Watching You | 2. Danger Signs

Listen to all episodes of watching you, add free right now by subscribing to the binge. Visit the binge channel on Apple Podcasts and hit subscribe at the top of the page or visit getthebinge.com to get access wherever you listen. The binge, feed your true crime obsession. The big secret, all savvy shoppers know, Rakuten makes your money go further. Shop with Rakuten to get cash back on top of seasonal sales. Discover fashion, tech, beauty and more at hundreds of your favorite shops like boots, ebay, and Lego. It's free and super easy to use. Just shop as normal and stack cash back on top of sales and savings. Join for free at Rakuten.co.uk or download the Rakuten app. That's r-a-k-u-t-e-n. Rakuten.co.uk. I've noticed this pattern lately in my life. I'll be shopping online. It doesn't matter if it's closed, something for the house or something I absolutely don't need, but suddenly deeply want. 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Finally, he would have the family he wanted. He no longer be an outsider. But that, as you may have surmised, was not enough for him. Because Matt's obsessive need to surveil every aspect of the lives of the people he was closest to was taking over. Especially as the relationship between Matt and Alex only seemed to get worse. Matt resented that Alex was a priority for Nikki, more than him or their marriage. One of their fights unraveled in front of the whole family. When he demanded Nikki stop helping her little kid, blow her nose. Mom was pregnant with Amanda and there was a lot of fighting in Mississippi. There was a particular memory that is burned in my brain. Alex was around six years old when they moved to Central Mississippi, Casillasco. It's a tiny blip of a town, just about 7,000 people. The family's new home was near downtown. If you want to call it downtown, a small strip of businesses, homes, packed neatly next to one another. It's one of my least favorite memories, but they had gotten into some huge fight about what I don't know. Most of their fights couldn't tell you what they were particularly about, other than they were just screaming and fighting. They got into it so much that I mean, she was like nine months pregnant. A 90-pound woman carrying like a nine-pound baby. She picked me up on her hip and she punched the glass. It was one of those doors. The top half of the door was glass panes. She punched it with her fist, punched the window out and screamed out. Blood running down her hands, glass everywhere. He took her pregnant with me on her hip. He shoved us me both with flying on the floor because he didn't want her causing a scene with neighbors. You were close enough to your neighbors that you could hear them if they raised their voice or they could hear you. You could hear somebody screaming. Alex and her mom hit the floor. And I remember in that moment, that was one of the pivotal moments for me that this man is dangerous. He was willing to push his pregnant wife and her daughter on the ground on the floor just to keep from anyone knowing what was going on. I think for the rest of my life was like, I will never trust you. I will never. I will always have eyes on you. The arguments were louder, more intense. Alex was living in a war zone. You know they say that children who are exposed to domestic violence have brains like people who have seen military combat. And Alex realized quickly that her mother was her responsibility. I had to grow up real fast. I had to go scrap. I have to protect my mom. From Sony Music Entertainment, you're listening to watching you. I'm Jonathan Hirsch. Episode 2. Danger Signs. Hey, Sal. Hank, what's going on? We haven't worked a case in years. I just bought my car in Carvada and it was so easy, too easy. I think something's up. Shoot, tell me. They got thousands of options. Got a great car, a great price. And I got to deliver the next day. It sounds like Carvada just makes it easy to buy your car, Hank. Yeah, you're right. Case closed. Buy your car today on Carvada. Delivery fees may apply. Cold days, big goals, no time to cook, right? That's been my reality lately. I start the week with the best intentions. I'm going to cook. I'm going to be healthy. And then suddenly it's late. I'm exhausted. Standing in my kitchen, hoping food will just magically appear. That's why factor has been such a game changer for me. It makes healthy eating easy, with fully prepared meals designed by dieticians and crafted by chefs. So you can eat well without the planning or cooking. What I love is that these meals are built with quality, functional ingredients, lean proteins, colorful vegetables, whole food ingredients, healthy fats, no refined sugars or artificial sweeteners or refined seed oils. 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It's ready in about two minutes. No prep, no stress, no cleanup, which honestly removes the biggest barrier to eating while, am I right? Head to factormules.com slash binge cases 50 off and use code binge cases 50 off to get 50% off in free breakfast for a year. We look at pro this month with factor. New subscribers only, varies by plan. One free breakfast item per box for one year while subscription is active. Nikki was thriving in her new job, and as a result, wasn't around very much. She would drive to the airport Sunday night, get back Friday night, spend the weekend, and then the next Sunday night she's gone again for a week, traveling for work. So it was pretty much always just us and our dad. Amanda takes after her mom, same fair complexion, reddish blonde hair. She was Alex's baby doll, her little sister. Despite being on the road