A Statement From Greg Carlwood Regarding The Tragic Loss of Tracy Twyman

00:00 All right guys, Greg Carlwood here and this is a highly unusual and very sad and frustrating moment for many people. The first guest that I was semi-close with has passed away Tracy Twyman. I never met Tracy in person but she was someone i had on the show multiple times and did occasionally touch base with in the DM's from time to time And this all just happened. I don't even know the circumstances of her death, but i know she was married and had a family and couldn't have more empathy for all of them. Few people really experience this sort of unexpected loss and i cannot imagine how hard it is. I don't even know what to say...it's just terrible

00:54 And I want to be extremely respectful and careful with my words for their sake, for everyone's sake. Because when things are this serious it is just very irresponsible to be sloppy with your language. But Tracy did record a video and she circulated it to a few friends and now that she has passed before even a day has gone by, one of these people has a blog post on their website about it and posted this video that she had recorded. Which I think is extremely disrespectful and irresponsible but it is what it is now they had to have known they'd be starting a shitstorm but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and I'm sure they were just grieving and still are

01:49 And you would have to watch that in her own words to have all the context, but she names me, The Higher Side Chats and my friend Kyle a guy I've known since the third grade. One of the most compassionate and kind people I know to be honest! And now I'm getting a lot of messages about it. Some people are skeptical of me and this close friend of mine, and instead of responding to tweets or comments one by one, or engaging with people who mention me on the thread for Tracy's video which would be super disrespectful... ...I am just going to give my context for the situation and anyone who is curious can listen here

02:33 But Kyle has been my friend for more than 20 years, and in the first couple of years of THC he did co-host some episodes with me. Duncan Trussell is one that comes to mind... but when I was still trying to find my way and trying out several different formats one was co hosts and he was a big part of that as were a few other people And i just say that because unlike me Unlike Tracy Kyle is not a public figure in any way. And if you wanted to get context for who he is, that's really the only place to do it. Tracy mentions this in her video but back when the Ferguson police riots and protests were going on, Tracy was a producer on Ground Zero with Clyde Lewis at the time

03:18 Traditional multi hour live radio program and she dm me and said hey i know you're from saint louis originally do you know anyone who is down there can maybe call in. And i said yeah actually my friend kyle happens to be down there protesting right now, Police brutality and racial injustice are major issues to Kyle. I'm sure he'd be willing to call in, and of course i would get a kick out of listening to it and having facilitated it." And it happened! Kyle had a short segment kind of being there eyes and ears talking about what he was seeing on the street in the action

03:57 So I guess they kept in touch on Facebook. I know he really was, is a big fan of her research Obviously no matter how close you are to a person you don't know who they talk to or what they say but Tracy and Kyle were friendly Now fast forward quite a bit to around this time last year They started going pretty deep into some creepy videos they were seeing and trying to symbolically decode. And they looped me into a group chat, and shared it all with me... ...and it was all pretty creepy! It did not make me feel good. And it wasn't anything overt but it definitely gave me the creeps. And Tracy said let's do a show on this right now

04:43 And i said tracy i really don't even know what this is. I tend to like to interview people about a book they wrote or something that i can study, this is not really what i do and i thought maybe some of the details should be sorted out first i dont want to do anything irresponsible pedophilia is not something to make casual claims about And I just saw how this material was affecting both of them. I saw how it was getting to me and i said, guys maybe you should put this down for a while? And I said, I'm sorry but I'm just gonna eject myself from this It's too much! What are you really going to do about it anyway? Tracy says herself that she went to the FBI and they turned her away and then her computer started going crazy But...I consider that

05:40 Little saga to be separate from the other aspects of this whole thing that Tracy talks about in the video And I've talked about it a little bit myself and that is a bombardment of creepy cryptic vaguely threatening messages That I was getting at the time and now I know I guess some of these people were also messaging her at the time. But i do just try to stay out of stuff like that i don't like to give it more life by talking about it but it was my first real experience dealing with.

