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Death by Parchute: Victoria Cilliers
59 Plays8 months ago
A narcisistic conman exploits the loving nature of a delightful, accomplished, brave woman and tries to kill her to steal even more from her than he has already stolen...Will he be willing to kill their children if he gets what he wants?
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Transcript
Introduction to Carthome and Homicide Podcast
00:00:25
bclawson
Hello listeners, I'm Bridget.
00:00:27
Caroline
Then I'm Caroline.
00:00:29
bclawson
You are listening to Carthome and Homicide, a family production about family murders. Caroline and I narrate each story, and Andy is our producer.
00:00:42
bclawson
As Caroline and I talk about each family murder, we're not only keen on watching justice unfold for the killer, whatever that may look like. But we're especially sensitive for the victims and their family, and we keep them in top of mind.
Content Warning
00:00:58
bclawson
Murder in a family, all murders really, have such a ripple effect. Our podcasts do include violence and trauma. Listener discretion is advised.
00:01:13
bclawson
So, hey, Caroline.
00:01:14
Caroline
Well hey.
00:01:16
bclawson
What you doing?
00:01:18
Caroline
Well, it's that time of year again, back to school. um So a lot of the usual stuff of getting back into the swing of things, but also, you know, sort of grieving the loss of the warm weather, especially in the Pacific Northwest.
00:01:22
bclawson
Yes.
00:01:32
Caroline
We get so few months of warm temperatures.
00:01:36
bclawson
Right.
00:01:37
Caroline
And when I say warm, it's different than every other state in the union that says warm, besides maybe Alaska and maybe parts of Oregon. But it's pretty much like 60 or below here all the time. Summers are like 75 tops. I mean, they're getting hotter with climate change, but, you know, not in a good way. So.
00:01:56
bclawson
Yeah. Well, I like it here and I know you do too because, you know, you can always put on a sweater.
00:02:02
Caroline
That's right. And blankets.
00:02:03
bclawson
um Yeah.
00:02:04
Caroline
It's not bad.
00:02:04
bclawson
I mean, the way flannel shirts, everybody, every time a movie is set in either Oregon or Washington, the wardrobe also, there will be flannels.
00:02:14
Caroline
Yes.
00:02:15
bclawson
Yeah.
00:02:16
Caroline
It's a necessity. It's a very functional ah fashion statement out here.
00:02:21
bclawson
It very much is. It's, it is, it is the fashion. or as some people may call it, lack of fashion, but it's iss what we do.
00:02:30
Caroline
That's what we do.
Victoria Cilliers' Story Begins
00:02:31
bclawson
So today we're traveling to Amesbury, Wiltshire, England, about two hours from London. And this is a historical town. And by historical, I i can illustrate what I mean by that, by telling you that this is where Stonehenge was found and made into a tourist site.
00:02:51
bclawson
So the river Avon runs through it. So it's probably pretty extra gorgeous. you know Oh, I think so.
00:02:57
Caroline
Yeah, sounds like it's got a little Shakespeare running through it.
00:03:01
bclawson
It's got all of the above. it's It's a nice place, I think, to live and a place to live where there are nice people. So Ainsbury is where our victim, Victoria Silliers, a loving mother of two under three years old.
00:03:17
bclawson
One of them was just a baby when the events happened. um This is where she lived and ah Victoria Silliers wished to be made dead by her husband Emile Silliers. What he did would have caused the death of anyone, but the universe wasn't having it and she lived. She was basically thrown helpless out of an airplane flying at 4,200 feet down to the ground.
00:03:49
bclawson
But it's really worse than that, Caroline. So let's talk about this wonderful and very extraordinary woman, mother and survivor, Victoria Cilliers. Victoria, who now goes by Vicki, now being, person after everything happened, she decided to start going by the name Vicki rather than her formal name Victoria. But in our story, we're mostly gonna call her Victoria. Victoria, who now goes by Vicki,
00:04:19
bclawson
was born into a middle-class family in England. She was a happy girl. She was living a happy life. No worries. And when she was in grammar school, she loved playing with her friends. She thought the world was just grand. Her parents were loving to each other, as well as their children, and they were normal as could be. And then one day, Victoria noticed a subtle shift in the family dynamics, the parents were kind of sad looking. And they started dartingly looking at each other at the dinner table as if, as the family ate together, as if they were kind of telecommunicating to each other a secret that only the two of them knew. And it was a sad, worried, and fearful secret. She detected all of this. Now, Victoria's coping strategy for this new dark thing
00:05:18
bclawson
was to push it out of her mind. I don't see that. I don't feel that. I don't and don't think about it. So she went on not thinking about it and she shoved it down into her subconscious. One day her parents sat the children down and told them that their mother had a serious cancer and that she would be in and out of the hospital.
00:05:44
bclawson
But there was reassurance that they would, you know, that she would recover in good care. So Victoria shoved that out of her mind happily. Oh, okay. So everything's going to be fine. Great. Okay. All is well. That was what was going on in her child mind. Now she was getting a little bit older. I think she was a preteen when this happened.
00:06:03
Caroline
Yeah, it's a common strategy, though, for a lot of folks. um It's not one of my favorite. I can't help but stare at reality in the face. But a lot of people just choose to ignore those realities that don't work for them. So it's very common.
00:06:17
bclawson
Yeah, i when I was researching this murder, ah this attempted murder, ah you know, I realized that I don't have that in me.
00:06:28
Caroline
Yeah, I don't either.
00:06:29
bclawson
I have the opposite, which is just as snarky. And that is that, you know, I imagine that things are going wrong well in advance.
00:06:32
Caroline
Yeah.
00:06:38
Caroline
Yes.
00:06:38
bclawson
And um and i and I imagine bad things about people who are perfectly nice.
00:06:43
Caroline
Yes.
00:06:45
bclawson
And, you know, so I'm on the opposite end of that spectrum.
00:06:48
Caroline
Totally.
00:06:48
bclawson
I imagine things and I have to really, you know, to tell my brain, could the critical mind show up right now and let's go down the list?
00:06:55
Caroline
All right.
00:06:57
bclawson
yeah Is this a rational thought? I have to go through that.
Victoria's Coping Strategies and Parachuting Passion
00:07:01
bclawson
She had the, you know, what most people have, which is, you know, I'm just gonna let that go.
00:07:01
Caroline
Yeah right.
00:07:06
bclawson
I don't wanna worry about that.
00:07:08
Caroline
Right.
00:07:10
bclawson
So, um through lots of treatments, You know, there's a lot that cancer demands of its victims. And ah Victoria's mom was told that um at some point after, you know, a lot of treatments, probably chemotherapy ah plus radiation, who knows all what went into her treatment.
00:07:31
Caroline
And.
00:07:34
bclawson
But after after a long period of time, the medical professionals told her, this is this is all we can do for you. So this was gently explained to the kids who are now getting old enough, perhaps to grasp it a little bit. Victoria was an early teen when the family was planning a holiday together for the last time. Now, when I say they're planning a holiday together, the father announced it that we're going to have a family holiday because this will be the last holiday that we'll all be able to be together.
00:08:13
Caroline
Oh, so sad and harsh.
00:08:15
bclawson
And Victoria's reaction to that was, no, thank you, I'm not going. And um this hurt her family greatly.
00:08:21
Caroline
Of course.
00:08:24
bclawson
But she said she wanted to go to a particular summer camp and she would not relent. And her family did not drag her to this last holiday with the family intact.
