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Brittany Todd
I heard these tennis shoe footprints on the floor and I turned around and I didn't even have a chance to completely turn around before he was like behind me and like wrapped his arms like around my like upper torso, neck area. He kept banging my head on the hardwood floor. Then he went back upstairs and found my daughter hauling her out to the trunk of his car.
Julian Morgans
Okay, so he's abducted your 4 year old daughter and you don't even know?
Brittany Todd
Yeah, my next conscious thought was probably close to 5pm and I remember thinking, I haven't seen Heidi yet. She'll probably come out later.
Julian Morgans
Hey, I'm Julian Morgans and you're listening
Scott Johnson
to what It Was like, the show that asks people who have lived through
Julian Morgans
big dramatic events what it was like.
Scott Johnson
Hey everyone, welcome back. This week we're looking at a worst case scenario. Or at least I think it's a worst case scenario. I have a daughter, she's five, so this one hit me pretty hard. Today I'm going to speak with a mother who was at home in her own kitchen in what should have been the safest place in her whole world when an intruder walked in, beat her unconscious, and then kidnapped her four year old daughter. And then what followed was a very tense couple of days as they tried to get her back. Now good news. This One has a happy ending. You can listen to this one calmly, knowing it's all going to resolve pretty cleanly. The daughter was retrieved and now she's 12 and she's doing really well. But as a human experience, it's troubling and dark, fascinating and pretty equal quantities. You know, I just kept thinking, what would I do in this situation if I was the dad and my wife was beaten unconscious and my kid was gone?
Julian Morgans
What would I do?
Scott Johnson
How would I retain my sanity? I don't even know. Now, the story is set in South Carolina and our guest is Brittany Todd. And at the time, she had five kids with her husband who was in the military. And he was away for long stretches. So it was often just Brittany at home with her three youngest while the older two were at school. And that's how she came to be alone the day that she was attacked. Now, a quick note before we get into it. There is no subscriber episode this week, but we've got a very juicy one coming for you next week. Now let's do it. Here is a nightmare situation with a surprisingly happy ending as told by Brittany Todd.
Julian Morgans
Hey, Brittany, welcome to the show.
Brittany Todd
Hello.
Julian Morgans
Okay, so take me to this period in your life at the time, you know, early 2018, and you got five little kids in this big house a lot by yourself. You know, what did your day to day look like?
Brittany Todd
So our two oldest, they went to school. So I was driving like 20 minutes to drop my 2 oldest off at school. Heidi was involved in ballet class once a week, so we'd take her to ballet class. I was involved in a small group, so we'd go and like hang out with a bunch of other moms that all had kids relatively age, you know, four and under as well. That was about it. Like kind of Leave it to Beaver a little bit. It's ridiculous to say that.
Julian Morgans
I mean, it sounds idyllic. Which I guess makes what happened next seem completely out of place kind of.
Brittany Todd
Yeah, I, I mean it was a pretty normal Tuesday, which was kind of weird.
Julian Morgans
Yeah. Well, take me to that Tuesday. How did the day start?
Brittany Todd
So the day started like any other day. It was driving the kids to school. And then the next plan for the day was then I was gonna have small group with my other mom friends. And that was at like 9:30 in the morning, which, you know, we didn't make it for. Cause when I took the kids to school, school, what we found out later when we looked at traffic cams, I was followed from like the second I turned out of their school building.
Julian Morgans
Oh, no way.
Brittany Todd
All the way to my house.
Julian Morgans
Ugh. Okay, so. So you don't notice anything is amiss. What happens next?
Brittany Todd
So we're driving down this like two lane road talking about making pancakes and going to small group, and I pull up at the house and how our house was. We had a garage in the back of the house, but it was kind of a pain in the butt. So we always parallel parked in the front of our house. And my 4 year old and 2 year old, they got out and just, you know, bounded up to the house, like, no problem. And then I got the baby car seat out, so I carried the whole car seat inside. And I don't remember if I closed the door or if I left it open because Heidi and Henry were right behind me. And I set the baby car seat with my daughter down in the hallway and was going into the kitchen to like, start doing pancakes. And I heard these like tennis shoe footprints on the floor. The only thing that I remember thinking was, that's too fast to be the kids. And I turned around and I didn't even have a chance to completely turn around before he was like behind me and like wrapped his arms, like around my upper torso, neck area. And then I remember like grabbing his forearms and again thinking, is there somebody in my house? I can't, can't believe there's somebody in my house.
Danny Pellegrino
Yeah.
Julian Morgans
God. Were you scared?
Brittany Todd
Probably. I think it was more alarmed, shocked, surprised. It was almost like I hadn't caught up to what was going on. I was like, wait, is this happening? Or I'm like, am I being punked? Or why is somebody in my house?
