something bad?
Dori:I just it's I've read about
Dr. John Mayer:all It's fine. No. It's it's it's it's fine.
Dori:I mean,
Dr. John Mayer:I think it's in
Stacey:Some of the characteristics.
Dr. John Mayer:Of what could be going on with this this young lady. But I also thinking of, again, going into this larger context of these people, the other thing that really hit me was they're first of all, like we've said many times, they're beautiful people. They're also very wealthy people. I started to say that I know people in the Sikh community, and I also know I have a friend who is from not only the Sikh community, the Sikh culture, religion, but also from Africa. These are very wealthy Indian people.
Dr. John Mayer:Look at all the leisure time that these people have. None of us have the time to be catfishing somebody to the extent that Cimarron did to Kirit and Kirit to spend the time obsessed with this with this Bobby. So that's one thing you have to keep in mind with these people. Back to Cimarron, is she mentally disturbed? Probably.
Dr. John Mayer:Again, everyone, probably. I'm not diagnosing. But also, look at the thrills that a kid would get out of this. I have to share a personal story. When I was probably in middle school, I had a friend whose mother worked for the phone company, and so she got unlimited phone time.
Stacey:She's such a boomer.
Dr. John Mayer:Yeah. Yeah. Right. Just kidding. Just kidding.
Dr. John Mayer:Would Keep going. We would get a kick out of making crank phone calls, you know, to people. We would spend hours making crank phone calls, delivering pizzas to the neighbor next door, and seeing five pizzas delivered. And maybe I shouldn't be saying this in in on on a broadcast. We even called up well, before I had the idea of becoming a psychologist, we even called up a psychiatric hospital and tried to get my friend committed.
Dr. John Mayer:We were, like, you know, 11 years old, 12 years old.
Stacey:That's so funny. That's so ironic.
Dr. John Mayer:Right. But look at the similarities to the Cimarron. Is she getting incredible kicks out of this? And you also hit on something, Stacy. I think it was you who talked about the sexuality, you know, that Kirit didn't wanna talk about, but I really my ears perked up, and I wondered I could just picture Cimarron saying all these sexual conversations with Kira and kind of getting off on it.
Dr. John Mayer:You know? And maybe there was more of that that went on than than we know of, and it would be interesting if, you know, we knew what the nature of that was.
Stacey:So And I really wanted because I can only imagine what it was. To keep her for nine years, there's gotta be you know, like, it's just gross that this woman did this to Kira. You know? I mean, it's just gross. She to put her in that position, and then she still felt okay.
Dr. John Mayer:We haven't talked about and I agree with you. You I have to preface what I'm saying here by saying I agree with you when you talked about Kira, and she's admirable woman, and, you know, she's going after this and not you know, I I totally agree, but let's talk about her a little bit.
Dori:Yeah. I was gonna ask you, doctor, about
Stacey:What happened to her? What's wrong?
Dori:Because how does one keep moving on after having this nine year chunk of life invested and be embarrassed by it as well. I mean, there has to be embarrassment too.
Dr. John Mayer:Oh, absolutely. Especially to family members. You know, oh, when are we gonna meet Bob? Well, that came up a lot. When are we gonna meet Bobby?
Dr. John Mayer:When can you bring Bobby to this get together, etcetera?
Speaker 3:Bobby made me feel loved. And given the obstacles, things were going well. But despite this, there's only so much you can live a relationship online, have to be with each other. But there's always a reason why he can't come. It was really frustrating.
Speaker 4:Do you know how much I want to be with you? Do you know how much I want to look after you?
Speaker 7:I was very disappointed as well for him not turning up and I was trying to console Kirat every time but then she wouldn't discuss her feelings openly with me thinking that I will be upset and distressed about all this.
Speaker 4:I do anything.
Speaker 3:The stress of the situation is too much for him and things start to feel different between us. Because of the stroke, Bobby's health was up and down and his mental health was fragile. He started to lean on me quite a lot.
