Truth vs. Deceit: The Shocking Story Behind a Pulled True Crime Book

In this gripping episode of Conversations with Rich Bennett, Rich sits down with true crime author LaDonna Humphrey and her publisher Steven Booth to unravel the shocking story behind the sudden removal of LaDonna's book, Strangled. The discussion delves into the unraveling trust and deep betrayal that led to the book's withdrawal, exposing the falsehoods and legal battles that have ensued. LaDonna and Steven share the emotional and professional toll of discovering a co-author's deception, the impact on ongoing investigations, and the critical lessons learned about trust and integrity in the true crime community. This episode is a powerful exploration of truth versus deceit, highlighting the high stakes of telling real-life stories.

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Transcript

Rich Bennett 0:00
I had this young lady on twice. Who? Twice or three. I believe it was choice. And I spoke with her. She's an author, content investigator, podcast host. I think she does everything but her book, Strangled, has been pulled from the shelves. Or is that the right term pulled from the shelves still? 

Steven Booth 0:27
We say perp pull from circulation. 

Rich Bennett 0:30
Okay. Okay. So pull from circulation. So I have LaDonna Humphrey and her publisher on as well, Steven Booth. And we're going to find out what's going on, because this book, Strangle was an excellent book and talked about. And LaDonna Steven, correct me if I'm wrong, I think this, but it was talking about the Melissa Witt case, right? 

LaDonna Humphrey 0:53
Well, yeah, the the preface of the book was a tip that had come in in the Melissa Witt case. And so the entire book was just us following that, that lead that tip. 

Rich Bennett 1:05
Okay. I have to make this lady. You know me. I talk to a ton of authors and podcast, but I was shocked that this was pulled. So can I just dive right into it? Why was the book taken out of circulation? It just. It sounds weird. Teenage circulation pulled from the shelves. I am old, aren't I? I'm still thinking of the books being on the shelves in the library and all. 

Steven Booth 1:30
Wish. 

LaDonna Humphrey 1:31
Yeah. You get these visions of going in a bookstore and just ripping them off the shelves and say, no more, no more. 

Rich Bennett 1:37
Yeah. 

LaDonna Humphrey 1:38
Essentially how this started is that Alice, Alicia and I also had a podcast together. We parted ways and about seven months after we parted ways, I already had a new co-host moved on down the road. Alicia contacted the publisher and said, Steven, I've not been paid my royalties for strangled. LaDonna is not paying me. 

Yes, I'm a I'm going to let Stephen jump in here and kind of tell that part. 

Rich Bennett 2:10
Okay. 

Steven Booth 2:11
Okay, So on February 4th, which was a Sunday, I get a phone call from Alisha. I've got her phone number and my phone. So it's like Alisha Lockhart and I pick up and I say, Hey, Alisha, what's going on? And she said, I need you to understand that I haven't been paid for the last five months because I send the checks to Team nine who has the rights to the book. And at that time, T Nine distributes the royalties from from Strangled to Alisha. 

Rich Bennett 2:41
Okay. 

Steven Booth 2:42
Every check. There's one for everything that Don has done except for strangle. And that's the reason for that, is because LaDonna doesn't get any royalties from strangle. Okay? The way they wrote their joint authorship agreement, all of Donna's royalties go to marketing. So 

Rich Bennett 3:00
Okay. 

Steven Booth 3:01
every dollar, every dime, every penny that gets paid for strangled goes to Alicia, Right? So Alicia says, I'm in paste The last five months, basically, that would put it from I think we were talking about October May through October of 

2023. I think I'd have to look at the actual numbers. And so I said, That sounds really strange. Let me look into it. So I get off the phone with the leashes. First thing I do is contact LaDonna. And I say, LaDonna, why would she say this? And this? I haven't a clue. So we went through LaDonna, as people were, who were paying Alisha through Venmo. So we have all the Venmo records. I've got Venmo records. I've got my reports on how, how much Alisha should have and pay. They match up perfectly. Every single penny got paid to Alisha. Now, whether or not she did anything with it remains to be seen. 

Rich Bennett 4:01
Right. 

Steven Booth 4:02
But we have the records that she received that money. Okay. So I said, I go back to Alisha and I'm emailing her. So I've got these records on email. And I said on this, you know, we have records that show that, you know, you got paid. Can you show me anything that indicates that you haven't been paid? Can I see your Venmo or whatever? You know something? 

Rich Bennett 4:25
Right. 

Steven Booth 4:27
She comes back with and I should quote this, but I'm not going to it's too much trouble. She comes back with I'm sorry, I'm being advised not to share my personal banking information. And I know God only knows who she's being advised. But it's February 4th is a Sunday. She's not calling her lawyer. 

Rich Bennett 4:46
Right? 

Steven Booth 4:47
I have a feeling I know who that is, but we're not there yet. So I said, Well, that's very that's a very serious choice, because if I can't, I can't resolve this with you. It puts me in a bad situation. So 

Rich Bennett 5:02
Yeah. 

Steven Booth 5:02
what I'm going to do is, for the time being, until we can get this resolved, I'm going to pull the book from circulation so that I limit my legal exposure. And again, if you want to see the emails, it says exactly that. 

Rich Bennett 5:14
Right. 

Steven Booth 5:15
So I contact LaDonna and I say, LaDonna, do you have any problems when we pull in the book? And she says, Under the circumstances, how could I have a problem with that? 

Rich Bennett 5:23
Mm hmm. 

Steven Booth 5:24
And I went on Amazon and I went, I think it was on Amazon and Ingram at that time. Ingram is a pretty high demand distributor for like Barnes 

Rich Bennett 5:33
Right. 