00:08:39
bclawson
And I'm not sure how I feel about that.
00:08:42
Caroline
Yeah, I have a whole lot of thoughts about it. And I think the family did the right thing. But I, I mean, I have an experience in my life that's similar to where people are going to do what they do, in particular, in response to a death um or an impending death or a very harsh, earth shattering, changing diagnosis.
00:09:06
Caroline
So I could see this being right in line with the avoidance of reality, because this is as real as it can get. You're being told this is your last opportunity, but she's going to ignore the hell out of that. Not only that, in order to ignore it this time, I'm going to create an entire alternate space for myself that is equally or more important than that. Like that I can sell it as equally or more important than that. It's probably more important.
00:09:34
bclawson
I, you know, she just did not want to participate in this, um, labeled, you know, like almost like, uh, we're going to go through a play now.
00:09:44
Caroline
Yeah.
00:09:44
bclawson
And the name of the play is our mother's going to die.
00:09:47
Caroline
Yeah, you're losing your mom.
00:09:48
bclawson
You know, she just did not want to go through that. She just did not acknowledge it and she did not participate in it.
00:09:54
Caroline
Maybe it wouldn't happen.
00:09:55
bclawson
And if she didn't acknowledge it and she didn't participate it, it would not be real.
00:10:00
Caroline
Yeah, that's a very common thing. It is my least favorite thing. I see humans doing it all the time. And in my particular case, I did end up approaching the individual and just saying, look, do what you want because everybody gets to do that.
00:10:13
Caroline
But I don't want you to get on the other side of this thing and look back and think you could have done something different and should have. So just really look at all the options that you have available to yourself and choose the one that you think you won't regret the most.
00:10:24
bclawson
Yep, that's all you can do.
00:10:25
Caroline
That's all you can do because people are going to do what they do. So.
00:10:29
bclawson
At the camp, she was, this is the camp that she went to as an alternative to the goodbye, you know, family last holiday, not dark at all.
00:10:40
bclawson
At the camp, she was able to train and parachute in tandem with a professional and it would be for a charity fundraiser. So people were going to give money Two, there is charity for every person who came out of that plane and did a parachute drop, which meant the whole camp was about, the whole reason for being in the camp is to learn how to parachute, all about parachutes, all about jumping out of a plane with a parachute. Of course, as a teenager, she was going to be jumping out of a plane ah in tandem with a professional trained
00:11:21
bclawson
instructor, but that's what the camp was all about. At the end of the, everybody was so into this training. I mean, all of the kids, everybody was just going to jump.
00:11:34
bclawson
And at the end of the day, they all went up in the air and four of them jumped, including Victoria.
00:11:43
Caroline
ah Yeah.
00:11:43
bclawson
So there were about 20 people and, you know, yeah.
00:11:45
Caroline
That's funny. It's an intense camp.
00:11:47
bclawson
So she looked, yeah, She loved jumping out of this plane.
00:11:54
Caroline
Wow.
00:11:54
bclawson
She decided that she wanted to go into the military service someday so she could jump out of planes.
00:11:59
Caroline
Wow.
00:12:01
bclawson
She really did.
00:12:01
Caroline
Wow.
00:12:03
bclawson
Not long after that, the family was told that their mother needed to go into hospice. Now Victoria took that to mean hospital and she's like shirking her shoulders. Well, yeah, I mean, you know, that's been going on for quite some time.
00:12:15
Caroline
Right.
00:12:15
bclawson
She's been going in and out of hospital, so it was kind of to her sort of quasi normal. So when her mother died, she did not accept it at all.
00:12:27
bclawson
She helped her siblings. She helped her father. It was just an automatic thing, but she did not give a lot of thought to the fact that she had now stepped up and taken her mother's place in the home in terms of caregiving, but she didn't want to think about her mother being dead.
00:12:34
Caroline
Yeah.
00:12:46
Caroline
She's never processed any of that grief or her response to it because all of that needs some processing.
00:12:47
bclawson
No.
00:12:53
Caroline
None of it's wrong or right.
00:12:53
bclawson
She's not going to do that, but no, she's not going to process that.
00:12:54
Caroline
It just all needs processing.
00:12:56
bclawson
No, no.
00:12:56
Caroline
Yeah, yeah.
00:12:58
bclawson
So here we see a factor in the story of the method her husband decided to use to kill her.
Emile's Manipulation and Murder Attempts
00:13:08
bclawson
He knew this about her.
00:13:10
Caroline
Yeah.
00:13:12
bclawson
And he tried to kill her more than once, Caroline, using his belief that she will always ignore and deny what is really going on.
00:13:23
Caroline
Yeah, uh oh.
00:13:24
bclawson
A person could do something really bad in front of Victoria and she would never be able to stop herself from suppressing the reality of it.
00:13:36
Caroline
See, that's why it's a poor choice in coping mechanisms. It's the one I see people choose a lot, but this is why it's bad to deny. You have to have a grip on reality for yourself, as painful as it may be, because otherwise others will use that against you and they will create a false false reality that serves them.
00:13:55
Caroline
So sucks.
00:13:57
bclawson
You know, the reason that we wanted to start our story today with her background and this element of her personality of avoiding unpleasant anything and just suppressing it deep, deep, deep inside of her.
00:13:57
Caroline
Sorry.
00:14:10
Caroline
Mm hmm.
00:14:16
bclawson
Because as we go through this story, it's almost impossible to believe that this woman did and didn't do what she did and didn't do.
00:14:26
Caroline
Right.
00:14:26
bclawson
But Caroline, one of the things you pointed out when we were talking about this story is that this is what people who are victims of domestic violence actually go through all the time.
00:14:41
Caroline
Yes.
00:14:42
bclawson
They they are in a trap. And so we're going to talk about how Emile Silliers, her husband, who tried at least twice to kill her, used that to his advantage.
00:14:44
Caroline
Yeah.
00:14:47
Caroline
Yeah.
00:14:53
bclawson
And I think you're right when you say that a lot of Domestic violence, whether it ends in death or injury um or you know just a miserable, hurtful life,
00:15:06
Caroline
yeah
00:15:07
bclawson
um you know don't look at people who are victims of that and say, what an idiot, you need to get out.
00:15:13
Caroline
you needed to leave, you needed to do this.
00:15:13
bclawson
It doesn't work that way.
00:15:15
Caroline
That's not how any of this works because you, first of all, you're in a situation where it's designed to be elusive to you. You don't really know what you can believe confidently and you don't really know what you can't believe confidently.
00:15:29
Caroline
And if you're only surrounded by one voice who's seeking to manipulate and abuse and use you, you're never going to see a lot, you know, you're never going to see those other options available to you.
00:15:41
Caroline
And you get to choose any options you wanted at any given time in life. This is what makes humans amazingly powerful for themselves. But when you be down, you've been given false realities, suddenly you don't actually know which direction is which confidently.
00:15:47
bclawson
Yes.
00:15:55
bclawson
Now that's why they call these people predators.
00:15:56
Caroline
You don't know
00:15:59
Caroline
Right. You don't even know how much you want to share with people who would get you out of that situation.
00:16:00
bclawson
the
00:16:03
Caroline
it just It's just something that none of us should pretend like we understand. that that was my big I do feel so bad for her.
