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Welcome to the Behind the Shield podcast.
As always, my name is James Gearing
and this week it is my absolute honor
to welcome on the show medium, Jonathan Mark.
Now in this conversation, we discuss a host of topics
from Jonathan's family becoming aware
that he had a special set of skills,
his journey into NYPD,
how he ultimately began helping law enforcement as a medium,
some notable cases he's worked on,
finding closure for families,
mental health, dating and so much more.
Now before we get to this incredible conversation,
as I say every week, please just take a moment,
go to whichever app you listen to this on,
subscribe to the show, leave feedback and leave a rating.
Every single five star rating truly does elevate
this podcast, therefore making it easier for others to find.
And this is a free library of almost 1000 episodes now.
So all I ask in return is that you help share
these incredible men and women stories
so I can get them to every single person
on planet earth who needs to hear them.
So with that being said, I introduce to you,
Jonathan Mark, enjoy.
Jonathan, I want to say two things to start.
Firstly, thank you so much to Kate Casey,
our mutual friend for making the connection.
And secondly, to welcome you
onto the Behind the Shield podcast today.
Thank you so much for having me.
And thank you, Kate Casey, you're the best.
So where on planet earth are we finding you this afternoon?
I'm on Long Island.
My whole family's from Long Island.
I grew up on Long Island.
I travel like around obviously to a few places,
but my home base, I always tell people,
is New York, Long Island.
Well, speaking of growing up there then,
I'd love to start at the very beginning.
So tell me about your family dynamic,
what your parents did, how many siblings?
I have one brother, he works in iCloud tech software.
So he does like the sales for a major company.
And my mom is an HR for a bank
and my dad is a financial advisor.
Brilliant.
So then with that kind of family dynamic,
I'm assuming your parents were home every night.
So it wasn't like some of these people
that have on the show where they have military parents
or first responder parents.
What was the kind of dynamic growing up
where you were a latchkey kid
or was there more of a kind of
traditional nuclear family element?
I would probably say it was more like
my parents worked full-time for like 12 hours a day.
So my grandmother would watch us.
So my grandma would like basically raise us
from when we were a young kid until we were in high school.
And my parents would try to make life as normal as possible
while working very tough jobs.
But it was a pretty normal childhood, honestly.
And I'm very blessed to say that.
What about sports?
What were you playing during the school age?
Oh my God.
I mean, anything really.
But I started to gravitate as I was older
towards wrestling and lacrosse.
It's always interesting when you have someone
who plays a team sport and then obviously there's one
that's more of an individual element like wrestling.
So as you progress through it,
obviously we'll talk about your time in law enforcement,
initially going through academy and training,
but which elements of the individual sports
factored into that?
And then which elements of the team sports?
You know, that's a good question.
I think the individual side is I was learning
at a young age from wrestling,
from like middle school to high school and all that,
that I can either succeed by myself or lose on myself.
Like by myself and I can't blame the people around me.
Like it's all on me.
And it taught me a lot from like,
I think in a couple different ways in like life
and obviously the sport of wrestling too.
I think in life, it just taught me that
as much effort as you put in,
you'll kind of see the success
and you can't blame anyone if you mess up.
And like, I think growing up sometimes
when I was watching my friends play like baseball,
basketball or whatever, like a team sport,
but really before like lacrosse became like my major sport,
I noticed that, you know, they would be like,
oh, Jimmy did this and that's why we lost
or Jimmy like screwed up this play and this is why we lost.
And I think going in, you know,
through the process and the academy and all of that,
you know, you have to heavily rely on the people around you.
And lacrosse gave me that like brotherhood,
which is like something that I love.
Like I love the brotherhood.
I love like we go through hell together
on the field and practice.
We win together, we lose together
and you'll protect the person to the left,
to the right in front or behind you.
And that like made me gravitate more towards a team sport
than an individualistic sport of like a wrestling.
Cause I wanted that team feeling,
which translated into the academy and everything.
What is the contact level in lacrosse?
We, and I was in school, which was a long time ago.
We actually had a Canadian come to England
and we did lacrosse for a semester,
but we just had the sticks and the ball.
We didn't have any of the helmets and pads.
And randomly there was one of the kids
in my school that could play lacrosse.
I don't know how the hell he found a school there,
but it seems like, you know,
obviously it's kind of almost like a land version of ice hockey.
But what is the contact level versus,
for example, a sport like football?
It's pretty full contact.
I mean, like you obviously can't like tackle someone
and wrap your arms around them and bring them to the ground.
But a lot of the times like you can run
and just like hit someone pretty hard,
like with your shoulder.
Rules have changed since I played in college till now,
cause they're trying to be a little bit more protective
of like the CTE like stuff.
