uglyreal

Justin Mitchell and/or Justin McClain is Hannah Bagwell

Please save yourself! Don’t become a victim like

Joanna

• All names are changed to protect the innocent, broken-hearted (when it happened), mad-as-hell-and-rightly-so (to this day) victims.
• All of the information I am posting has been taken from contemporaneous text messages, Facebook messages, and emails, as well as from recent conversations (some taped) I’ve had with the victims to jog my memory, as they lived it so they remember it better than they would like. All that to say: everything I’m writing can be supported by a document or a person.

Hey, my favorite fishing-pole wielding warriors!

Thanks for coming on over to part 3. Let’s get right to it.

On October 2, 2018, I got an email from a girl named Joanna. She told me the same story, third verse. She, too, had met Justin Mitchell on Tinder, and when things started not adding up, she did what Carol-Ann did, what I hoped every victim would do: she searched “his” name and found my blog.

She sent me the following email: So I guess I’ve been speaking to the same individual as your blog post. I’m quite disappointed as we’ve been speaking for over a month now. But it’s the exact same story. I was texting ‘him’ last night and sent the post. I’m just all very confused. 

I asked her: What was “his” response when you sent the post? 

Joanna: He said that you wrote the post because you were upset about him having a falling out with your [family member.]

I wanted to lie on the floor and kick my legs while screaming with laughter at that response. Yep, I tend to write blog posts about randos when someone I’m related to gets mad at them.

I said: Ha! That’s hilarious. So did you act like you believed “him?” As in, are you still in communication with “him?” Did she ever buy you anything or send you anything like flowers?

Joanna: Yes, right now we’re still in communication. I haven’t received anything from her. I’m just really confused about the whole ordeal. I’ve received a lot of pictures and videos from ‘him.’

Me: Correct. All of her victims have received the same ones. I bet I can send you the exact pictures you have gotten. 

Joanna: We’ve been in contact for over a month now, speaking all day every day so there’s a lot of information. Anything specific you are looking for? I don’t mind sending you screenshots of anything. 

She went on to say: There are just a couple of things that are making me confused. Such as, he told me right now he’s working at putting patient information into a database at a hospital in Hattiesburg. He even sent me a picture of himself in scrubs. And when I googled this hospital, I saw a picture of someone from there in the exact same color scrubs. I know scrubs come in all colors, but they were this same royal blue. 

Also, this person has been sending me pictures of a dog, and I’ve been texting the same number on the dog’s collar. They even sent me a picture of the same dog with the same collar and phone number with a man’s leg in the picture. So I’m just very very confused.

She included the picture. No doubt that is Hannah’s leg. It was clothed in pants, so hard to determine gender, but there was no reason it could not be her own. In fact, I feel confident it was, but it had Joanna flummoxed.

Me: The reason you are texting the same number on the collar is b/c that is her dog. Is the dog’s name Sandy?

Joanna: Yes. I just didn’t know about the man’s leg with the dog. It was odd to me.

Joanna, too, received photos from Justin that seemed very real, and some were of him sans clothes. Scottie and I have laughed about this. It seems Hannah is proficient in Photoshop. I told Joanna as much.

She told me some details that “he” shared with her about “his” life. You’ve heard this song before, with some twists.

Joanna: He’s actually shared a lot a lot of information with me. Yesterday he was telling me that his father used to beat him and his mom when he was younger. At some point, I guess his mom started taking prescription pills and he went to live with his grandparents, his dad’s parents. He started cutting and they found out, so they sent him to a mental hospital for a bit. He said he’s currently seeing a therapist. He told me that he got a 17-year-old pregnant when he was 14 and then a year later, she left them, so he raised his oldest on his own. He said she has no contact with their daughter. At 18 he enlisted in the army and his oldest stayed with his grandparents or something. He received a basketball scholarship but never used it. His oldest takes after him with basketball. He went to Ole Miss and received a master’s in something math. He’s currently adopting his youngest. She was his best friend’s daughter and he passed away from an overdose. Her mother’s rights were terminated about 8 months ago, but he’s had her for a couple of years. He said he has 5 siblings, 4 sisters, one is his twin, and a brother who passed away in ‘07 which is when he started cutting?? His mother passed away in November from cancer. He said he taught at some point. He owns an apartment, lives in one, and is currently building a house. Kayleigh’s mom lives an hour from them in Meridian?  

The therapist is a theme that will emerge later, just so you know. I can’t help but wonder how much of this convoluted story is taken straight from Hannah’s life, or from the life of someone she knows very well. If so, it’s a sad life, but it’s difficult to feel sympathy if it is hers. A lot of folks have difficult, tragic, traumatic childhoods and they don’t create an alter ego in order to deceive other people. They just don’t.

Details have stayed consistent as they are passed from victim to victim, but the minutiae each one remembered was always interesting to me, as I firmly believe the minutiae matters, if not to me, to someone who needs convincing that Justin is Hannah.

Joanna, like Carol-Ann, wanted to know who the guy in the photo was for her own sanity. I asked her to send me herself holding her I.D. while doing something silly like raising her hand, something she couldn’t fake without it taking time, and she did so immediately. Joanna was certainly real, so once again, I got permission to tell her Scottie’s name.

I also told her the short version of how I knew Hannah was behind the Justin profile. She said that she, too, like Natalie and Carol-Ann before her, ran the number he was texting her on and it came back to Hannah Bagwell. But, she figured it must be an old number, transferred at some point from Hannah to Justin. I thought that at first, as well.

That’s fair.

Fair, but wrong.