00:16:07
bclawson
Right. so
00:16:09
Caroline
She's obviously very brave and smart and holy moly with the skills and talents, but any one of us can find ourselves stuck in the situation.
00:16:20
bclawson
Right. So anyway, on to her killer or would-be killer, and meal siier Emil Emil Siliers is a charming, tall, fit, handsome, uniform, impressive man who looked like a Tom Silek type of character, especially when he was in his officer's uniform. He was all these magnetic things, as well as a narcissist, a user, a con man, and a would-be killer.
00:16:49
bclawson
He was born in South Africa in 1980. He moved to the UK in the early 2000s where he met his first wife and they married. They had two children together. So that sounds kind of tame enough. The truth is though that he had more than two children. Emile had a pattern of doing anything and everything for sex. He would marry and even have children if that's what it took to get what he wanted, which was someone to fool, someone to keep house, and a sure thing sex object.
00:17:31
bclawson
So even at his trial, Caroline, he told the jury, I'm a very, very, very sexual person.
00:17:43
Caroline
Really? He felt like ah somehow that came up in his best interest to say I'll laugh.
00:17:44
bclawson
Yes.
00:17:49
bclawson
That's at the top of his curriculum vitae.
00:17:53
Caroline
ah Oh my gosh.
00:17:54
bclawson
I'm a very, very, very sexual person.
00:17:55
Caroline
Okay.
00:17:59
bclawson
That's his excuse for why these things look so bad. It's not my fault. I'm hardwired to need sex multiple times every day. And so anyway, that is, um that is Emil.
00:18:09
Caroline
please
00:18:15
bclawson
And I think he wanted someone to be with him so he could watch himself or rip that person off because in each relationship, he always cheated on his wife or his girlfriend.
00:18:28
bclawson
And he was, when he was between marriage or someone to lure into an affair, he was frequently hiring sex workers.
00:18:36
Caroline
Oh wow.
00:18:38
bclawson
You know, I really don't have enough training to say he was a sex addict or whether he just needed to see himself in his own mind conquering a woman or capturing a lover or just the star of his own charm show. I don't know. But he was a sexually active charmer and con man on steroids. I do know that. And he conned a lot of women out of love that they felt for him.
00:19:08
bclawson
not the other way around.
00:19:10
Caroline
Yeah.
00:19:10
bclawson
Sex and money. He was a con man. And Neil met Victoria when he had a bad leg injury and was seeing her as a physio.
00:19:21
bclawson
In the in the US, we would call that a physical therapist. Because by this time, Victoria had, um you know, she was closing in on 2,000 jumps from an airplane, for one thing.
00:19:31
Caroline
Oh wow.
00:19:34
bclawson
She had become a highly qualified parachutist. She gained the credentials to be a parachute trainer and um carry people in tandem, teach people the way that she was taught. She had been married but devoid divorced her first husband when she found him cheating on her with another woman. She and Emil got along and they started to date and you know she was his physio. So she had gone to college and she had gotten this degree and this is what she did for a living
00:20:07
bclawson
but what she did for you know her pleasure and her hobby and the love of her life was jump from airplanes. So by the but time ah ta she met Emil, she'd already jumped over 2,000 times.
00:20:20
Caroline
Wow. Well, and been betrayed. let's Let's not shake off that this initial marriage had its own set of experiences that would have tainted or affected, I guess is a better word, the way that she would have approached the world, right? So there's another situation that didn't work out for her. So perhaps there's some denial of the realities around that. So she's not really taking away the life lessons about those red flags maybe.
00:20:47
Caroline
she's also probably more in love like you said her true love is this tan or is this parachuting skill set her goal to be a military expert at this so you know it's gonna probably make you hard to be in a relationship with because people can sense that you love that more than them and that's fine that happens a lot it doesn't mean you deserve to be cheated on but there's a lot to unpack there in that first marriage so i just don't want to roll over it like
00:21:11
bclawson
Yes, there is. Just the idea that you'd be cheated on. i just ah
00:21:15
Caroline
It's a blind melding kind of weirdness. I mean, that can throw you. It can totally throw off your sense of um like a worldview, you know?
00:21:24
bclawson
So you know here she's helping Emil get over his leg injury or foot injury or whatever it was. And they kind of got along. And after the therapy was over with, they started to date.
Ignoring Red Flags and Marriage Decision
00:21:36
bclawson
But there were red flags flailing as they dated more and more seriously.
00:21:41
bclawson
For example, money went missing from Victoria's bank account. She also found that Emil didn't just have two children from his previous marriage, but four altogether due to a pre-marriage relationship with another woman in South Africa.
00:22:00
Caroline
Oh, jeez.
00:22:02
bclawson
So he's got four kids. So, okay, you're really getting along with this guy. You're not married. Things might be getting serious. And there are red flags that I would call, you know, independent countries, big red flag, ginormous, big red flags.
00:22:17
Caroline
Yeah, ginormous deal breaker.
00:22:22
bclawson
He's lying to you. When your money goes missing, he tells you, well, yeah I guess your account was hacked. And, um, oh my God. But, you know,
00:22:36
bclawson
as their relationship developed, ah very worried Victoria pushed that worry where she always pushes things like that. She pushed it down down down and she married him anyway.
00:22:50
bclawson
She wanted to believe in love and happily ever after and she did not want to face some critical facts about this man.
00:23:01
bclawson
But you know what? I get it.
00:23:03
Caroline
Yeah, oh God.
00:23:03
bclawson
I get it. I mean you know love and Being loved is so important for the survival of humanity and for each individual human beings for the most part.
00:23:12
Caroline
Yeah.
00:23:20
bclawson
There are some exceptions to that.
00:23:20
Caroline
Yeah.
00:23:21
bclawson
But for most people, you know, you don't look at those things.
00:23:24
Caroline
You're willing to trade a lot. Yeah, you're going to trade a lot for a sense of um security within a loving relationship, a loving partnership. So much so that you might forget to make sure that those elements of a loving relationship, a committed partnership are actually there and you're not just busy suppressing all the red flags that it's not.
00:23:34
bclawson
Right.
00:23:46
bclawson
And you know, I have to tell you, ah just like most predators, Emile was a love bomber.
00:23:53
Caroline
Yes.
00:23:54
bclawson
So when she and he got together and started to date, you know, he let her teach him how to fall from an airplane and pull the parachute.
00:24:03
Caroline
Yeah.
00:24:05
bclawson
And he just thought she, hey oh, I worship the ground you walk on. This is so fantastic. How do you, you've had 2,000
00:24:10
Caroline
Yeah.
00:24:13
bclawson
Flowers, flowers, flowers probably that she was paying for when her money was quote unquote hacked from her bank account. I mean, you know, on and on and on and on. So I mean, you know, he knew how to love mom.
00:24:27
Caroline
Yes, yep.
00:24:28
bclawson
So let's talk about their marriage. Emil started to rack up debt using his and Victoria's money, relying on limp excuses such as claiming, oh, the my work messed up my wages.
00:24:42
Caroline
Hmm.
00:24:42
bclawson
Caroline, he worked for the government.
00:24:44
Caroline
Yeah, they don't mess pages up.
00:24:44
bclawson
I don't think they're going to just you know not do their math right. But she is like, oh, he would often disappear for long periods of time, was accused of by one of Victoria's friends of sending an inappropriate message to her 16-year-old daughter that he smoothed over and explained.
00:25:05
Caroline
Whoa. Oh, wow.