Steven Booth 5:33
Noble 2 million, whatever. So I pulled it from those two places and if anywhere else that it was it, it takes a couple of days to actually come down. And under certain circumstances, the book is still available. Like if you've bought the Kindle version, I can't steal it from you. 

Rich Bennett 5:49
Right. 

Steven Booth 5:50
You get to keep reading it, but it's the same as like a paperback. But for the most part, the book was down. And what I told Alisha is that I was going to estimate from October to February what I thought the royalties would be and send her an advance on those royalties so that she could not say that I didn't pay her. 

Rich Bennett 6:14
Right. 

Steven Booth 6:15
And that way she's paid out. Everybody's got. And it looks like my numbers, I will tell you, I paid her $60, which is all she was giving her she earned in that time. And it looks like my estimate on that, on that that time was accurate. I haven't read the February numbers, but it's not more than a couple of dollars. So so far, her advance is more than I owed her. 

Rich Bennett 6:38
Okay. 

Steven Booth 6:39
Now, the funny thing was funny as being relative. It was interesting is that I sent her the check, I think a couple of days after the the conversation that I had sometime in February, it arrived at her home in Virgin Islands, which is where she lives. 

Rich Bennett 6:55
Right. 

Steven Booth 6:56
Maybe five days later. It took her until April 15th or something like that to cash a check. We kept going, Why isn't she cash in the check? Why isn't she cash in check? And I think there was a calculation going on. If I don't cash a check, then I can claim they didn't pay me. If I do cash check, I have $60. That's what I was thinking, that she 

Rich Bennett 7:16
Right? 

Steven Booth 7:18
But I can't say because I wasn't obviously in communication with her. As soon as I calculate my February royalties, which because of the way Amazon and even played money, 

Rich Bennett 7:28
Mm hmm. 

Steven Booth 7:28
I'd be February right now. But as soon as I calculate the February royalties, I'm going to reach out to her and I and say it looks like my advance was accurate. Here's what you're owed. Here's what I overpaid you. And we will go from there. And we're still getting a few Kindle Unlimited page reads on. Strangled every once in a while. But those are purchases that are already happened by up to February 4th. But the thing is, and here's what I want everybody listening to understand is that we're publishing true crime. Okay. It has to be I have to be able to rely on the word of my authors. 

Rich Bennett 8:10
Right. 

Steven Booth 8:11
If I have to fact check, if I have to believe that everything that they say is is is questionable, I have to fact check them. It's easier just to fire them based. 

Rich Bennett 8:21
Yeah. 

Steven Booth 8:22
Down to. And when I called her on an obvious lie, she doubled down on it. Far as I was, just because she still maintains that she hasn't received the royalties in the court of public opinion, she's still saying that, which is demonstrably not true. Okay. So as far as I was concerned, it wasn't a question of fact checking her. It was a question of how fast can I get her book pulled down so that if she libeled anybody in that book, which it turns out she did that person, if I if that person sues me, I'm going to cooperate with them 100%. 

Rich Bennett 8:57
Right. 

Steven Booth 8:58
Because, you know, I in good faith, I published what she said. She gave the same report to the police. And it turns out she was inaccurate. 

Rich Bennett 9:07
Wow. 

Steven Booth 9:08
She lied or she didn't know what she was talking about. I can't say which one it was. 

Rich Bennett 9:13
Wow. The thing that baffles me about this, though, because when you said Rule Dees, I'm thinking thousands. 

Steven Booth 9:21
Oh, no, no, no. 

Rich Bennett 9:22
Yeah. And it to me, it just doesn't seem. 

Steven Booth 9:26
Well. 

Rich Bennett 9:27
Worth the headache to even go through all that for her. I meant. 

Steven Booth 9:30
I understand. But here's the deal. And I was just having a conversation with my officers about this last night. When an author pushes their own book, 

Rich Bennett 9:38
Mm hmm. 

Steven Booth 9:38
at least in my world, the book sells. 

Rich Bennett 9:40
Right. 

Steven Booth 9:40
Alicia lifted a finger about this book, basically since it published in. 

Rich Bennett 9:44
Oh. 

Steven Booth 9:45
October the previous year, I think it was. She does not promote. She sits around waiting for her checks to show up. Okay. And I say that, you know, as a as an expert in this subject, she didn't lift a finger to make her book sell. LaDonna did a lot of work for it. 

Rich Bennett 10:01
Oh, yes, she did. Yeah, 

Steven Booth 10:02
But as far as Alicia was concerned, she showed up to a couple of signings and stole the mic and did a couple of things that, you know, that might be considered promotion. But she was earning 30, you know, 20, $30 a month, which is actually quite a lot considering how low it was in the sales were. 

Rich Bennett 10:20
but. 

Steven Booth 10:20
But it was a popular book, so that's that's how we calculated the $60, because it was really it was really not selling very well at that point. 

Rich Bennett 10:28
Yeah, I know LaDonna was doing a lot to push the book because God only knows how many different podcast she was on. 

LaDonna Humphrey 10:34
Yes, Yes. And I've had to go back to these podcasts and say, Hey, can you please remove this episode? I no longer feel confident about us pushing the book strangled. You know, I know for my part that what I wrote about was accurate, but when? 

Rich Bennett 10:51
Yeah. 

LaDonna Humphrey 10:52
Happened and it all kind of blew up and Alisha started accusing me of being a deaf fetish ear and saying that I was, you know, harassing 

Rich Bennett 11:01
What? 

LaDonna Humphrey 11:01
her. Oh, yes. Yes. It's blown up into something really ridiculous. I decided. 

Rich Bennett 11:07
Why? 