often, Nikki made time for Amanda. I played basketball, starting in like first, second grade ish. Like every game she was the loudest one in the stands. She was standing and cheering and yelling, and like, that continued. Every single game she was always there. On the weeknight when Nikki was away, she checked in. She would still call, let me talk on the phone. How school, what are you doing? Did you do your homework? She'd help us with homework over the phone. So I was bullied a lot in school. I was a smaller kid. I was smarter. I was in the gifted program. Our mom growing up, she was the same way. She was the small, quiet, flat-chested girl. And she was like my rock and like being able to talk to her and like her genuinely understanding. The pain I was feeling. All the while, Nikki is put in food on the table. Matt still doesn't have a job, but to the outside world, he's the stay-at-home dad. He did, however, continue to stockpile equipment. Enough to power a small security business. A business that didn't seem to be making any money. And what's more, Nikki was bankrolling the whole thing. Tens of thousands of dollars of equipment. Matt, and strange things happen at the house when Matt is left in charge. Strange things that Alex would notice. But Amanda was younger. She didn't know anything else. Like Matt's penchant for chasing kids around with a chainsaw? Something he thought was funny. I don't think I ever really thought about it. Like I think the, I don't even remember the first time it ever happened because it was kind of just one of those things of he did it very often. Think about that. Running after his kids with a live blade was just another Tuesday. It wasn't like, oh, he did it once and never again. It was probably six, seven, eight times. He's chased us around the house with chainsaw. And it was one of those things where like it almost became normal. You didn't necessarily think it was wrong at the time. And like, oh, this is just how things are. And if my dad thinks this is funny, then this must actually be funny even though I'm scared. The best thing and the worst thing about children is that they can get used to anything. They adjust. Start to tell themselves it must be normal because this is my dad. A few years after Amanda was born, her sister came. The third daughter of Nikki, Rebecca. Rebecca is in her early 20s now. And all three of Nikki's daughters bear a striking resemblance to her in different ways. But you can no doubt see it with Rebecca. She's got thick blonde curls and bright blue eyes. She's louder and in many ways the most expressive of Nikki's girls. She lives in Virginia now. Her childhood was of course different than that of her older sisters. She didn't have that heavy history with Matt that Alex did. She remembers pool parties with neighborhood kids riding bikes around the cul-de-sac. I remember like as I got older and hearing them argue, seeing them argue, it became normal. That was what parents did. They fought and they threw things and they screamed and that was normal. And then it was like they were fine afterward. And often the girls got roped into their arguments. He would bring us into it. I can't remember specifics, but yeah, he would pull us into the arguments all the time and like it would be against her. Like it would be like him using us against her. Against Nikki, that is. Even Rebecca, the baby of the family, didn't escape her father's intense scrutiny. As I got older and he started to punish me more for like just random things. I remember he would make me stand in the corner with my face facing the corner for hours. At least like two, three hours. I would have to be like standing facing the corner. And so I learned I could choose my corner. And so I chose the corner by my mom's desk because she would keep an eye on him. I would like let me know when he was coming and I could run back to the corner quickly and she would like let me go sit down and like eat something and like just sit down because I'm standing in a corner for hours. Nikki clearly wasn't fully behind Matt's parenting methods. Amanda knew that. Even when their friends came over, Matt didn't check himself. He took out his chainsaw. I've only ever had one slumber party at our house. My dad did that. It's one of those things kind of like we're at the time like all of big group of girls over having like we're screaming and running like oh this is funny. And then I never had friends over again. And like looking back it's probably oh they told their parents that this man chased around the house with chainsaw and now they don't want them. That house anymore. But this wasn't on Amanda's mind at the time. As far as she knew her dad's behavior wasn't off and he wasn't a threat to her. He was the one who was always home, taking care of her. Even the computer stuff, she thought it was kind of cool. I would build computers with him from like here's the case, here's the motherboard, here's the power supply, here's the CPU and here's like how you install everything and set it up. And the cameras, the growing surveillance system around the house? It was definitely something that felt normal to me. Growing up with it it slowly like it was probably five over the course of like five years of like building up cameras until it was what it was. I always thought it was cool. He'd call us into his office and be like, oh hey look at this, there was a deer on the front porch last night. Come look at this or hey there's a raccoon in the driveway. Amanda also understands that her dad's computer room is completely off limits. With baby sister Rebecca now exploring the house, Amanda has to keep her out