Rakuten Advertiser (9:50)

Today we acting bad, bad, bad, bad.

Mr. Ballin (9:52)

We ain't trying to hurt nobody.

Jesse Weber (9:54)

For decades, he was untouchable.

Mr. Ballin (9:57)

I've gone from Harlem to Hollywood.

Jesse Weber (10:00)

But now it's all coming undone.

Mr. Ballin (10:03)

Sean Combs, the mogul as we know it is over. He will never be that person again, even if he's found not guilty of these charges.

Jesse Weber (10:12)

I'm Jesse Weber, host of Law and Crimes. The Rise and Fall of Diddy. The federal trial. A front row seat to the biggest trial in entertainment history. Sex trafficking, racketeering, prostitution. Allegations by federal prosecutors that span decades. And witnesses who are finally speaking out. The spotlight is harsher, the stakes are higher. And for Diddy, there may be no second chances. You can listen to the Rise and fall of the Federal trial exclusively with Wondery. Join Wonder plus in The Wondery app, Spotify or Apple Podcasts right now.

Mr. Ballin (10:54)

Our next story is called a mouthful. Around 1pm on August 6, 2011, a 32 year old seafood vendor named Carla Flores stood in the entryway of her home, balancing a tray of shrimp in one hand and waving goodbye to her three kids with the other. She told her kids she'd be right back and then she stepped out the front door onto the streets of Culiacan and which is a major city in northwestern Mexico. Carla was going to deliver this tray of shrimp to one of her regular customers. She walked down an alleyway and then onto a main road and then eventually into a neighborhood with a whole bunch of brightly colored houses. She went up to one of them and knocked on the door. A man answered and Carla handed him the tray of shrimp. He took the shrimp, gave her a handful of cash. She thanked him and turned and headed back down towards the street. And Carla had made it all the way back to the alleyway right near her house, when suddenly she heard this loud sound. And then before she could figure out what it was, this small hard object smashed into her right cheek and it hit her so hard she fell onto the pavement. And so instinctively, Carla reached up and she touched her cheek and she felt a warm, wet liquid. She looked at her hand and it was covered in blood. Carla tried to get up, but her ears were ringing and she felt dizzy. And then suddenly everything went black. Twenty minutes later, a receptionist at Culiacan General Hospital watched as a man carried a bloody, unconscious woman into the emergency room. He laid her down on a bench in the waiting area and then he just turned around and began walking back out again. The receptionist jumped up and chased after this guy, demanding to know what was going on with this woman. Who is she? What happened to her? What are you doing? But the guy just said, look, I was driving down the road and I saw this woman bloody in the streets and so I brought her here. I promise you, that's all I know. And then he turned and kept on walking and the receptionist went back inside to check on the woman. The receptionist looked down at the woman. She was unconscious. Her mouth was hanging open and the entire right side of her face was totally mangled. And then embedded in this mess on the right side of her cheek, basically in her head was this weird dark colored object, but she couldn't tell what it was and she didn't have time to stand around trying to find out. So she called for help. And a couple of nurses came running out of the emergency room and together they lifted this woman up, put her on a gurney, and wheeled her back to see a doctor. A few moments later, Dr. Gustavo Mesa walked into Carla's hospital room. He'd been briefed on her condition, but. But when he went inside, she was no longer unconscious. Now her eyes were wide open, and she looked totally confused. Dr. Mesa could tell Carla was having trouble breathing and she couldn't close her mouth. But then Carla began making this grunting sound, and at first the doctor couldn't understand what she was saying, but then it became clear. She was saying, rock, rock, rock. Dr. Mesa's first thought was, oh, she's telling me she was hit by a rock. That's what's caused her injury. And so Dr. Mesa leaned in and looked at her wound, and he caught a glimpse of what looked like a dark colored stone buried inside of her cheek. Dr. Mesa thought, you know, wow, she must have been hit so hard by this rock, this stone, for it to get