So when I was in college and playing,
like people were like running like at you,
like head first to like make direct contact with you.
And then with the stick too, on top of that,
they'll be able to slash you,
like hit you with the stick in your elbow, your arm,
you know, try to, you know, strip you,
or like get the stick out of your hand and everything.
So it's pretty full contact.
The only difference I will make with that
towards like American football and lacrosse
is it's such a, like a fast sport.
There's no stop, go, stop, go, stop, go.
It's a constant.
So like if you get hit, the game still goes.
Like it's not like one of those where like in football,
if you have the ball and you get hit
and you're sacked, the play's over.
So I think it's pretty full contact.
It gets pretty chippy out there.
I played field hockey when I was in school.
Football was, you know, obviously very, very popular
and I loved playing it,
but I wasn't good enough to really play on the team.
I didn't really have the drive to play on the team,
but field hockey was always seen as a bit of a girl sport,
but men's field hockey, just as you said,
you've got a stick and you've got a ball that is rock solid
and no pads or anything.
And I don't think, you know,
people realize how fricking aggressive that sport is
until you actually get on the field and play it.
I can imagine.
I would just imagine that people are just like slashing
like your shins, your ankles, or, you know,
trying to go after the ball and boxing people out.
It would have to be, I would assume like so aggressive,
but you are right.
Cause a lot of people, you know,
even KKC played field hockey in college too.
So it's like, like she would tell me
it would get very chippy there, like very, very chippy.
Cause we share stories about that like all the time.
So I would assume that it would get pretty chippy.
Absolutely.
Well, what about career aspirations
when you were in the school age?
What were you dreaming of becoming?
You know, it's interesting.
When I was a kid and when I was in high school,
I always wanted to help people.
That was something that was like a huge driving force for me
in the beginning of choosing colleges
and deciding what I wanted to do in life.
For a long time, I wanted to be military.
That was something I wanted very badly
to either join the Marines, the army, the Navy, anything.
And as I got a little bit older,
like with the college recruiting process,
I was getting recruited to, you know, West Point,
Annapolis and all that.
And I, you know, I saw what these men were
and I was in awe of them.
And I got in this, in my mind a little bit
where I was like, I don't think I can compare
to these people.
Like, I just can't.
Like they're, like I was going through these visits
and I'll never forget like when I went to Annapolis
and we were just talking about the career trajectory
of like when you graduate the Naval Academy
or like they were telling me I have to go to prep school
in Rhode Island before I can go to Annapolis,
but I would commit to Annapolis.
And then if I wanted to make a career, you know,
and like every young kid, and I'm not gonna lie,
every young kid's like Navy SEAL, Green Beret, right?
Like you're like, that's what I want.
And they told me, they're like, all right,
you go to Lake Erie or, and then you go to Coronado Island.
So I went to Coronado to just check it out
and I'll never forget, like I was with my mom.
So it was like kind of nuts.
I was with my mom and we go on and I guess a class
just finished Hell Week or something.
Like it was like, they just finished Hell Week it seemed
and they were ramped up, like amped up and like,
and I was just like, these are like men, like these are men.
I'm like, I feel like a child next to them.
I'm like, these are men.
So I was like once, and like other medical stuff happened
to me also too with like things I couldn't control with,
if I wanted to dive, my eardrums were not great.
When I was a kid, I had surgery.
So the high pressure, they said my eardrums would burst.
If I did any diving exercises, anything like past a certain
amount of feet, like they were going through like my medical
history with my family and myself.
And I think that also scared me too, if I'm being honest,
like they're like, this could happen and this can happen.
And I was such an impressionable kid and I came from
not a bad area on Long Island.
So I was like, I'm just going to go to college
and get a sport management degree because I was getting
recruited and you know, I wanted to also have fun
with my friends, but I also wanted to see what that life
was about with the military.
And then I kind of just graduated and I went to
Universal McCann, which is an advertising agency.
But during that time, I took the police test.
So when I took the police test, I heard back like,
like three, four months later.
So I had to go through the process as I just started
the workforce.
Like it was like such a weird time for me.
Cause I thought it was, it was going to take years,
honestly, I did not think it was going to take like four
months, five months.
When you said you had surgery on your eardrums,
I had the grommets.
I forget what they call them here,
but the little kind of syringe piece that they put in
when you have all the earwax and you can't swim for months
at a time, which is when I learned how to play squash
as a little boy.
Was that what you had as well?
Yeah, I had tubes in my ear.
I just remember being, yeah, I just remember being a kid
and I would be playing outside of my brother and like this
blue tube came out of my ear.
And I was like, I was like, what is that?
And my mom would like grab me and be like, that's good.