00:25:10
bclawson
and And then and Victoria found some that he had been receiving emails from a sex club, which Victoria discovered on the family computer. It soon became obvious that he was also having an affair. But like many women with abusive partners, Victoria felt trapped in their relationship. And there's some real reasons for that that we'll be getting into. When one was missing from her account, of course, as I said before, Emil always convinced her that her account had been hacked. What's happening to everybody in Britain now, you know?
00:25:45
Caroline
Yeah, but they don't. Usually it ends up on the news if it's a big deal. Plus you, yeah there's a whole process there because you would go to your bank if he felt like a real hack.
00:25:52
bclawson
Right.
00:25:53
Caroline
Like, I wonder if you're right, that he has these like, that just these undiagnosed sort of like, he's a narcissist, obviously, but then also this sex, maybe it is sex addiction, because this seems, it does seem excessive.
00:25:54
bclawson
She never did that. She never did that.
00:26:08
Caroline
Like, I don't know.
00:26:10
bclawson
i As I said, I don't know what this is, but it's it's since I know who it is now that is having these needs every 25 minutes, I tend to think that it's just you know he's just got a total psychopathy that I can't possibly understand without spending the next 10 years of my life in school.
00:26:19
Caroline
Yeah.
00:26:29
Caroline
Yeah.
00:26:34
bclawson
so Anyway, she felt trapped when money was missing. you know He told her money had been hacked. When she found evidence of affairs and love interests outside of the marriage, Emil convinced her that she was just being clouded in her thinking because of the pain of her first marriage, which was broken by infidelity.
00:26:54
bclawson
So he knew that about her.
00:26:56
Caroline
That's cruel.
00:26:57
bclawson
And he's going to put you know an electric current of love bombing right in there and say, you you have
00:27:02
Caroline
name that has bad Yeah, that's bad gaslighting too, because you're just reinforcing a mental, what's growing into being for her a mental, um you know, ah trigger here.
00:27:04
bclawson
You're dreaming this, honey. This is not real. Gaslighting.
00:27:18
Caroline
This is going to become a traumatic trigger for her, this seat, this consistent seat, you know.
00:27:25
bclawson
And Victoria did feel trapped, as I said before. She had two little babies with Emile. And part of her wanted out of the marriage and she pushed it down into a delusional state of mind that she always used to make it through a shock or a fear. Here we have a mother, a professional. She's a physio, a qualified physio. She was working in the military with military officers and probably enlisted people too. She was a skydiver who loved the feeling of falling from the sky
00:27:59
bclawson
because it made her feel just freedom, just brisk air. It took everything away from her mind completely, except for I'm free.
00:28:13
bclawson
I'm flying. I'm in the air. I control this parachute.
00:28:17
bclawson
I control my speed. I control everything.
00:28:17
Caroline
Yeah.
00:28:21
Caroline
Yeah.
00:28:22
bclawson
This was real. This was what was real to her.
00:28:25
Caroline
Yeah.
00:28:26
bclawson
But she did not look at actual ugly realities. This was her go-to strategy. And you know I don't judge her. I have go-to strategies that do not serve me.
00:28:36
Caroline
so common. Yeah, well, I feel like this is entirely common. I mean, this is how um sort of like abuse or trauma or violence goes on for so long. And this is how it gets normalized. This is how cruelty gets normalized. It just is. We all have coping strategies with that. I don't i don't blame her at all. This all seems very normal in terms of getting yourself in like finding yourself in this situation and not knowing what to do. There is no right answer.
00:29:05
bclawson
No, I think that the eccentricities that people have that we observe could probably be explained through this is why how they feel free.
00:29:18
bclawson
This is how they feel, you know, just simply good and they've pushed other things down.
00:29:18
Caroline
Yeah.
00:29:22
Caroline
Control.
00:29:25
Caroline
Yeah.
00:29:28
Caroline
Yeah.
00:29:28
bclawson
And it can be a dangerous coping strategy to push things down.
00:29:32
Caroline
Yeah.
00:29:34
bclawson
but I can't judge because, you know, we all have our coping strategies that and some of which are not good for us.
00:29:43
Caroline
yeah
00:29:43
bclawson
And Neil was beginning to act more and more dismissive and cold to Victoria. And this made her desperate to please him.
00:29:54
bclawson
So now she's been gaslighted into the ground. She has lost her bearings. She has two children, young, tiny children,
00:30:04
bclawson
One is a baby, one is a toddler. And she is desperate to please this man because, you know, he's he's her lifeline. That's what she thinks. Victoria did not know that Emile wanted to take the money from Victoria's life insurance policy to pay off his debt and start a new life with his new girlfriend, who was under the impression that Emile and Victoria were no longer together.
00:30:34
bclawson
Well, of course you're going to lie to your new girlfriend.
00:30:37
Caroline
Yeah.
00:30:37
bclawson
So that's where we're at when
Gaslighting and Near-Fatal Incidents
00:30:41
bclawson
the murder plots appear before the parachute jump that he tried to kill her with.
00:30:41
Caroline
Oh.
00:30:52
bclawson
Emil had already tried to kill Victoria and their two children by leaving the gas on in her house. in their house. They narrowly escaped after Victoria smelled the leak. She had gone into the kitchen to make breakfast. Emile was at work on the base for the day. Remember, he's ah he's a military officer. Instantly, Victoria called Emile about the gas leak. She noticed the valve had been moved or fiddled with. In other words,
00:31:33
bclawson
And there was blood on the valve, blood on the valve itself. It ill told her to, well, turn on the stove and test it. And at that moment, Victoria's mind did her a big favor.
00:31:49
bclawson
She knew not to do that for fear of explosion.
00:31:53
Caroline
Well, yeah, that's not a good test.
00:31:53
bclawson
And she said, no. And she said to him, what are you trying to do, bump me off?
00:32:02
Caroline
o
00:32:04
bclawson
She told herself that such a thing was sarcasm. She did not believe her own subconscious blurting itself out.
00:32:13
Caroline
Yes. That's it. Like, that's crazy. Don't do that. That'll kill you. Do you think, do you think he might be trying to kill you? I mean, this is the most, most real her brain, but okay. She's in a moment of crisis too. Cause she smells that gas and she's freaking out. She's calling the person she loves the most, but I mean, my God, like, so she's not even, she doesn't have as much control over her brain and the coping strategy. So the brain is kicking into high gear going, no, we're about survival. And this is no, that's the dumbest thing I've heard in this whole situation. And that should be a tell for her, you know?
00:32:45
bclawson
Absolutely. And you know, I do believe I don't, let me start over. I do not believe in coincidences and things like that.
00:32:55
Caroline
Correct.
00:32:57
bclawson
Although I do acknowledge that coincidence really do happen you happen. But for example, if somebody invites me to go somewhere and I don't want to go and I agree to go because of the way it would look if I did not go and I go through this big emotional rigmarole,
00:33:12
bclawson
and I go out of my house to get in their car and I trip and fall and now I'm injured and I can't go, that might not be a complete accident that is coincidental to this thing that I didn't wanna go.
00:33:25
Caroline
yeah create yeah they hear the message yeah
00:33:26
bclawson
I mean, sometimes the body, the bones have a memory and they know. And the subconscious you know probably is at work there Or maybe it's, you know, Freud did say sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, but a lot of times there's more to it than that.
