Harry And Rachel Part 2: When True Love Dies

Summary

Chameleon: "Harry and Rachel Part 2: When True Love Dies"

Podcast: Chameleon
Host: Josh Dean (Audiochuck | Campside Media)
Date: March 26, 2026

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Overview

This second part of Harry and Rachel's saga delves even deeper into a harrowing story of love, manipulation, and deception. Josh Dean continues his exploration into the tangled relationships orbiting Rachel, a woman at the center of elaborate lies, fake illnesses, and multiple overlapping romances. As Harry learns the devastating truth, the episode exposes the profound psychological and emotional fallout of being conned—not just for Harry, but for Rachel's family, friends, and a host of former lovers.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Aftermath of the Santa Barbara Reunion

[01:41–03:14]

• Josh recaps Part 1: Rachel’s supposed cancer relapse, her emotional embrace with Harry, and the night of intimacy in Santa Barbara.
• Harry recalls the hug:

  “She hugged me in a way that I have never been hugged by anyone... I thought she was afraid she was going to die and never see me.” — Harry [02:08]

2. Rachel’s Hospitalization—A Year of Virtual Vigil

[03:09–05:08]

• Rachel claims rapidly declining health, supposedly hospitalized with "stage four cancer" for 563 days.
• She is allegedly on "the red devil" chemo drug. Harry is urged to stay away and becomes her long-distance emotional caregiver.
• Harry’s despair:

  “I was literally suicidal near the end, before I found out what was going on.” — Harry [04:42]

3. The Big Reveal: Mark’s Call and Rachel’s Secret Life

[05:08–09:41]

• Mark, Rachel's husband, contacts Harry after 563 days.
• During the tense call, Mark sends Harry a video of Rachel—alive, healthy, with a full head of hair—debunking her entire illness narrative.

• “If I were a cartoon character, I would be Yosemite Sam chasing Bugs Bunny, and the red would be going up and my shotgun would be in my hand.” — Harry [07:39]

• Rachel’s roses are from yet another boyfriend, Russ.

4. Mark’s Investigation—Unraveling Rachel’s Affairs

[10:44–13:16]

• Mark grows suspicious of Rachel's nights away and tracks her to Russ’s home; finds her car there.
• Days later, catches Rachel and Russ making out at the airport, leading to a fistfight.
• Family bombshell: Mark, upon learning from his daughter that Harry is another boyfriend, is left reeling:

  “Mark said, well, I had a fight with mom's boyfriend. And Madison said, Harry. And Mark said, Harry? Who the fuck is Harry?” — Harry [13:25]

5. Harry Faces Rachel; The Web Fully Unspools

[14:08–18:04]

• Confronted with evidence, Rachel at first denies, then admits her duplicity; she is evasive and blames her situation.

• "Harry, my situation has recently changed and I've chosen to not include you." — Rachel (in a text read by Harry) [14:49]

• Harry realizes Rachel fabricated pregnancies, illnesses, and other dramas with multiple partners and recounts finding notes, texts, and even custom newsletters Rachel had made while she was supposedly dying in the hospital.

6. How Did the Con Work? Theories and Reflection

[18:04–23:17]

• Possible endgames: Rachel planning to simply "disappear" or even fake her own death to escape her lies.
• Stories of her previously faking deaths—including her sister Sherry and old flame Bobby—surface. All prove untrue.
• Harry speculates dark motives:

  “I think she wanted me to have some confrontation which would end in Mark's passing. I think she wanted me to kill Mark. I really do.” — Harry [21:12]

• Josh clarifies: this is Harry’s theory only.

7. The Scale of Rachel’s Deceit—Multiple Victims

[25:25–32:02]

• Harry embarks on a quest to find other victims, uncovering a trail of romantic and financial manipulation, including fake pregnancies and illnesses with at least ten men.
• Guest stories: Greg, another ex, details how Rachel faked memory loss, pregnancies, and a cemetery plot for fake babies.
• Rachel’s alleged bigamy (married to Brian and Mark simultaneously) emerges, but statute of limitations has expired.

8. The Devastation Wrought—Families and Victims

[30:11–32:44]

• Mark, finally divorced after 24 years, is left fighting for his reputation and access to his children, as Rachel files allegations and restraining orders.
• Rachel’s extraordinary skill at deception is outlined: fake pilot’s license, feigned law credentials, convincing many that she was a pilot, nurse, or lawyer.