Dr. John Mayer:Yeah. Let's take a look at cure it and and say, what would make a person hang in there ten years? And I think, again, we have to look at the cultural context of what I talked about before about the pressures to have a person, to get married, etcetera. But also, we have to look at the Sikh religion, is that the Sikh religion values honesty and values and truthfulness. So there's an element that Kirib fell into thinking, well, he's a Sikh and, you know, we all are honest and we're truthful to each other, and so I can trust him.
Dr. John Mayer:I can believe, you know, that everything he's saying. So that's another thing we have to take a look at.
Dori:Kurate met Bobby in a club. So she knew that this person was a real person
Dr. John Mayer:Yeah.
Dori:And that if you can speak more about that, there was a level of reality to it for her probably because she actually met him, but that never really they never spoke. They never talked about it on their on their exchanges with Rob Cigran.
Stacey:She tried to she tried to talk to him at the bar. She's like, remember me? I've been talking to you. He like Well
Dori:I know who you are. You know what I mean?
Dr. John Mayer:What you're getting at I I don't wanna be too scientific here, but what you're getting at, Dory, is the concept of intermittent reinforcement. You know, that she met him. You're right. The the one of the very first things that happened was she actually met the real Bobby. She saw him.
Dr. John Mayer:And, again, the guy is a stunning guy. If you see the pictures of the club they're in, he was it looked like he was almost taller than everybody else. You know? So he he just stood out. How could you not, like a magnet, be attracted to this stunning guy who's in this club and almost like the it was almost like John Travolta in the middle of, you know, the dance club.
Stacey:Staying alive? Yes. Another boomer comment. Another boomer comment.
Dori:Yeah. Staying alive. Such a boomer.
Dr. John Mayer:Your eyes would just go there. So your so she gets that she gets that reinforcement. She gets that reinforcement. She gets that little piece of candy and, you know, is attracted to this guy. That that was a hook.
Dr. John Mayer:You're exactly right, Dory. And then Simran was absolutely brilliant at mind manipulation to give her little pieces and little reinforcement along the way and hooked her in. But it still brings me back to, and I'm sorry, Kira, because I hope you are listening to our our broadcast as well. What would drive you to keep hanging on that long? Cut bait.
Dr. John Mayer:You know? There are so many
Stacey:That's one of my questions. Cut bait, literally, like a fish.
Dr. John Mayer:Yeah. That's why Like
Dori:the bait.
Dr. John Mayer:That's why I said
Stacey:Well, that was funny.
Dori:That was funny. Assurance. There was there was a lot of that hopeful reassurance that, come on. Like, I am coming into town, and then they'd never meet even after the because, you know, we have to remember, there were years of the witness protection program, so he really couldn't be out and about. So that was a brilliant thing from Cimran with also the terrible injury that, you know, the faux injury that he also succumbed to where they had a photo of him in the hospital with all the tubes.
Dori:So maybe there was that, like, plausible hope of, you know, well, I'm in the witness protection program, so I'm here, I'm gonna come in, I'm gonna see you, but I can't. I can't right now. I have other things going on. Is that maybe something, doctor John, that, like, you kind of, like, for cure it, she kind of thought, like, this is hope. That's why she keeps going and going with it.
Dori:Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 6:Let me
Dr. John Mayer:get back to what I said in terms of the science of the brain is that this intermittent reinforcement is so powerful. It's the most powerful thing that hooks people onto bad habits. Know, lifestyle things that people do is is intermittent reinforcement. So but for ten years, it still to me was very unusual that she hung in
Stacey:so
Dr. John Mayer:so
Stacey:Well, and also, he was married for a little bit of it, then divorced. She was willing to stick it like, she was his friend, but she wasn't dating anybody. That's another thing. It's like she wasn't even with him. Yeah.
Stacey:And then when he had a baby, then she was willing see, she was giving so much of herself away to nothing. She was willing to raise another person's baby for a fake person. I mean
Dr. John Mayer:And again, it goes and it goes to the brilliant manipulation of Simran because, you know, that's what I thought about with him getting married. As you watch it and you don't know what the twist is yet, you're going, okay, he's married, and she's still hanging in there like, I love you, and I'm behind you even though you're you're getting married to Sanji and etcetera. Then she has a child, and you're getting I'm still, you know, I'm still here for you, etcetera, etcetera, rather than bye bye. You know? At at the end of the documentary, when she finally goes, okay.