00:33:48
Caroline
Yeah, I'm willing to subscribe to that that there's a spectrum of well, that just happens. Coincidence versus OK, I got i maybe I should a little bit more to that one.
00:33:55
bclawson
yeah
00:33:58
bclawson
Well, as Shakespeare knew it, he said the truth will out.
00:34:03
Caroline
Yes, yes.
00:34:03
bclawson
The truth will out.
00:34:05
Caroline
And it's true.
00:34:06
bclawson
And I believe that that is what was going on when she said What are you trying to do, bump me off?
00:34:12
Caroline
Yeah.
00:34:12
bclawson
When he told her to turn on the stove.
00:34:15
Caroline
Yeah.
00:34:16
bclawson
So that was an attempted murder of not just her, but the children as well. Now i you know I do self police my utterances probably because I like most everyone else am always concerned about not hurting someone.
00:34:32
Caroline
Yes.
00:34:33
bclawson
Sometimes blurting something out like, um how could you do this to me followed by not really, I had that coming. You know, um me that's actually pretty sad, but it's normal.
00:34:45
Caroline
Yes.
00:34:45
bclawson
But it was inconceivable to Victoria to believe that her husband, really whom she loved deeply, Caroline, and she forgave so easily might be trying to kill her and was willing and maybe wanting to take the kids out at the same time.
00:34:53
Caroline
ye
00:35:01
bclawson
That's too much.
00:35:02
bclawson
That's too much for her to to to believe. At this time, remember, Victoria feared she was losing Emile. She even told Emile she thought that she had failed to be a good wife to him and that that is why he was so distant and cold.
00:35:02
Caroline
Yeah.
00:35:16
Caroline
Oh man.
00:35:20
Caroline
Damn it.
00:35:21
bclawson
Oh my God, that makes me so sad.
00:35:23
Caroline
Well, me too, because what that does is give Emil more ammunition to keep doing this thing that he's doing to her. And I feel so badly because you're right. The real turmoil and conflict for her is just beginning because we think it's bad for domestic violence victims when there it's just them and their perpetrator.
00:35:42
Caroline
throw some kids in that mix. Now that victim has no sense of up or down. They only have a sense of protection for these other entities. They will crawl through fire.
00:35:55
Caroline
You know what I mean? This is just hard.
00:35:56
bclawson
Oh, yeah. Yeah, kids are a threat to a to a predator in a marriage.
00:36:02
bclawson
um A true pet predator, someone who would at murder, murdering someone is at the same level of maybe going back to school and getting more training so you can make more money that they would.
00:36:03
Caroline
Yeah.
00:36:17
Caroline
Right.
00:36:18
bclawson
It's just easier to murder somebody.
00:36:19
Caroline
Yes.
00:36:20
bclawson
So here comes honesty versus gaslighting. First off, a sergeant in the Royal Army Physical Training Corps, silliers frequently volunteered for residential training camps abroad, even when Victoria was heavily pregnant. He also started to stay overnight at his barracks in Altershot, complaining about the 45-minute commute from his home in Amesbury, Wiltshire.
00:36:50
bclawson
Victoria was worried that he was becoming cold towards her, and she was terrified of him walking out on her and the children. As silliers, a father of six, six, grew more distant, Victoria clung all the tighter. She sent texts and emails to her husband when he was away from home, saying that she loved him and missed him so much. She voiced fears that he had fallen out of love with her.
00:37:18
bclawson
and that he was seeing someone else. I feel like a failure as a wife, she said to him in one tragic text message, which we know all those things come out in court.
00:37:32
Caroline
Yeah.
00:37:33
bclawson
So in court documents, you know, that's where you find the good stuff about what the evidence is.
00:37:37
Caroline
Yeah.
00:37:38
bclawson
And some of the evidence was that she was terrified that he was going to leave her.
00:37:43
Caroline
of losing him. Yes. Oh, I just feel so badly for her because she is doing all the right things. When you're in a committed partnership, even if there's a drifting apart of feelings like this is the kind of stuff you say to each other and then but then it's reciprocated.
00:37:56
Caroline
Do you know what I mean? Like you would have then have a conversation, you would make new agreements, set new boundaries, things like that.
00:37:57
bclawson
Oh, yeah.
00:38:02
Caroline
But she all she inadvertently is doing is feeding him more ammunition to control her. to to fake her out to cause her to be on her toes mentally without knowing what's up or down and I just I feel really bad for Victoria.
00:38:09
bclawson
Right.
00:38:19
bclawson
Yes, well, she's writing the torment recipe and he's doing the cooking.
00:38:24
Caroline
Yeah.
00:38:25
bclawson
I mean, that's what's going on. So Emile used her emotion to tell Victoria that a joint paraote parachute jump was in order. And you know he's trying to cheer her up, right?
00:38:39
bclawson
Bear in mind that Victoria's second child, when all this was happening, was only four weeks old.
00:38:45
Caroline
Oh my gosh.
00:38:45
bclawson
And he's telling her, you'll feel better. Let's go together to a parachute jump. Now, this is after she said to him, you're trying to kill me?
00:38:56
Caroline
Right.
00:38:56
bclawson
with the gas leak.
00:38:58
Caroline
Oh my God.
00:38:59
bclawson
And, you know, Victoria felt that he was trying to show his love for her. That perked her up. she's He's picking her favorite activity for them to do together.
00:39:10
bclawson
And maybe that would go on forever. She said yes. She just loved it. She just felt so relieved. So off they went to jump together the next Saturday.
00:39:22
bclawson
And this was Saturday before Easter. On the way, Emile told Victoria, you know, I don't think I'm going to jump with you. I think I'm going to let you jump alone because I just want you to be free and happy.
00:39:35
bclawson
And um you're not getting any rest after delivering and caring for the baby, which was true.
00:39:42
Caroline
Yeah.
00:39:42
bclawson
He was bringing up all these truths about why she should just do this for herself. But when they got there, the weather was rough. And while waiting for the weather to clear,
00:39:54
bclawson
Emile offered to take the their little girl. You know, they had to travel with their children. They didn't have anybody to take care of the kids. So she had the baby. He had the little girl by the hand and he she needed to go to the bathroom.
00:40:07
bclawson
So he said, I'm going to take her to the potty. And that is something he had never done.
00:40:13
Caroline
Hmm.
00:40:13
bclawson
He had never done that before. He took Victoria's parachute with him to the bathroom. So that Victoria didn't, you don't need to load that thing around while you're waiting for me.
00:40:26
bclawson
I'm just going to take her to the bathroom. I'll take that parachute.
00:40:29
Caroline
That's so weird.
00:40:30
bclawson
And, you know, she needed both arms. You're going to need both arms because you're nursing the baby.
00:40:35
Caroline
Yeah, but he needs it, too.
00:40:35
bclawson
So she's thinking, she's just thinking, oh, this is just the most wonderful day.
00:40:37
Caroline
He's being sweet.
00:40:42
Caroline
Yes.
00:40:43
bclawson
This is just the most perfect day. But then the weather did not clear and they went home. But before they did, Sweet Emile put his wife's parachute in her locker for an overnight so that she wouldn't have to check it in and check it back out the next day.
00:41:01
bclawson
And this is not her parachute. This is a parachute club that is at the airport near where they live at the military base, actually.
00:41:05
Caroline
Yes.
00:41:07
Caroline
Yes.
00:41:10
Caroline
Yeah.
