All things truly wicked
start from innocence
In this post, I skipped right over my move to Pennsylvania as that sidebar wasn’t really relevant to the frustrating, “why I never graduated college” story. I mean, other than the reason I took a live-in nanny job in the first place, which was, of course, money and the lack thereof.
Also, I wanted to talk more about it, but behind the paywall. So hi everyone. Thank you once again for your patience and support — writing this part of the series has been an emotionally exhausting deep-dive into old journals, photos, and court documents. I made myself so sick, I threw up! PTSD is fun, y’all!
As many of you know, the man I met (and nearly married) after moving to Pennsylvania is incarcerated for murder. However, he recently won an appeal to vacate his sentence, and though it was unsurprising news (and news I had been watching for as I knew he was on the appeals circuit), it has been unsettling.
Plus, about a month ago, Chad Daybell’s court case started and thanks to the locality of his crimes, the massively overlapping Venn Diagram of people we both knew, and all of the strange religious stuff, I have not been able to look away. His case also fills me with nausea and I have sobbed through the forensics even though I heard it all during his wife Lori’s trial.
Add in the infuriating way my husband insists on remaining dead and the increasingly depressing state of the world (wars and dead babies in the streets, this horrifying statement on the climate crisis, Trump’s supporters completely unfazed by his criminal behavior, etc, etc), and perhaps it is no surprise I have not been doing super great.
It has been a lot and I am okay, but just barely! So let’s dive into this shit show!
Nineteen-ninety-five
It’s 1995 and I’m a freshman at Weber State University. I’m entangled in a serious relationship with a man I don’t really love and am not even attracted to because I was taught to give everyone a chance. I’m almost 19 years old and he’s probably around 25 or 26 — “old” for Mormonland and definitely on the prowl for a wife.
He’s mostly nice and fed me a lot, which I’m grateful for, but I look back on the photos of our relationship and frown in confusion. He pursued me pretty aggressively and we were exclusive for about three months. Three months is an extremely short courtship everywhere else, but in Utah that’s more than plenty of time to decide whether or not you want to marry someone. 🫠

I was nervous. I didn’t want to marry him. I also didn’t know how to say no. At my very first church dance, a boy I’d grown up with and shared finger paints with in kindergarten, asked me to dance. I giggled, embarrassed, and said no. My dad pulled me aside (because of course he was there as a chaperone) and gave me a lecture about how difficult it was for boys to get up the nerve to ask a girl and we should always say yes.
I mean, I’m sure he didn’t think that all the way through and just wanted me to be kind to a nervous teenager, but ick. The idea that I had to give every boy/man a serious chance really settled onto my shoulders and made it difficult for me to stand up for myself in dating scenarios and relationships as I grew into an adult.
As I’ve mentioned before, I was at my wits end with our bleak family finances. My parents didn’t want me to work while in college but couldn’t fully support me, either. My little sisters put up with the chronic late tuition payments but I couldn’t deal. My bank account had thirty-seven cents in it and the third extension on my housing payment was giving me an ulcer.
The nanny opportunity
I can’t remember if I saw an ad for live-in nanny opportunities, or if someone mentioned the idea to me, but I looked up an agency in ye olde Yellow Pages and started the application process.
It seemed perfect. It would get me out of Utah for at least a year, I’d have a place to live, food to eat, health insurance (what even is that?!), and a car to drive… all for free. Plus, I’d be able to earn actual money, save up for school, and even send some extra cash home to help my mother.
I matched with a family living in Gwynedd Valley, Pennsylvania. They had two little girls, a two-year-old and a three-month-old. They offered $250/week and I was thrilled.
The nanny agency was less thrilled. They told me my medical assisting certificate, current CPR certification, and pediatric office experience was highly desirable. They begged me to hold out for higher pay, promising me more matches would come. But I could barely fathom more dollars and I needed to get out of Ogden ASAP. I accepted and arranged to take all my finals early because they needed me before school was out.
My parents were extremely unhappy with this. They liked the boyfriend, likely wanted me safely married (and off their ‘financial burden’ list), and my mom in particular was terrified of the East Coast. Her little sister had served as a page at the White House* and graduated from Colgate University in New York. She ended up leaving the church and turning down a man who could have taken her to the temple (gasp). Instead, she married her high school boyfriend in a backyard civil ceremony (gasp) where his family served alcohol (double gasp).
To my mom, this meant that anything and everything farther east than Vernal, Utah was dangerous.
*This was prior to the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, but when that all went down, my mom shook her head and bemoaned the East Coast and its many terrifying pitfalls.
The boyfriend was also extremely unhappy about this. He had planned out my future, telling me I would be enrolling in training to become a flight attendant (something I’d never expressed any interest in whatsoever) while he finished up his pilot license. He pooh-poohed my dream of becoming a nurse as he didn’t want a wife working night shifts. Also, he liked to remind me that he was primarily attracted to petite blondes, which I most certainly was not, and liked my roommate first (adorable blonde). What a catch!