LaDonna Humphrey 11:08
Double down myself and and take a look back and see what was going on and if I had missed anything. And my co-host for Extinguished, David McCallum, decided to rewatch her film again. You know, I hadn't watched every single bit of it because, you know, it's a it was a porn flick. 

Rich Bennett 11:31
Now you say you're talking me about the film where the guy asks her to wear the Mickey Mouse. 

LaDonna Humphrey 11:36
Yes. So that. Yes, her film. 

Rich Bennett 11:38
Okay. 

LaDonna Humphrey 11:38
I had seen enough, but I had not, you know, just sat and watched it like you're watching the Dateline episode, because, one, I wanted to be respectful to her because she's my friend and she's naked in this film. So he watches it again and he and he calls me and he said, La Donna, you know, hey, we got a problem here. And I said, okay. And he said, on page 32 of Strangled, Alicia writes that she goes down to this basement to make this film with this producer and that they're alone. It's just the two of them. And that he sets up a tripod and, you know, you know, all these things take place and it's just her and him. And I said, Yes, yes, I remember that. And he said, LaDonna, when I'm watching the film, it's clear that this is not a tripod. It's clear that there's a camera person. He says, But if you watch the credits, it says, and I quote, All camera work by Irma. Which was the producer's girlfriend. And I'll be the first to admit, you know, I was a private investigator at the time. I've let my license lapse because I'm going to go with a new company. So right now I'm not a P.I., but at the time I was. And shame on me for not catching that that it clearly said that. So that's on me. But that caused me to reach out to the producer 

and say, hey, you know, I need to talk to you a little bit more about this. You know, she's saying that you drugged her. She's accusing you of, you know, sexual assault. And I wasn't there. I can't speak to that. And he assured me that. No. You know, we weren't alone in that basement. I didn't drug her, you know, And I some of that's going to be he said she said, I understand that part. 

Rich Bennett 13:25
Right. 

LaDonna Humphrey 13:25
But the facts remain that there was a camera person. And so for me, if she would lie about that, it puts the whole story. 

Rich Bennett 13:33
What else should I? 

LaDonna Humphrey 13:34
Question. Yeah. And now she's. She's waging a war against me. 

Rich Bennett 13:39
Wow. 

Holy cow. 

LaDonna Humphrey 13:43
Yeah, it's you know, it's embarrassing for me as an author, as an investigator and as a woman, because I really did advocate very strongly for Alicia. I went out against the deaf fetish community. One, I do still think, you know, glorifying murder is wrong. And I think that the murders that come out of that have to be stopped. I still maintain all of that. But, you know, from the sexual assault aspect, of course, I wanted. Vindication for her. I wanted her to be protected isn't the word, but I wanted to stand up for my friend and then 

Rich Bennett 14:20
Right. 

LaDonna Humphrey 14:20
to discover that it didn't go down the way she said it went down. It was disappointing. And now what's happening is she's like changed her story so much that it's like she's doing to me what she was trying to do to the producer. You know, now all of a sudden I'm the bad person. I'm the death fantasy enthusiast, you know? And so we did a deep dive into her and actually found a post where she had called herself a candy flavored death enthusiast and oh, yeah. And then we found and I'd like to read it a Facebook post. And these are just things that I hadn't I hadn't seen before, but I. 

Steven Booth 15:05
Seeing all this? Yeah. 

LaDonna Humphrey 15:07
I'd like to read it because it puts it all kind of in question here, 

she says. 

On June 21st, 2013, she posted it said from Portland, Oregon, on Facebook. It says, I don't think I can save my awesome birthday idea for the Big Three show. I very desperately want a living funeral. I want to wear a fancy dress and lay very still in an open casket. I want my makeup done just a little bit too bright. I want to know what people would say, wear and do at my funeral. Indulge me. 

Rich Bennett 15:46
Wow. 

LaDonna Humphrey 15:47
Then I'll come back to life and we can all dance together. Deal. 

Rich Bennett 15:54
Why? 

LaDonna Humphrey 15:54
And I'll send these to you. So you have them. I will send. 

Rich Bennett 15:57
Okay. 

LaDonna Humphrey 15:58
But then it starts to make sense to me because right before she left the podcast, I, I was regularly receiving information from the deaf fetish community. Like, why are you partnering with Alisha? She's why is she going against her own community? She's really a part of us and she's waging this 

Rich Bennett 16:18
Right. 

LaDonna Humphrey 16:18
war. And I blew all you know, I blew it off. I thought, well, you know, that's just what they're saying. But then you talk to this producer and he says, Oh, well, that's not the only film she made, you know, And it just starts to, you know, you just start to feel deflated because you realize, wow, you were doomed. 

Rich Bennett 16:40
You've been being fed a lie. Yeah. 

LaDonna Humphrey 16:42
Yeah, it's disappointing. 

Steven Booth 16:44
I somebody that she considered a friend by, somebody who told her that she's telling the truth. It was all a lie. 

Rich Bennett 16:52
Yeah. I'm trying to find something because it was, I guess, months ago. I got a strange. I was tagged on Twitter about the podcast. And I didn't recognize the name because now. 

LaDonna Humphrey 17:12
Raphael Sharp would have tagged. 

Rich Bennett 17:15
Yes. Yes. 

LaDonna Humphrey 17:17
Yes. So. 

Rich Bennett 17:18
How did you know that? 

LaDonna Humphrey 17:19
Oh. As I've gone back to these people in this country that I've had communication with. And I apologized because first and foremost, as a human, I want to be a decent human. Like, I don't agree with the death fetish, but hey, I supported a documented liar against your community and what I've agreed to do is to not support her anymore, that I would take down everything that had anything to do with Alisha Lockhart, which I did. And then I said, I will only go after or anybody that's associated with death fantasy death fetish with its sites that show real murder or a real murder came out of that. 