Julian Morgans
Yeah, yeah. I mean, it just doesn't make sense. So you just kind of wrestle in the kitchen, you know, just keep taking
Brittany Todd
me through it kind of. So, like, I think he said a few things to me. I don't really remember what it was, but I remember thinking, you know what? He probably wants money. He asked me about my purse, and so I told him where my purse was. I was thinking, you know what, Just like take the purse and go. And at some point, like, he just took me all the way to the ground. So then, like, I'm on the ground, he's on top of me, My other two kids are in the hallway. I think, like, kind of watching. And at some point, originally, what I had told police was that he had punched me in the face. But then when they interviewed Heidi, Heidi had said that he kept banging my head on the, on the hardwood floor, which is probably more Accurate. I remember at one point I kind of, like, lifted my head up and looked at them and I told them to go upstairs. She has said that they went upstairs to one of the bedrooms and hid under a bed. And thank goodness. I mean, the baby was still buckled in the car seat, so she was fine. And at some point, he held a knife up to my throat, asked me again for my purse. And at that point, again, it's not really fear. It's just kind of like dazed and confused. Like, you still haven't. I don't know, fight or flight totally takes over. And I don't even know how to explain it, but. But I remember thinking, oh, my gosh, you're such a dumb guy. Can you not find my stupid phone? It's like, literally right there in the diaper bag at the front door, where I've told you like, 10 times. And at this point, I had been hit enough times, and I remember feeling bloody. My glasses had been knocked off my face. So, like, everything's super blurry, too. And everything after that point kind of gets pretty. Pretty hazy at best. I remember at some point he, like, pulled my pants off. Then he, like, tied my arms and legs together. So I'm completely, like, wrapped up, tied in his statement because I listened to his entire interview later with the police. And he had said that I kept fighting, which makes me happy, but he said I kept fighting and I wouldn't give up. And so he just had to keep finding things to tie me up with. So he used my pants. He used a shoelace string. He used a baby monitor cord. There was, like, some other stuff. I don't know. There was so many different things that were tight, like, wrapped around my. My wrist really tight. Then after he tied me up, he left. And I don't remember really, like, seeing a whole lot or hearing anything, but I do remember hearing kind of the vibrations on the floor. So I knew where his feet were, and his feet went for a little bit, and I was like, just, you know what? Just leave. That's what I was hoping he would do. And I stopped hearing his footsteps. So I'm like, okay, he must have left. Then I heard them again. I'm like, damn, it just. Did you go away? And then they stopped again. What I've been able to piece together a little bit is I had a sweatshirt on. He had taken my sweatshirt off, realized that he made a big, huge mess, and so he needed to clean it. So we grabbed some bleach. He went and found bleach out of the laundry room and used my sweatshirt to wipe up the blood on the floor and then decided it was too much and he couldn't do it. So then he just kind of like threw everything and left it. Then he went back upstairs and found my daughter, pulled her out. So the second time when I hurt his feet again or felt them is when he basically was hauling her out to the trunk of his car.
Julian Morgans
Oh, God. Okay, so he's abducted your 4 year old daughter and you don't even know?
Brittany Todd
Yeah, at that point I had no clue. Like, I could feel the door shut and I didn't hear his footsteps anymore. So then at that point I kind of got up a little bit because, like, my arms were tied to my legs. And so I kind of scooched my butt across the floor and grabbed, I don't know, a knife or scissors or something and was able to cut my, my hands loose a little bit because, like, my left hand was losing circulation. Like I could barely feel it. And so I'm like, I've got to get this loose. And then after that, then Henry came back downstairs. He was complaining about being hungry. And I said, I remember apologizing that, sorry, bud, it's not going to be pancakes today. And I grabbed a bowl of cereal and tried to make him a bowl of cereal on the floor. Spilled milk all over the floor. And I'm like, I'm sorry, you're going to have to eat right here. This is as good as it's going to get at this point. Like, my face is swelling and I'm probably, I don't even know if I made any sense to him. You know, I've talked about this a lot in therapy initially because, you know, it's kind of weird of like, okay, well, I just got up and then resumed normal activities. Let me make breakfast for you guys. And there wasn't any sense of like alarming startle. Oh my gosh, I need to alert somebody. I need to scream. Oh, that was the other thing. During this entire attack, that was the one thing I kept telling myself was, don't scream because he'll think I'm afraid then. And I didn't want to show fear, which is really stupid because we all say be loud so somebody can hear you if something's happening. But for whatever reason, that's kind of what I told myself, that he can't think that I'm afraid.
Julian Morgans
Just before we go any further, just because I want to get a mental image of what we're dealing with here, can you describe him?
Brittany Todd
I Don't remember him very well. I remember he was white. I remember he had some kind of tattoo on his, like, neck or face or something like that. I think he was bald. But the main thing that I remember because he originally had come up to me from behind is I remember the sound of his voice in my ears and I remember feeling like it was super pressured. And originally my feeling or how I took that was that he was new at crime and he was nervous. He was pressured because he didn't know what he was doing. Later I found out it was all of the crystal meth that he was super high on. And that's probably why he was so pressured and why he was kind of so strong because crystal meth really messes you up.
Julian Morgans
Okay. And he was young.
Brittany Todd
He. I know he's older than me and I was 30 at the time, so he was probably mid-30s.
Julian Morgans
Okay. Okay. And it sounds like at this point you're sloppily trying to make this bowl of cereal on the floor. I mean, it sounds like you can cost. You've. You've had a pretty serious brain injury.