buried that far inside of her face. He promised Carla he would get it out, but first he told her she would have to undergo an X ray to really figure out where it was in her skull and how exactly they'd be able to get it out. A few minutes later, Dr. Mesa stood in the radiology department looking over Carla's X ray images. And it was immediately clear to him and all the other medical staff that what was in Carla's cheek was not a rock. Because the object was shaped like an oval, it had round edges, and it was perfectly symmetrical. To Dr. Meza, it just seemed far too uniform to be a rock. But he didn't have a better guess for what it was. All he could tell from the X ray was this object had broken Carla's upper and lower jaw and shattered several of her teeth. And now this object was stuck between her broken jawbones. Dr. Mesa knew it was going to take surgery to get this thing out, but he needed more information before he felt confident operating. So he ordered a CAT scan of Carla's head to give him a more detailed picture of this object. And when the results came in and Dr. Mesa looked at the image, his face went pale. He couldn't believe what he was looking at, but the proof was right there in front of him, and he knew he would have to do something, and fast. So Dr. Mesa ran to the nearest nurses station and told the nurse to evacuate everybody from the emergency room. Then he grabbed the hospital phone and he dialed a military official. Less than an hour later, Carla was no longer in the hospital. She was now out in the middle of a grassy field, laying on her back, absolutely terrified. An anesthesiologist walked up to her and injected a local anesthetic into her cheek. And suddenly, the agonizing pain that Carla had felt ever since waking up in the hospital was now gone. But her absolute terror was not. Carla knew there were two doctors and a nurse standing by to perform an operation on her. But also there were two army soldiers just a few feet away from her, staring at her. Carla saw a doctor start to bring a scalpel toward her face, and she had to close her eyes to keep from flinching. She heard the soldiers giving directions and the clinking of surgical instruments. And all the while, Carla kept her eyes shut tight and just tried to pretend none of this was even happening. And after what felt like a lifetime, Carla felt a shift inside of her face. And it was the doctors and nurses pulling this object out of her cheek. Carla opened her eyes, and right above her head, she saw the doctor holding the bloody thing they had just removed from her face. It was a live grenade. That's why she was being operated on, not in the hospital, but out in this open field. Because if it did go off mid operation, it would at least limit casualties. And that's also why the military was called in to tell the medical staff how to handle this live piece of ordinance. In the middle of the operation. After the grenade was safely removed from Carla's face, it was disposed of by the army soldiers. It's believed that the grenade that hit Carla was fired out of a grenade launcher. That would explain the loud sound she heard in the alleyway before it hit her in the face. Luckily, though, the grenade's fuse that should have ignited and caused it to explode didn't work. So even though it absolutely was a live grenade, it didn't explode, and so it didn't kill her. It's unknown who shot the grenade, why they shot it, and or whether Carla was the intended target or simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Carla would ultimately lose half her teeth. She would undergo multiple reconstructive surgeries, and she would be left with a huge scar on her right cheek. But she said she was just happy to be alive. And she was forever grateful to the stranger who brought her to the hospital and to the medical team and the army soldiers who risked their lives to save her. The next and final story of today's episode is called only you can save her. One morning In January of 2016, a 45 year old woman named Lauren walked into an office building in West Virginia, where she worked as an office manager. And she dropped her purse, her phone and her cigarettes on her desk. It was a Friday, and so Lauren was in a really good mood because she was pumped about the weekend. The next day, Saturday, she and her husband Dan planned to go on this big hike together. They loved hiking, so that was going to be awesome. And then on Sunday, Lauren