That means blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And I didn't really understand what it was.
And it, and it's interesting too.
Cause anytime I go get like a physical or something
with a doctor, they, you know,
how they put this stuff in your ear and they look at your
eardrums, they're like, you have so much scar tissue
on your eardrum from all this stuff.
They're like, your eardrum looks so beat up
for a 30 year old, right?
Like they're like, that's crazy.
So yeah, it, it was weird.
I'm not going to lie.
Well, staying in your childhood,
obviously we're going to walk through, you know,
the realization or the confirmation of, you know,
the sensitivities that you have.
A lot of us don't.
It seems apparent that we are extremely open
when we're very young.
So what were kind of your earliest memories when you reflect
back now of, of maybe having some of these sensitivities
and feelings and visions even that maybe some other
children weren't having.
Yeah. So it kind of goes back to when I was about four
years old and I hear a lot of these stories and I do
remember some, but I really heard from my family members
cause they were like, I'm not going to lie.
They were weirded out.
Like they just were like,
cause they didn't really know what it was.
So, so I just remember being, you know,
about four years old is when I, you know,
I think first started talking about like things I was
seeing, right?
And, you know, the story I tell people,
cause it's the first time my whole family heard it was I,
it was like Easter Sunday or something.
And my aunt Susan, she passed away when I was six months
old and long version, sure.
My mom and her were best friends,
lived together after college in Queens.
And when she had cancer,
she lived with my mom before she passed.
And, you know, so I was six months old when she passed.
And I went up to my grandfather.
So my mom's and Susan's father.
And I said, Susie's here and Susie's here.
And I'm sure just like majority of people,
including myself, I could probably, you know,
I'm at my parents' house right now.
I could probably lift up my laptop and show you pictures of
people that had passed away in our family.
Like people have pictures of, you know, family members,
friends, people that were close to them.
And my grandpa was like, oh, okay, cool.
Like, you know, what's she doing?
You know, just like being kind of like weirded out that I'm
even saying it.
And back in the day, my mom used to dress me
as what I call the Canadian tuxedo,
the denim top and denim shorts or whatever.
So I kept saying that, you know, my aunt, like,
I'm like Susie's like wearing this.
And I kept pulling at my shirt and my grandfather was like,
what the heck is this kid saying?
And my mom's other sister was there
and she was also confused.
So my mom walks around the other room,
like she saw 12 ghosts and was like crying.
And my grandfather's like, why, like, like what's going on?
And my mom like explains it like this,
where they had the service and everyone was going to their,
well, everyone exited and went to their cars to go,
you know, to the cemetery for the burial, like portion.
And while everyone was there,
my mom walked like stormed back in and there was a jean jacket
that they would steal from each other, like all the time,
because they used to steal clothes from each other,
but there was just one jean jacket, this denim jacket.
And my mom buried it or put it in the coffin with her
as like her own personal thing.
She didn't want anyone to know.
She just did not want anyone to know.
It was like her thing with Susan.
And she's like, that's what it is.
So my mom starts crying and my grandfather and everyone,
I guess looked at me and they're like,
we didn't know this, how the heck did you know this?
Like, so then, you know, as I was getting older,
you know, I was seeing and like,
I was continuing to see Susan, Maya and Sue
wearing different outfits,
like describing what she was wearing,
things that my mom would only know just because
there weren't any pictures of her in those outfits
or with the jewelry, et cetera.
And I was seeing other people's families too,
but I didn't really understand what it was
because I thought it was normal what I was seeing.
Like I thought everyone was seeing that.
Like I just like, you know, kind of thought it was normal.
But then when I was a teenager,
I remember just being like, not everyone is seeing this
or not everyone's feeling this.
And I became a little bit of like an introvert
because of that, because I just didn't know
what was going on in my mind.
Like I thought my mind was playing tricks on me.
Like I didn't really know, you know, for a while.
What was the environment then?
Obviously now, you know, as we're talking about it,
this seems to be a lot more, you know,
open conversation and accepted.
But when you were going through your teens, I mean, what,
if you said the word medium,
what would have been the reaction back then?
For one, I don't even think people would even know
what that is my age.
But I think if I was to explain it back then,
they would have crucified me.
Like they would have made fun of me.
They would have thought I was crazy.
Like, you know, I don't think it would have,
it's way more acceptable today to talk about it.
I don't think it was then,
which is why I was like,
I'm not going to share this with anyone.
Like I know people are gonna make fun of me.
I know that.
Like I know that's what's gonna happen
because my friends were like playing sports,
like, you know, starting to, you know, drink,
starting to hang out with girls.
Like they, being, seeing dead people are speaking about that.
They would be like, what is wrong with this kid?