Brittany Todd
Yeah, pretty much. I don't know if I walked or if I half crawled or like what. But then I went to the car seat and I was like, okay, well it's nap time. I'll probably feel better if I just like sleep this off. And I didn't even, I didn't even bother trying to look for my phone because he had asked for where it was so many times, I just assumed that he had taken it. So I don't even bother looking for it. So I got her out of the car seat and I kind of like half drag crawled her upstairs, put her in her crib, turned on Tinkerbell because I had also told my kids we were going to watch Tinkerbell. And I remember thinking, I haven't seen Heidi yet. She'll probably come out later. And this is your daughter?
Julian Morgans
This is your four year old?
Brittany Todd
Yes, yes, this is my four year old. I was like, she'll probably come out later. And then I, I guess I passed out on the bed. People who asked me later, did you lose consciousness? I said, absolutely not. I did not pass out. Well, there's no way that I didn't because this all happened at probably 8 o'clock in the morning. And my next actual conscious thought was probably close to 5pm so you've been
Julian Morgans
out for quite a while.
Brittany Todd
Yeah. And apparently so based on, I mean, crime scene people are kind of fabulous. So like they went through and surveyed A bunch of stuff. And they're like, based on blood spatter patterns and all this stuff, we can tell like you did things during the day. I guess the shower was running. There was different marks on like the couch and stuff. So they're like, this is what you did. There was blood all over our babies, like all of her, on her onesie. And so like, I think they. You try to feed her during the day because I was still breastfeeding her. So like you did things. And I'm like, okay, sure. I remember helping my 2 year old open up some pretzels at one point during the day. I remember apologizing that we weren't going to have nap time. Sorry, buddy. Like we're missing nap time today. And then I remember, I guess waking up and going, I should check and just make sure that he took my phone. So I walked downstairs, I opened up the top of the diaper bag right where I told him that it was, and there's my freaking phone sitting right there. I'm like, oh my gosh. He couldn't even find my phone. Now my purse, my wallet was gone. And I pulled up my phone and I had a text message from one of the ladies that I had small group with. And it said something like, missed you this morning. Hope you're doing okay with your husband being gone. And I texted her back. I don't even know if it was legible, but I texted her back, I got beat up. Call the cops. And then my husband was calling me. I answered it and he was like, the cops are out front. Open the door. And the cops were like. Because originally there was one cop that they had called to do check the welfare because my two kids that were at school never got picked up from school. So the school called the non emergent line to do and check the welfare. So I think originally it was a fire department that came. They saw because we had a big glass window in our front door and they saw like a huge blood stain on the floor and said, we're not going in. So they called the cops. One cop came out and was like, I don't know if there's a crime in progress or whatever, I'm not going in by myself. So he was waiting for backup. And then when I opened the door, he came up on the porch.
Marketing Manager
Wow.
Julian Morgans
I mean, that's fantastic work from first responders there, right? Yeah, I love the way that they just pieced this together and you didn't even need to do anything with the first couple of hours.
Brittany Todd
I know. I love It.
Julian Morgans
All right, so, you know, what happened next?
Brittany Todd
So this part I remember having a thought in my head of, oh my gosh, the cops are here. I don't have to do anything anymore. They can take care of us. And after that thought, I don't have another memory for, like, three days. So I have watched a lot of, like, body cam footage and I've talked to a bunch of different people to kind of try and, like, piece together what happened. I do remember getting in the back of the ambulance and just making sure that they had both of my kids. So at that point, I wanted to make sure that they knew I had two kids at home, which I should have had three kids at home. So somewhere in my, you know, bloodied, battered brain somewhere, I. I think I knew that she was not in the house anymore. But it never like, kind of triggered like a, I don't know, a response out of me or anything. Like, I mean, I feel like I knew that she was missing, but I just. I don't. You know, in trauma, your brain kind of goes back to, like, elementary stages. And I think that I was probably operating on, like, a toddler stage of like, you know, I don't know how to do, but I know that something's weird, but I know the cops asked a bunch of questions about, like, you know, how many kids are supposed to be home? Are you sure she's not in daycare? Is she in preschool? You know, so they asked a bunch of that kind of thing. And originally, based on what I had said, they had thought that maybe she just got scared. And when I told her to go, like, run upstairs, she actually ran outside and that she was hiding in these woods. So, you know, Whitney Lake was like, covered in like, I mean, acres and acres of wooded areas. And so this was now it was getting dark. It was probably six, seven o' clock at night. And they called the fire department out. They had, like, pretty much everybody in the neighborhood. They got police helicopters and coast Guard helicopters to then basically start searching to try and find her. They got the police dive team to come and, like, dive into the lake to see if they could find her in the lake. So that started at probably, I don't know, between 7 and 8 o'clock at night. And then it was a little bit after midnight when they called the FBI and basically said, we can't find her. We're really probably looking at a kidnapped case, not a. Not just a missing person's. So it was. I mean, it was hours. And I think there was over like 200 people out searching this neighborhood for her.
Danny Pellegrino
Wow.
Julian Morgans
How was your husband coping during all this?