Dr. John Mayer:This is enough. I'm going I'm just gonna go to his house and knock on the door. I I said to myself, yeah. Yeah, lady. You should have done that, you know, ten years ago.
Stacey:Can I share something with you guys?
Dr. John Mayer:Yes.
Stacey:So, you know, it's really interesting that during this whole process that we've been having together, specifically together, I have recovered old memories of things of manipulation that I've been in. I was catfished once by a guy I met. So I met a guy named Sean on a you know, I'm not telling you his last name. Just a guy at Club Med. I mean, met him at Club Med.
Stacey:We had no physical relationship. He liked me, but he was whacked. He was whacked. But we were having this sort of emotional relationship when we got home on the phone. And then he told me he was coming to visit, and then he didn't.
Stacey:And then he told me again, and then he did it. And then he said he would come to my turnabout. I didn't have another date. He said he'd come, and he didn't. And I felt so taken I I I felt that I was being manipulated.
Stacey:I mean, now that I'm looking back, back then, I was like, well then, I'd cut it off and I at least it only lasted three months.
Dr. John Mayer:You see that intermittent reinforcement. You know, he gave you little pieces of candy, you know, and you're Right. You were chomping on it. Oh, okay. This is good.
Dori:This is
Stacey:I was hanging on to an idea of this guy. And I'm not even and, like, I never even kissed him. Like, it was just he was giving me candy. This she was giving and we're not trying to point that out. It's it's just
Dori:funny. He
Stacey:was giving me all this, you're right, reinforcement. Like, I love you.
Stacey:I'm coming. I'm gonna reinforcement. Like, I love you. I'm coming. I'm gonna come visit. It's just now I can't. I gotta go to my school is requiring me to stay. Oh, now I can't come.
Stacey:Now I can't come. And it it fizzled away and ended. He's now married with kids.
Dori:He's okay. I think
Dr. John Mayer:what happened in the in Kiritsky. Yeah. You know, is that she would get those tidbits and and there's little crumbs. And and I wanted to throw out a term, and it's a good time to do it. You know, it was almost Rasputin like, you know, that he was almost she was mesmerized and and just controlled in this almost like crazy spiritual way by this whole thing.
Dr. John Mayer:And again, I hate to throw bric bracs at Cimarron, but it would the manipulation techniques were brilliant for a 17 year old kid that you know? And and that's another reason why it it kept going with Cimarron is because this had to be absolutely a kick for that girl, you know, absolutely getting her jollies off the fact that I got my cousin so twisted and so in control, and I could probably have her do anything, that is that is powerful.
Dori:I think with ChiRat, there is a lot of social pressure. Like we were talking about, you had said too, doctor John, that, you know, the family pressure, all of that. I think that there is that, all of that, that encompasses wanting to believe that something is real or something is more when it's really not.
Dr. John Mayer:Exactly. And Do
Stacey:you think there was a part of Kirat who knew it wasn't real even deep down but was afraid to end it in case it might not have been?
Dr. John Mayer:I I didn't get that impression at all. She truly believed that this was
Stacey:She was hook, line, and sinker, as they say.
Dr. John Mayer:And he loved me, and we're we're a couple.
Dori:Yeah.
Dr. John Mayer:I also have to fit in, by the way, and maybe both of you give give you some perspective. I've been in this field long enough. And and as you both know, one of my claims of fame is dealing and treating teenagers and, especially, you know, kids that act out and stuff. And when the Internet first exploded, it's actually kind of an ironic story. I had this one very shy, very introverted teenage patient who, all of a sudden, in a session says, I have a girlfriend.
Dr. John Mayer:I gotta tell you about my girlfriend. And I you know, oh, I'm just so hooked on this girl. You I think you know where this story is going. For session after session, I'm giving him advice on how to, you know, be a boyfriend to a girlfriend because he was so socially awkward and and shy, and I'm giving him my my a my a stuff on how to be a cool dude. And all of a sudden, after about 10 or so sessions of of dealing with this, I somehow found out or I asked him the question, have you ever saw this girl or met this girl?