Rich Bennett 18:01
Right. 

LaDonna Humphrey 18:02
And so that was the agreement. But Rafael tagged you in that because he noticed that Alicia had been removed from all social media. I had taken down all the episodes. I really just tried to disassociate myself as much as I could. And she doesn't seem to want to let me do that because, you know, she's she's waged a campaign against me, so. 

Rich Bennett 18:28
God. 

Steven Booth 18:30
One thing that I wanted to say is I got an email from this Rafael Sharp at one point and it said, Hey, we noticed that shoe strangle has been pulled down. You want to do you want to tell us why? I mean, it wasn't like you want to comment on it, but just. 

Rich Bennett 18:41
Right. 

Steven Booth 18:42
And I said we found discrepancies and we felt that the best thing to do was to pull the book. And I was trying not to throw Alicia under the bus at that point because the last thing I want to do is, you know, have ill will between us, because that's not my deal. And I started getting emails back from several other places, which we believe is the same person. But I don't know all the names saying, Oh, good, LaDonna has been lying about us all this time, and it's about time that you that you pulled it. I said, Wait a second. 

Rich Bennett 19:11
Well. 

Steven Booth 19:12
I didn't say LaDonna lied. You know, and that's when this whole thing started coming apart at the seams. I had to. I had to throw Alicia under the bus. I had to start talking about the same thing I told you. I stuck to my story. If you look on my website in the press kit area, you'll see a statement that says basically the same thing that I said. 

Rich Bennett 19:29
Right. 

Steven Booth 19:29
You know, I don't know if you've done that research, but anybody listening is welcome to genius book publishing icon slash pages slash scattered stuff like that. Whatever it is, it's right there on the menu and, you know, so we had to go live with all this stuff. And that's when everything started getting really dicey with LaDonna. 

LaDonna Humphrey 19:49
Yeah, I know. I put my own sense of this out there. I will gladly put my name and reputation up against hers any day. At this point 

Rich Bennett 19:59
Right. 

LaDonna Humphrey 19:59
at any at any time. And I wish her no ill will. This is not like from a vindictive place at all. But when you you wage a war, and that's what she's done. I have to at least get the truth out there to the best of my ability, you 

Rich Bennett 20:16
Yes. 

LaDonna Humphrey 20:16
know? And I can come and bring receipts, so to speak, you know, and it's gotten out of hand. It's unfortunate. I think she's making decisions now that she will regret later. I hate that for her, because there will be legal consequences, you know? For sure. 

Rich Bennett 20:32
Actually bigger legal consequences. And correct me if I'm wrong on this, but I thought I saw something or you may have done an episode about it where you guys figured out who it was that murdered Melissa with. 

LaDonna Humphrey 20:45
So I just released a book called Connected by Fate. It's my my newest book. And I write exclusively about, without naming him, who I believe is responsible for the murder of Melissa Witt. And I just wait for that phone call from law enforcement to let me know that they've made the arrest. 

Rich Bennett 21:05
I guess my question is then, if it is that person and the other book Strangled helped lead to this. Do you know if if like that could be a mistrial or something because of false? 

Accusations now there, Alicia put in there. 

LaDonna Humphrey 21:25
Actually how that worked out is strangled did not lead us any closer to that investigation. Did not lead us any closer. It was actually a dead end. And I think for Alisha, she really needed that to be what happened to Melissa Witt. That was her. 

Rich Bennett 21:41
Right. 

LaDonna Humphrey 21:41
You know, she really I think she honestly believed that I, I want to believe that she believed that. But that's really just not 

Rich Bennett 21:48
Yeah. 

LaDonna Humphrey 21:48
not the case, unfortunately. 

Rich Bennett 21:50
Okay. Okay. Yeah. Because I know. I mean, this has been ongoing, the case, and that's the last thing you would want is. Yeah. You. You finally know who it was. But all that work you've put into it is basically out the window. You know. 

Steven Booth 22:08
Let me say that in connected by fate, at no time. At no time is anyone named. 

Rich Bennett 22:15
Right. 

Steven Booth 22:16
There is there is nothing in there that you could say in a court of law saying this identifies me or whoever it is that the. 

Rich Bennett 22:24
Okay. 

Steven Booth 22:25
Could have just as easily identified me that I'll probably, you know, I can stand up and say it wasn't me. But, you know, it doesn't actually name anybody. And as far as I know, there's no way to, you know, say that you've slandered or libeled or defame a person based on not naming them. You know. 

Rich Bennett 22:48
I guess. Yeah, that makes sense, because you can always. Well, I mean, technically Now, wouldn't it be fiction anyways? 

LaDonna Humphrey 22:56
But not connected. 

Steven Booth 22:58
Durango will not. 

Rich Bennett 23:00
Huh? 

Steven Booth 23:01
Connected by faith. Totally clean. 

Rich Bennett 23:02
No, I meant strangled. Would that be considered fiction now? 

Steven Booth 23:08
It ain't true crime. 

LaDonna Humphrey 23:09
Yeah, I mean, I would say. 

Steven Booth 23:12
With all that. 

LaDonna Humphrey 23:13
That's a good question because, you know, the investigation and the part that I wrote and the part that I did is true. That's true crime. But because it was based on deception from Alisha, I can no longer call it true crime. And it breaks my heart. It really does. Because, you know, I've had a successful career so far and, you know, the girl I never knew did really well. And it's a little bit embarrassing that we're here. But at the same time, I can't control the actions of other people. But what I can tell you is that I won't co-write another book with anybody ever again. I should have listened to my esteemed publisher in the beginning and not done that. But, you know, you live and you live and you learn, unfortunately, and this is just one of those circumstances. 