Brittany Todd
He wasn't. So his side of the story is that he was in welding school. He had called me after he got out, thought it was weird that I didn't answer, but went and ate dinner and then got a call from the school saying, hey, your wife never picked up the kids. And he's like, well, that's weird. And then originally, I guess a teacher actually came to our house and she's like, well, the doors are locked and the car is here. So like, well, that's kind of weird. So they're there and I think at that point when my husband was like, well, clearly they're at home. I think he, he just assumed something had happened. I don't remember exactly how he got it all figured out, but he basically was leaving. They're like, well, you're going to be considered like a wall and we're gonna come find you. And he's like, I don't care, I'm leaving. And so he left to literally drive all the way down. And I guess, I think it was right on the South Carolina state border. I think it was a state trooper that met him there and basically made him pull over. And then they drove him the rest of the way down into Charleston. And I don't know who the proverbial they was probably the FBI, because this was like right around midnight now. But the decision had been made that they weren't going to tell him about the fact that his child was missing. They just wanted him to think that, you know, all of your kids are good, like they're all safe, they're all with, you know, friends. Don't worry about it. Your wife's in the hospital. And so he had no idea. He started getting text messages. So, like he got a text message from a random. I think it was a realtor, actually. It said something about, oh, I'm so sorry to hear about your daughter. He's like, what do you mean? And so he found out like halfway on the drive that we were also missing a child.
Julian Morgans
Oh my God.
Brittany Todd
Kind of to go to Heidi's piece is after she was put in the trunk, she was driven out. What he had said in his interview was the reason for taking her was because he knew he had done something really bad. He's so messed up. He knew he'd done something really bad and he had to get out of town. But he wanted a travel partner. So he decided a four year old was a good option for a travel Companion in the trunk. So he originally put her in the trunk, and they started driving, like, out of South Carolina into Georgia. And I guess along the way, he made several stops to get drugs. The problem was, is she had already been out of the state for probably 10 hours at that point. He tried to use my debit card at a gas station somewhere in Georgia, and it declined because he didn't have the right zip code. And that was early Wednesday morning, I think, at some point. And I had, like, two $20 bills in my wallet. So he used that to buy, like, snackies. And when I talked to one of the FBI agents later, she was like, he obviously was coming off of a high and, like, the bottom of the. The car was, like, covered in, like, munchy trash. Like, we're just talking, like, gross. Like, he's a junkie that had the munchies. And Heidi will tell you. So this is something that she has told me. She's like, he gave me some snacks. They were really yucky, so whatever they were, were not good.
Julian Morgans
This is, like, gas.
Brittany Todd
Yes, Yuck. Like Twinkies and stuff. Who knows?
Julian Morgans
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.
Brittany Todd
So the problem was, is that nobody knew which direction he was going. They didn't know what car he was driving. They didn't really know what he looked like either, because the sketch that they made based on my description of him was, like, looked absolutely nothing like him at all. There was really, like, no leads until he tried to use my debit card. So then they knew that he had gone into Georgia. So they got the Georgia FBI involved, and they were doing, like, sweeps of Georgia. He stayed at some house. He had to dump the car because my debit card didn't work. And so he stole another car that had gas. And that's where he had Heidi take a shower and change into adult clothing. So she's no longer in her clothes. She was in adult clothes. It was, like, a big, huge, oversized sweatshirt. And I don't know that she had anything else on. So it might have just been, like, a big, oversized sweatshirt that he had put on her because the shower and the clothes were after he had sexually assaulted her. And so he, I guess, had to change her or something. I don't know. But that was at that house that he stayed that night that was abandoned or something. I don't remember. And so then they were able to see his original car, which, by the way, was his girlfriend's car. He stashed the girlfriend's car, stole another car, and kept driving. I think they alerted several different states, FBI. So, like, a bunch of people were looking for her. And then this was Wednesday, February 14th, that my husband got back into town, and my parents, his parents, my sister had all flown into Charleston. We now have, like, literally a million people camped in this ICU waiting room. They had to wait for facial swelling. So when I went in, I had orbital blowouts. You know, like your orbital sockets that hold your eyeballs. Pretty much they were like completely blown out. Like, all my bones were pretty much gone. I had a Le Fort II fracture, which is kind of the bridge of your nose over to your cheekbones and kind of down to your jawbone. And then I also had, I don't know, a subarachnoid brain bleed as well. So the problem was is that there was, like, a bunch of swelling on my face. So they had to wait till the swelling went down before they could do surgery to stabilize my face. I didn't go into surgery until Wednesday night, and it was probably around dinner time. Ish. That there was railroad workers outside of Riverside, Alabama, which, if you've ever heard of or seen the movie Talladega Nights, Riverside is really close to Talladega. So, like, little, tiny, you know, know where's Bill? Teeny tiny little police station with, I don't know, probably four cops and a police chief. And there was railroad workers with the rail line that were fixing some lines of track right there. And they saw an abandoned car with a guy passed out in the front seat and a girl. And they were like. Seemed weird. But we didn't know if he was in a diabetic coma or what was going on. So they called 911 to basically report this suspicious looking vehicle.