Dr. John Mayer:And it was it was all over the Internet, and she lived in, like, in Canada, and he was in Chicago or something like that. And it was so you're right. Dory's Dory's face right now, everyone, is just so sad looking. It was Yeah. It was absolutely ridiculous.
Dori:Get it. I get it. There are I think this happens, not the catfishing, but I think I think that, like, extreme hope
Dr. John Mayer:Yeah.
Dori:Of wanting it to be true and wanting it to be good, I think it happens more often than not.
Dr. John Mayer:It it's happening a lot. That's why I bring up that story. And if I was Kirit's therapist, which, by the way, nobody was in therapy here. That's interesting.
Dori:Yeah. What's going on there?
Dr. John Mayer:I would have slapped her in the head and said, you know, wake up. You gotta meet this guy. Don't be falling for these excuses and, you know, like, get her out of this thing.
Dori:Well, it is not a a physical slapper in therapy. Correct? Like, you don't you don't get physical. Well, there are certain
Dr. John Mayer:times, you know, that I may have, but that's for another day.
Stacey:So, John, doctor doctor, the idea of catfishing like, I just kinda wanna wrap this up with with the idea of catfishing again, going back to the original idea. Why do people do that? Why do people deceive other people and get pleasure out of people believing them? Like, what is that coming from? I would feel so guilty.
Stacey:And, you know, Simran, like, she confessed it at the end. She was like, was all me. It's like, what? It was all easy to do? That was so that easy?
Stacey:It was all me? It's like, you know, you were always able to go back to Kansas. You just didn't know. It just really upset me that it was like, that's all it took was her to say that. And then Kira was like, like, back.
Stacey:It's like she was like, you know, flew against the wall because it it's just so shocking.
Speaker 3:Simran gets out of the car. I've opened the door, and she says to me, I don't think I should come in. And I've she's got quite a serious face. I'm like, why? She looks at me and she says, it was all me.
Speaker 3:I'm like, what do you mean it was all me? She says, I'm Bobby. I think slowly, I'm registering she means that she's been pretending to be Bobby. But I can't quite understand and I was like calling out names. What about Sanj?
Speaker 3:What about Yash? What about Rajvir? What about Kiran? What about so and so? She said, it's all me.
Speaker 3:It was me. It was me. So I was all of them. I suddenly questioned, who have I been sleeping on the phone with for the last three years? She says it was me.
Speaker 7:I violated, or to be sick.
Speaker 3:And now I'm just screaming at her like, why? I just kept screaming, why? Why did you do it? And she's like, she's ruined my whole life. She's stolen the best years of my life with me.
Speaker 3:And all she could say was that I I ruined my own life. No expression. Nothing.
Dr. John Mayer:Let me ask you a question that, you know, what's going on with this Cimarron? That's what does she get out of it? Well, I think you have to look at her. And, again, everyone, this is not a diagnosis, but I think you have to look at her as a very undeveloped human being. Probably
Stacey:Kinda like Ed Gein. Childlike. Childlike like Ed Gein. They, like, they don't mature past a
Dr. John Mayer:certain age. They're just Exactly. You know? And and she got great Mhmm. Out of out of doing this.
Dr. John Mayer:And in her mind, yeah, okay. Okay. I did this. I'm done. I'm done now.
Dr. John Mayer:Okay. Everything's fine. Everything's, you know, good. But she's not realizing the damage that which I wanna make a point before we we run out of time on our podcast here is that one of the things that I took away from this, you know, I deal with killers and criminals who do horrible things to people, but I have to agree with Kirit at the end of the documentary. There's gotta be some laws or something enacted which emphasize the cruelty and the damage that you do to somebody's life by this kind of thing, this catfishing thing about manipulating people, I think it's probably this is a terrible thing to say, but I think it's probably more heinous to do something like this than to just shoot somebody and kill them and you're done.