of trouble. Rebecca kept running into our dad's office and like we weren't allowed in there. Because computer stopped all of that and in my mind to stop a two year old from going anywhere, it just shut the door. And so I was running to get ahead of Rebecca to close the door and she had put her fingers like in the like where the hinges are. And so when I slammed the door shut, her fingers were there. I ran and hid in the limon closet because I thought I was going to get in trouble. Now they have to do a man hunt to find me because I'm hiding. Computers aren't the only thing Matt keeps in the house. Amanda remembers also a gun. It was a 40 caliber revolver. It was named baby. Baby. By now, Nikki was seeing less and less of her family back in Georgia. Nikki never talked to me about that. There were a lot of things in her past that will complete surprise to me. That's Doug Chatham, Nikki's dad. This was a recorded conversation from after the night Nikki went missing. He said when her relationships hadn't worked out before, he didn't know about it until afterwards. She kept playing pretty close with us. I don't think she felt like she could have talked to any of the members of the family because she think it would be relating a failure. I think she was judging herself. I was hoping that she felt that she could come to me at any time, but apparently she could have talked that way. He said that they were aware that the two would fight and that Matt would be controlling. That was about it. Amy and Nikki remained in close contact though. She went to visit her when they moved away. So I go out there and they have set up this lovely house. She had this big blue sectional sofa and I was like, all right, you guys are doing okay. I remember her Matt having all these fights. The whole time I was there, they're just fighting. I remember thinking, oh good. She finally, now she's going to see it. She's going to see it. She's going to be gone. When Amy and Matt and Nikki all lived together in Athens, she said her sister had on rose-colored glasses when it came to Matt. She didn't see the worst of him, nor did it seem that she wanted to. And now that Amy wasn't there to pick on, Alex, this little girl, became his target. It was always Alex. Sabrina. Karen. I have been listening to a new show from The Binge called Fatal Fantasy. I am obsessed. Wait, I need to know more. Tell me everything. Okay, well, it's a very shocking. It's this like ultra-weird crime story of a murder for a higher plot that, yeah, wait for it, leverage the dynamics of the underworld and underworld being a medieval fantasy game. Wait, so it's live action role playing Gone Wrong? A horribly wrong. And you can binge all episodes now. Oh, man, that sounds so good. I know what I'm doing on my drive home today. Search for Fatal Fantasy and subscribe to The Binge podcast channel on Apple podcasts or at GetTheBinge.com. And then once you're done, you can listen to one of the over 60 true crime and investigative podcasts, a part of the channel while you wait for the next month's drop. I really need to know what happens. Selfishly you do so that we can talk about it. So whenever you listen, search for Fatal Fantasy and hit subscribe to The Binge to get all episodes, all at once, add free. Infamous is the gossip show that's smart. We talk about Tyra Banks and bringing down top model. We talk about Jenna Jamison and how she dominated the 90s. You know, she's horny and she's in charge. She just was very smart about marketing herself. We talk about celebrities who maybe shouldn't be celebrities, like the Beckham guy. Brooklyn is their first kid. He's had a little bit of the nepothe baby curse. We investigate orgasm cults. A woman's erotic power can unlock many other powers in her life. And of course, we discuss people who have gotten into lots of trouble. My name is Molly McLaughlin. I am one of Jen Shaw's many victims. She was defrauding the elderly and her tagline was the only thing I'm guilty of is being shamazing. And infamous the gossip show that's smart. The show's called infamous. The problems in the Lyle Household always seemed to revolve around Matt's relationship with his stepdaughter, Alex. Nikki would later regret that she didn't step in and tell Matt he didn't need to be the disciplinarian when she was gone. But he had taken that on. It became the rule center and well, Alex did not take it well. Matt felt like she didn't respect him. That Nikki gave her special treatment. She was in all aspects in his way. And he had no qualms in taking the matter into his own hands. One of my first boyfriends, he started like texting him weird crap and his mom got a hold of it and that relationship ended. As a 14 year old, with her first little boyfriend, it was very traumatizing. Like, oh my gosh, I don't want to go to school. I want to crawl in a hole because I just got broken up with because you just sent him ridiculously inappropriate stuff. And it wasn't like this was the first situation Matt muscled his way into with the girls. So it just stuff like that would happen where you would get a friend and then you would think you were safe to have them around your family and then suddenly no. Friends just stopped coming over there and you know, I think you've learned to like go, okay, if I'm gonna have friends, they need to be their house away from my house. But most bizarre and all of the strife in the lily house was that it never really went away. In fact, so much of it would be there forever recorded. You asked me why I was going to have these. The reason I'm going to have these is because I am still sitting here. Even Matt and Nikki's fights were