Julian Morgans
Hey, this bit of music means it's time for an ad break, but please don't go anywhere.
Scott Johnson
We'll be right back. Hey, you know what's hard? Finding new podcasts. And I say this as a podcaster, which I hope transfers me some kind of magical authority on the topic, but really just new favorite podcasts are really hard to find. So I'm about to recommend a show to you, and I'm 99% sure that you're gonna love it. And I know that because the show is really similar to mine. It basically even has the same name. So it's called what Was that Like? And it's hosted by a lovely man in Florida named Scott Johnson. And Scott speaks to people who have lived through dramatic, unusual, exciting events. Sound similar, right? Except they're friends and not competitors. So I want to share the show with you.
Julian Morgans
Too.
Scott Johnson
So here's some examples of some of their episodes. Last week I was listening to this story about a guy who got bitten by a dead rattlesnake. As in, it was in his backyard, he killed it and then he picked up its severed head, which chomped down on his hand, and then he had, you know, minutes to get to the hospital.
Julian Morgans
Bizarre story, really exciting.
Scott Johnson
And another one I really loved was about this guy on a boat that got boarded by Somali pirates and he ended up in a gun battle defending his ship. So just big exciting stories, the kinds
Julian Morgans
that we feature too.
Scott Johnson
So go check it out. It's called what Was that Like? And one more time, what Was that Like? Trust me, you're going to love it.
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Brittany Todd
So they called 911 to basically report this suspicious looking vehicle. They actually had to call 911 several different times because it was the wrong, I don't know when they first called. They're like, well, you're in the wrong jurisdiction. And so then they had to like kind of bounce them around to different counties or something like that. So not only did they call, they like called multiple times to get through.
Julian Morgans
Good on them.
Brittany Todd
Yeah. Which I mean, like, we've been able to meet those guys. And I'm like, thank you so much. Because not everybody would do that. They would just give up. They're like, oh, I'm sure there's a reason.
Julian Morgans
Yeah.
Brittany Todd
So then the police chief, when he got called, he was like sitting at his desk eating. And he's like, it had been a long day. And of course he's talking with like a really thick southern drawl too, but I cannot copy that. And he said, I parked the car, climbed over the tracks and walked over and knocked on the, on the window of the car. And he gets out of the car and he's like, hey, what you doing? He's like, oh, I'm driving. He even gave him a Social Security number. Like name, date of birth, Social Security number. He said, I'm not going to lie to you at all. And he's like, good, I'd prefer if you didn't lie to me. Who's the girl that you've got with you in the front seat? He's like, oh, she's my stepdaughter. Okay, so where's her mom? He's like, oh, she's back in John's, John's Island. I can just turn around and go back there. And he's like, no, I think maybe you should come to the station. And he's like, okay. So he gets my daughter out and then goes, I've Got a bad back. Can you carry her? And of course the police chief is like, sure, I'll carry her. He basically hands over Heidi to the police chief and she literally, like, monkey grab locks her legs and her arms around his body, which he's like, that was, I mean, red flag number one. Like, she literally is clinging onto me for dear life. He immediately got back in the car and starts to take off. So then the police chief literally takes out his sidearm and shoots two rounds into the tire while my daughter is literally like monkey arm grabbing onto him. So don't get on his bad side because he probably would kill you.
Julian Morgans
Seriously, this guy sounds like just the ultimate man in the ultimate.
Brittany Todd
Right? Like Chuck Norris.
Julian Morgans
Totally.
Brittany Todd
That's what I'm imagining, 100%. So then at that point, he sped away. He now has a flat tire. But the chief takes Heidi back to the station, basically calls it and was like, hey, like, be on the alert for this guy with the, you know, this is the license plate number, and he's going to be driving on a, you know, flat tire. And Heidi asked if she could have chocolate milk and cookies. So of course they're like, yeah, we'll get you chocolate milk and cookies. They asked her her name. So then the like receptionist or whatever starts looking it up and she goes, wait, I think this is a, like the kidnapped kid that they're looking for from John's Island. And so he called one of his FBI friends. They got my husband on the phone, took pictures, confirmed that this was indeed Heidi that they had been looking for. And then they took her to the children's ER in Alabama to get her checked out. And then so as he raced away, changed his tire to a donut tire, is now driving like 100 miles an hour. They had alerted all these people, so they actually set up like a spike strips and just kind of were waiting for him. Well, he like veered off and there was like this 15, 20 minute car chase and it basically drove him down into the bushes. And that body cam is really fun. Heidi has enjoyed very, very much watching that one of literally pulling this guy out of the car. But, yeah, so they caught him right around the Mississippi, Alabama border. And then after they confirmed that Heidi was found, they got my husband and flew him from South Carolina to Alabama in an FBI helicopter, I think, to go pick her up. And she needed surgery for her injuries. So he showed up and they're like, I'm sorry, like, you've got to sign consent forms for surgery. So he ended up staying in Alabama with her for like three, three days for her to recover. And then. And then they came home.
Julian Morgans
At which point did you sort of come to in such a way that you grasped what was happening?
