Has the show affected your employment?
Yes. Of course, there’s no way I can actually prove it, you know. But when the podcast started I had a job in construction. I was hired on for a project. About three weeks after the podcast started, when it really started to blow up on the Internet, and my name was out there, and people were speculating, and the word murder would pop up with my name, I was told that—by my supervisor—that they hired too many people for the job, [and] had to let five of us go. But within a week a couple of those people were hired back, along with a new person. I don’t think they got rid of me because they think I committed a murder. But I do think they didn’t want to take [that] on, you know? They don’t need people coming to the worksite, confronting me or harassing other people I work with.
What’s so frustrating about this is that there haven’t been any clear fights. It hasn’t been confrontational. It’s been a hundred little things that have happened, like cars parked outside my house for an hour, somebody just stops talking to me at work before I was let go, people taking pictures. It’s the doorbell ringing, and my wife jumping up six feet into the air, because she’s so scared. It makes me feel paranoid. And it also makes me really angry, because the mistakes I’ve made are on me and not on my family. And there’s a part of me that just wants to break away from them and live in the bushes or the Appalachian mountains, so they can be safe.
Has this affected your wife’s work?
That’s my biggest fear. So far it hasn’t crept into her work life. But she works in the nonprofit world, with needy people. And she works for places that fundraise, and it makes me sick to think that maybe people might not give money to these very good places that do a lot for people, because of me.
I’m not trying to insult anyone, but a lot of times people don’t read any further than what they see on a headline. I know my criminal record is out there. One of the charges is domestic violence. But I was never convicted. It was an argument over a set of keys with an ex-girlfriend I wasn’t getting along with. People don’t read to the end of a document to see ‘unsubstantiated’ or ‘not convicted.’
My family are normal, regular people. They’ve never been stabbed, never had anyone call them on the phone saying they’re going to kill them. My wife is a normal, suburban type of person. She’s not used to being petrified, or doing laps in the cul-de-sac, or taking a different route home, because she thinks she’s being followed. Those things aren’t operating protocol for her.
Have you considered changing your name?
I can’t. No. They’d have to kill me before that happens, and if that means living like a dog in the bushes, that’s okay. No one is getting my name. It’s the one reason why I haven’t taken down my Facebook profile. For a while it was even public.
I’m going to ask you something that I have no real personal interest in, nor did it stick out to me that much in the podcast. But it seems to be something that people have really latched on to. And those are likely the people who will be reading the interview. So let’s give them what they want. Are you cool with that?
Okay.
There’s a theory circulating on enthusiastic web forums like Reddit that you felt threatened by Adnan’s relationship to your then girlfriend Stephanie. And that’s why you have some type of vengeance plot against Adnan.
[Jay laughs] I dated Stephanie from junior high until about junior year of college. I loved her a lot, but if there was any risk of infidelity it was going to come from me. I know they made a big deal on the podcast about her and Adnan both getting crowned homecoming court [Ed. note: the two were crowned prom prince and princess], but I was like, ‘Yeah baby! Go get your crown!’ I knew what that crown was coming home to. So no, I was at no point threatened by Adnan. But I can tell you about the time that Adnan threatened me about Stephanie.
Please do.
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