Rich Bennett 24:02
For those of you listening, the reason I left is because when LaDonna said she should have listened to her esteemed publisher, Steve's just sit there waving. 

Steven Booth 24:13
Yeah, well, we had that conversation originally about her bringing on a co-author. My thoughts were that she has less control over what is said and you have to put a lot of trust. I mean, I've I've written books with co-authors and it's not a big deal because we wrote about zombies and we weren't worried about whether or not it was true, because last time I checked, zombies aren't true. But with stuff like this, there was just an opening. It was like a hole in our armor. And I really didn't feel comfortable and I really wasn't all that comfortable with Alisha in the first place. But and I won't say that LaDonna vouch for her. I will say that Alicia 

successfully lied to everybody. 

Rich Bennett 25:00
Right. 

LaDonna Humphrey 25:00
Well. Well, I mean. I mean, she told her story to the police. And so to some degree, that led me to believe that she was credible. And, you know, it's been brought to the attention of the police. I, you know, know that she tried to make a report with the FBI, and I've taken it upon myself to make sure that I've contacted them to let them know that, you know, there were some false allegations made. And 

Rich Bennett 25:26
Right. 

LaDonna Humphrey 25:26
that's that's where as a as a human and an investigator and a true crime author, I've really learned this huge lesson because I can't just point my finger at Alisha. I have to point it back at me, too, because. There was clearly some due diligence that I missed. And, you know, there's no excuse that I didn't see the credits for that movie. I mean, there's no excuse for that. So I don't want the listeners to think, Oh, well, she's just trying to pass the buck because I'm not. I own it and I made a mistake and I apologize for that mistake. And I can assure you it won't ever happen again in the future. 

Rich Bennett 26:07
Yeah. In a way. Well, no, I don't want to say. Well, I'm glad that you contacted me about this, because LaDonna, you know, I talk to authors all the time, but I've never thought about that. The challenge is, especially if you write in true crime, I guess anything of having a co-author, it can be very challenging to stand in like. 

LaDonna Humphrey 26:31
Right, because you don't always know their motives. You don't. 

Rich Bennett 26:35
Yeah. 

Steven Booth 26:35
The. 

LaDonna Humphrey 26:36
You don't know, you know, and I'm not saying that this applies to Alicia, but I'm just going to say in generalities, you know, you don't know about mental health issues, You don't know about ethical issues. You don't know what You don't know what you don't know. And it 

Rich Bennett 26:52
Right. 

LaDonna Humphrey 26:52
was it was a lesson that's been painful for me. And, you know, I'm going through it right now. And I think in the end it'll come out okay. But it's something that I felt really compelled to apologize to the general public, that you trusted me to bring you this book. And we've had this snafu happen and you know, it won't happen again. I mean, moving forward, like I said, I won't. I won't if I have a co-author, they will be completely vetted and Stephen will give me the thumbs up because I trust his judgment, you know, and. 

Rich Bennett 27:33
Yeah. 

LaDonna Humphrey 27:34
You have have more people, you know, as part of that decision. 

Steven Booth 27:41
Right. I just want to say real quickly, just to give a little bit of credibility on my end, one of the very first true crime authors that we worked with was a guy named Dr. Al Carlisle, who was the psychologist who who diagnosed Ted Bundy as being violent and in Draper Straight Prison in Utah in 1976, when nobody know who knew who Ted Bundy was. 

Rich Bennett 28:06
Right. 

Steven Booth 28:06
And that was his job to figure out, is this guy going to commit another crime if he goes out there, if we let him out on parole? And spoiler alert, he was. And so I learned a lot about, you know, psychopath sociopaths. And one of the things that I've learned is that no one is free from being taken in by these people. 

Rich Bennett 28:30
Yeah. 

Steven Booth 28:31
Phil, you've been taken in by one. You won't even notice it. And a lot of people are, you know, who have grown up with sociopaths and psychopaths in their in their lives are just groomed for it. You know, they trust everybody and. Because. Because those icky feelings that they get were what they grew up with. Right. And so, you know, I don't I've met people who really should know better. Who got taken into. Psychopaths and sociopaths. It just happens to everybody. But once you know what you're looking for, it, it makes it a lot easier to. It makes it a lot easier to divest yourself from those people really fast. 

Rich Bennett 29:09
Right. 

LaDonna, if you if you don't and I hope you don't mind me asking this asking you this 

because when I talk both times I talk to you. It's. It almost seem like you and Alicia were sisters. It's like you had that connection there. I mean, hell, you guys went to. Was it the UK together? 

LaDonna Humphrey 29:31
Yes. 

Rich Bennett 29:32
And all these different events. When you found out about all this, I guess she probably just contacted you right away or however it happened. How was your mental state when it first hit you? 

LaDonna Humphrey 29:49
It's it's been difficult to recover from the amount of heartbreak and heartache that comes from something like this is I mean, how do you how do you qualify that? I mean, lots of tears have been shed. You know, you go from you know, being emotional to being, you know, this righteous indignation, you know, to, you know, wanted to make excuses. But, you know, to complicate the matters, I'm just going to have to bring it up. I think it's important for you to understand the full scope of this is that, you know, when she and I were investigating in the death fetish community, we had lots of undercover accounts. I think we talked to you about that on multiple platforms. And one day I logged into my account. This was in November of 2020 to. I logged into my account and as one person took screenshots and I sent it to her and she wrote me back and she goes, Why are you logged into this? This account shows that your fetish, master and fetish master is an account that had been harassing us. I said, Oh my gosh, I don't know, because I didn't log in as that person. That's bizarre. And I kind of freaked out. And she got really aggressive with me and was like, Oh, so you're really fetish master? And I said, No, Alisha, I'm not. I don't know what's going on here, but this is bizarre. 