• “She is a very smart woman... She remembers every single detail about everything. She is able to hold things together in a way that I have never seen.” — Harry [31:02]

9. Healing, Podcasting, and Public Backlash

[34:20–36:23]

• Harry turns his story into a podcast ("The Messenger; The Rachel Cancer Scam") as a path to processing and exposing the scheme. This opens him up to online ridicule and skepticism.

• “I had unbelievable anxiety the night before this came out. I literally was sitting in my backyard thinking, is it too late to call the podcast provider and say, pull it, Stop it, I'm done, I'm out.” — Harry [34:49]

• He candidly discusses the challenges of moving forward, and reflects on the power of love and self-delusion.

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Memorable Quotes

• On Rachel’s manipulation:

  "You tried to get me to leave with everything but the truth. Just ridiculous. Preposterous." — Harry [17:55]

• On the pain of realization and loyalty:

  “You sat home for 563 days. What's wrong with you? Fool? But the reality is, when you love somebody, when you really love somebody. And I loved her with every fiber of my beat.” — Harry [22:46]

• On the impact:

  “It's so much to think about how I allowed my life to be, to be destroyed by this process, when if I were just getting some counseling or really listening to someone, someone could have literally put their hands on my shoulder and gone, stop. I'm going to hire an investigator.” — Harry [33:28]

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Notable Moments & Timestamps

• The Hug in Santa Barbara: [02:08]
• Harry’s Caregiving From Afar: [03:45]
• Mark’s Call + Video Bombshell: [05:08–07:39]
• Discovery of Russ, The Other Boyfriend: [08:38–09:41]
• Mark Watches Rachel Make Out With Russ at Airport: [12:38]
• Madison Connects Dots with Instagram Evidence: [13:35]
• A Year’s Worth of Lies Exposed in a Single Call: [14:49]
• Revelations About Rachel’s Multiple Fake Pregnancies + Marriages: [19:25–20:32]
• Harry’s Theory That Rachel Wanted Him to Kill Mark: [21:12]
• Other Victims Tell Their Stories: [27:52–28:18]
• Harry on The Public’s Reaction to His Podcast: [34:49–35:05]
• Reflections on Love and Obsession: [35:46]

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Tone and Language

Throughout the episode, the tone is candid and raw, marked by Harry's self-reflection—sometimes angry, sometimes heartbroken, often incredulous. Josh Dean maintains a sympathetic, probing position, supporting Harry’s narrative while injecting skepticism and clarifying speculation. The language is direct and emotionally charged, often using blunt, colorful metaphors from the subjects themselves.

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Conclusion

"Harry and Rachel Part 2: When True Love Dies" is a meticulous, devastating exposé of the emotional and practical havoc wrought by a master manipulator living double and triple lives. The episode lays bare not just the facts of Rachel's deceptions but also the deep, lasting wounds left behind—and the dangers of falling too hard for someone with something to hide.

Transcript

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[Harry]

Campsite Media

[Unknown Caller / Interviewer]

hello.

[Harry]

What is.

[Josh Dean (Host of Chameleon)]

What do you want me to say?

[Dr. Horton Advertiser]

Chameleon.

[Josh Dean (Host of Chameleon)]

Chameleon, Chameleon Weekly Last week on Chameleon, we heard Part one of Harry and Rachel, the story of a hopeless romantic and a woman who just keeps stringing him along. This woman, Rachel, got sick. Some old cancer had recurred and she wanted to see Harry. In Santa Barbara, a town that had some history for them, the emotional night culminated in an embrace.

[Harry]

That night we go back to the room and as we're laying down together, she hugged me in a way that I have never been hugged by anyone. It was like we were head to head, nose to nose, and she had me by the back of the head and she would not let me go, and I could feel tears on her face and I could feel her kind of shaking and she wouldn't let me go. And I tried to like, gently ease her away and say, what's going on? And I thought she was Just afraid of cancer. I thought she was afraid she was going to die and never see me.

[Josh Dean (Host of Chameleon)]

After the hug, after that happy but sad reunion or whatever it was, Harry went back home to Vegas. He was confused and just really worried. Those worries were affirmed on June 5, when Rachel told him that her health was slipping fast. She'd exhibited signs of a heart attack and possibly also a stroke and was rushed to the French Hospital Medical center in San luis Obispo on June 5, 2022.

[Harry]

That started the 563 days of her being in the hospital with what she

[Josh Dean (Host of Chameleon)]

claimed was stage four cancer. Rachel told Harry that she was on a very serious chemo drug called doxorubicin, which is often called the red Devil because of its punishing effects on the body. And the red devil was taking its toll on her, she said. Every impulse told Harry to rush to California to see Rachel, but she urged him to stay away. She didn't want him around, not when she was in that state and not with her husband Mark and kids around. So Harry assumed a new role. Caregiver.