Joanna said Justin began texting her from a new number the night before after she sent him my blog post. Makes sense. The damage control begins—again. The new number, from my research at the time, did not yield an owner’s name, but the location was Hattiesburg, MS.

Joanna, however, kept chatting with Justin for a short stint after she knew the truth, partly to continue to gather information, and partly because this was incredibly hard to wrap her head around.

She was not alone on that front.

Not even a little bit.

I sent her pictures of Hannah’s dog, Sandy, that I found on Hannah’s personal Facebook page, a page she maintained herself. No one has had a Hannah Bagwell fake Facebook page for 10 years. No one has hijacked Hannah’s phone number or social media. No one hacked her. Hannah Bagwell lived as Hannah Bagwell, and she used her own social media the way all of us do: to document her life.

Joanna had never seen the ones I sent; she had only seen different ones, most likely ones she took real time. She sent me photos of Scottie that Justin had sent to her. One was of him in uniform; one was him with his grandmother. Both had come from Scottie’s mama’s Facebook page. I was able to tell her that the photo of him in scrubs was taken about 3 years before, per his mother.

Joanna told me that she sent her a text that had been delivered but not read yet, and Joanna believed it was because “he” was working nights. Again, another theme.

And another: Joanna called his number one night, very upset, wanting to talk to the man with whom she believed she was in a relationship. “He” did not answer, and he was very upset with her the next day for calling. She likes to scold. I mean, most people I know get scolded for calling their boyfriend. That’s normal, right?

Joanna and I didn’t talk for a couple of days, and when I caught back up with her, she said they were still chatting, and Justin was acting like everything was normal. Joanna played along. Justin said it was his day off, and he ordered a bunch of sushi. I asked if he was usually off on Thursdays, and Joanna said he told her that he was on a rotation: 3 on, 2 off night shifts.

She sent me a screenshot of part of their conversation about sushi, and I’m including it because it is just simply bizarre. Her fantasy world is real to her, which is what makes it more frightening to me.

Joanna: Well, those sound pretty good.

Justin: That Hammond roll. Lord yes.

Justin: Me and Kayleigh can do damage at Wasabi

Justin: Valentine’s Day was like $200 (you mean the Valentine’s Day when you sent Natalie flowers? That one? Gotcha.)

Joanna: Aw, I’m sure the girls had a perfect Valentine’s Day with all that sushi

Justin: Kali ate chicken strips so

Joanna: Lmao she’s such a character

Justin: And she does like sushi too. She was just in a mood.

Joanna: Right. I understand. One of those days.

Justin: Because she can

Joanna said she asked, on this day, if the girls got sushi, too, and Justin said, “No, it’s all for me. They are at school,” and then, “We will have to go to this sushi shop when you come over.” Then she sent Joanna 2 photos of Sandy, one of the sushi, and a video of Sandy, the Great Dane.  

I sent Joanna a screenshot of a list of videos I had found on Youtube, uploaded by Hannah Bagwell, of Sandy. Joanna recognized the baby gate and the couch—Hannah’s baby gate and couch—from the video thumbnails.

I asked Joanna again about where Justin worked. She said that Justin told her he worked at a very large hospital inputting patient data from their old system to a new system, and that he lived 45 minutes from where he worked. He told her that he would drop Sandy off at a dog daycare somewhere between his home and work.

A few more days went by, and Joanna and I messaged again. She told me that Justin was planning to go to the Pride festival in Hattiesburg that weekend. Though it was pretty clear to me at the time that Hannah was most likely gay, now knowing for sure as she is married to a woman, I think it is clear that Hannah was, indeed, going to the festival. She told Joanna she had bought the girls tutus and she was getting Sandy one, too, “so they wouldn’t be too hard to spot.”  

That’s some magic there, y’all: two invisible girls wearing tutus.

The next day, she posted a photo to Snapchat of Scottie. Joanna was really struggling to keep talking to her. She kept in mind that Hannah was sick, and she was determined to get as much information, fake or real, out of her as she could. So, she kept it up, no matter how hard it was. She told me Justin put up two more videos of Scottie on Snap, one of him sitting on his motorcycle (yeah, that motorcycle) and the other with his helmet halfway on.

Then “Justin” got mad at Joanna for screenshotting them.

“Quit screenshotting,” she said. “That’s strange.”

I tend to think buying tutus for non-existent children is strange. But that’s just me.

In the last conversation I had with Joanna, months later, she told me that she had finally stopped talking to “Justin” a while back. She was done. Joanna told me that she told Hannah that she knew who she really was, and she “confessed.”

“Confessed?” I asked.

Well, as much as Hannah will “confess” to anything.

Joanna said, “She said something along the lines of, ‘Well, now you know.’”

Unfortunately, Joanna did not screenshot that conversation, but if anyone doubts it happened, well, I don’t know what to tell you.

You probably don’t believe water is wet, either.

Before we turn the page to unveil (my) Victim number 4, I want to reiterate to my dear readers what a phenomenal, strong woman every last one of these girls is. Their collective determination to figure out how to stop Hannah and their resilience that led them to recover from the joke their emotions were to Hannah is a constant in all of them.

I’m so proud to know them.

Never underestimate the power of a woman scorned.

Certainly, don’t underestimate the power of several scorned women who band together.

And most definitely, don’t underestimate the resolve of a woman to whom all the scorned sought out in hopes she would give them answers, who recognized the enormity of what was happening as they came, one after another after another, who is a seeker of and believer in truth and justice.

Stopping is not an option.

That is why there is a part 4.

Stay tuned.

If you or someone you know has been catfished by Justin Mitchell or Justin McClain, feel free to email me at mwstaceylaw@gmail.com