00:41:10
bclawson
And so you know he's saying, you've got your and well you got the a parachute. I don't want to go through this checking in process.
00:41:16
Caroline
Well, I was just going to say, there's a, probably a protocol about checking gear every time.
00:41:21
bclawson
Right, right, right.
00:41:21
Caroline
And maybe he knows he can circumvent all these safety checks for her. If he just says it's already ready, just grab and go, which I don't, I don't know anything about parachutings.
00:41:32
bclawson
No, but i we know two things.
00:41:32
Caroline
I don't know if that.
00:41:34
bclawson
We know that he's got some kind of motive for wanting to lug around this parachute into the bathroom where he stayed for about 10 minutes and then um
00:41:42
Caroline
Yeah.
00:41:45
Caroline
weird It's weird.
00:41:48
bclawson
out and then later put it it in the locker so that she doesn't have her free choice of which parachute to take the next day.
00:41:50
Caroline
You don't have to bring it back.
00:41:57
bclawson
show that um ah you know So he told her that he was going to stay home on Easter and take care of the kids so she could just do her jump alone. And now Victoria was a little confused but ignored her feelings because you know she wants to please her husband He paid for the jump.
00:42:20
bclawson
She had that creepy feeling about, I should just back out. And then she's thinking, well, how did this start with a, we're going to jump together and now I'm jumping alone.
00:42:30
Caroline
Hmm.
00:42:31
bclawson
And she had all these uneasy feelings. Didn't want to leave her children. She's tired. She was probably up all night again. She had an uneasy feeling, but what did she do? She did she did what she normally does.
00:42:43
bclawson
She dismissed it.
00:42:45
Caroline
Yep, just push it down.
00:42:45
bclawson
She dismissed it.
00:42:47
Caroline
Don't don't pay any attention to it. But boy, oh boy, Victoria, you got the skills. Lady, you've got all the skills. I hope that she is a professional military jumper because I happen to know that she's probably whatever she is doing, she's exceptional at it now that she's can divert her skill set to worrying about things that matter.
00:43:05
Caroline
You know, not Emil and his love.
00:43:07
bclawson
Well, yeah, but that that time is in the future, which according to Emile, she does not deserve.
00:43:13
Caroline
Yeah.
00:43:13
bclawson
So anyway, the parachute, the aftermath of the parachute and the trial, I want to talk about those things, especially, you know, the attempted murder part.
Parachute Sabotage and Survival
00:43:22
bclawson
So where are we in this story of a talented woman who does not trust her own instincts and a cad, a womanizer, a con man, and a toxic killer husband?
00:43:37
bclawson
Where are we at in this in this story? We're at Easter Sunday, 2015. So experienced skydiver Victoria Silliers undertook the parachute jump, a gift from her husband, British Army Sergeant Emile Silliers.
00:43:56
bclawson
By this time in her life, she had over 2,500 jumps and she was an instructor.
00:44:04
Caroline
Wow.
00:44:05
bclawson
Their relationship had been under strain. Victoria had caught a meal in a web of lies, which he staunchly denied. But Victoria saw his gift ah first of the parachute trip as an opportunity to turn her over for a new leaf.
00:44:21
bclawson
He's trying to be nice. She even laughed with her friends that her husband had, quote unquote, financial incontinence. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
00:44:31
Caroline
That feels very British.
00:44:32
bclawson
But she loved him. So she hated it. That is very British. Very witty British, British, yeah, just zeroing right in on the nerve of the whole thing, financial incontinence.
00:44:44
Caroline
Yeah.
00:44:44
bclawson
He spent money, money, money, money, money, money, money, like he had it to spend, but it was her money.
00:44:49
Caroline
you
00:44:52
bclawson
He'd long since spent his own money. During the skydive, both her standard and her reserve parachutes failed to open. And Victoria plummeted 4,000 feet to the ground.
00:45:08
bclawson
Victoria herself said that she didn't panic, so she cut away the main chute when that wasn't working, and then she pulled the cord on the back up, but something was horribly wrong with that chute, and she was flung upside down and twisting in the wind while falling fast.
00:45:08
Caroline
like Oh my god.
00:45:28
bclawson
Those who saw the fall were so convinced that she had died that a body bag was brought to the scene. Victoria sustained life-threatening injuries, including a broken pelvis, but she survived. She had landed on a newly planted farmer's field and the ground was fluffy.
00:45:51
Caroline
Oh, probably still, I mean, still obviously did damage, but isn't that interesting? Just a few um sort of like pounds per square inch of flexibility in the dirt probably did save her life because blunt force trauma is going to, that's a real thing too.
00:46:06
Caroline
I'm shocked that wasn't a case here, but it sounds like she probably got much of her body shattered in bone breakages.
00:46:13
bclawson
Yes, oh yeah, head to toe, head to toe. As she was recovering, police arrived at her hospital door. While she assumed the parachute failures had been a terrible accident, evidence suggested that someone had tampered with her parachute and the police suspected a nail.
00:46:25
Caroline
Yeah.
00:46:32
Caroline
Whoa.
00:46:32
bclawson
She could not process that, Carolyn.
00:46:35
Caroline
I bet because she had had all
00:46:36
bclawson
I know she can't move. she Her hip is broken. She's got multiple fractures all over her body. All kinds of things happening. Her ear had been shattered.
00:46:47
bclawson
Just all those little pieces had to be put back together again. She was in serious condition. She cannot have a husband who is going to be arrested for trying to kill her.
00:46:58
bclawson
She's got babies.
00:47:00
Caroline
I know, but she's freaking conscious. I mean, let's be real about this situation. Victoria, my God, I've just never seen the Hoop Spa in a human being that I'm hearing in this story. And all the while you're trying to maintain a different reality, which makes total sense to me. But wow, this is I mean, if the universe ever was like slapping somebody around going, no, I don't think you've heard me right. It would be this scenario. I mean, oh,
00:47:30
bclawson
Yes, I mean, you know those who saw the fall were you know traumatized.
00:47:39
Caroline
Yeah.
00:47:40
bclawson
I mean, people were just out of their mind. And then here comes the police telling you that they think your husband did this to you. Slowly investigators clued Victoria in on what they were finding and just what Emil was up to.
Revelations and Emile's Conviction
00:47:57
bclawson
It appeared that he had actually siphoned off over 19,000 pounds at a minimum from her accounts. And she was still over he was still over his head financially, even though he was stealing her, robbing her blind.
00:48:14
Caroline
Geez.
00:48:15
bclawson
There had never been any mixups at the bank. There had never been any identity failures, identity scams.
00:48:24
Caroline
Why? Oh, hacking.
00:48:27
bclawson
or hacking, ah you know, just all the overdue bills.
00:48:34
Caroline
Yeah.
00:48:35
bclawson
That was because he needed the money to hire sex workers. He would, high if he saw some ah equipment that he wanted to buy ah for rugby or whatever else he was interested in at the moment, he's going to go by the top of the line.
00:48:56
Caroline
Yeah.
00:48:57
bclawson
And the he would, he had a lot of women that he would take out to ah dinner and then, to you know, to a hotel and he was paying for all of that. I mean, you know, this man, oh brother. So they were trying to tell her all of this. He bought extravagant gifts for himself and he bought expensive gifts for women. One of his affairs was with the mother of the two children that were born to him in South Africa when Emile had told his wife, Victoria, that he was at military training.
00:49:37
Caroline
Hmm.