[Harry]

From afar, she encouraged me to live my life. She was saying, go live your life. Go be with your friends. And in my heart, all I wanted to do was stay home and take care of her. I loved her, and I thought the best thing I could do was to be a virtual caregiver.

[Josh Dean (Host of Chameleon)]

Harry and Rachel talked and texted every day. She would disappear for periods, but that made sense. She was constantly in and out of treatments. The chemo, especially, was brutal.

[Harry]

Covid taught us how to be present with someone without being present. And I did it repeatedly, and I did it to the best of my ability. And there were good days and there were bad. There were plenty of times where I was falling apart, thinking, she's going to die, and I can't do anything to control it. I can't help.

[Josh Dean (Host of Chameleon)]

What Harry wanted most was to go see her, even for a day. But Rachel was in what she called protective isolation. Her condition was just too precarious for visitors.

[Harry]

I would have driven four hours to tap on the glass, give me a protective suit. You want to shoot me with some antibiotics? Or put me in quarantine for a week, Put me in the Walter White and Jesse Pinkman suit and let me go in. Let me hold her hand, let me look into her eyes. I was literally suicidal near the end, before I found out what was going on.

[Josh Dean (Host of Chameleon)]

It's sort of hard to believe in retrospect, but more than a year passed like this, with Harry sitting vigil in Vegas, wondering Every day if this would be the one when he'd get the news he was dreading. Then, on December 20, 2023, Harry got a call from probably the last person on earth he wanted to hear from at that point, Mark, Rachel's husband.

[Harry]

My blood starts to boil. I think, what does this guy want from me?

[Josh Dean (Host of Chameleon)]

This was the man who, according to Rachel, had been abusing her, who was the primary reason they weren't together, who had been four years, a problem that just wouldn't go away.

[Harry]

I don't take the call because my blood pressure and my heart rate are going up. I wear an eye watch, like I can see. My heart rate went up to like 110. I'm arresting 74, 73 kind of guy. I take a minute, I go out to the car and I call him. I said, marcus, Harry so and so. He said, oh, thanks for calling me back. I appreciate it. And I said, like, what's the purpose of your call?

[Josh Dean (Host of Chameleon)]

Harry's back was up. He was, as his mother might say, not his best Harry.

[Harry]

He said, who is Rachel to you? And I said, she's my fiance. And who does is she to you and what do you want?

[Josh Dean (Host of Chameleon)]

And Mark seemed surprised. Did you say fiance?

[Harry]

Yeah, she's my fiance. And I know you beat the out of her in 2012, and you're lucky that I didn't drive to San Luis Obispo and beat your ass when I found out about this. She had to talk me out of it. So you're lucky. What do you want? What's your point?

[Josh Dean (Host of Chameleon)]

Mark was surprisingly calm, composed.

[Harry]

He said, when's the last time you saw her? And I said, May 5, 2022. 18 months ago. 563 days ago at the Santa Barbara Hotel when we separated and she started chemo treatment. And he said, this is your cell phone you're calling me from? I said, yeah.

[Josh Dean (Host of Chameleon)]

Harry's phone vibrates. It's a text message with a video attached.

[Harry]

And it's Rachel walking through the door. She walks through the door with roses in her hand. And I'm looking at them like, what? What am I looking at?

[Josh Dean (Host of Chameleon)]

That's Rachel, Mark said in a video taken last night, I'm a fairly articulate man.

[Harry]

I cannot tell you what I was thinking in that moment. Like I thought the day before, she was 66 pounds and had stage four cancer and wasn't going to make it, had broken ribs from cpr, was just in the worst shape of her life. And there she is, no hair missing, no scar from her brain tumor, able to walk, not paralyzed. No machines keeping her alive. She's walking in the house, clear as day, full head of hair with roses in her hand. I was stunned. I was pissed. If I were a cartoon character, I would be Yosemite Sam chasing Bugs Bunny, and the red would be going up and my shotgun would be in my hand. And I said, I need a minute. I need a minute, and I'm gonna have to call you back.

[Josh Dean (Host of Chameleon)]

And if you think you know how this story goes, if you think Rachel was faking her cancer to keep Harry at bay so that she continue her relationship with her husband, well, yeah, you'd be right. But that's just the start. Because the video that Mark sent of Rachel and the roses, those weren't for Mark or from Mark. They were from her other boyfriend, a guy named Russ. This is Chameleon, the show about people who have something to hide. And I'm Josh Dean. This week, part two of Harry and Rachel, where almost everything Harry thought he knew about Rachel is cast in doubt and a whole new narrative is exposed. Hang in there. It's quite a ride.