Brittany Todd
It was Friday, and he apparently had told her quite a few times that I was dead. And so she. They basically planned this whole thing of, like, how she could come up to the hospital, like, with a bunch of police escorts so that she could see me. And it was that same day that they moved me from the ICU unit to like a step down unit so she could see me.
Julian Morgans
Okay, and how was that moment?
Brittany Todd
It was weird, actually, which sounds. Sounds funny. Like I would love to say, oh, it was so sweet. Like, we had this really sweet moment, but it was actually kind of awkward. I don't think either one of us knew what to say. I don't know what was going through her mind at that point because she was only four. But I do kind of remember we were kind of sitting there and it was kind of like a high, and there was no. There was no touching, there was no hugging, There was nothing. It was just kind of this very platonic. Like you could probably easily describe it as still kind of this, you know, state of shock that everybody's in.
Julian Morgans
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I don't think there's any one correct way of handling this or, you know, the, like, what your body language should be displaying in this kind of moment. Like, it's, you know, you're way off script. So. So, yeah, I think it's understandable that you were just doing whatever you could.
Brittany Todd
Yes.
Julian Morgans
What do you know now about this guy? So his name was Thomas, I think?
Brittany Todd
Yes, his name was Thomas. What I know about him now, he sounds like he had always been a troublemaker. He had actually just served. It was supposed to be a 10 year sentence for armed robbery, and it was cut down to eight years, which apparently is standard. And so he had. He had just gotten out after eight years for armed robbery on February 1st. So when he got out on the 1st, he basically went to his girlfriend's house. Basically what he described was they got in an argument, he stabbed her in the side with a knife, and she went into the woods and. And died. Quote. Then after she basically went into the woods and died, he then took her phone, took her car, and drove to Charleston, which was way outside of like, his parole area that he was allowed to be in. And I don't know when he said that he originally saw me, it makes me feel like he saw me the day before because I was at a gas station pumping gas on Monday, and he said that he saw me at a gas station.
Scott Johnson
And.
Brittany Todd
And I want to get this quote right, because it's. I mean, it's funny now, but he wanted to fuck up the fucking Brady Bunch family.
Julian Morgans
And he perceived you to be like the Brady Bunch family?
Brittany Todd
Yeah, apparently. Yeah.
Julian Morgans
Okay.
Brittany Todd
Like I said, I think that might have been the day before. So it almost makes me wonder if he had kind of been following me and stalking me at that point. But that we don't. I mean, there's no proof of that. It's just kind of a little bit messed up. And his story doesn't make a whole lot of sense because he was also high on drugs the entire time.
Julian Morgans
Okay, so it was. At what point did he sort of enact this plan or like, decide to follow you home?
Brittany Todd
If you want my honest opinion, he probably enacted it in the moment to spur the moment. And I don't think originally the plan was to take Heidi either. I think that happened after he realized he beat me up more than maybe he was originally thinking he was going to. But I also. I think he's a very special issued person, too. And I don't know that there's a whole lot of thought that goes into anything that he does.
Julian Morgans
Yeah, it just sounds like he was absolutely flying by the seat of his pants and he had no long term thinking capabilities. Everything was just about like the next 10 seconds.
Brittany Todd
Yes, that's exactly what I think. And even during the state sentencing, the judge even flat out asked him, he's like, why'd you do this? And the only thing he said, he just goes, drugs.
Julian Morgans
What do you feel towards this man these days?
Brittany Todd
I think it'd be the easiest to just say, I kind of feel nothing. They're right afterwards. And I think it was really helpful for my healing process to kind of like, you know, work through everything. I humanized him a lot, you know, during, like, sentencing. I wrote a huge impact statement and read it out loud during sentencing to his face. And that was really helpful at the time. And honestly, eight years later, I don't think that I feel that same way. I feel like it's more. You're stupid. You're kind of. It sounds terrible for me to say this, but he's kind of a waste of space. And I really just don't. I really just don't care. I don't feel like I owe him forgiveness or pity or even a thought. He's not worth it.
Julian Morgans
Hey, we're going to take a Quick
Scott Johnson
ad break, but stick around because we'll be back with more what it was like.
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Julian Morgans
And how did this impact you?
Brittany Todd
Honestly, in a lot of ways, like how hasn't it impacted me? I would say it's impacted me positively, which that sounds weird to say because of the positive impact or the positive things that I've experienced for people that I've met that have all been really great. I don't approach anything the same way. I don't feel like I think the same way. I had a pretty innocent upbringing and there's no, there's nothing wrong with that. I had then gotten into my 20s and early 30s and had kind of been able to like preserve a lot of that innocence that I had always had because I kind of, I was kind of raised in a bubble and I was kind of raising my kids to also be in a bubble and this completely blew that up. And they're in a lot of ways like they're a lot more resilient than your basic human could be. But they're also probably a little more jaded too. Like a lot of people, when you know stuff like this doesn't impact you, then it's really easy for people to just be like, this doesn't exist or it doesn't exist in my world or as long as I put enough safeguards around, I can kind of block it. And really, really what this taught me is there's not enough safeguards on the planet that can completely block you from stuff. And like, if my 12 year old saw a PG13 movie, do I care? No, not really. Are they listening to cuss words at school? Do I care? Nope, not really. You know, I think this really kind of showed me like ultimately I don't have control like life is gonna life no matter what. And I can impact where I'm at as a person. But ultimately, like, I think it's more than what I'm trying to teach my kids. I don't know how good of a job I'm doing at it, but I've kind of just give them the tools and then I kind of have to trust them that they will do it well versus trying to keep them under my wing because I mean, we know my wing clearly didn't work.