Like who, and they would make fun of me.
And I just didn't want that.
So I became introverted and I became, you know,
kind of a little too myself because I was battling,
you know, what was going on.
And I didn't know how to make sense of it.
When, when I did some research on you,
it mentioned about 20 years old,
you're getting a confirmation.
So what was that shift around that age then?
Yeah. So I was going off to college to play lacrosse
and I was with, you know, my, my mom the night before.
And I turned to her and I asked if there's any mental
illness in the family because I thought I was schizophrenic
because there was a period of time,
probably from when I was like 12, 13,
to when I went off to college where I really didn't speak
about this anymore because I was so afraid to talk about it.
And so I asked my mom and she goes, no.
And I go, well, I'm still seeing things.
And she goes, well, I'm going to see a medium.
Do you want me to ask the medium?
And I was like, I didn't know really what a medium was.
And I was like, I guess.
So the medium was like, he could be crazy.
You have to bring him in.
So when I came in, it was validated that I could do this.
So it was kind of like a comfort for me to know
that I wasn't crazy.
Did you ever find out what it was that that medium saw
or felt that confirmed you were a medium?
You know, I really don't know fully.
I think it was, I don't really know.
I don't remember.
I would have to ask my mom because my mom was with me
through it and it always sounds silly.
I'm like over 30 and I still refer to my mom about this,
but she's been such a crucial part in this,
telling me to pursue this, helping me with this and all that.
So I would have to ask her because I don't remember
because it was so long ago.
So walk me through your journey into law enforcement
and then the interesting story that takes you
right back out again.
Yeah, so I was working at Universal McCann
and I got the email.
They're like, hey, your list number's up.
Come to blah, blah, blah.
You're gonna start the process.
So the process, I'm sure many people know,
it's like paperwork, you meet your investigator,
you do your agility test and you do your psych test
and then it's the mini-med and once you pass
all of that stuff, then you get the email
that you're joining the academy.
And the academy would always run July, October,
January and April and October and April
were typically smaller classes for NYPD,
mostly for people that just finished like military service
or anything like that.
Like they would put those people typically together
most of the time.
So I got the email and there wasn't too many people
in my family that were law enforcement.
So I was one of the, everyone was working finance
or they were lawyers or whatever
and I never saw myself doing that.
I saw myself trying to give myself to help people.
And so I went through the process
and I met the investigator when I was going through
my interview with the investigator.
Someone sat down with me and they're like,
here you're a lacrosse player.
They're like, do you know NYPD has a lacrosse team?
Like all of that stuff.
So as time went on, to backtrack a little bit,
like after I got the confirmation and stuff
about being a medium and not crazy,
my mom was bringing friends of people that I didn't know.
Just because if I know someone when I'm reading them
and I'm sure people can piece this together as well,
it becomes memory-based.
It doesn't become authentic.
Like the more you know about someone actually hurts
the reading in my opinion, like way more
because then you become biased and then you know things
and it's like, you don't, it's not great.
So because my mom was doing that,
friend of a friend of a friend of a very high level
ranking officer and a couple of them saw my list number,
saw all that stuff, my tax number, my tag number,
all that stuff and they pulled me aside and they said,
listen, we want you to be able to go home.
Like that's something that's super important to us
and that we wish that we can tell more people to do
to like go home and be with your family and be safe.
They're like, harness this gift and when we seem it's fit,
we'll use you as a resource,
but you have a lot of work to do.
So they're like, get on this work and credit to my mom
and my family to like stop all this.
It was a hard thing to do and it was a hard thing,
I think for me and not to get like deep or anything
and I'm sure people don't like care or whatever,
but I've been such a team player my whole life
when it comes to lacrosse and everything that to quit
on a team or to quit on anyone was pretty hard for me,
but I felt like it was the right decision to do.
So that's kind of how like it all went through the process
and got to like starting to be able to help
the law enforcement kinda,
cause then there's a whole other side to it.
With that conversation, one would assume
that they'd had some sort of interaction with mediums
or psychics in a prior to that and had seen the value.
So did you ever learn about basically predecessors
of the FBI, NYPD, whoever the kind of environment was?
I learned about it way later on.
I don't think I knew about it so much when it first happened.
I think now speaking to these people that I work with,
I'm not like a first time person
or first time medium that they've used.
Like they've explained to me certain people
and like they've used mediums for a while is what I will say
or people like what I can do, maybe not a medium,
but someone who can tap into something to help them.
Like I thought I was the first and I don't even think,
honestly anything of it.
And then now I'm like the a thousandth,
like you know what I mean?
Like they go through people, but they also test people.
Like they also, I don't want people to think
that they just all of a sudden were like,
just work with us because that's not how it was.
