uglyreal

Justin Mitchell and/or Justin McClain is Hannah Bagwell

Please save yourself! Don’t become a victim like

Megan

• 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, fishing buddies!

Thanks for plodding through the muddy riverbanks of Hannah’s sick and twisted waterway. You are finally reading the post that made me claw through old emails, text messages, Facebook messages, and screenshots so I could accurately and succinctly tell all of you how we got to this point JUST So I could write the story of Victim 11.

I hope you already know, but I want to reiterate that I did not include all those tiny, redundant details for you exclusively.

I wrote them for anyone who knows Hannah personally. I wrote them for anyone to whom Hannah has sworn that she is not Justin Andrew Mitchell Mitch McClain, and they believed her. I’ve done this for her wife, IF her wife really doesn’t know, and I’m still not sure that I think if she does or not, but I know there are others out there who need “proof,” and that proof is in those details for someone. It will be personal, and it will seem meaningless to many, but I know it is there.

And if it isn’t, then I pray that the compilation of 10 stories from women all catfished by the same person knocks them over the head with an overwhelming dose of common sense.

But if the bat hasn’t been big enough, I give you Victim 11.

Her story is the only one you need to know to do what I’m going to ask you to do at the end of this post. But, I AM a lawyer. I believe in building my case. And I would take this one to trial tomorrow.

Take a long, long swig, buckle up, and make sure your kids are out of the room because you are fixing to start cussing, and you are gonna cuss loudly.

Right before Christmas, I got a series of emails from a girl named Megan. For some reason, I got them a couple of days after they were sent, so when I didn’t respond to the first, she kept going.

In succession, they said:

Megan 1: Oh my word, I am sick to my stomach. I just thought to google that name one last time before I finally let this all go for good. I have just now found out that in 2020 I was catfished by this Hannah B person & I need answers. Can you give me a last name? I believe this person was a counselor to me when my mother died. She also called me personally to check on me when I went to my mother’s funeral. I am sick right now. Can you call me? XXX-XXX-XXXX

Megan 2: The counselor’s name that I think it was/is Hannah Bagwell. She is or was a counselor at a place called Maude Whatley Health Services in Tuscaloosa. I saw her when my mother died in 2020. I feel so violated & sick to my stomach.

Megan 3: I found out she works at XXXXXXXX now.

I finally saw her messages and responded, even though it was Christmas Eve Eve. I felt terrible for leaving her hanging.

Megan 4: I’m so sorry, I just now saw your response, but I can be available to talk on the phone literally WHENEVER. I’m so mad that Hannah used my contact info from my MEDICAL CHART to take advantage of me in a vulnerable position. I’m so mad that I will do whatever it takes to make sure she is never allowed to use her profession to compose herself in such a heinous way ever again. My number is XXX-XXX-XXXX you are welcome to text or call! 

So, I did.

Of course, I did.

Here is the story she trusted me enough to tell.

I pray I do her justice.

In 2020, Megan was living in Tuscaloosa, and she had enough self-awareness to recognize that she was drinking to excess and blacking out and that she needed help. She decided to seek counseling, and unfortunately, she found a counselor named Hannah Bagwell. She had a couple of sessions with her, and then, tragically, her mother died unexpectedly. She continued therapy with her for a few weeks, but ultimately, quit seeing her.

She quit seeing her because Hannah made her uncomfortable. She asked her questions that were sexual in nature. She reminded her often that she was gay. I’ve been to a counselor who I knew was gay the minute I sat on his couch, but anytime he mentioned his husband, he called him his spouse, and it never came up. Not once. I didn’t care either way, but my counselor seemed to work from a place that kept him from inserting his own sexuality into my heterosexual marriage. I now see he was most likely taught to do so, and Hannah didn’t get the memo. Or rather, she ignored the memo because it just didn’t suit her predatory nature.

Megan told me that Hannah asked her if she was sexually active and how often. She made jokes about the lack of sex in her own marriage. And she made Megan so squeamish that she quit seeing her and found another therapist.

However, Hannah wasn’t thinking about letting her go, and she didn’t.

Before Megan’s mother died but after she had started counseling, she was added on Snapchat by a guy named Justin McClain. Justin told her that they had met before, but she had no memory of that encounter. He told her that they met at a gas station on a particular highway, and he figured she was coming back from the lake because she was “kinda sunburned and kinda drunk,” but he thought it was “adorable.”

“You spoke to my daughter, Maci, too,” he said, “and you told me she was super cute.”

Though she had no memory whatsoever of that encounter, it was too detailed to dismiss. She believed him. She had lost so many memories because she had been drinking too much. This was not the first time she couldn’t remember something that happened while she was drinking, nor would it be the last.

And she had just confessed as much to the counselor she PAID, Hannah Bagwell, in confidence, for that very reason.

Pick your mouth up off the floor.