I broke up with him the night I found a note he had written saying, “I’m going to ask her to marry me.” We’d been fighting about my nanny job and he probably thought he could lock me in with a proposal. It certainly would have quadrupled the pressure I was under from family.
Little sidebar since we won’t be talking about him anymore, he ended up marrying a short blonde gal and they live about 45 minutes north of me. Years ago, I ran into him at a Bajio Mexican Grill in Rexburg, Idaho. And by ‘ran into’ I mean I stepped into the restaurant, saw him at a table, and promptly turned around and ran away.
Now, before you give me too much credit for running away from the somewhat controlling college boyfriend who thought it was super cool to troll 18 and 19 year old freshmen for wifey material, please know I landed in Pennsylvania, located my singles ward, and promptly got entangled with another older man. Did I not learn my lesson at WSU? No, no I did not.
Pennsylvania
It was my first time on a plane and my first time living out of Utah.
My first week in Pennsylvania was an adjustment. I was not used to breathing pure water just floating around in the air all the time. Nor was I used to getting out of a shower, drying off, and still feeling damp. De-humidifiers were a completely new concept and it took me a while to understand I could not just hang my bath towel on a hook and expect it to be dry later.

Within days of my arrival, I was hit with crippling menstrual cramps and realized I did not have any tampons or pads. I was too embarrassed to ask my employer and didn’t have any money. My mother had given me $20 when I boarded the plane, but I’d used it to open a new checking account in Pennsylvania. I didn’t even have any quarters to scrape together to buy a tampon from a gas station bathroom vending machine.
I called my mom (collect!) from a payphone after work, crying.
She suggested I go into the bank and ask for a $5 cash withdrawal — something I had no idea I could do because I had not been adequately prepared for adulting. She told me to use the money for a small box of tampons, a bottle of Midol, and a Reeses Peanut Butter candy bar.
I did just that ($5 doesn’t go that far anymore!) and cried in the parking lot after removing wads of bloody toilet paper from my underpants and using one of the tampons. I ate my candy and missed my mom.
Being on my own in a college dorm had been a lot of fun. I had freedom for the first time in my life, stayed up as late as I wanted, (chastely) kissed a lot of boys, and listened to non-church music without anyone shutting it off and gravely asking if I could feel the Holy Ghost.
Being on my own as a live-in nanny was very, very different. All my friends were either on Mormon missions or back at school and I was spending my days doing mom-stuff. I liked the mom stuff, I truly did. And I instantly loved my adorable little charges, but found myself feeling very homesick and lonely.

Both of my employers were engineers at Ford, which meant they had complimentary Ford vehicles to drive. Initially I tried to learn a stick shift to drive their little green Ford truck. I was hopeless and they switched me to a Ford Contour. I drove the kids around in a Ford Windstar. I quite liked the mom (I’ll call her Cindy), but the dad (I’ll call him Bob) was the smarmiest of upper crust yuppies who played croquet and constantly tried to get me to do things that weren’t in my contract, like rake the 2 acre yard all by myself, clean out rain gutters, and fold his clothes, including his underpants, which I felt very weird about. I was very nervous and had zero experience negotiating, but I stuck to the contract, sometimes calling my nanny agency for back up.
After initially attending a Lutheran church with the family (interesting!) Bob, still attempting to teach me to drive the stick-shift (he did not have the patience to be a good teacher and I cried a lot), helped me find the closest Mormon meetinghouse about 45 minutes away. I drove myself there the following Sunday, complete with grinding gears and panic-inducing stalls at stop lights. Once inside, I sagged with relief at how familiar it all felt.
Unlike a Utah ward, which can be very insular and cliquish, the Pennsylvania wards were made up of mostly converts (versus multi-generation pioneer stock) and were a much more open-minded and diverse group of individuals. They were very welcoming and kind and it was a balm for my homesickness. Still, I was excited when I met another girl my age who told me she’d pick me up for the singles ward activities the following week.
Informational sidebar:
Singles wards (or branches) exist pretty much anywhere the Mormon church has a foothold. Attending a singles ward is strongly encouraged once you turn 18, but you’re kicked out at 30. At 30, you must either go back to a family ward and accept your fate as a menace to society or, depending on availability, attend a 30+ older single adult ward.
In my experience, singles wards were a lot more fun. Attending a singles ward meant I had an instant social life. Singles are organized into “families” and gathered Monday nights to have “Family Home Evening (FHE),” but instead of listening to a parent talk about tithing for an hour, it was frisbee in the park with cookies afterward.
There were also other regular activities like weekly institute (grown up seminary), the occasional camping trip, trips to the shore, regional dances with singles from surrounding states, temple trips to DC to do baptisms for the dead, and every Sunday night the bishop and his wife had us over to their house for potluck dinner.
The singles ward in Philadelphia was held in a Mormon church building on 44th (46th?) street, I think. It was a ‘rougher’ part of town and we had a parking garage with locking gates. I can’t find it on Google Maps; maybe it isn’t there anymore. I remember driving there on the one-way street, crossing under the train rails that rattled along overhead. If you went exactly the speed limit, you’d hit all the green lights perfectly.
Like the family ward, the singles ward in Philly was far more diverse than any singles ward I’d attended in Utah. People came from all walks of life, there was little to no judgement, just a bunch of nannies, college students, and the recently baptized getting together for companionship, service, and fun.
I met him at church
Beth took me to institute, a weekly class on Wednesdays where some of the single adults would gather for more church, the promise of some social interaction (we usually played volleyball afterward), and snacks. Mormons are so good at snacks.
That very first outing is where I met Matthew (real name Henry Martin Steiger, III).