I had to prove myself like a lot,
like a lot, a lot I had to prove myself
to get to a good standing with these people.
It wasn't like, oh, we trust Jimmy over here
who says that like, hey, like, you know,
we're gonna do this.
It's they're like, we need to see what you can do
and we need to see the results of it.
Like if it's worth our time.
Let's talk about the other side for a second.
Basically the charlatans, I could imagine how this gift
obviously can give a lot of hope.
And certainly when you're starting to describe things
that no one else knows, you know,
there's a real belief forge then,
but you can also imagine that damage can be done
if you're getting someone's trust
and you're actually doing internet searches
and you know, there's basically
pursuing a financial element.
What was the kind of perception?
What was that other side in the environment
where you started coming in?
Like with law enforcement or just people as like a general
because-
Just in general, I think, you know,
that medium psychic world, you know,
who was doing your kind of, I mean, profession,
I guess for lack of a better word,
a disservice by their actions.
It doesn't have to be names, but the types of people.
I think the types of people are obviously people
that probably could research people,
but from what I've seen, like actually like firsthand,
like in a room, I guess it's,
I call it cold reading or something.
It's kind of like a cold call, right?
But it's like, someone will go up to you
and you essentially like without realizing
you're feeding them answers.
Like you're just feeding them answers.
Like they'll be like, there's a loved one with you
who's a female and it's like, you know,
we've all lost a grandparent, right?
We probably lost a grandma.
Like, you know, people start plugging in stuff
for certain people.
So what I made it a pretty big point is for people
not to say anything, just yes or no,
because it's like, you know,
and I try to stay super far away from like the scheduling
of sorts with it.
Like I just want people to either give me a fake name
or just to give me your first name.
Like I don't care.
Like that stuff doesn't care
because what's gonna come through is gonna come through
whether your name is really Jonathan
or it's David, right?
Like it doesn't matter, I guess.
But I have seen people do that.
And because of that, I made it a pretty strong point
to, like I said, to make sure like I can take all that stuff
out, like the variables out of like people doubting.
And there will be people that are doubting,
but I always say to people, sit down with me
for 10 to 15 minutes and let me change your mind
because, you know, I have to say things
that you can't Google.
You can't search.
You can't do that stuff
because that's the important part of a reading.
And that's also the important part
of when you're working on a case.
It's like, you can't know about the case.
You can't Google the case.
You can't have a bias.
Like you have to say things that you can't Google
that only the family member of the victim
or someone or like a detective that's on the case,
they only know because they were so close to it
that no one else knows about it.
So I try my best to make it as authentic
for every single person as possible
because of that, like types of like people that do that.
You mentioned about worrying that you had a mental illness
when you were seeing what you were seeing.
And obviously, you know, it's very intense
for you specifically, but my wife has had moments where,
I mean, like I lost my grandfather
and we were all together in Portugal a few years ago.
And she said she started smelling pipe smoke.
She didn't know that my granddad's,
and it was out of the blue.
It wasn't like she's always giving me readings
from dead people, but she felt a presence.
She felt like my Gappa was there
and she's had a friend of mine's mother visit her.
So just on occasion, and then she lost her boyfriend
before me to suicide.
And so, you know, she would get visits in her sleep,
you know, from him as well.
So I'm very open obviously to this interaction
because I don't believe that you just exist
in such a powerful way on the planet.
And then poof, you know, you're just atoms
and that's it, you go away.
So I'm definitely, you know, leaning into that.
How many of us do you think have more of that
and we realize, and maybe we're turning it off
because of, you know, this is quote unquote sensible
not to talk that way.
So I always use this phrase for people.
Everyone can sing, but not everyone can sing
Frank Sinatra, I always say.
And the reason I say that is because,
is really because everyone can do this.
It's like everyone is open, but you are right
because when you're a child, you are so pure.
Real life stuff hasn't really come into your life yet
as far as like people being like, you know,
mediums are weird, this is weird, do this, don't do that.
So you're so pure and so open.
Like your funnel is probably like wide open.
I always make that analogy.
But then when like people start telling you stuff
in that medium, you know, like so many different factors
of life start to come into play, your funnel gets
like a little bit closed, more closed.
But with that being said, like I was saying,
everyone can do this, everyone has the ability.
It's just what's the ability, right?
Like some people always will talk about a gut feeling
and then they'll be like, you know,
I shouldn't go down this road today.
And then they're like, holy crap.
Like at that time, the road I was gonna go on,
there was a 10 car pileup where majority of people
passed away and then there's people that are like
having visits that are clairvoyant or mediums.
And you know, everyone has something.
It's just trying to figure out what that is.
Beautiful, I'm glad I asked that question.