After Megan and Justin had begun chatting for about a month, on April 15, 2020, Megan’s mother died. On the day of her viewing, Hannah called her from her personal cell phone, as her very concerned counselor, to check on her. Megan had never given Hannah her phone number, but it was in her file, so it seems she plucked it right out, and under the guise of deep worry and sincere sympathy, she asked Megan how she was doing.

Megan admitted she was not okay. She told Hannah that she had not slept in three days and felt like she wanted to die. So, Hannah did what any good-therapist-slash-fake-lover would do: she called the prescribing psychiatrist and got Megan a prescription for Ambien.

At the same time, Justin was consoling Megan. He said, “On my god, baby. I am so sorry; I’m here. Breathe. We are going to get through this.”

Consumed by grief, Megan allowed Justin to comfort her. They texted non-stop. Justin was so committed to Megan. Megan said that she never doubted he was real because there was no way anyone would spend the amount of time he spent on her if he wasn’t. Justin would say to her, “I know this sounds crazy but I think we are connected and I know we were meant to be. I want you to know I love you.”

Some of the details that were in Justin’s story with Megan were:

• Same story about the mama. She died in 2017 of cancer.
• He never said anything to her about the dad.
• He had an older sister (the stalker-helper.)
• He was 21.
• My very favorite element of his story with Megan is that he told her he had a house in Madison, Mississippi. First and only time I’ve heard that, but I laughed when she told me. Thanks, Hannah. I appreciate the nod. That would be hilarious if you weren’t so completely demented.
• He was building a house in Madison, and he wanted her to come live with him. The house had a fancy pool that had 2 levels, a waterfall, and a circle drive, and he sent her pictures of it.
• Megan told me that SHE still laughs about this one—he told her that he and his Fake Baby Mama were never married, but she told him that because he was so good-looking, she wanted to have his kids, and he agreed. Then he ended up getting the kids because she wanted to be a travel nurse, and they would meet in Tuscaloosa and stay in a hotel a weekend or two out of the month so she could see them. He sent Megan a live Snapchat of a girl in a bikini laying by the pool, telling her that it was Fake Baby Mama, and they were just so close that they hung out for the kids when she came to town.
• Fake Baby Mama texted Megan once on a fake number (I bet Hannah owns stock in TextFree) and told her to “salvage whatever she and Justin had left” after Megan had tried to break things off with Justin. Fake Baby Mama told her not to worry about their relationship; they were just friends and had kids together and she completely supported them.
• He said he mainly resided on an army base in Georgia.
• She said that when Megan would try to back off, she would come on really strong. She told her she bought her a bracelet from a jewelry store in Tuscaloosa, and she asked Megan if she had anyone who could come pick it up. Megan said, “Um, me….” But that did not seem to be an option. Megan never went to the jewelry store, and she has no idea if there is still a “love bracelet,” sitting in a bag on a shelf with her name on it, just waiting to be retrieved.
• I just got this tidbit today, and I have not had time to research it because I want to get this post out tonight but believe me, I will, or one of you reading this will save me the trouble. She told me that he told her, and sent her pictures of, the truck he drove (in 2020), which was a new lunar moon grey Toyota Tundra. It had very specific markings, like a Mississippi tag and an army decal on the back window. And Megan saw that truck in Tuscaloosa. She would snap photos of it and send them to Justin and tell her that she just saw his truck in town, but that he was not driving it. An older gentleman was driving it, and no explanation was ever given for it.
• He told her that when he would come to town for Fake Baby Mama to see the kids, he would stay at Hotel Indigo in Tuscaloosa and let the kids play at the pool. One night when he told her he was in town and she wanted to see him, but he kept putting her off, she drove to that hotel and saw that truck in the parking lot.
• He sent her live photos of the truck described above in the driveway of the Fake House in Madison.

Megan did not doubt Justin was real until she did. It happened after a few months, after they began, hot-and-heavy, during a time when she was most vulnerable. Justin love-bombed Megan immediately, and then, he stalked her intensely.

One night, Megan went to a party in another town, and she posted a TikTok of her and a male friend doing a viral dance together. Justin, who had no social media except for Snapchat, somehow saw it and messaged her screenshots of it. He said, “I can’t believe you would do this to me. I thought we were serious.” Megan was appalled. She tried to explain that the people she was with were her friends and nothing was going on, but that situation, among others, made Megan feel like Justin was sketchy. So, she did not consider him to be her boyfriend. She did not stay exclusive to him. She simply continued to talk to him and entertain him. She was playing the field and Justin was one of many.

Then, he sent her a photo of Scottie holding a bouquet, and the location was set to Tuscaloosa.  He shamed her by telling her that he couldn’t believe she had gone to see someone else because he had come to town to surprise her. Of note, Scottie can’t think of a single time a photo has been taken of him holding flowers. Hannah should teach Photoshop tutorials.

At one point, she had not talked to Justin for several days. She went to Gulf Shores and met a guy whom she added on all of her socials. They were talking and getting to know each other, and she commented on one of his Instagram photos with the flame emoji. She then got a message from Justin with a screenshot of her comment, and he said that he could see who she really was because she bounced back too quickly from him.