planned to stay home all day and cook one big meal because it had become a tradition in their family that on Sundays, Lauren and Dan's kids, they had three kids who were all grown up, they would come back home to their parents house and they would have a big family meal together. And these dinners were definitely the highlight of the week for Lauren and for Dan because both of them were very family centric. Lauren switched on her computer and then looked at her schedule and saw she had a whole bunch of meetings back to back to back that day. And so immediately she was worried that she would not be able to slip out that day and go for a quick walk, something she had recently been doing a lot of. Because her doctor had recently told her that she had a blood circulation disorder that was called peripheral vascular disease. And what that meant was the arteries that carried the blood from her heart down to her legs and her feet were becoming blocked. And so her legs and feet were not getting enough oxygen. So far, her only symptoms were the occasional leg cramp. But if the disease got worse, it could lead to pain and mobility issues and also heart attack and stroke. Luckily, Lauren's doctor told her that she didn't need medication. She just needed to quit smoking, change her diet, and become more physically active. And Lauren had totally leaned into this and was being much more active and had changed her diet. She hadn't quit smoking yet, but she planned to. And so Lauren really felt like she was on the right track. And so as Lauren kind of began her day, you know, going through her emails and thinking about when she's going to do this walk, her cell phone rang. When Lauren looked at the phone, she didn't recognize the number, so she decided to let it go to voicemail. And so Lauren forgot about her phone and just figured whoever this was, you know, they'd call back or whatever and she's doing her thing. But then she got another phone call. And when she looked, it was the same number calling her back. And this time Lauren did pick up the phone. And when she said hello, on the other end of the line, she heard a police officer say in a very serious voice, am I speaking to Dan's wife? And so right away, Lauren's heart began to race. And she would tell the officer, yes, you know, what's going on? And all the officer would tell her is that Dan, unfortunately was in a very serious car accident. And so you need to come to the scene right away. In an absolute panic, Lauren hung up the phone, she grabbed her things, she ran out to the car, and she floored her way to the address the police officer gave her. But when she got there, she saw there were so many police cars and ambulances and all these people that she couldn't even see what was going on, let alone park anywhere near where this accident happened. So she wound up parking her car around the corner. And then she got out and just sprinted towards all the police. And then when she got up to them, she basically began pushing people out of the way. And no one tried to stop her. They could tell, you know, this woman must know the people involved in this crash. And so she pushed past all these people, and finally she can see through the crowd and she can see her husband's car, and it's absolutely mangled. And there's all these first responders that are in a circle on the pavement. And she can tell there is somebody on the ground they're working on, and it's gotta be Dan. And so Lauren just began running towards that group of people. And as she did, they all stood up as if, you know, there was nothing they could do. And on the ground, Lauren saw her husband. There was Dan lying in this huge pool of blood, just motionless on the ground. And so before she even got over to her husband, Lauren already knew what had happened. Dan was dead. And so Lauren let out this primal shriek and just rushed over to her husband and fell to the ground next to him, holding his body and crying hysterically. And all the EMTs and first responders, you know, they knew this woman has just lost her husband. And even though she shouldn't be here right now, they just felt like they have to give this moment to her. And so the police and the EMTs and the rest of the first responders, instead of even talking to Lauren or trying to get her to go somewhere else, they just formed a big circle, shoulder to shoulder around Lauren and Dan, and just allowed Lauren to grieve in private.