Dr. John Mayer:This is years of torture you put a person in, and there's nothing we can do to a person like Cimarron to give her any consequences for what she did? I mean, mentally ill, immature, childlike, whatever she is, she needs some consequences for what she has done to ruin these people's lives and its people.
Stacey:She's so entitled. Like, she could just go away and be fine. Like, it's such an entitled way to think.
Dr. John Mayer:It was me. It's all done. Everybody should be just fine.
Stacey:Yeah. Everybody's fine. Like, if it was one month, okay. Or or even one year. But nine years of this woman's life all day?
Stacey:And then being abusive with having her she where are you going? Going to the bathroom. She had to, like, leave the phone on. Sorry. I know this is the end, but the more I think about it, the more I get upset.
Dr. John Mayer:The devastating emotional psychological damage that this does to an individual is just enormous. We're seeing this in the news right now with, you know, these people coming up with, you know, I was abused by a clergyman when I was a child and it scarred me the rest of my life. We just had a report in the media here in the Chicago area about this individual that was abused by a Catholic priest, and the rest of his life, he was into drugs, and, you know, he suffered tremendously, and he died at 43 because of incident that happened when he was a child. And here we have ten years of psychological torture that Keurat has to live with.
Dori:Catfishing is so popular. I mean, they have shows on it, like, just dedicated, like, on MTV. There's literally, like it's almost like a pop culture thing to catfish. So the Manti Teow incident, the Notre Dame football player, that kinda brought catfishing maybe to the forefront as well. But you had asked that question, Stacy, about just, like, catfishing and, you know, like, what do you do?
Dori:I mean, or what you get out of it or why. But it is very popular because you can hide via the Internet. You can do these this is a crime to another person. And like we see with Cimran, there isn't a lot of consequence to it.
Dr. John Mayer:And it doesn't seem
Dori:like there's
Dr. John Mayer:been any consequence. And I gotta throw in there, I, as a doctor, every year have to take HIPAA training to keep my license. And one of the sections that is strongly talked about is Internet fraud, and and they talk about catfishing because another way that catfishing is used is to infiltrate companies, get into people's credit cards, etcetera, etcetera. So I, you know, I think an even bigger crime that we've seen here is this damage that has been done. It's like psychological murder.
Dr. John Mayer:Maybe that's
Dori:It might be worse. I mean, it might
Stacey:be psychological torture, they say sometimes, is worse than physical torture.
Dr. John Mayer:Oh, it absolutely is.
Stacey:And I was I that's that's what I was gonna say. I'm so sorry that I forgot. And also, not you know, I know we have to wrap up, but I do have a friend who's in his sixties who was abused by a priest when he was young, and he revealed that to me about a year ago, talked to me about it when we became really close. And he said his whole life has been he never even talked about it until he was in his thirties. He carried around with him.
Stacey:He's still single. He's never been with anybody, And it causes so much it just it breaks you. It changes you, especially if it it's done when you're a kid. But even more so as an adult, when you're going through times where you've where when you're going through transitional times or anything like that, you know, when you get out of being in college and then you have to be an adult, there's that weird transition where you could be recruited into an MLM and recruited into a cult because you're looking for something. It's just that vulnerability that people have.
Dr. John Mayer:I treated so many patients that have been abused, either by a clergy member or a parent or a family member, and it is a torture that really pervades your life until you get therapy, and you can put it away, and you can move on with your life. There is cures for it. I mean, we can help people that go through these things, and I hope Kira is getting some help, and she can heal herself.
Stacey:You know what? I'm gonna have her baby. I don't have ovaries or fallopian tubes, but I do have a uterus. So if she wants to find a way Wait.
Dori:This this is getting off the rails. Okay.
Stacey:That this was great. Dory, great pick. What a great what a great podcast. Thanks so much for listening. Be sure to join us next time when we'll be diving into another cult or crime.
Stacey:Our theme music is written and performed by Midnight Current. Check out more of their work on SoundCloud. For more about us and to catch up on every episode of Pod Candy, head over to podcandypodcast.com. You can also find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. See you next time.
Stacey:Pod candy.