recorded. And I still sitting in the same unhoney condition. I'm no waiter. I'm no waiter different. So ever from dark, world news or no action. They can do anything, anything, anything. And these conversations reveal something so important about Nikki's story, a map of a relationship's descent into chaos, a cautionary tale that you must listen to with caution. These recordings are not easy to hear. We can't move forward until the house is destroyed. This is the wrong thing. This is the case. You can't try because you're still upset about Alice. No, Alice. Are you gonna put an effort into this marriage? I'll answer. If I'm claiming Alice is a problem, then obviously you're freaking out with this problem. You're taking through the health elements and health situations to force her down my throat and get me out of the maze. I have a talent. This was more than a couple struggling behind closed doors. This was Nikki's desperate attempt to appease Matt to find any solution that would just calm him down. I would say to Nikki like, I can't believe that you're okay with him treating her this way. And at one point she was considering also like taking another job, but it would have meant moving again. And she said, well, if I did that, I would have to send Alex to live with her dad because I can't do that to Alex again. And I said, there's your answer. Why is this even a question? It was more than a question. Nikki was prepared to do it. She and Matt even went to see an attorney to talk about it. When they came in together, I was really shocked by the way he treated her. This is Suzanne Leard, an attorney that Nikki and Matt had hired to discuss the transfer of custody of Alex from Nikki back to her father. He was so controlling. He wouldn't even let her speak. I can't explain it, but you know, it was a very bad feeling I had. But I know that after she left my office and he went home, I was so concerned that I got on the phone and called her back and asked her if she was being abused in her marriage. She told me no. Most of them do. Nikki had to work a round mat just to support her daughter and the way most parents want to support their kids. And at one point, Nikki wanted to surprise her with a car for her 16th birthday. Her dad had the same idea. And before she could get around to buying her daughter the car, Alex dad beat her to it. They didn't communicate. I look back and I'm like, wow, I cannot imagine how heartbreaking that was for her. And Nikki was torn up about it. That's true. She wanted to do something nice for her daughter. And when the car had already been purchased, she called up a friend of hers to vent about her situation. Nikki doesn't want to get a car. She doesn't want to drive anywhere. He doesn't want to drive anywhere. Next to her is Nikki. She goes, to Daddy, the answering car, and she says, oil is going to do the oil to go on a full man and does things that I do. So what does? Well, that makes me dumb. That's what I do to dad and make him out of the bill. I'm like, all I've got to do is use it as a good idea right now. Did I lie? It's like that with everything. Turns out Nikki did try to buy that car for Alex. She was searching online and Matt walked by her computer. And I'm holding out this thing. I just, you know, I don't want to hear it both of you. You know what? I don't want to hear it both of you. I'm going 100 times to buy her a car. I still want to hear it. Well, he longed to reply right away when he said, oh, please, call me a car. A line paper should blow you by every night. He can be running for this. I'm ready right away. Alex says, you know what Matt? I'm sorry, Bella, I said, what line are you? I didn't go out by her. I'm on my spot. Matt didn't trust her to be honest with him. She knew he kept a watchful eye over her relationship with Alex. What she didn't know was that he was watching everything, not just the deers in the backyard. He was watching her. He was listening to the phone call you just heard, recording them without her knowing. Matt and Nikki decided to leave Mississippi. They moved back to Georgia in the suburbs near Atlanta. Matt was still recording everything outside of the house, sometimes inside too. They got to the point where Nikki and the girls really didn't know when they were being recorded and when they were not. He's always had like computers per se, but I don't remember the extensiveness until we got to Lawrenceville. If you were to ask him, he would tell you that he was testing these security systems on our house. There was probably a 16 or more on the outside. Like every corner of the house was covered. They did record, so you could go back and look at them. There was one in the living room, so if you were sitting on the couch, you were being recorded or watched. So if you were watching TV, it was really uncomfortable. There was even one camera trained on a fridge. We had a fridge in the basement where they were like, we used to go to Sam's every month and do the like, giant, spend $2,000 a Sam's kind of family. We had a fridge downstairs that was stocked with the sodas and the beers and all the things. So I would sneak down there and get coax. And I would get busted because there was a camera down there watching me go down and get a coke. And for that, she'd get punished. Oh yeah, I'd get my phone taken away for getting a coke. It appeared as though the subject of Matt's frustration and surveillance always seemed to be the things he couldn't control about Nikki. Her ex, her child. I know they fought about me. If Nikki even tried to reach out to her ex-husband, Matt would fly into a rage. I got to a point where my parents couldn't