TJ Raphael (23:41)

Today is the worst day of Abby's life. The 17 year old cradles her newborn son in her arms.

Mr. Ballin (23:48)

They all saw how much I loved him.

TJ Raphael (23:50)

They didn't have to take him from me. Between 1945 and the early 1970s, families shipped their pregnant teenage daughters to maternity homes and forced them to secretly place their babies for adoption in hidden corners across America. It's still happening. My parents had me locked up in the godparent home against my will. They worked with them to manipulate me and to steal my son away from me. The godparent home is the brainchild of controversial preacher Jerry Falwell, the father of the modern evangelical right and the founder of Liberty University, where powerful men, emboldened by their faith, determine who gets the to be a parent and who must give their child away. Follow Liberty Lost on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.

Kristen Thorne (24:41)

Last year, law and Crime brought you the trial that captivated the nation. She's accused of hitting her boyfriend, Boston police officer John o' Keefe, with her car. Karen Reed is arrested and charged with second degree murder. The six week trial resulted in anything but resolution.

TJ Raphael (24:57)

We continue to find ourselves at an impasse. I'm declaring a mistrial in this case.

Kristen Thorne (25:02)

But now the case is back in the spotlight and one question still lingers. Did Karen Reed kill John o' Keefe?

Mr. Ballin (25:10)

The evidence is overwhelming that Karen Reed is innocent. How does it feel to be a cop killer, Karen?

Kristen Thorne (25:16)

I'm Kristen Thorne, investigative reporter with Law and Crime and host of the podcast the Retrial. This isn't just a retrial. It's a second chance at the truth.

Mr. Ballin (25:28)

I have nothing to hide.

Kristen Thorne (25:29)

My life is in the balance and it shouldn't be.

Mr. Ballin (25:32)

I just want people to go back to who the victim is in this. It's not her.

Kristen Thorne (25:36)

Listen to episodes of the Retrial exclusively and ad free on Wondery.

Mr. Ballin (25:45)