Julian Morgans
Although, you know, the reason that I'm speaking to you, one of the reasons that this story is so fascinating to so many people, I think is that it's a freak occurrence. You know, I think for the most part you were protecting your kids, but you can't protect them from completely outlier events. How's Heidi doing these days? So I guess she must be 12 or thereabouts.
Brittany Todd
She is, she actually turns 13 on August 11th. She honestly, she's fantastic and she has such a easy going, positive outlook on life just in general. She's a really good, trustworthy friend for all intents and purposes. Like she's 100 thriving. And in a lot of ways this, this is just kind of a story like on the, this weird adventure that I went on once type for her because. And she's got weird memories of it too and it doesn't really make a whole lot of sense. And now that she's starting to get a little bit older, she's googled her name on Facebook, she's wanting to know more stuff. Like her memories don't make sense because it was, they're four year old memories and so they're, they're weird and they're disjointed. But I don't get the sense from her that this isn't a. I Need to be afraid of the world. I get the sense from her more that it's. Yeah, well, that happened. I'm gonna, I'm gonna carry on.
Julian Morgans
I'm so glad. I'm really pleased to hear that.
Brittany Todd
Yes.
Julian Morgans
I mean, this is a really dark story. You know, I'm a dad and if something like this happened to me, it would just destroy my life. It would blow up everything that, that I consider stable and dependable. So I'm so happy to hear that there's, you know, in some ways it's got a happy ending.
Brittany Todd
Honestly, it really does. It Sometimes the day to day doesn't feel like there's a happy ending because honestly there's a lot of stuff that's really hard that wouldn't have been hard without this. And that gets frustrating. But by and large, this is a happy ending.
Julian Morgans
Yeah. I really have to ask. It feels like it would be remiss of me not to, but you mentioned before that that your daughter was sexually assaulted. And I want to know how did she heal from this? How did you heal from this? You know, what's, what's that journey been like for your family?
Brittany Todd
I think it's kind of a work in progress because I don't know that it's necessarily been something that's been super addressed with her because she was too young to really address it a whole lot. For the most part what I've done with her is just decide that she gets to call the shots on stuff. And I, I don't think there's anything like that you can put a pin on it because I don't think that she even had a concept for what it was that was happening other than it. She didn't like it. But I do think that she is a lot more like the year. I mean, there's so much talk around like genders and choices and you know, what kind of person you date and consent and safe people and all of that stuff. And I think that she's very hyper focused on a lot of that and maybe more so than the average 12 year old. I think there's a big surrounding thing of as long as she feels safe, her body feels safe, the people that she's around, she feels safe with. But she's been pretty great at being able to like choose that and dictate that for herself. So I don't know where she'll go with that. And I think, I think this goes back into, I mean, if you were to ask me that question 10 years ago, you know, am I okay with Literally my kid choosing who knows what, like politically, religion, you know, gender, like, any of that stuff. I don't know what I would say. Ten years ago it would not be whatever they want, you know, but here today, I'm kind of like, you know what, we're all different. You know, I think that goes into what I was saying before about, like, I don't, I don't know that I care as much about some stuff that I used to think I was supposed to care about so much.
Julian Morgans
I think that is so interesting that in some ways you're, you've dealt with the absolute worst case scenario, you know, the ultimate like parent nightmare, and you've come out the other side with this sort of like gentle philosophy around, you know, happens, and people do what they're gonna do, but through love and talking about it and just sort of supporting each other, we can kind of move through it. And I don't know, you've got this calmness that I'm really enjoying.
Brittany Todd
Yeah, I, I think that's why I would say that we're mostly well adjusted as a family. I think that's why I can say that we're still together. And I think my teenagers would definitely, you know, they roll their eyes at me all the time and like, I'm so cringe and, you know, whatever. But I think ultimately if you were to actually like, get down to the nitty gritty. All of my kids still want to spend time and, you know, sit on my bed at 10 o' clock at night, even if I want to go to sleep so that they can talk. And I feel like we've gotten to this point to where, hey, like, honestly, we kind of did go through shit together. And for that, like. So our last name is Todd and it was actually the principal at the school in South Carolina that gave us a nickname, the Todd Squad, which it has stuck like we are. We're the Todd Squad squad. And that's kind of funny, honestly. It kind of like goes into everything, you know, it's the Brady Bunch, but I guess the Todd Squad.
Julian Morgans
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Brittany, I've just got one last question, and that is that. So during this podcast, I reach out to people all the time who have lived through, you know, God awful events. And the vast majority of them never respond to me. The vast majority are like, I don't want to talk about that. That was horrible. The way I can move through the world is to never talk about that ever again. And I'm wondering, why do you talk about it and why do you think about this thing that happened to you.