Well, you talked about developing your skill.
So what did that look like?
How did you start doing the work as it were
to get to the point where you could be an asset
to a law enforcement agency?
Yeah, so I never thought I was even going to be.
I thought they were just, you know,
kind of blonde smoke, you know, on my butt or whatever.
So basically how it started was I would see images, right?
It's kind of like Pictionary, I would probably say.
And you are learning your language.
I always kind of like phrase it as
you're learning a new language.
So if you see a symbol that means this
and then it starts to go faster and becomes more specific.
And so as I was doing it, the symbols became kind of more,
like it's silly analogy.
It became from symbols to like screenshots in my head.
And then it became like I'm seeing seven screenshots
and it would tell a story.
And the story was the person who's coming through,
how they pass and things about them.
And then it becomes the specifics.
If they keep showing me my friend
who has a scar on their cheek,
I know that they had a scar on their cheek.
And, you know, that's kind of how I was able
to start working a little bit with law enforcement
is because when I was developing,
they were seeing like a clear growth.
And like I said, they were, you know,
oh, I didn't even say this.
They were sending people to me and testing me.
And like, I didn't know that.
I thought it was a friend of a friend.
I had no idea.
I thought it was just like a normal person
that reached out to my mom who wanted a reading,
but there was a rhyme of reason for everything.
So as they saw me progressing throughout like a few years
and they saw like the specifics of like kind of
what I was giving them of like,
there's a scar on the cheek or there was this person there.
And, you know, certain things like that,
that's when they knew my gift was developing enough
to be able to be an asset for them.
And I just want to make this so clear for everyone
because I think people watch movies,
including myself, obviously, you know, I'm their last call.
I'm really not their first.
Like, I don't want people to think like
when something happens, I'm their immediate like first call
because I'm not, they really exhaust all options
before they go to me.
Like that's just the truth of it.
And I'm okay, like knowing that and I'm okay with it,
but that's really what it is.
I'm their last option, not their first.
So you're not rolling up in the bear cat,
fully tacked out, ready to make entry.
I'm not wearing my blues, I'm not wearing anything.
I'm just going, you know, I'm sitting at my dinner table
and I get a phone call and they're like,
you have 15 minutes, tell me what you got.
Like that.
Like it's-
Oh wow.
Yeah, cause they want, and I do get this now.
Since I've been doing this like more,
I kind of understand their process with it more so now.
They don't want me to have a bias on anything
and they don't want me looking up anything.
So they're like, let's call him and throw him off essentially
and see truly authentically what he gets.
And let's see if it stays the same throughout months time.
Because like, I'm sure you know,
and I'm sure a lot of your audience knows,
like you can't really solve a case.
Typically it's not a one, two, three.
And if you do, that is phenomenal.
And like, God bless you, cause that's amazing.
But they have to do their stuff.
And so they always try to throw me off, which is fine.
So what was the first case that you worked on?
And then also kind of, you know, what is it
that you start to see?
Because as you touched on before,
you know, you've got symbols and you've got screenshots
and it's implying certain elements.
But again, if we go to Hollywood,
you know, Jonathan closes his eyes
and he sees the guy digging the grave under the tree.
And he's like, that's where the body is.
I wish it was like that, but it's not, no.
I wish.
So my first case that I found out I was put on
after through being tested, obviously,
there was the Howard Beach jogger.
And Howard Beach is like in Queens and in the New York area.
And I was able to kind of tell them who to look into.
I wasn't telling them that this is the person who did it.
I don't give them information like that.
I give them information where the honest,
like the honest truth of it is I give them the information
of you're looking in the wrong direction,
just going this one, or you overlook this person,
speak to this person.
That's what the person is showing to me.
And it doesn't mean that they're the ones who did it.
Typically from what I'm learning,
it means that they were either there
or they have more additional information
that they went through everything with them.
They questioned them, they brought them in,
and they're like, oh, they passed, they're all good.
And I'm like, no, no, no, you need to go back.
And then all of a sudden they find out
that they were there the night of the murder.
They were there.
There's a lot of different things.
And I think people think kind of what you said
with the Hollywood thing.
I close my eyes and it's like, dig here.
This is where the bones are, dig here.
And it's really not like that.
It's kind of like putting pieces together for them.
I'm like such a small piece to a puzzle
because the amazing detectives take what I say
and they do their thing with it.
And then they find that stuff out more than I do.
It's just trying to keep a case open
or trying to go in a different direction for them.
So with the Howard Beach Jogger, what were they missing?
And then what did they find when they circle around?
So the Howard Beach Jogger was,
this young woman was jogging
and someone just brutally murdered her on her jog.
And they didn't know who did it.