He was sitting on the back row and leaned forward as Beth and I sat down. He whispered in my ear, “Do you believe in love at first sight?” in a very seductive and suggestive voice. I didn’t answer, so he added, “I do now.” Beth was giggly about it but told me he was a huge flirt and went after all the new girls. She told me the last new nanny got, “After god made your legs, he broke the mold,” while he fanned himself with the church program.
Later I’d get a very breathy, “I want to be your grape chapstick,” as I was applying my beloved Lip Smackers after a ward party. 🙄
Guys in college used cheesy lines but they were jokes and made us laugh. Matthew was weirdly serious. I still laughed, but he never did.
He had grey eyes and wavy dark blonde hair cut in an 80s mullet. He wore dad jeans, dad sneakers with orthotics, and belted, tucked in, button-up shirts with the sleeves rolled up.
After class, a guy named Mike twisted his ankle during volleyball and I rushed to his side to see if I could help. Matthew put on a big show of letting me assess and wrap the ankle, complimenting me on my work. He insisted on taking Mike to the hospital, and said I should ride along to make sure he was okay. This successfully separated me from Beth, who reluctantly agreed to let him drive me home. After we dropped Mike off at the entrance to the ER — Matthew didn’t even walk him inside — he had me on my own for the hour drive back to my house, neatly learning where I lived as well.
Later I found out Matthew was 30 years old and in his fourth year of medical school. This early deference to my laughable nineteen-year old ‘experience’ as a ‘bottom-of-the-rung’ CMA is a retrospective gigantic red flag. I didn’t know enough to recognize the beginnings of love bombing back then.
He parked in my driveway and we talked in his Jeep Cherokee for a while. I can still remember how intimate and intense it all felt; he acted utterly fascinated with everything I said. And guys, I was nineteen years old. I guarantee I was not fascinating.
Matthew asked me rapid-fire questions about myself, my upbringing, my family, my siblings, my history with the church, my education, my decision to become a nanny, what I thought of the family I was working for, and even pried into how experienced I was with boys, sex, my body, etc (not very, which seemed to thrill him). He answered very few questions about himself, either outright lying or being very vague. He made it sound like he’d grown up in an active Mormon family his whole life and had served a full-time mission for the church (things that were important to me then, sigh). He dodged questions about the photo of a baby he had on his dashboard as well as the baby shoes dangling from his rearview mirror.
He tried to kiss me in the driveway and I refused. He was so intense and stared at me constantly. It was flattering, but overwhelming, even for me.
I went inside and wrote in my journal, “I guess he’s cute in an east coast sort of way.” I’m still not exactly sure what I meant by that, but he didn’t look or act like any of the boys I dated in high school or at WSU.
Then he vanished
He wasn’t at church the following Sunday, nor was he at FHE or institute. He didn’t come to the next tri-state dance. I arrived in the middle of June and didn’t see him again until the end of August. Later I found out he was on summer break from school and went home to see his father in Buffalo, NY and his mother and sisters in Smithsfalls, Ontario.
I think, maybe, if he’d remained in Philly and kept staring at me, I would have been turned off. But disappearing like that? It was so mysterious. I had his phone number from the ward directory and called it once in a while, though an answering machine picked up every time. Didn’t he have roommates?
Weirder still, guys at church acted like I was already spoken for. Only two guys asked me out during the months he was gone, and dinner included a high volume of questions about Matthew and how well I knew him. Not at all, actually!
Then, the girls at church started warning me about Matthew.