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Chameleon.

[Josh Dean (Host of Chameleon)]

Chameleon. This is Chameleon Weekly. Mark and Rachel's marriage was far from perfect. They'd had their share of issues and been to counseling, but they'd ridden it out, raised a healthy family, and in 2023, two decades into it, things felt mostly okay. Sure, Rachel would go out now and then and sometimes stay out, but she worked for an airline. Late nights plus some travel were just part of it. She was also very social and sometimes stayed over with friends. One night, Rachel told Mark she was working an overnight at the airport, he ordered some food and decided to get her some, too, as a surprise. So he picked it up and drove over to the airport. But when he arrived, there was no sign of Rachel's car. He tried her phone. No answer. Mark wasn't an especially suspicious guy, but this didn't feel right. He says he did something he'd never done before. He pulled their cell phone records and noticed a bunch of very long calls to a single number with Apasa Roble's area code. He searched the number online, got an address, and headed over. This was December 15, 2023.

[Harry]

Knocks on the door. Russ answers the door and says, can I help you, by the way? Russ is wearing pajama bottoms. And that's it. And the house is dark. The lights are off. Rachel's car's in the driveway.

[Josh Dean (Host of Chameleon)]

It's no mystery what's going on here, but Russ isn't saying anything. He leaves Mark on the doorstep.

[Harry]

So he waits in the driveway. Sits there and waits.

[Josh Dean (Host of Chameleon)]

It's on a ring camera. I've seen it. I've seen the picture of him with his arms folded, sitting on the hood of Rachel's car, waiting for her to come out of the house.

[Harry]

And eventually, he leaves. She comes home, does the crawl of shame home, and they talk about it. And they're going to try to figure some things out. And she's sorry and, you know, poor me.

[Josh Dean (Host of Chameleon)]

Three days later, Mark decides to pick Rachel up at the airport after her shift. He's going to take her out to dinner. He wants to try and piece the relationship back together with the woman he's been with for 23 years, the mother of his kids. But when he gets to the airport, he sees his wife with Russ making out in the parking lot.

[Harry]

So he and Russ end up in a fistfight. This is like Days of Our Lives on steroids. There's a fist fight on airport property. Rachel's in the middle of it. Punch is thrown. Russ gets knocked down. Mark gets knocked down. Mark's glasses break. His face is cut up.

[Josh Dean (Host of Chameleon)]

Two days later, Mark picks up their oldest daughter from college. She's the only one of the four who's left home. She sees the cut on his face. What happened? She asks.

[Harry]

Mark said, well, I had a fight with mom's boyfriend. And Madison said, harry. And Mark said, Harry? Who the fuck is Harry?

[Josh Dean (Host of Chameleon)]

Madison pulls out her phone and starts scrolling through pictures until she finds a series of grabs from Harry's Instagram account from about a year and a half prior.

[Harry]

Bunch of pictures of Rachel and I Together. Rachel's my girl. Rachel's commenting on it. She's got a picture of a note that I wrote that she found in Rachel's car. She's got pictures of flowers that were sent to the house. She's like, this is mom's boyfriend.

[Josh Dean (Host of Chameleon)]

She just hadn't wanted to say anything.

[Harry]

She was afraid to blow the family up because she couldn't really verify beyond what she had. So then Mark calls me.

[Josh Dean (Host of Chameleon)]

That's where we left you, at the top. With Mark calling Harry to let him know firstly that he knew about his relationship with Rachel and then that they were both being taken for a ride. Harry, upon hearing this, couldn't process it. He needed to hear from Rachel. He called her and when she didn't pick up, he texted, who is Russ?

[Harry]

And she immediately responded to that text. And she said, I don't know that name. And I said, are you sure you don't know Russ so and so? I don't know that name. I said, well, it's interesting because I just had a phone call with Mark, you know, your still husband, Mark.

[Josh Dean (Host of Chameleon)]

Rachel, he says, started to fumble, accusing Mark of coming to the hospital to bother her.

[Harry]

And I said, rachel, you're not in the hospital. You're not sick. I saw you on the ring camera five nights ago. Where are you right now? And I'm sitting staring at my phone, waiting for the bubbles to pop up. And I get the message that I will never forget, which is, Harry, my situation has recently changed and I've chosen to not include you. I've been sitting here for a year and a half. I thought you were pregnant with our child. I thought you had cancer. I thought you were dying. And now you're not only cheating and lying with me, but you've got another boyfriend you're starting with. And you're still married to Mark. There are three of us. And she said, I can't really talk now, but please stop talking to Mark. You're making it worse. Worse for me.