06:17 the sort of stuff that did make me feel mildly unsafe. And because my show is always just focused on the guest and their work, I don't really leave room on the show for me to talk about some unrelated personal dramas i might be experiencing. I talked about it the most probably when I was last on Gramerica I was still trying to be a little vague and not let people know they got to me, and not air my friend's personal business. But i talked about it there! People were sending me creepy pictures saying how sad it would be if I lost my wife... Saying that they're doing magic to disrupt my marriage And some of this was happening in private messages Some of it was spilling over into the THC Facebook group

07:10 which I had just made by the way, and i tried to stay out of that by just going in and renaming the group The Unofficial Hireside Chats Facebook Group so I could wash my hands of it. And say you know I really just want to make my show I have no control over this group or anyone in it because I really didn't get into this to police facebook groups And some of this was happening on the THC Plus forum, something that's just for the paid subscribers which I'm also not on as much as i should be but clearly posts on that forum are relayed in Tracy's video. So at the time I'm just sort of trying to stay busy on the show and not engage with this stuff because if it's affecting you and it's all through a digital screen

08:04 Shut off the screens for a while and that was how I handled it. And Kyle, like a good concerned friend was digging all through these public posts at least checking out the links and he hits me up and you'd be like dude are you seeing this? These guys are saying this and that about you This other guy's talking Like your really close and i know you aren't! And again...I saw how this is affecting him along with the other stuff and I just said man let go what can ya do Now these weird messages were from several different people. I know at least a couple of them clearly overlapped based on Tracy's video, but my impression was just that it was a couple of unrelated people who probably aren't quite right and they found the Hireside Chats and they got really obsessed and it was just some

08:57 Super fans who probably just are getting carried away they wanted to feel like they were part of something so we have these comments about protection spells and secret orders, i just thought it had the shape of creepy but kinda typical unwell behavior. Tracy reproduces at least a couple of their comments in her video and you tell me if these comments seem to come from a mentally healthy person. So the frustrating and sad thing about this video Tracy made is that she conflates my friend Kyle with some of this creepy behavior, And these completely random accounts none of us have ever known about or seen before this stuff... ...and I wish I could talk to her! I wish I could

09:52 Untangle some of these things for her by giving her my contacts but i backed out the whole thing. For my own mental health and when it comes to kyle i really, really don't wanna air my friends dirty laundry i want to respect his privacy we grew up together our families know each other i don't want to upset them and i don't want put anyone on blast but amidst my warnings that he should stop obsessing over some of this stuff He wasn't sleeping he was getting very paranoid and went through a cycle or pattern that i think is sort of archetypal or stereotypical of a person who goes too far down the rabbit hole. Any had extreme mental exhaustion any was hospitalized against as well which is also not gonna make a person dealing with paranoia feel any better or any safer,

10:49 So now I'm even more disengaged from any random comments on the internet because i'm deeply concerned over the mental health of my closest friend. I'm feeling terrible because this uprooted his life, I'm feeling terrible because his parents know that it is somewhat related to my show and these topics and maybe none of this would have happened if I just stayed at GameStop who was the first real-life negative consequence And again, no matter how close you are to someone you never know what they say or do in private and you have no control over it. Tracy says that they were talking on the phone every day and then he turned on her well all I can say is that Kyle is such a passionate guy for justice and he and Tracy and I are all on the same page of wanting justice for child abusers. I mean who isn't? But I think when people get obsessed with rabbit holes like this

11:49 They get paranoid they have a tendency to turn on each other and get extremely skeptical of everything. And that's probably the gist of what happened i don't know but i know my best friend was psych warded within like a day of all this i'm sure there was some unraveling, i love again it's really sad and frustrating to be in the middle of this and trying to do some sort of Damage control when Tracy isn't here anymore and all we have is this video. And I think it was really irresponsible to put out there like the day we lost her, but...I don't know who this guy is. I don't really care but as Tracy said in her video

12:32 It was just like two months ago where I thought, hey a lot of this has died down. Kyle's been doing well for months...I think it's time that I message Tracy clear the air apologize for sort of ghosting her and explain why I did it my friend had a mental health issue nothing else mattered it was largely related to obsessing over this dark material and I just thought So we have some creepy videos, I can't do anything about it and it's definitely not a priority when my best friend is hurting. I felt that was important to tell her this and I apologize to Kyle for all of it. I wouldn't say these things publicly, its nobody's business but unfortunately when I told Tracy about this in private... ...I tried to explain why I didn't want to get involved and she relayed all of this in the video And then this guy released it publicly