Brittany Todd
I like that question because, yeah, it does seem a little bit stupid to want to keep bringing this up, but honestly, talking about it, it's really helpful. I think sometimes it's really easy to kind of start feeling sorry for yourself and kind of spin yourself in this negative cycle. I think anybody with any story, which is all of us, we've all gone through something that is a story. I feel like connecting and talking to other humans is a way that we can connect on a human level. And I really like that. You know, when you kind of sit down and you talk to somebody and you get to know a little bit about them. Like, we were created to be in contact with others and to be in community with other people. And I think that when. When we come together and we talk through, like, the different things. Things, you. It makes you feel way less lonely. And I've never met somebody, obviously, that's gone through the exact same thing that I have, but there's different pieces that you can connect or different feelings that people will have that are the same, and it's just. Yeah, it's less lonely.
Marketing Manager
Yeah.
Julian Morgans
Yeah, that's a good answer. I really like that. Yeah. And geez, the world needs less loneliness, needs more connection, more people talking about the thing, you know, the boogeyman. Rather than just to simply pretend it doesn't exist or hold our cards just close to our chest and, you know, just fake it.
Brittany Todd
Yes.
Julian Morgans
Less of that.
Brittany Todd
I agree. For sure.
Julian Morgans
Brittany, thank you so much for coming on the show.
Brittany Todd
Thank you.
Julian Morgans
This has been. It's been so interesting.
Brittany Todd
Yes. This was so great. Thank you.
Julian Morgans
What it Was like is produced by Rachel Tuffery.
Scott Johnson
This episode was edited by Ellie Dickey, who also does our research.
Julian Morgans
Our cover art is by Rich Akers.
Scott Johnson
Our theme music was produced by Jimmy Saunders. And this whole thing has been a super real production.
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Podcast: What It Was Like
Host: Julian Morgans
Guest: Brittany Todd
Date: August 2, 2026
This gripping episode explores the harrowing real-life experience of Brittany Todd, a mother of five whose four-year-old daughter was abducted after a violent home invasion in South Carolina in 2018. Host Julian Morgans takes listeners through a detailed and emotional retelling—from the initial attack to the nationwide search and eventual rescue, concluding with reflections on trauma, resilience, and healing.
"The only thing that I remember thinking was, that's too fast to be the kids... Is there somebody in my house? I can't, can't believe there's somebody in my house." — Brittany ([06:41])
"I grabbed a bowl of cereal and tried to make him a bowl of cereal on the floor. Spilled milk all over the floor. And I'm like, I'm sorry, you're going to have to eat right here. This is as good as it's going to get at this point." — Brittany ([11:25])
"He gave me some snacks. They were really yucky, so whatever they were, were not good." — Recap of Heidi’s statement ([21:11])
"He wanted to fuck up the fucking Brady Bunch family." — Brittany relaying Thomas’ statement ([37:04])
“I don't feel like I owe him forgiveness or pity or even a thought. He's not worth it.” — Brittany ([38:37])
"I don't have control—like, life is gonna life no matter what." ([41:01])
"Talking about it, it's really helpful. I feel like connecting and talking to other humans is a way that we can connect on a human level... When we come together and we talk through, like, the different things... It makes you feel way less lonely." ([48:29])
Ambush in the Kitchen:
"I turned around and I didn't even have a chance to completely turn around before he was like behind me and like wrapped his arms like around my upper torso, neck area." — Brittany ([01:34])
Disorienting Aftermath:
"I remember apologizing that, sorry, bud, it's not going to be pancakes today." — Brittany ([11:25])
Heidi’s Survival:
"He wanted a travel partner. So he decided a four year old was a good option for a travel companion in the trunk." — Brittany ([21:13])
The Break in the Case:
"There was really, like, no leads until he tried to use my debit card. So then they knew that he had gone into Georgia." — Brittany ([22:48])
Police Chief’s Heroism:
"He basically hands over Heidi to the police chief and she literally, like, monkey grab locks her legs and her arms around his body..." — Brittany ([32:28])
Motive of the Kidnapper:
"He wanted to fuck up the fucking Brady Bunch family." — Brittany ([37:04])
Perspective Shift:
"I don't have control—like, life is gonna life no matter what." — Brittany ([41:01])
On Talking About Trauma:
"You know, when you… talk to somebody and you get to know a little bit about them… It makes you feel way less lonely." — Brittany ([48:29])
The conversation balances harrowing detail and raw emotion with surprisingly tender, even humorous, moments. Brittany is matter-of-fact, sometimes wry, about her trauma—demonstrating resilience, candor, and a willingness to mine even her darkest moments for connection and insight. Julian is empathetic, candid about his own fears as a parent, and respectful throughout.
This episode of What It Was Like is a powerful testimony to the unpredictable extremes of human experience—trauma, survival, and the gradual, always unfinished, process of healing. While dark in subject matter, it ultimately offers hope, modeling how honesty, connection, and openness can help people move through even the worst circumstances.