[Josh Dean (Host of Chameleon)]

This did not exactly diffuse Harry's temper.

[Harry]

Who the fuck do you think you are that you can tell me to stop talking to Mark because I'm making it worse for you? What about what I've been through? What about what I've been through? And she. She wouldn't talk, wouldn't talk.

[Josh Dean (Host of Chameleon)]

Rachel stopped replying. But Harry wasn't letting it go that easily. And a few days later, she relented and called back.

[Harry]

She was tearful and remorseful. And I said, why did you do this? And she said, I tried to get you to leave me. And I said, you tried with everything but the truth. But that doesn't answer my question. Why did you do it? You're still married to Mark. And she said, I did it because of Mark. I couldn't get away and I wanted to leave and I still want to leave and I'm trying to get out and I couldn't tell you. I couldn't talk to you about it.

[Josh Dean (Host of Chameleon)]

Harry was on a mission. He wanted every detail, every lie to try and work out the truth and make some sense of it. But the only person who could give him answers was Rachel herself.

[Harry]

I said, why didn't you just tell me the truth? Why couldn't you just be honest with me? Her response was, I tried to get you to leave me. Wait a minute. You tried to get me to leave?

[Josh Dean (Host of Chameleon)]

He means all those times she pleaded with him to get on with his life, to not take on the burden of someone who was possibly dying, who had a million problems of her own, and obviously none of this made a difference. Harry was in love.

[Harry]

I said, look at all these texts I have from you about how much you love me and that you fight for me every single day and nothing else matters in the world. I have those notes. I have handwritten notes.

[Josh Dean (Host of Chameleon)]

I've seen some of them. And emails. And a series of elaborately designed newsletters Rachel made for Harry in 2022 when she was supposedly hospitalized. They're covered in photos of Harry and have little stories with titles like to love and be loved. One titled Locations, Dates, Outfits. Starts like this. November 10, 2022. Will this be the day we finally wed?

[Harry]

You tried to get me to leave with everything but the truth. You tried to get me to leave. Just ridiculous. Preposterous.

[Josh Dean (Host of Chameleon)]

The thing I couldn't help but wonder as an observer was how this possibly could have worked. How could Rachel have managed to keep a husband and a boyfriend who got as much attention as Harry, a boyfriend who was getting pledges of undying love, and who she was circling dates to marry?

[Harry]

I think she was going to have to plan her own death or just push me far enough away that I would stay away from her for another couple years, and then magically, she could pop into my life at some point and say, hey, I'm better. I recovered from the cancer. Can we get together?

[Josh Dean (Host of Chameleon)]

Alternatively, if Rachel really was done with Harry, she might have found a way to just declare herself dead. This seems like a thing Rachel did. Sometimes she would tell Harry about the death of someone in her life who would subsequently turn out not to be dead at all, like her sister Sherry. Rachel told Harry that Sherry died many years back, but Sherry very much alive and in touch with both Mark and Harry, who sent me a text message from last June in which Sherry reports that she was at the spa when the lady doing her facial started talking about Harry's podcast. I eventually told them I'm the dead sister, Sherry wrote. Then there's Bobby, the old flame who she supposedly left Mark for, then discovered had a secret life and lover, and then died of an overdose.

[Harry]

She needed to create the Bobby narrative so that I would stay away knowing that she was taken care of in some. Some new man came into her life and was going to take care of her, when in reality, he was married. She was married to her first husband, Todd, and they were each other's side pieces. And then at one point, Bobby moves to Flint. Rachel goes to see him and they split up. Rachel, out of anger because she doesn't take rejection well, gets one of her girlfriends and says, why don't you come with me to Flint to meet my friend Brian, not Bobby. Bobby had just broken up with her, but Bobby introduced her to a guy named Brian Flint. Rachel and his girlfriend go to Flint as an act of revenge. Rachel strikes up a relationship with Brian, literally whirlwind relationship, and ends up in in four months, married to Brian. Less than a year after Rachel's marriage to Mark, she's now married to Mark and to Brian.

[Josh Dean (Host of Chameleon)]

Wow. And as you've probably guessed, Bobby is very much alive. Rachel never did leave Mark for him, which I know because Mark told me he and Rachel never separated in more than 20 years of marriage until it all came tumbling down in 2023. And of course, you have to remember that this was all stuff Harry found out later. He had pieces of the truth information that would back up the version of herself that she wanted Harry to know. He knew nothing of the reality of all these relationships.