About two hours later, Lauren returned to her home in a daze. Dan's body had already been transported to the morgue, and a police officer had driven Lauren back to her home where her three kids, her son and her two daughters were now waiting for her. And so when Lauren went inside the house and went into the living room where her kids were, her kids who already knew what had happened, they just immediately swarmed her and hugged her and they all just cried together. I mean, this was so horrible and so unexpected that nobody knew what to do. Finally, Lauren tried to speak through her sobs, but when she did, she just couldn't get words out. It was like her chest was so tight she couldn't even speak. And then suddenly, Lauren realized this pressure on her chest was very real. And it was getting worse and worse to the point where it was genuinely hard to take a breath in. And so Lauren actually said to her kids, I think I'm having a panic attack. And so her daughter ran to the kitchen to get some water. And as she did, Lauren took a seat on the couch to try to calm down. But by the time her daughter came back with the glass of water, Lauren straight up just could not breathe. I mean, she was trying to pull air in, but it wasn't going in. And she was totally panicking. And so she looked at her kids and just mouthed the words, I can't breathe. At which point the kids understood, like, this is way beyond just grief and sadness, like she's having a physical emergency right now. And so one of Lauren's daughters picked up the phone and called 911. A few minutes later, an ambulance arrived and they would take Lauren to a local hospital. But as soon as they got there, the doctors and nurses determined that very likely Lauren had had a heart attack. And even though she was basically stable right now, their fear is she was going to have another one. And this particular local hospital just lacked the resources and staff to actually treat Lauren. And so they pretty much immediately transferred Lauren to another hospital called the J.W. memorial Hospital in Morgantown, West Virginia, because that hospital had a specialized cardiac care unit for people with very serious heart problems. Dr. Konard Fehlinger was the cardiologist on duty at JW Memorial Memorial Hospital when Lauren was brought into the intensive care unit, followed closely behind by her three adult children. Now, Dr. Fallinger was used to seeing worried families in the hospital, but Lauren's kids looked far more distressed than he was used to seeing. And when he spoke to Lauren's kids about, you know, what's going on with Lauren, he would see why the doctor would learn that this family has lost their father, their husband just a few hours earlier. And the mother, Lauren, who's this patient, you know, she laid with her dead husband out on the road in a pool of blood. And now these poor kids who've just lost their father, they're seeing their mother go to the ICU for what looks like a heart attack. I mean, this was a total worst case scenario where basically everything was going wrong for this family. Dr. Failinger did his best to push his emotions to the side. He didn't want to get wrapped up emotionally in this case. He. But at the same time, the doctor felt a very deep need to save Lauren, like let this family have one good thing happen to them. But Lauren's condition was pretty dire, just like the doctors at that local hospital where Lauren went first. Dr. Falinger also suspected Lauren had heart attack, very likely because of that Blood circulation disorder that she had that basically clogged her arteries. When an artery in the heart gets blocked, the blood can't circulate in the heart, and so the heart dies. And preliminary testing on Lauren showed there was already signs of damage to her heart in the same way that a heart attack would damage a heart. Her heartbeat was also irregular, and it was too fast, and her blood pressure was dangerously low. And then also when Dr. Fallinger looked at some imaging of Lauren's heart, he could see that the majority of her heart muscle wasn't even moving. Basically, Lauren's heart was working way harder and way faster than it should be to accomplish nothing. And so, very quickly, Dr. Phalinger realized that unless he was able to find the blocked artery in Lauren's heart and clear it, that Lauren would die. And so Dr. Fallinger looked up at Lauren's three kids, who were just standing there in silence, waiting for more bad news. And Dr. Fallinger said to them, your mom needs to go into surgery right now. Nurses wheeled Lauren out of the ICU and into surgery, where she was immediately put under anesthesia. Once Lauren was ready, Dr. Fallinger watched on a monitor as another surgeon fed a thin, flexible tube called a catheter into an artery in Lauren's leg and then fed it up towards her heart. This surgery was called cardiac angioplasty. Basically, that surgeon was going to use that catheter, that tube, and put it into Lauren's heart and then shoot dye through that catheter tube into the blood in Lauren's heart. And then Dr. Fallinger and the other doctors could watch to see where this dye went. If the dye was pumped out of the heart like it should be, they'd see it go in all different directions. But if at some point on the monitor, the dye just stopped inside the heart and didn't go anywhere, then that would mean they found a blockage. And so when the surgeon had the catheter in Lauren's heart, injected the dye, and they all watched on the monitor, and her heart functioned completely fine. There was no blockage in her heart. Now, the doctors weren't entirely convinced yet that there was no blockage. So they pulled that catheter out and they got a different one, and they went through the exact procedure all over again to see if maybe that catheter was malfunctioning. But again, that second time, the dye didn't stop anywhere. Her heart seemed to be functioning totally normally. And so Dr. Fallinger and the rest of the doctors and surgeons, they were all totally baffled because what this meant was whatever was happening to Lauren or whatever did happen to Lauren was not a heart attack. But make no mistake, Lauren's heart was still absolutely dying. It was just some other thing killing it. Dr. Fallinger went back to the drawing board, but realistically, there just weren't that many other things to consider with regards to what was happening to Lauren. Heavy alcohol use could, in theory, cause what was happening to Lauren, but Lauren didn't drink. Infection was another option, but Lauren showed no signs of having an