Rich Bennett 31:11
Whoa. 

LaDonna Humphrey 31:11
And, you know, she said, No, it's got to be you. And. And I said, Well, hold on. Let me ask my husband. He's the only other adult in the house. Know I wasn't blaming him. I'm trying to make sense of what happened. Right. 

Rich Bennett 31:24
Right. 

LaDonna Humphrey 31:24
But. 

Rich Bennett 31:25
Yeah, You could have been hacked, you know. 

LaDonna Humphrey 31:26
We don't know. And, you know, of course, she had said that her phone was hacked and her modem was hacked and all these things. 

Rich Bennett 31:31
Right. 

LaDonna Humphrey 31:31
And so essentially so that happened in November of 2022. After that point, I couldn't get back into the forum because we believe that day when I logged in that they merged my account with Fetish Master and then made it difficult so you couldn't log in. Okay, so that's important to know because on November 8th of 2022 is when the account was for fetish master was set up. We were able to look that up online. 

Rich Bennett 32:01
Right. 

LaDonna Humphrey 32:02
She was at my house in Arkansas. We were together, so it couldn't have been me and it couldn't have been her. But she disregards that information and has just decided to tell the world that I'm really fetish master. And I went to a lot of trouble to get it involved. And what we discovered is that on a FB ward like this one, that you can actually change somebody's name, you can merge their account like what I thought happened could happen. And so she still decided that that can't be true. But she still came to my house a year later and stayed with me in May at my house. And then we went to London together. And then in July she said, No, I know it's July and it's all this time later, but I still believe your fetish, master. I'm done. And so. 

Rich Bennett 32:51
How. 

LaDonna Humphrey 32:52
I was really disgusted by that because if it's possible for them to hack your modem and to hack your phone and your other devices, why is it so far fetched to believe this happened to me? And so I take it a step further, Rich I went and looked at timestamps on these fetish master posts and I determined that I was able to determine that one of the postings I was actually at the pediatrician with my children signing paperwork at the exact same time I went to the doctor and he wrote me a letter and said, Well, she was here that day. And so, you know, when the account was created, I was with Alisha when there was a posting. I have a, you know, an alibi. But what Alisha and some other people are saying is, well, we're going to disregard all of that. And we're just we've just decided that your fetish master, no matter what you say and what proof you give us. 

Rich Bennett 33:49
John. 

LaDonna Humphrey 33:50
And. 

Steven Booth 33:51
Okay, Go ahead, finish. 

LaDonna Humphrey 33:52
Well, and I was just going to say it's like a statement can attest to this. I've gone to great lengths to prove that I couldn't have been a fetish master, and 

Rich Bennett 34:00
Right. 

LaDonna Humphrey 34:00
I even went to the forum owner and I said, Hey, it's what I have for here. I was undercover under, you know, he knows who I am. I said, Can you prove or disprove that I'm Fetish master? And he said, I can't do it. But he said, because in good faith, you've stopped coming after us and you've you're not partnering with Alisha. He went ahead and took down the fetish master account. And I did let them know 

Rich Bennett 34:24
Okay. 

LaDonna Humphrey 34:24
because I didn't want to be accused of that. But their biggest sticking point is they said, Oh, well, there were no more posts or anything that happened after the day you logged in. Well, of course not, because they merged the two accounts and changed the code, you know, as. 

Rich Bennett 34:39
Right. 

LaDonna Humphrey 34:40
I don't know. It's very. 

Rich Bennett 34:42
Wow. 

LaDonna Humphrey 34:42
Riled up about that because it's really ridiculous. Rich Really and truly. 

Rich Bennett 34:47
Yeah. 

LaDonna Humphrey 34:47
Truly. 

Steven Booth 34:49
Yeah, well, what I want to say about that, the whole fetish pastor thing is who cares? I mean, Fetish master is being accused of harassing somebody on a death fetish board. Okay. 

Which is to say. 

Rich Bennett 35:06
Yeah. 

Steven Booth 35:08
Alicia was being harassed by several people, including this fetish master person. To the best of my understanding, it wasn't any worse or better than anybody else, if you want to call it better. And the fact of the matter is, even if even if it wasn't LaDonna, It wasn't LaDonna was LaDonna. But even if it wasn't honor, who cares? 

Rich Bennett 35:26
Right. 

Steven Booth 35:26
Matter. It doesn't change anything. It doesn't mean that I mean, at worst, it means LaDonna is a meanie, pants. That's the term I've come up with for. And that she's done. She she she didn't let Alisha talk on the microphone one time. So she's a meanie pants. And she, you know, she didn't do a bunch of stuff. And so that's her that's her crime is is not allowing Alisha to be be the star. I'm convinced that that's what's been her out of shape is that she didn't get to be with Don Humphrey. 

Rich Bennett 35:57
Yeah. 

LaDonna Humphrey 35:58
Well, LaDonna Humphrey doesn't behave that way, but, you know, you know. And I 

Rich Bennett 36:03
You know, you don't play those childish 

LaDonna Humphrey 36:04
know. 

Rich Bennett 36:05
games and that's what it 

LaDonna Humphrey 36:06
And when we get off here, I'm going to email you the fetish master evidence because it's important for me that you have it. But I just want you to understand that the only evidence, quote unquote, that she has or the screenshots that I've already willingly said I took and I can't control what happened when I was in the board, she just doesn't want to believe it. And so now she has now changed her story again. And she's telling the world, well, now I believe LaDonna was all the Fed that were contacted. 