00:49:38
bclawson
I have to go back to South Africa because I'm in charge of this whole unit and long story over many days of glory that ah is me.
00:49:42
Caroline
Oh my gosh.
00:49:50
bclawson
Those are the lies, lies, lies, lies, scam, scam, scam, and then multiple
00:49:54
Caroline
Yeah.
00:49:56
bclawson
murder attempts. They're trying to get through to Victoria.
00:50:01
Caroline
Yes.
00:50:02
bclawson
The police are just trying very hard.
00:50:05
Caroline
I bad.
00:50:05
bclawson
So finally, his case came to trial two years later in October 2017. But the jury failed to reach a verdict.
00:50:17
bclawson
And Caroline, I don't even want to bring this up, but I think you and I were talking about this.
00:50:22
Caroline
Yeah.
00:50:23
bclawson
And it's it's really kind of sad and infuriating too, but their star witness was Victoria Silliers to explain everything that had happened to her.
00:50:28
Caroline
Yeah.
00:50:39
bclawson
And I mean, they had other people too, people, at parachute experts who said that, you know, this was tampering. And the other one was tampered with too. And it took a parachutist to know how to tamper like this.
00:50:51
Caroline
ah Right.
00:50:52
bclawson
And they had a lot of evidence.
00:50:54
Caroline
Yeah.
00:50:54
bclawson
um But Their last evidence was the victim, which was Victoria Silliers. And she got up on the stand and she choked. And she said that everything she had told the police was a lie.
00:51:09
Caroline
See, and that that is the product of domestic violence that and people will never understand. The brain is in a battle with itself. You've got the emotional brain locked into a storyline that does not exist. It's the storyline of the abuser. But your rational brain continues to scream out in in hopes of surviving and living in the real reality, which is the one where it's like, get the hell away from this dude, you know not protecting your interests.
00:51:42
Caroline
You need to protect your interests. That makes me sad, but it actually, I think, is ah something that we should study as a society. Because before we start to asking victims why they didn't do things differently to be less of a victim, we need to start looking at why can't what do victims need put in front of them to help themselves out of that hole.
00:51:59
Caroline
You know what I mean? And that then we can put that further.
00:52:02
bclawson
Absolutely. And you know, there's a big difference between self-worth and self-esteem.
00:52:11
Caroline
Yeah.
00:52:11
bclawson
And there's an argument to be made that self-esteem sometimes comes from our achievements.
00:52:17
Caroline
Yeah.
00:52:18
bclawson
Self-worth is bone deep.
00:52:21
Caroline
Yes.
00:52:21
bclawson
And when a predator, like a meal, silliers, gets a hold of you and knows how to work you,
00:52:24
Caroline
Yeah.
00:52:31
bclawson
and knows how to change you and and goes as deep as your soul to make you feel worthless.
00:52:34
Caroline
Yeah.
00:52:43
Caroline
Yeah.
00:52:43
bclawson
You may be a very accomplished individual, but your self-worth and sense of self-worth is gone.
00:52:50
Caroline
Yeah.
00:52:50
bclawson
And you know I believe that she was very concerned that he was going to be...
00:52:54
Caroline
Right.
00:52:55
bclawson
you know What if they don't believe her? What if they... what if say Um, just don't believe her. He's so much what better looking than me.
00:53:08
bclawson
He's taller than me. He's, he's, he, he got up on the witness stand and he was telling his life story and, and maybe the women on the jury were, you know, but very much in love with him too.
00:53:10
Caroline
Right.
00:53:21
Caroline
Right charm.
00:53:22
bclawson
I mean, she had all these doubts and she decided, you know, I don't want him to be, um, acquitted and then try to kill me again.
00:53:24
Caroline
Yeah.
00:53:29
Caroline
Yeah.
00:53:32
Caroline
Right. I need to be on it. Well, oh my gosh, you just opened up a bigger can of worms, right? The victim has to consider their safety moving forward based on the outcome of this thing. I can't say the wrong thing.
00:53:41
bclawson
Absolutely.
00:53:42
Caroline
Yeah. Oh my gosh. Yes. Oh, that's hard.
00:53:45
bclawson
Well, police understood and did not blame her. Thank God that jury was hung.
00:53:53
Caroline
yeah and Yeah.
00:53:53
bclawson
So there were some that wanted him to be convicted and there were some that said, you know, she got up there and said she's lying and I can't convict him with her lying like that, with her saying that.
00:54:02
Caroline
Yeah. Yeah.
00:54:04
bclawson
And so, you know, they took another shot at it a year later in May. of 2018. It wasn't even a year. It was more like six months, um seven months.
00:54:15
Caroline
Okay.
00:54:15
bclawson
ah He was found guilty and she was able to get up on the witness stand and recount her experiences. He was found guilty of two counts of attempted murder.
00:54:29
bclawson
He was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum tariff. That's what they call it in of the UK, it's here we would say a minimum term of 18 years. And so he will not be eligible for parole eligible for 18 years. That doesn't mean he's going to get out.
00:54:51
Caroline
Right. Well, and I wanted to ask um because I know in America, we kind of have an unspoken thing here on the parole boards about if you don't admit the crime, you're probably not convincing that parole board that to let you out.
00:55:04
bclawson
but Absolutely.
00:55:05
Caroline
So that's kind of a saving grace for victims and victims' families when you get a real, you know, choice narcissist up there who's just never going to admit that because ultimately,
00:55:15
bclawson
He may have convinced himself.
00:55:17
Caroline
Right, exactly. But what it also gives you is that safety that they'll probably never get out on parole, never get there.
00:55:22
bclawson
I hope not. I hope not.
00:55:24
Caroline
I i hope that the parole board like even solidifies that role more because, you know, after 18 years, you've had your opportunity to try and say it was a false conviction.
00:55:28
bclawson
I hope so.
00:55:33
Caroline
And and and if that's not happening, it probably wasn't. So you need to start.
00:55:36
bclawson
Well, he was found guilty of two counts.
00:55:38
Caroline
Yeah, see, so he's
00:55:39
bclawson
So he's going to have to admit that he tried to kill his wife and was willing to murder his children in the process.
00:55:46
Caroline
Yeah, funny.
00:55:49
bclawson
So you're absolutely right. I'm hoping that he is as evil as we think he is, because he won't be able to admit it.
00:55:56
Caroline
Yeah. Yeah.
00:55:59
Caroline
yeah
00:55:59
bclawson
So he's doing his time, and I hope it's bad, hard time as they say, at Her Majesty's Dovegate Prison.
00:56:04
Caroline
Yeah.
00:56:07
bclawson
I guess it's His Majesty's now.
00:56:09
Caroline
No, we could, I mean, I'm not, I won't be offended.
00:56:10
bclawson
Anyway.
00:56:11
Caroline
no Sorry.
00:56:13
bclawson
so Dove gay prison in Staffordshire. So Victoria or Vicky as she is now referred to, you know, once she got past her, all of the trauma and the processing and the help that the police gave to her and, and she went back to school and I believe she's by practicing psychotherapist.
00:56:36
bclawson
So she used to be a physical therapist.
00:56:39
Caroline
Okay.
00:56:39
bclawson
Now she's a psychotherapist.
00:56:41
Caroline
For her.
00:56:42
bclawson
Um, now I, I saw one article that said that and I couldn't find corroborating, but I believe that, you know, she probably got enough help that she was able to flip a switch on her coping strategy of pushing things down.