This freaked Megan completely out because, remember, Justin told her that he did not have social media. She was not “friends” with Justin McClain on anything but Snapchat. She confronted Justin about that fact, and he told her that his sister warned her that Megan may be a cheater, so Fake Sister found out that Megan was commenting on other guys’ Instagram posts and told him that he needed to watch out for her.

After they had been talking for about 6 months or less, Megan was essentially done, and she made sure to tell Justin as often as she could that they really weren’t anything, as in, they were not in a relationship, so it was completely unnecessary to have his sister stalk her on social media. Secondly, she told him that his excuse was total crap because she did not know how it was possible for Fake Sister to see comments she made on random people’s posts unless Fake Sister was a follower of that person, and that was unlikely. Megan kept her power with Justin, but what she was experiencing made her feel uncertain and uneasy, as it should have.  

After that creepiness, it got worse. Justin sent Megan a link to a porn video on Pornhub that, cutie patootie she met in Gulf Shores had made, but not under his own name. Megan did not even know about that video or that alias.

 Personally, I believe that Hannah has a bazillion fake accounts across the socials. It makes sense to me that she found a way to follow Megan as someone else (whose name was probably a variation of Kay/Kayla/Kayleigh/Kali) and followed all of Megan’s followers, and then searched her name on every single one to find Megan’s comments so she could pinpoint all of the guys Megan was interested in. I would bet money that Excel spreadsheet is chock full of fake accounts with columns for every girl she catfished so that she could keep up with who she was stalking at the moment, as each account was specific to her flavor of the day, and each account had a separate set of friends or followers that she copied from her victims. Imagine if she was a man. Just imagine.

So, I will add creepy, scary, intrusive stalker to Hannah’s resume. Did she ever take a shower? Eat? Say hello to her child? Is her phone surgically sewn to her hand?

I asked Megan how a smart, savvy, single girl like herself—exactly like all 10 who came before her—reconciled never meeting Justin in person or Facetiming him or even hearing his voice. She told me that his excuse was that he lived on a military base in Georgia, and he did not have a good signal on the base. Ever heard of a black site? Then, she came to believe he was in a real relationship with someone–wife, girlfriend, fiance–and since he was cheating, he did not want anyone to find out.

But, she couldn’t completely reconcile that because he was making her entirely too important in his world.

Therefore, after a few months, Megan got more and more suspicious of Justin, and she backed off from him. She did not make him nearly as important as he was making her. She did not trust him, but she kept up the conversations because she wanted to figure out the truth.

Eventually, she had enough, and she did what every single victim has wanted to do: she contacted the MTV show, Catfish, and she got an offer to do the show. Wonder what they would do if they knew what we know now? Can we say Catfish the Movie 2??

Catfish did what they do, and they reached out to Fake Justin, and that is how Megan’s relationship with Justin ended.

Everything was deleted.

The phone number was no longer valid.

 The Snap account, justinmitch24, was no longer there.

Justin disappeared off of the face of the Earth, and though Megan was by no means heart-broken, she was left with the mystery of what in the Sam Hill had happened to her.

Her story took place in 2020, long before Kristen told me that Justin Mitchell was now Justin McClain, long before I wrote my blog post that would allow someone being catfished by Justin McClain to find out the truth.

But Megan did not let it go. Every few months, she would Google the name, and right before Christmas, she realized she had not done so in a long time.

I can’t fathom how she felt when she typed in that name and finally, after all that time, my blog post popped up, and the pieces of her story came together in the sickest way she could imagine.

The guy who had catfished her was not a guy at all.

Instead, it was a girl, her counselor, Hannah Bagwell.

Very soon, I am going to write one more post that will not be about a victim. Rather, it is just some things I want to say to end this remarkably disturbing story.

But I need all of you to let this simmer for a bit.

And then, I need each and every one of you reading it to share the hell out of it.

I need all of you to send it to everyone you know who lives anywhere near Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

I need you to forward it to anyone who may be in counseling in Tuscaloosa.

I need you to share it with your own communities because they may know someone who lives in or near Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

And if you have a daughter that goes to the University of Alabama, it needs to go to her first.

I filed a complaint with the Alabama Social Work board this summer, and she received it, and she responded to it, and it got dismissed. They never talked to me. They never called me. They never asked for my proof. They got a 3-page letter from me that couldn’t begin to cover what I have laid out in, now, 6 blog posts that would easily be a novella.

They took her word for it.

That can’t happen again.

If they don’t strip her of her license, fine. I can’t control that.

But if they don’t, come hell or high water, I will make sure that anyone who is searching for a counselor in Tuscaloosa and finds her BetterHelp page or her professional bio will find my blog right above it.

If the powers-that-be won’t stop her, the internet sure will.

But I need you to make that happen.

I am asking on behalf of Victims 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and especially 11 to help me reel in the most pathetic catfish in the river.

And then, help me take her out of it.

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