[Harry]

It's very much like a baseball team where there's a bullpen.

[Josh Dean (Host of Chameleon)]

That's what it was to him. He was the main character in his and Rachel's story with Mark as the villain.

[Harry]

Like I was against Mark until I realized what Mark really was. He's a sweet guy. He is the antithesis of me, affable and soft spoken. And I thought in the end what she was planning, and this may sound crazy, is I think she wanted me to have some confrontation which would end in Mark's passing. I think she wanted me to kill Mark. I really do.

[Josh Dean (Host of Chameleon)]

This is, to be clear, just Harry's theory, a gut feeling.

[Harry]

I think it kills two birds with one stone. It gets me away from her and out of her life, and it gets Mark out of her life.

[Josh Dean (Host of Chameleon)]

You can understand how Harry could get there. This was not a woman who could just end relationships like a normal person.

[Harry]

I mean, she could have asked Mark for a divorce at any stage. There are so many exit ramps along the way that she could have taken. Why not take one of them and be honest? Why not say to me in that hotel room, listen, I have not been honest. I don't have cancer. I didn't know how to tell you that I don't have cancer. I'm afraid I feel stuck in my relationship with Mark. Any number of things. I'm a pragmatic guy. At that point. I could have said, you know what? You didn't have to lie to me. I don't want you to ever lie to me again. I'm willing to look past this.

[Josh Dean (Host of Chameleon)]

Or, you know, in the alternate reality where that happened, maybe Harry would have run immediately to his car and sped away forever.

[Harry]

I said it didn't have to be that way, Rachel. And by the way, it's not too late. I thought, if you talk to me, is there a way for us to talk about it and see our way through it? I know people listening are going to go, are you kidding me? They're throwing stuff at their radio or however they're listening to it. Like, what are you talking about? You sat home for 563 days. What's wrong with you? Fool? But the reality is, when you love somebody, when you really love somebody. And I loved her with every fiber of my beat.

[Josh Dean (Host of Chameleon)]

In most versions of this story, the Harry character would be devastated and would probably run as far as he could from the sociopath who just played him so badly, who'd lied to him and her husband and God knows how many others, he'd suffer and wallow and eventually move on and probably feel happier for it, because what if she'd reeled him back in somehow? What an incredible fucking bullet to dodge. But that's not Harry. He didn't put it behind him. Quite the opposite. That story. After the break,

[Ashley Flowers]

some cases fade from headlines. Some never made it there to begin with. I'm Ashley Flowers, and on my podcast, the Deck, I tell you the stories of cold cases featured on playing cards, distributed in prisons designed to spark new leads and bring long overdue justice. Because these stories deserve to be heard, and the loved ones of these victims still deserve answers. Are you ready to be dealt in. Listen to the deck now. Wherever you get your podcasts, your new

[Dr. Horton Advertiser]

home is now ready. Dr. Horton, America's Builder has new homes that are ready today. With new construction communities throughout the Puget Sound and Central Washington areas And more coming, Dr. Horton has the right home for you at Dr. Horton. We're still building with more construction, more communities and more homes available every day. Tap your screen now or visit drhorton.com to find your new home. Now ready. Dr. Horton, America's builder and equal Housing Opportunity Builder

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[Josh Dean (Host of Chameleon)]

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[Josh Dean (Host of Chameleon)]

Just so many good brands.

[Nordstrom Rack Advertiser]

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[Josh Dean (Host of Chameleon)]

You're listening to Chameleon, the weekly Once the truth was out that Rachel had been spinning lies for as long as he'd known her, Harry didn't just retreat and lick his wounds. He needed to know everything. And he began an obsessive quest to unravel the lies in search of the truth.

[Harry]

I mean, this is what you're dealing with. You're dealing with someone who is a typical con artist. When they're caught, they go, screw you. So what? So you caught me F you. I'm on to the next one. That's what they do. Can you imagine doing that to somebody? And Rachel, I just thought there's something serendipitous about this relationship. And I got fooled. And then I've gone from sadness and heartbreak to now like she is setting Mark up. Mark is facing possible prison.