They had no idea.
They speculated people.
There was a couple of things that they were speculating
where it was either super random
or it was someone within the family.
There was a couple of theories that they were,
there was really two to three theories
that they were pretty adamant on with it.
With immediate family and then some extended,
there was three theories with it.
So with me, when I got brought in,
I was telling them just to speak to someone that they,
like I said, that they thought was in the clear, essentially.
They were like, we questioned them, they're all good.
And they spoke to them and they were able to find
some things with this person.
Because I don't want to name the people
because I just don't want to, like,
I still want to hold their respect
with the people that I work with with that.
So I don't want to be like, I said this and that's what I did.
It's like, I just kind of told them what I saw
because they were sending me,
like again, which I didn't know until after all this happened,
family members of the young girl who was murdered.
So they were sending me different family members,
like cousins, aunts, uncles, all these people,
because they wanted to see if everything was consistent
with what I was saying.
Because if there was any inconsistency
with what I was saying to each individual,
then I wouldn't be an asset to them.
Then I would be a problem.
So what about the Gabby Batito case?
Yeah, that's an interesting one actually.
So it actually originally started,
I'm trying to think like the timeline, like the exact,
it was like August, I think of the year
or something like that.
I got reached out to and they were asking me
and it was just through a law enforcement person
that I knew just because I'm sure you know this
and people do too.
It happened in a multi-state like situation.
So it wasn't just Utah or Wyoming or Florida.
It was like a multi-state situation.
And one of my contacts reached out to me
and he was like, what do you see?
Because at this time she was missing.
So he was like, do you think she's alive?
Is this a search and rescue or a search and retrieval?
He's like, there's two different things.
He's like, what do you see?
And I told him, I said, if I'm connecting to her,
it's the most unfortunate case of what had happened.
Because I really can't connect to someone who's living.
That's just not what I do.
So at that point he's like, okay, where do you see her?
And I helped guide them to what I saw the landscape was
of what she was trying to show me.
It's not like, again, in the Hollywood,
I'm like, go down this trail, make a right
and then go to this big tree with the oak and the red leaves.
I was kind of explaining to them what I was seeing
from what she was providing to me.
And they found her.
And then at that point, Brian Laundrie was on the run.
Like at that point he was on the run once all this happened.
And then it became, help me find him
because we know he's still alive based on certain things
like that he was doing, et cetera, et cetera.
I don't wanna take credit for that even slightly
because I think the law enforcement people did
the absolute best job and they found him.
I just told them what to expect when you do find him
and where I saw it and everything that I said checked out
and like kind of what I was guiding them
because I'm sure people can remember Gabby's case.
He was on a manhunt for quite some time.
It wasn't like a week.
It wasn't like a few days.
It was quite some time.
So I was helping them guide them of like
where I saw he was going and it was all being recorded.
And again, like finding out years later,
because you don't really find out in the moment
of like anything during an active case.
Like I just never will.
I will always find out a year or two later.
I guess they were listening to what I was saying
but also using their investigative skills too
and tracking certain things and all that
that some whole law enforcement people were like,
does this kid have like a crystal ball or something?
They're like, this is like super weird.
They're like, this is like super, super weird.
And I just became friendly
with a lot of other law enforcement
by proving myself on that case
and also became very close with Gabby's mom during that
because I was helping them out.
Yeah, that was the, was it Utah?
Is that where that was?
Yeah, so the initial domestic situation was in Utah
but what actually the killing took place in Wyoming.
Okay, and that was the one where he was out on the trails
and then he'd said initially that she got missing.
Yeah, they said that they were like,
they were doing the YouTube backpacking like in a van thing
and they said they were parked at a place
where all these other trucks or whatever were
or they were on a trail similar to where cars can park.
And he said she just went missing.
He really didn't like even say anything
because he called his parents and told them what happened
and was using her credit card to like get gas and stuff
when she was already dead.
Like when they went back and they saw the timeline,
they're like, she was already dead at that time
when you were charging stuff to her card for gas
to go back to Florida.
So it originally started, like I said, in Utah
and then the horrible incident happened in Wyoming.
And they found him.
He took his own life in the end, is that right?
Mm-hmm, yeah, with a letter and all that, yeah.
Yeah, it's tragic, it really is.
It is, yeah.
Well, they're moving on to another big case,
the Long Island serial killer.
It's great that you have all these multiple cases.
Now you start off going to law enforcement,
they test you for a few years and now you're,
you know, working on all these cases.
So talk to me about that one.
Yeah, that was one of the first ones too.
That was right after the Howard Beach one.
So that case is, and I'm sure people can look it up
at this point since now it's all like televised
because they caught Rex.