Even though that. Yes, even though that we know and I'm not going to say who they are because I promise to keep them, you know, their identities, their true identity safe. That wouldn't be nice of me. She knows that these who some of these real people are. Yeah. She's accusing me of being them now because Alisha is determined. And if you're listening, Alicia, you're determined to get attention, whether it's negative or positive. And I think that is really sad because, you know, that's what this is. It's like, well, if I can't get my book to be a bestseller and I can't do this, then I'm going to get attention over here because I'm going to try to take LaDonna Humphrey down. That's that's her her end goal here. And it's not going to work out well for her. 

Rich Bennett 37:25
I was just going to say, Then you're going to work. 

I don't think anybody could take you down. 

LaDonna Humphrey 37:31
No, I'm LaDonna Humphrey. 

Rich Bennett 37:33
I mean that in a good way. I mean, good wages to let you know. 

LaDonna Humphrey 37:37
Oh. 

Rich Bennett 37:38
I mean, because you. When I first met you and everything you told me you were doing this, this case is like and this woman is strong as hell. And if anybody crosses her path, it pisses her off. They better look the hell out. 

LaDonna Humphrey 37:57
That's right. Well, everybody, apparently the. 

Rich Bennett 37:59
Yeah. I mean. 

LaDonna Humphrey 38:01
There's a whole movement who's afraid. 

So, I mean, come on. 

Rich Bennett 38:08
You know what? I think I'm going to start a new podcast. Why We Love LaDonna Humphrey. 

Steven Booth 38:15
There you go. I'll be on that every day. 

LaDonna Humphrey 38:18
Know. 

Steven Booth 38:18
No, I mean, I want to I want to say something, which is I would not be on this podcast. I would not be continuing to publish her if I didn't believe 100% in not only her integrity, 

Rich Bennett 38:30
Right? 

Steven Booth 38:30
but she's I mean, I went so far as to investigate all these allegations and look at her evidence and everything like that. She has never said anything to me that hasn't checked out 

Rich Bennett 38:41
Mm hmm. 

Steven Booth 38:42
not once. Okay. I have. Absolutely. I mean, she has the highest integrity of anybody that I know. And she. When she says something, she's got the facts to prove it. Okay. She's not attacking anybody. She's not harassing anybody, even though everybody says that they are these this army of people who are coming after her saying that she's doing you know, she's harassing the victims of the people, that she helped the victims. Well, what is it that the people that she helped out her victims is what I'm trying to say, and which is demonstrably, demonstrably not true. It isn't just a matter of her, he said. She said we have the evidence that says that she didn't do the things that she's being accused of. Any of them? Any of 

LaDonna Humphrey 39:26
But 

Steven Booth 39:26
them. 

LaDonna Humphrey 39:26
we've got, we've got this case of somebody. Yeah, somebody else trying to ride off my coattails. Right. And using the LaDonna Humphrey name to be able to establish, you know, this podcast to say, Oh, here's all these people who say that she's I mean, it's ridiculous that I'm being accused of everything from, you know, harassment to embezzlement to arson, to murder, to who knows what. 

Rich Bennett 39:56
Good Lord. 

Steven Booth 39:57
Yeah, but there's no proof of any of these things. Nobody's filed the police report. Nobody's. 

Rich Bennett 40:01
Right. 

Steven Booth 40:03
One of my favorite things is, okay, so she's an arsonist, right? Why isn't there a police report? Why hasn't she been investigated? Why hasn't she been arrested? Well, she's got an end with the cops. Okay. Which that indicates that the cops are corrupt, too. Are 

Rich Bennett 40:20
Right. 

Steven Booth 40:20
the. Well prepared to say that the cops are corrupt. Every single jurisdiction anywhere near her, you know, the county, the state, all of them are corrupt because they're they're doing what she wants. It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. 

LaDonna Humphrey 40:36
It is. They don't. 

Rich Bennett 40:37
LaDonna, you should trademark your name. 

Steven Booth 40:40
Yeah, she's. We're talking about that. 

LaDonna Humphrey 40:42
Well. There are some things in the works right now, and you know that I just don't think that they understand from a civil and criminal aspect what they've done here. And I'm going to help them understand really soon. You know, I've not made, you know, like a public statement yet. I've had a lot of support. A lot of people have contacted me. Some of the biggest names that you can imagine, a true crime or offering help to me. And for the most part, I'm being told, ignore this. This is a this is someone who's very unethical, who 

is partnering with and putting people on their podcast to try to discredit me. And, you know, I will say I want to talk about this, too, if I if I may. You know, there is a such a situation they're going to cover. Obviously, they're they're using my mug shot. I have five mug shots. I was sentenced to ten days of civil contempt of court and the judge knew I had children and she let me serve it on the weekend. So I had five, five mug shots. And that was during the course of a lawsuit. And I lost that lawsuit. And part of the reason that I lost is because I was not able to turn over my phone and some other things because it was stolen. And the judge just listened to the other side and said, oh, look, it appears that you used your phone after the phone was stolen. But I didn't get a chance for the judge to look at the police report. A detective investigated that, and I'm going to send you that report. And he said the phone was not used after it was stolen. He believes the phone was stolen and there's nothing further he can do until they could identify the suspect of who did it. And that alone exonerates me from that claim. But they're not going to tell you that. You know, they don't want to tell you that. It's like, Oh, my God, LaDonna Humphrey has a mug shot. I want to use this and go for it. It doesn't bother me at all. It's the ugliest thing in the world, but I just get tickled every time. It's just like, That's what you got. That's all you got. Okay. 

