Someone tells you they love you, mirrors your values, and makes you feel seen in a way you haven’t felt in years. Then they vanish, come back with an excuse, and your body floods with relief. That cycle is not romance. It’s a strategy, and it’s driving a surge in romance fraud, catfishing, and online dating scams that leave victims with financial loss and trauma that looks a lot like PTSD.

In this episode we sit down with Anna Rowe, founder of catchthecatfish.com and part of lovesaid.org, to map the real mechanics behind these crimes against women: mirroring, love bombing, isolation, and trauma bonding. Anna shares how a perpetrator can maintain overlapping relationships, how shame keeps people silent, and why the most damaging moment is often what happens after the fraud is exposed when victims meet disbelief from friends, banks, or even police.

We also get practical about what’s changing right now: deepfakes, face swap video, and voice cloning that can make a scammer look and sound “verified” on calls and voice notes. We unpack celebrity romance fraud, the “pig butchering” romance-plus-crypto investment scam, and the first responder toolkit Anna built to help law enforcement respond without blaming the victim and to safeguard people from repeat targeting, spyware, and data resale.

If you’ve ever dated online, have a loved one who has, or work in victim services, this conversation will change how you spot coercive control in a digital relationship.

The law says “equal protection,” but Wendy Murphy argues the U.S. legal system still keeps women on the outside of that promise and the proof is in how gender-based violence gets handled. From rape statutes that require force to charging practices that slow-walk sexual assault complaints, we trace how constitutional doctrine, policing discretion, and courtroom culture combine to under-protect women and girls and to re-victimize survivors who try to seek justice.

Wendy, an attorney and former child abuse and sex crimes prosecutor, breaks down the difference between equity and equality in plain language: equality is the constitutional floor that controls how government must treat people, while equity is impossible to achieve on top of a broken baseline. She explains how the legacy of coverture and the Supreme Court’s approach after Reed v. Reed produced what she calls “unequal equal rights,” leaving room for laws to be enforced differently and worse when the victim is female. We also dig into stark examples: rape laws that treat bodily autonomy as less protected than property, hate crime statutes that often exclude sex, and evidence rules and courtroom orders that burden victims in ways other crime victims never face.

From there we shift to what can actually change. Wendy walks us through the Equal Rights Amendment’s long fight, why litigation still matters, and why education is a missing catalyst for constitutional reform. We also talk about Title IX enforcement in schools and why treating sex-based civil rights as second-class shapes girls’ expectations of safety for life. If you care about criminal justice reform, victims’ rights, constitutional law, or ending violence against women, this conversation gives you a clearer map of the problem and a strategy for action.

Check out Wendy's related article, "Unequal Protection of the Laws for Women is Constitutional
Terrorism, So How Come Nobody Knows About It?": https://digitalcommons.onu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1357&context=onu_law_review

Forty percent of homicides tied to intimate partner violence is not a “domestic issue.” It’s a community-wide prevention problem. I’m joined by Detective Brandon Wooten to explain how domestic violence high-risk teams (DVHRTs) are changing what happens before the worst day, using evidence-based lethality assessment and a coordinated response that actually moves cases forward.

We dig into the DVHRT model step by step: how teams identify high-risk domestic violence cases early, connect survivors to supportive services, and increase offender monitoring and accountability. Brandon breaks down who belongs at the table and why community-based advocacy is the most critical role. We also clarify the difference between a broad coordinated community response and a high-risk team that builds concrete action plans, from stronger investigations to bond arguments that reflect validated lethality risk factors like firearm access, strangulation, stalking, and recent separation.

You’ll hear why success is often rooted in relationships more than any tool, how teams measure impact through trends and reduced repeat offenses, and why this work doesn’t have to be cost prohibitive. We also talk about culturally responsive partnerships, including ways to better support Latinx survivors and reduce barriers that keep people from seeking help. If you work in law enforcement, prosecution, advocacy, pretrial services, probation, or courts and you want practical domestic violence homicide prevention strategies, this conversation lays out a clear place to start.