First, a girl named Kelly told me to watch myself, but insisted I not listen to the gossip and make up my own mind about him. Other warnings were more vague, telling me he was a player, or that no one really knew anything about him even though he’d attended the ward for years.
A girl called Sara rang me on the phone crying. She said she had worked as a nanny for the previous singles ward bishop and was headed home but couldn’t get me out of her mind. Both she and her employer wanted to warn me to stay away from Matthew. She said her employer claimed he was bad news and that he would set his sights on me.
Bewildered, I went to talk to the new singles ward bishop. He was a quiet, careful man. He admitted he didn’t know Matthew well but noticed he never took the sacrament on Sundays and suggested I take that for whatever it was worth.
Sometimes, if you’re in a repentance process with church leadership, the bishop will forbid you from taking the sacrament for a period of time (bread and water during the chapel portion of church on Sundays). It was odd though, if this bishop had asked Matthew to stop taking the sacrament, he probably wouldn’t have mentioned it as it would be considered a private topic. It was more like, “Hey, he’s doing this on his own and I find it weird.” He also mentioned that all Matthew did in church was sit on the back row and get back rubs from girls.
Back in town
Matthew returned to Philly and picked right back up where he left off, showing up at my house without any advance notice, right as my employers were getting home from work. I’d been at the city pool with the little girls and had wet hair and a damp t-shirt over a wet bathing suit. Matthew said it wouldn’t matter if my hair was wet, that we were going to paint the church. Bob later told me he thought this was a really hokey way to ask a girl out. “A church service project? Painting the church? Not giving you any time to dry your hair?”
I hated Bob, but he had a point.
While I changed, Matthew leaned up against the kitchen counter with his arms folded, speaking to my employers as an equal — which, I suppose he was. I think Cindy and Bob were maybe 33 years old? They all could have been at school together.
I ran a comb through my wet hair and threw on a dry pair of jeans. Jumping into his car, I discovered he’d programmed the fancy radio in his Jeep to read “Je t'aime, Jessica” - “I love you” in French. He had a dozen roses for me as well. Roses and declarations of love? Already? En route to paint the church building?
At the church he zoomed around acting like he was in charge, managing everyone. To be fair, it might have been his volunteer church calling? Building management? I can’t remember. I was mostly abandoned and listened to a few more warnings to stay away from him, though everyone seemed resigned once we pulled up together.
Once in a while, Matthew would swoop into whatever room I was painting to whisper in my ear, hissing that everyone but me was incompetent; only I could follow his directions and keep up. He’d wink and be off again, unscrewing outlet covers or taping off window trim. I don’t know if he lifted a brush or roller or was just really good at looking busy and bossy.
He took the long way home and was intently focused on any and all of my dumb stories from high school and what it was like growing up in a strict household. Later I’d realize he was mining for similarities or insecurities he could use to win me over. As became his norm, he pushed hard against my 11:00pm curfew, insisting I was an adult and my employers should trust me as such. It stressed me out (I needed to be up at 7am on weekdays).
Again he tried to kiss me and again I refused.
Go me, except I’d cave a week later.
He seemed highly entertained that I’d been calling his machine, wondering where he went. He had explanations and stories for all of the warnings, because of course he did. People were jealous. Those girls had gone after him and he hadn’t been interested; it was sour grapes. Did I talk directly to his former bishop? Who of course thought he was amazing and loved him? No? I only spoke to his former nanny? Well, that girl had a huge crush on him and he’d ignored her because he was waiting for me. And the sacrament thing? He just took the sacrament so seriously — more seriously than anyone else — that’s why he wasn’t taking it. But he’d get his spiritual ducks in a row and start. For me. He’d do anything for me. What else did I want? My wish was his desire.
Hind sight is 20/20
I mean, it’s ridiculous. Looking back he’s unhinged. Digging into my past to figure out what kind of show to put on, throwing different over-the-top gestures at the wall to see what might stick, and staking his claim on me by disrespecting my curfew and scaring off anyone else who might come sniffing around.
By December, we were engaged. And he’d successfully isolated me from just about everyone. I only saw my church friends at ward activities or the bishop’s house, Matthew firmly planted by my side. He was dressing me, had overhauled my wardrobe, my makeup technique, and my hair. He let me cut off his mullet and was wearing plaid flannel layered over henley shirts in a strange attempt to mirror what he saw as ‘college boy fashion’ — also so I couldn’t complain that he was the only one dictating the changes.

But it was fine, because I was the center of his universe, the first girl to ever truly catch his eye, the first person to really understand him on a core level, the first girl worth his time, the first girl to match his unparalleled mind.
Everyone was jealous of me, everyone wanted to be me, I could be a model, didn’t I know? And all he ever wanted was a little yellow house with a purple door and a white picket fence. He’d never had that, a home. I was home. I would have his babies and he’d have security and love and safety for the first time in his life. What a gift. What a miracle.
What a lie.
Title & subtitle brought to you by Ernest Hemingway.