communicate other than through me because he, I mean, he tracked everything she did. He read every text message or call or whatever anything she did, he tracked. Here I sit again. Another part, hundreds of flight fingers. And how do I feel? I feel that she's an hour short. You're telling me, you're telling me, you're telling me, you gotta be happy. It was out Alex. You can't be happy unless this family is together with Alex. Matt didn't just see Alex as a problem in their marriage. He saw her as the problem. But clearly, there was a lot more going on. I guess for no time for more affection, attention, and effort into marriage. I guess from the five or six months old, which you told me, comes naturally. I deserve them. It's something that comes natural and a man. That's not natural. That's not natural. How many days just look after each along with you, this is a game you take off in this house? How do you know this is a game? How do you know this is a game? How do you know this is a game? You know this is a game, it's over. I think from me as a 13, 14-year-old being very dramatic in the sense of mom, what the hell are you doing? Get rid of this guy who's doing this. He's done this to me like, hello. And this is what is so puzzling, frustrating by the case of Dominique Lyle. Was the conversation really over? Did anybody in this family know when to call it quits before things started to get really dark? It's impossible to second-guess them. And yet, what's so arresting about these recordings is that you can hear Nicky struggling to draw a line with Matt and Matt's crossing that line over and over again. I tried to shift gears on Tuesday, not asking you to do anything. I was simply asking you to see me differently. I knew you saw me in strike mode and were expecting something from me. And all I wanted to ask from you was for you to see me differently. Let it go. Oh, yes I did. Please do not tell me I did. No, no, no, no, no. Don't tell me I did let it go. For her, she was one there was a level of fear. I think she was genuinely scared of him to an extent. And balancing that between trying to appear normal, I can't go through another divorce. Listen to how bad it got. Shut up and listen. No, I got to tell you what I got on tape in the car. What you did to me in the car? She was the only one bringing in money into the house. She was keeping all four walls up and he sat on a couch monitoring his 15 security cameras. I look back on it and it wasn't rebellion. It was protection. Like the way that I look at it now as an adult is it's how I protected myself and probably why I'm alive. In this next recording, I'm not sure, but it sounds like Matt struck Mickey. That's not what I said and how I said it and don't take my words out of context. When we got in that goddamn car. You're fucking goddamn it, you got damn it, you got damn it, you got damn it, you got damn it. Fucking damn it, oh your voice. I am not gonna sit here and listen to this shit. You're driving me fucking nuts. Welcome to my world, you killed me a long time ago. Next time on watching you, Nikki goes missing and Matt does something unexpected. Hey. How are you? I'm good. What's going on? I'm fine for the worst. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not waiting around. Unlock all episodes of watching you. Ad free right now by subscribing to the binge podcast channel. Not only will you immediately unlock all episodes of this show, but you will get binge access to an entire network of other great true crime and investigative podcasts. All ad free. Plus, on the first of every month, subscribers get a binge drop of a brand new series. That's all episodes all at once. Search for the binge on Apple Podcasts and hit subscribe at the top of the page. Not on Apple? Head to getthebinge.com to get access wherever you listen. Watching you is an original production of Sony Music Entertainment. It's hosted and reported by me, Jonathan Hirsch. Jason Hogue of Waveland Media is our lead producer and co-reported the series with me. Catherine St. Louis is our story editor. From Sony Music Entertainment, the executive producers are Catherine St. Louis and Jonathan Hirsch, sound design and mixing by Scott Somerville. We use music from Epidemic Sound and APM. Our fact checker is Naomi Barr. Our production managers are Tameka Balanced Kolasni and Sammy Allison. Our lawyer is Minakshi Krishnan, special thanks to Steve Ackerman, Emily Rossett, Jamie Myers and the whole team at Sony Podcasts. If you're enjoying the podcast, please rate and leave us a review. Thank you so much for listening. I want to tell you guys about a podcast that is near and dear to my heart and I cannot believe it already came out a year ago. And you can all go listen to it. Add free by subscribing to the binge podcast channel. What podcast, Karen, tell us. It's called Blink, Jake Handel's story. I created it about a man named Jake Huaymet, who is the only survivor of a terminal brain illness brought on by heroin use. But there is a lot of mystery and medical malpractice and true crime elements that are very shocking and surprising. And even some supernatural elements. So this is definitely an amazing story and you're unique. Did such an incredible job telling the story and sharing it with the world. So if you have not listened to it yet, my goodness, where have you been? Because the Blink is so freaking good. Thank you. Search for Blink wherever you listen and subscribers to the binge will get the entire season. Add free plus you'll get exclusive access to the over 60 other true crime stories on the binge podcast channel. Subscribe on Apple podcasts or head to get the binge.com.