[Josh Dean (Host of Chameleon)]

Still, this is true. Mark ultimately did leave Rachel, first to an RV parked out in front of their house, but ultimately to his own rental house. Rachel did not let him go easily. She made allegations and filed for restraining orders. And now Mark hasn't seen three of his four daughters in two years. As the various cases, all of which he says are based on lies, wind their way through the California courts, he and Harry have become friends of a sort. They are members of a small and undesirable club of men who happen to fall for one particular woman. The work that became Harry's podcast, the messenger, the Rachel cancer Scam, really started as an impromptu exercise in personal therapy. He ultimately wrote and produced 12 episodes a full season in which he unspooled his story unfiltered.

[Harry]

It was tough for me to tell a story. And what's even worse, you know this as a podcast guy, when after you record an episode, your natural instinct is to go back and listen to it and go, does it sound okay? I couldn't listen to episodes nine through 12 because I was so upset. It's heartbreaking to me to hear me in that frame of mind. So after I got done with all that, I built this beatboard for season two. I started to realize, oh, there's, you know, that husband Todd. I really need to have a conversation with him.

[Josh Dean (Host of Chameleon)]

I hadn't even heard about Todd.

[Harry]

I found the boyfriend Brad, that she faked twins with. She stole the ultrasound from her sister.

[Josh Dean (Host of Chameleon)]

Hadn't heard about Brad either.

[Harry]

I found a woman she lived with in 2011 and 2012 that took care of their kids, that witnessed her faking cancer. I found a guy in 2011 that tells a similar story to mine.

[Josh Dean (Host of Chameleon)]

That's Greg, who worked with Rachel at a local bank. Here's what Greg says Rachel told him.

[Harry]

Rachel was in a horrific accident. She lost her memory. I had an affair with her during that time. She faked cancer. She faked two pregnancies. She bought a cemetery plot for our babies in San Luis Obispo. Like, I'm hearing all this stuff, and I'm going, oh, my God, the more people that hear the story, the more opportunity there is to find people. At what point do I just give up and go, she's got to get stopped. She's got to get arrested?

[Josh Dean (Host of Chameleon)]

An arrest would require proof of a crime, and there may be crimes out there. For one thing, if she really was married to Brian and Mark at the same time, that's bigamy. And there is evidence, but the statute of limitations has passed. Mark's also alleging false police reports and fabricated evidence. Those things could ultimately come out in court. What's undeniable is that the scale of Rachel's romance scams, the wreckage she's left in her wake, is vast.

[Harry]

There are nine fake pregnancies with different men over the years.

[Josh Dean (Host of Chameleon)]

Like Mike Cherry, who you can Hear in season two, episode 18, who said this to Harry after explaining that he and Rachel were looking at houses to move in together along with her girls.

[Unknown Caller / Interviewer]

I just remember thinking, man, there's a few red flags, but don't question it and screw up the relationship because you're questioning the red flag.

[Harry]

There are at least 10 guys that she's had affairs with. One other person that she faked cancer and near death experience with. But she told her entire family that she had cancer in 2012. And what's worse than all of that is what she's doing to her husband right now by keeping him away from his kids for no good reason, saying that he did things that he didn't do and he's not capable of doing.

[Josh Dean (Host of Chameleon)]

Mark, when I finally reached him, confirmed everything I'd heard. He, too, was still learning things about the woman he'd been married to for 24 years, the woman he was finally divorced from. As of two days before we spoke, he was in a car on the highway. So the quality isn't great.

[Unknown Caller / Interviewer]

We found out that there were just numerous affairs throughout the years. And I was just like, wow, this woman is just so prolific. I don't know who I was married to for that period of time, but it definitely wasn't the woman that I thought she was. My goal is to bring truth to light, you know, and so I'm doing that in the form of these lawsuits in civil court that I filed against her. And hopefully, you know, in the end, people will see that she is just a very troubled woman.

[Harry]

Take me out of the equation. What she's done to her husband and everyone else in her life, her family, her poor mother who loves her, her sister, like all these people that want nothing more than for her to be happy and healthy and know she's loved. She's walked away from everybody. She just writes people off like a con artist writes someone off out of their script. She is a very smart woman. She and I talked for 563 days straight when I thought she was in the hospital, minus about a month at the end. And she remembers every single detail about everything. She is able to hold things together in a way that I have never seen. It's time for me to be done with it. I want her stopped. I want to. I want her arrested. I want her charged. The TSA and the FBI and the FAA twice have investigated the fake pilot's license, and they can't prove it's a forgery.

[Josh Dean (Host of Chameleon)]

So, yes, Rachel did claim to be a pilot and does appear to have owned a fake pilot's license. I can't confirm that the FBI investigated, but I have seen letters from Harry to these agencies. She also was never actually a lawyer. When Mark met her back in la, she told him she was in law school at ucla, having gotten her undergrad at Rice. Neither of those things was true.