Steven Booth 43:03
Well, let me let me jump in here. I want to say, because you lost your father, get checked that because the phone was stolen, she wasn't able to turn in her evidence during discovery. Because of that, the judge threw out her defense and her her appeal. I mean, excuse me. I think I'm getting that a little bit wrong. She wasn't able to defend herself. It was a summary judgment for the other guy, regardless of any evidence that that she had that would, you know, prove her side. She wasn't allowed to do that to present a defense at all. Okay. That's why she lost. It wasn't because she did it. It was because the judge decided she couldn't defend her. 

LaDonna Humphrey 43:41
Yes. And so I filed bankruptcy because she put a $3.57 million judgment on me. I filed bankruptcy. The guy followed me to bankruptcy. He bought my right to appeal the state judgment in bankruptcy. Okay. Yeah. Yes. 

Steven Booth 43:58
The. 

LaDonna Humphrey 43:58
And so I said, Yeah, I don't think that's constitutional. I'm going to I fired my bankruptcy attorney and I filed an appeal myself. Rich And I won. I won. 

Rich Bennett 44:09
Good. 

LaDonna Humphrey 44:09
And and now he has hired an attorney to appeal that to the eighth Circuit. And so we'll go to war for that. And the outcome of this is really important because he knows if we go back to court, he can't win. He's got. 

Steven Booth 44:25
She has the evidence. 

LaDonna Humphrey 44:26
So he's going to try to keep me down. You know, for example, he's I was accused of slandering him to daycares. All the daycare signed sworn statements, said, no, she didn't. I mean, it goes on and on and on. And I wasn't the only one that turned him in for Medicaid fraud either. There's a lot there. It's a big, messy case. Some of it does make me look bad. It does because I didn't get to really present, you know, my side of it like I should have. 

Rich Bennett 44:53
Yeah. 

LaDonna Humphrey 44:54
And, you know, I made some mistakes. I'm not a perfect human. I'm not. 

Rich Bennett 44:59
Nobody is. 

LaDonna Humphrey 45:00
But what? This is being portrayed as is. Now, let's gather up anybody that doesn't like LaDonna Humphrey. And even if they're not credible, we're going to say that she ruined their life and we're going to go after her in a public fashion because they want to break me. And. 

Rich Bennett 45:18
He. 

LaDonna Humphrey 45:19
They're not going to bite me. That's not going to happen. 

Rich Bennett 45:21
No. 

LaDonna Humphrey 45:22
That's not going to happen. So what's happening is is wrong and it's I want to. I'm going to use this as a platform to help other people because the laws have to change. There have to be laws that protect people from this. And I'm going to do that because this little army of ants that are chasing me around need to to understand that there are consequences for this civil and criminal. And I just want to help protect the next person because this is not okay. 

Rich Bennett 46:00
Yeah. You're an eater. You're going to destroy. 

LaDonna Humphrey 46:05
That. That tickles me. I like that. I think I need to get a t shirt that says I'm the anteater. 

Steven Booth 46:11
I'll get your mug. 

LaDonna Humphrey 46:13
That little term is so. In so many ways. So I love that you said that. 

Rich Bennett 46:18
About what? Him getting you a mug or the N heater. 

Steven Booth 46:21
Any advance. 

Rich Bennett 46:23
Okay. 

Well, LaDonna or Steven, do you guys have anything to add 

besides let people know about? 

Well, I think they know now about the 

if you have a co-author or if you plan on having a co author, do your research for her. 

LaDonna Humphrey 46:45
Yeah. 

Steven Booth 46:46
Yeah. 

LaDonna Humphrey 46:46
Do a background check, do you know? 

Rich Bennett 46:49
Yeah. 

LaDonna Humphrey 46:49
You know, do your due diligence and don't just rely on the fact that, you know, in my my portion of this is I should have watched the movie to the very end. And I didn't do that. And I apologized deeply to Steven and to the community and to the people who follow me, because, you know, I have so many people that follow the case and I feel like I've let those people down. And in a way, then it and I'm going to get emotional because it's like letting Melissa went down, too. And it's so important to me that that case gets solved. And so having it be made this messy in this way is really sad for me. And I've got to redeem it quickly and just I just want to be transparent and say this is what happened and it will never happen again in the future. 

Rich Bennett 47:45
And the other thing is, too, because if people I don't know if that video is public or not, but if it is and people search for it and find it, then they're going to see the truth at the end as well. About how how she was lying for, you know, about that part. 

LaDonna Humphrey 48:00
Yeah. 

Steven Booth 48:02
Go ahead. 

LaDonna Humphrey 48:04
Well, I'm not going to say I'm not going to give the title of the movie, but it's it's easy. It's easy to find. 

Steven Booth 48:11
But if you ask me if I had any last thoughts, I just want to reiterate being taken in by a charlatan can happen to anybody and it doesn't make you a bad person for allowing them to lie to you. It's on them. They are, you know, so somebody like Elisha who lied and continues to lie, you know. 

At one point, she seemed credible. At one point she seemed like somebody we could trust. In LA. Donna was taken in, the cops were taken in. 

And that doesn't necessarily mean that we haven't done our jobs. We haven't done our due diligence. It just means we could have done a little bit more and be less trusting. And that kind of makes me sad that I have to be less trusting from now on. 

Rich Bennett 49:01
Yeah. Well, Steven, LaDonna, I want to thank you both. And, LaDonna, just remember, you can find out why so many people love LaDonna Humphrey. 

LaDonna Humphrey 49:15
Oh, that's so sweet. Thank you. I appreciate that. 

Rich Bennett 49:18
I know I do. 

Steven Booth 49:19
I love you, Donna. 

LaDonna Humphrey 49:20
Right back at the two of you. I you know, I'm so blessed to know so many good people. So thank you for your support.