infection. Certain chemotherapy drugs have been known to damage the heart, but Lauren wasn't on chemo and certainly would not have accidentally been exposed to chemo drugs without knowing about it. And so basically, Dr. Falinger had no clue what was wrong with Lauren, and he didn't even know where to start. And so Dr. Falanger just sat in his office feeling so bad about the fact that, you know, these kids are almost certainly gonna lose their other parent. I mean, it was his duty to save Lauren, and he couldn't do it. And he just felt so bad. He couldn't even imagine how he was gonna deliver the news to the kids that, you know, your mom's gonna die, and we don't know why. I mean, this was the worst for Dr. Fallinger. He felt like he had failed as a doctor. But just then, Dr. Failinger has this epiphany. He remembers this weird medical article he had read somewhat recently. And he realized what was going on with Lauren and her family was like the same thing that happened in that article. And because Dr. Failinger did not have any other ideas of how to handle what was going on with Lauren, he decided he would just try to do what they did in that article. Because if he was wrong, he had nothing to lose. So Dr. Failinger got up and he ran to Lauren's hospital room. And when he got in there, he saw Lauren's kids. And he called them over to him. And he would tell them that he's gonna give their mom some medication that's gonna spike her blood pressure and keep it high. But then he needs them to gather around her and just talk to her like she's your mom. Talk lovingly, soothingly. Remind her that you're still here and that everything is okay. And the kids, they all agreed to do this. And then Dr. Fallinger, he gave the medicine to Lauren. And then he watched as her three kids circled up around the head of the bed and they're all crying and holding their mom and telling her how much they love her and please come Back to us, Come back. And as they're doing this, Dr. Fanger just quietly walked out of the room hoping this would work. And sure enough, just a week later, Lauren was all better. It would turn out the way in which Lauren lost her husband, both the suddenness of getting that phone call combined with just the unthinkable horror of seeing your loved one on the road in a pool of blood, dead. I mean, that situation was so stressful for Lauren that her brain released a ton of stress hormones into her body. So much so that these stress hormones literally paralyzed her heart. And so you can understand why all the doctors thought this was a heart attack, because this sort of looked like one. But this condition does have its own name. It's called stress cardiomyopathy. However, it's known by its more casual name, which is broken heart syndrome. Basically, Lauren loved her husband so much that to witness what happened to him and to learn about it so suddenly and abruptly, it nearly killed her. And it just so happens that a few months before Lauren was checked into the hospital, Dr. Falanger happened to read a medical article about broken heart syndrome. And the only way you can treat broken heart syndrome is just to try to keep the patient alive long enough that these stress hormones leave their body naturally, at which point their heart goes back to normal. And so Dr. Falanger was able to buy Lauren a little bit of time right at the end there by giving her that medicine that boosted her blood pressure. But Dr. Falanger told her three kids that really it was up to them to keep their mother alive. They needed to crowd around their mom and just talk to her and tell her that you love her. You know, show her that you're here with her. Give her a reason to fight and hold on. You know, even though she's not saying or doing anything, she's still alive and she can hear you, so talk to her. And so Lauren's kids just sat around their mother and just showered her with love and affection. And sure enough, a few days later, when Lauren did kind of come out of it and recover, she would say that she felt herself drifting off towards death. I mean, she really knew she was dying. But then she remembers hearing her kids calling to her and saying how much they loved her and to please come back, we need you. We already lost dad. We gotta keep you. And Lauren would say that's the reason she's still here today, is because she held on for her kids. She felt like it was her duty to be here for her family. And so that's what saved her life. A quick note about our stories they are all based on true events, but we sometimes use pseudonyms to protect the people involved and some details are fictionalized for dramatic purposes. Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin podcast. If you enjoyed today's story and you're looking for more bone chilling content, be sure to check out all of our studio's podcasts. There's this one, the Mr. Ballin podcast, as well as Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries, Bedtime Stories, Wartime Stories, Run Fool Redacted, Late Nights with Nexpo and a Twist of History. All you have to do is search for Ballin Studios wherever you get your podcasts. To watch hundreds more stories just like this one, head over to our YouTube video channel which is just called Mr. Ballin. So that's gonna do it. I really appreciate your support. Until next time. See ya. Hey prime members, you can binge eight new episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early and all episodes ad on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. And before you go, please tell us about yourself by completing a short survey@wondry.com survey hey, it's Mr. Ballin here. If you haven't discovered redacted declassified mysteries yet, well, you're in for a fascinating journey through history's hidden files. As a fellow military veteran, I can tell you that the host of the show, Luke Lamanna, brings a very unique insider perspective to these wild stories. From covert operations to historical deceptions, Luke examines verified stories that sound almost too incredible to be true. Like Animantis, the Defense Intelligence analyst who maintained a perfect cover while secretly working for Cuba for nearly 20 years. Or the Tic Tac Incident where a decorated Navy pilot encountered something in the skies that the Pentagon couldn't explain. Luke and his team dived deep into declassified documents to bring you thoroughly researched, eye opening stories from the darkest corners of history. Follow Declassified Mysteries with Luke lamanna on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad free right now by joining Wondery.