00:56:53
Caroline
Yes.
00:56:59
Caroline
Yes.
00:57:00
bclawson
And perhaps she became intrigued with the freedom that that gave her.
00:57:05
Caroline
Yep. Yeah. I agree with you.
00:57:07
bclawson
so So.
00:57:09
Caroline
think Yeah.
00:57:10
bclawson
No, no bar
00:57:14
bclawson
So my dog was going to bark at the um at the idea that Vicki is now, Victoria is now referred to as Vicki and um she has conquered that that inability that she had to come to terms with what happened to her.
00:57:25
Caroline
yeah
00:57:35
bclawson
She heard what the judge said at his sentencing and that is what caused her to begin to see everything clearly. She said in her book And she wrote a book about her experiences that it took a lot for me to finally recognize that he must have done it. How could someone one I'd married loved and had children with done something this despicable? So I'll call her Vicki, if that's what she wants to go by. So Vicki Silliers today says that even though her husband
00:58:07
bclawson
was sentenced to 18 years behind bars for attempted murder. That did not stop him from continuing to try to manipulate his wife, her.
Victoria's New Life and Healing Journey
00:58:16
Caroline
Yeah, yeah.
00:58:16
bclawson
She continued to visit him, in fact, six to eight weeks into his prison term. And when he demanded that she visit him more regularly, Victoria started to feel her husband was tightening his grip on her.
00:58:31
bclawson
So realized that oh She had to ah change, she had to make a change, and she knew what she needed to do.
00:58:35
Caroline
Yeah.
00:58:39
bclawson
He pleaded for more chances and was constantly trying to call and sent her many le letters, but eventually, nevertheless, Vicki Silliers filed for divorce.
00:58:51
Caroline
It's my favorite part of the story because that, that's what it looks like when we really see a victim supported and into back into health, back into their, their power.
00:59:02
Caroline
They've been, I mean, for her to do that, that's huge. That's huge.
00:59:05
bclawson
It is huge, however, however, ah however, it may all silliers believe that he could have a future together with her and he blocked the divorce.
00:59:05
Caroline
It takes so much to face. Yeah. oh Can you do that?
00:59:17
bclawson
In a book she wrote called I Survived, this awesome survivor wrote, quote, so 18 months on and I am no further forward. I'm still married to him.
00:59:29
bclawson
I still have his name. I still feel shackled to him. I want to be able to move out of the house. I want to move on, restart my life completely, probably in another country.
00:59:42
Caroline
Yeah.
00:59:42
bclawson
But here I am, I'm still here, living in the miracle of home. And there are memories of him at every turn, in the paint colors, the curtains, the furniture that we chose together.
00:59:48
Caroline
Yeah.
00:59:54
bclawson
I'm stuck. So that's what she wrote. And to get that out and to write that out and to publish that book, amazing.
00:59:59
Caroline
Yeah, that was huge. Well, but wait, why is she stuck though?
01:00:03
bclawson
Vicki, well, he he she wrote this about this she wrote this about the period where he was stopping the divorce.
01:00:05
Caroline
is Because here in America, you can wait it out.
01:00:13
Caroline
But can they do that indefinitely? I mean, he eventually he runs out of time, right?
01:00:16
bclawson
No, no, no.
01:00:18
Caroline
Okay.
01:00:18
bclawson
So Vicki was impacted physically, mentally, and even financially for her husband's wicked crimes. She said in her book that I've started the process of getting myself ready and strong to move, but he still wants to exert control.
01:00:32
bclawson
He's destroyed my credit rating and the whole process of rebuilding myself financially has taken a lot of time. But once we are actually divorced, I'll have more confidence.
01:00:44
bclawson
But he has done everything to procrastinate. When he was first in prison, he would say to me, you're all I have now.
01:00:53
Caroline
Oh, geez.
01:00:54
bclawson
And so he was still trying to manipulate her to control her. A therapist has said about what she has been going through is that Vicki admitted the hardest part to accept with this that he would put his children's lives in danger and voicing that truth was harrowing for her.
01:01:11
Caroline
Yeah. Well, I know it.
01:01:14
bclawson
But eventually Caroline, they did have a divorce.
01:01:17
Caroline
Oh, good.
01:01:18
bclawson
No, he cannot block it forever.
01:01:19
Caroline
Good.
01:01:20
bclawson
And as I said, I believe she's a practicing psychotherapist to this day and she got remarried.
01:01:27
Caroline
so good um mean Oh my god, I love that.
01:01:27
bclawson
Um, She got remarried to a parachutist that she'd known for years. She had known him for nine years. And he is an officer in the military.
01:01:41
Caroline
Oh wow.
01:01:41
bclawson
and um But she has known him for so long, and they've been friends for so long, that that was the only setup she felt she could accept in terms of being married again.
01:01:49
Caroline
The trust.
01:01:52
bclawson
And it was working.
01:01:53
Caroline
Yeah, the trust is there.
01:01:55
bclawson
And the prosecuting attorney on this case k said it best about this predator. This is not just a naughty boy. This is what he's telling the ju the jury in the second trial.
01:02:07
Caroline
Yeah.
01:02:09
bclawson
This is not just a naughty boy, a philanderer, or a pantomime villain, like you know the big bad wolf.
01:02:19
Caroline
Right.
01:02:19
bclawson
This is someone that's actually far more sinister. This is how he tricked this woman, controlled her until he tried to kill her. And it was just as cold as that.
01:02:32
bclawson
Victoria Silliers never stood a chance and he knew it.
01:02:39
Caroline
Well, he never said his dance, and now Victoria's free.
01:02:40
bclawson
Well, I say to that, you and now Vicki Silliers, she's not that person anymore.
01:02:42
Caroline
Ha ha.
01:02:46
Caroline
Yeah.
01:02:49
Caroline
That's right.
01:02:51
bclawson
She's someone that would be able to stand up to that, but she's not encountering that in her new life.
01:02:54
Caroline
That's right.
01:02:59
bclawson
And for that, I am eternally grateful. And that is our story with a mighty hero. If you ask me, she's come a long, long way.
01:03:07
Caroline
Yes.
01:03:11
Caroline
Oh, yeah, the whole family is going to be stronger now. Her kids are going to be stronger now for it. Just everybody can't mess with them now, you know.
01:03:18
bclawson
No. And he's not even the meal. He's not even halfway through his minimum sentence.
01:03:25
Caroline
And it's a minimum. I kind of have a feeling that, well, I don't know because I don't know crazy mean people, but.
01:03:30
bclawson
I'm going to be watching. I'm going to be watching out for this one.
01:03:33
Caroline
Okay, good, because I don't think, yeah, I just hope he never admits his guilt because then he'll never get out.
01:03:35
bclawson
Yeah.
01:03:38
Caroline
That's my favorite.
01:03:39
bclawson
There you go. So today's episode is researched, written and narrated by Brigitte and Caroline, produced by Andy. Our research is solely based on public domain documents, including legal documents, articles, and books about our subject. Episodes are aired every other week. If you like us, please subscribe and give us a five-star review, especially on Apple. Tell your friends about us in person and by social media. All of these actions help new listeners find us. And thank you so much listeners. We really appreciate you.
01:04:18
bclawson
And just one more thing. Don't forget to live and let live. So bye bye, Caroline.
01:04:28
Caroline
but Bye-bye.