13:28 So it's out there. And it is my fault, I guess. I feel really really terrible. I miss Tracy...I wish I could talk to her! I wish it wasn't being left like this. I hope her family gets answers and I don't even know what happened so there's just so much speculation. I don't even know what the truth is. It's probably too soon for me even be putting something like this out but I just think it should be addressed in the story told in full Because when you let something go it just grows. In her video she goes on to talk about this campground and her communications with Isaac Cappy I don't know anything about that stuff, I know Kyle doesn't know anything about that stuff My friend was having a really tough time I was brushing off minor digital harassment And if she went deeper into those threads of research well...I haven't even unpacked that yet and i dont know

14:26 how much of it or any of it has to do with her death we might never know but because the video is related and its in the video I guess I have to talk about. Im just so sad and empathetic, and yes very frustrated with this! I started The Higher Side Chats interview interesting researchers and off-the radar topic areas and I love doing it but this short month drama that happened a year ago was the first time my real world and podcasts crossed each other. I know it's damaged some of my relationships now, which sucks but it's absolutely nothing compared to the loss of life and this month of drama that I try to stay out of has definitely come back in a big way through this video. I've watched it several times Tracy doesn't really say anything bad about me but I feel like I can tell by the tone she's not really happy with me

15:28 She even knows some of these people are harassing me too, but we just approached it differently and I wish i had known how she felt about some of these things that she says. I really wish it wasn't too late So I think I'm gonna leave it at that. I don't even know if I said anything important. I'm greatly out of my depth. I do not know really anything more. I do not know how to handle a situation like this I only feel half comfortable putting this out there. Maybe this isn't the right thing to do." I have no guide, I have no team, and I have no training. I'm just a guy who hosts a podcast about conspiracy esoteric and sometimes really dark subjects... And after almost a decade of doing it, it got real! I just want to repeat that it's gotten real because of the release of this video

16:22 I don't know if this tragedy has even a single thing to do with the content of the video. There's many parts of it that don't involve me or my friend, and I don't want to spout off about it but my opinion at this point is that the research she was doing and the online harassment at least with people I was dealing with are probably separate things, and Kyle definitely is so I'm just sorry for airing a private person's personal life publicly I haven't even talked to him because i've already expressed that i feel badly about how this material affected him and i don't want to set them off again. And im confident as my friend that he'll understand why i'm doing this, and if i hadn't exposed his private life to Tracy in a private email it wouldn't be out there now and people wouldn't be throwing his name around now and i'm just sorry. This is terrible

17:19 We lost a really extraordinary woman who had a lot of knowledge and dedication, produced some very interesting work and was really committed to wanting to see more justice in the world. I hope this doesn't contribute to more drama or pain for her loved ones. The few pieces that I have will satisfy the skeptical people out there—I know it won't! These are conspiratorially-minded people after all but I just wanted to be open and honest anyway I'm not really going to say any more about it because i don't really know anything. I tried to stay out of it and do my show, but had no idea how bad it would get or that one of these people I liked and respected would be gone now... Or that I'd have to defend my third grade friend from random careless speculators on the internet In closing, I guess I just hope and ask if you who are listening see people talking about this

18:17 and posting Tracy's video, and associating my name with whatever happened. Please post this where you see it! Please let people also have this added context I really don't want to inject myself into this. It's not my business at all, but i feel like my hand was forced. I'm saying this now and I'm not going to be the one to go around making sure that I've posted it everywhere." And even just feels wrong and arbitrary to worry about anything but the fact that someone died...like Tracy died

19:01 I don't know what happened. I'm sure details might come out, and with each detail more speculation as to what happened but what i'm saying here is all I can say you know I interview a lot of different people about many different things some are fun and speculative some are very dark and serious and it's not a game It's not something to throw claims around with And this stuff can affect people very deeply It can depress them, it can send them over the mental edge. It can spill over into their personal lives and their relationships or potentially worse And we all want justice in areas that seem pretty much off-limits for justice But we also need to step back sometimes and counter the dark material with the love of our friends and family I hope it sounds cheesy to say but

19:56 There has to be that kind of counterbalance and i might come off as a chicken shit podcast host who's never gonna do anything real, never gonna fight the big fight but I feel completely comfortable with my contribution to the world and my attempts to improve it slightly through these interviews in this show. And I'll keep trying but In truth, I can only stare into the darkest abyss for so long because i have seen how it affects people. It does worry me and there are a lot of important things in life besides THE darkest of dark subjects So take care of the people you love keep Tracy and her family in your thoughts and prayers And be very careful with what you say to people online! And again one final time...I'm sorry

20:51 I love you Kyle, I miss you Tracy and I wish the best for everyone.