[Unknown Caller / Interviewer]

She's pulled off some crazy, fraudulent schemes. She had us convinced that she was an actual Nurse. Like, she would come home in scrubs and, and wearing a stethoscope and, you know, had a fake badge, had us all convinced that she was working at the hospital as a nurse.

[Josh Dean (Host of Chameleon)]

Rachel was in reality a nurse's assistant.

[Unknown Caller / Interviewer]

She had everybody at her job convinced that she was a pilot nurse. And these were grown women.

[Josh Dean (Host of Chameleon)]

One of those women appears anonymously on Harry's podcast. She says Rachel had them all convinced she was flying medevac choppers in her spare time.

[Unknown Caller / Interviewer]

I sat and had conversations with them, and they all asked me, you know, we have so many questions. Is this true? Is this true? Is this true? And I'm like, none of that is true.

[Josh Dean (Host of Chameleon)]

It is completely understandable to feel heartbroken if you've been through what happened to Harry.

[Harry]

It's so much to think about how I allowed my life to be, to be destroyed by this process, when if I were just getting some counseling or really listening to someone, someone could have literally put their hands on my shoulder and gone, stop. I'm going to hire an investigator. I'm going to figure out what's real and what's not. And that would have ended it, but I was so in it that I couldn't get out of my own way.

[Josh Dean (Host of Chameleon)]

You can fault him for being naive, for not seeing the flags, for keeping the faintest hope alive in the face of, of so many rejections. But Harry just wanted so badly for this woman to love him. He didn't want to see the signs. So I get the hurt and the anger. What I don't totally get is the podcast. And Harry himself says this was difficult in the beginning.

[Harry]

It was therapeutic. And then when I started social media and, and that social media, that in the beginning, it was an act of revenge. When I did social media, I set up a tick tock and an Instagram. Like140,000 people looked at that Instagram account. And then I thought, you know what, I'm on to this and I'm gonna, I'm gonna do it and it's gonna be healthy.

[Josh Dean (Host of Chameleon)]

I'm just not sure I would want to put myself out there in that way.

[Harry]

I had unbelievable anxiety the night before this came out. I literally was sitting in my backyard thinking, is it too late to call the podcast provider and say, pull it, Stop it, I'm done, I'm out.

[Josh Dean (Host of Chameleon)]

Harry knew what he was inviting into his life.

[Harry]

And the people that are cutting on me through the Internet are calling me a joke, they're calling me naive, they're calling me gullible. You know, you're calling me names. I'm just not used to that. And it was unnerving to me.

[Josh Dean (Host of Chameleon)]

This was, I hate to say it, inevitable, being as open as Harry has been burying his soul and laying out a painfully personal saga in which any objective observer is thinking at various points, come on man, how can you not see this? But you know how love goes. Sometimes it makes us do crazy things.

[Harry]

I always try to engage with everyone is to say, listen, have you ever loved somebody more than you ever loved anything in the world? And if something happened to that relationship, what would you be prepared to do? And most people's answer is I will be prepared to do what I need to do to save it.

[Josh Dean (Host of Chameleon)]

Chameleon is a production of Campside Media and Audio Chuck. It's hosted by me, Josh Dean and was written by me and Joe Barrett. It was produced by Joe Barrett. Our associate producer is Emma Simonoff, sound design and mix by Tiffany Dimmack, themed by Ewin lytramuin and Mark McAdam. Our production manager is Ashley Warren. Campside's executive producers are Vanessa Gregoriadas, Matt Sher and me, Josh Dean. And finally, if I can ask a few favors before sending you on your way today, please rate, follow and review Chameleon on your favorite podcast platforms to help spread the word. I know it. Everyone says this, but it's true. Ratings and reviews really do help and if you have any feedback, tips or story ideas, you can email [e-mail] or leave us a message at a special number we've set up. 201-743-8368. Add a plus one if you're outside North America. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next week.

[Ashley Flowers]

I think Chuck would approve.

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[Josh Dean (Host of Chameleon)]

So good, so good, so good.

[Nordstrom Rack Advertiser]

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[Josh Dean (Host of Chameleon)]

How did I not know Rack has Adidas?

[Nordstrom Rack Advertiser]

Why do we rack for the hottest

[Harry]

did just so many good brands?

[Nordstrom Rack Advertiser]

Join the NordicLub to unlock exclusive discounts. Shop new arrivals first and more. Plus, buy online and pick up at your favorite rack store for free. Great brands, great prices. That's why you rack.