So basically there was a task force,
and one of the task force, the person who reached out to me
was a similar situation where he heard from a friend
of a friend of a friend through law enforcement,
through the wife, through this, and they were like,
what kind of what I said before, they're like,
you have no like answers, you have no direction
at this point, like you don't really know,
like what's the worst that can happen?
Like what's the worst that can happen?
So coincidentally enough, I was actually sitting
at this table where I'm at right now.
He called me out of the blue,
who's the lead FBI task force agent for this case.
And he's now retired, but he called me
and he did what now I'm kind of familiar with,
which is you have 15 minutes, tell me what you got.
So I started talking about things because I get
because I think, yes, what Rex said is absolutely disgusting
and horrible, but there's so many different elements
to this case aside from the serial killer side.
There's like corruption, like pretty evident on the,
there's just like a lot of corruption and stuff.
So I was talking about that, and then I started talking
about the unusual R sounding name,
because besides like the coach Rex Ryan,
I never heard of the name Rex,
besides like me thinking about maybe a dinosaur,
which I know is stupid, because trust me,
I know it sounds stupid, but that's kind of how it was.
And I'll never forget, he chuckled and laughed
and he goes, all right, and hangs up the phone.
That's literally what I got.
And my parents are like, what the heck was that?
Cause they were sitting at the other end of the table.
It was like that random at dinner.
And I was like, I don't even know.
Like I was like, I don't know what the case is.
Like I don't even know.
So fast forward like a year or so,
I hear that the task force gets closed,
like for our corruption side of things.
So they're like, we're done with this case for now.
And then years go by and then a new DA comes in,
in the area and reopens the case.
Like that's literally like kind of how it happened.
They were investigating for so long,
they were getting, every obstacle that was thrown
their way was because of a reason.
And then they're like, all right.
And they closed the case
cause they weren't able to progress anything forward.
There was like nothing really going forward
that they could show clear evidence on.
And then the corruption side,
like became started to become more exposed.
And then the new DA came in and reopened it.
And then a year or two later, they took,
like they listened to what I said.
And some of the stuff like I was saying,
like not too long ago about it,
cause I would get reached out to you by detectives
that are still, that are on the second task force
and they were reaching out to me.
And I'll never forget this too.
It was in July, I think I get a text
from the first lead task force FBI agent.
He wrote great day for our task force.
And I wake up and all of a sudden it's boom,
Rex is caught, boom, the Long Island serial killer is caught.
And then my phone's blowing up from all these people.
And it was crazy.
It's crazy and it's still ongoing.
There's still a lot more that's gonna come out.
And it's a little nuts.
I'm not gonna lie to be a part of something like that.
I have to be honest was nuts
and to still get inside information.
Like as far as like what's going on in the investigation,
what they've learned.
And sometimes they'll call to hear my opinion.
And by opinion, I mean readings and stuff.
It's weird, man.
I have to be honest.
It's weird.
When you talk about corruption,
was that in the law enforcement judicial side
or was it another area?
Yeah, it was the law enforcement judicial side.
Yeah.
I've had people on the show who have been victims of that.
They ended up in prison.
One was accused of being a sex offender
and he was a completely innocent 18 year old
high school football player that happened to be
staying with a friend who was actually the predator.
And they never even looked at this kid, the one who did it.
So while Greg was in prison,
this other guy ended up raping another girl.
My God.
And then I've had another one that was in prison
for 19 years guy.
And he was in Las Vegas when there was a robbery
in Orange County, California.
And there was eyewitnesses and everything.
So it's important to kind of highlight
when there is corruption because it destroys lives
if people are falsely accused
or if a killer continues to be free, we lose more people.
And that's why when the new DA came in,
he was like, no more of this.
And I give him all of the credit
because he came in with a no BS.
He's like, I don't care who this is going to hurt
in the sense of you've been protected for so long.
So now it's gonna hurt you.
He's like, I don't really care.
And I give him all of the credit and people can look him up.
It's Suffolk County DA guy.
You guys can look him up on Long Island.
His name's Ray.
He's absolutely amazing.
He's amazing with what he did and how he put an end to it.
Cause he did, he literally came in and he was like,
I'm going to do this and whatever happens happens.
And he's like, there needs to be a law and order
type of thing.
Like there can't be people protecting people
to hurt other people just because you're law enforcement.
So I really respect him.
Like I actually very much respect him a lot.
Absolutely.
That's what we need.
It's a hundred percent what we need.
Before we progress on,
are there any other notable cases
that maybe I haven't mentioned up to this point?
I wouldn't say notable like the notable ones
that are like Gabby and Long Island serial killer cases.
There are a lot of the cases that I've been working on
recently and like now are cases that,
listen, there's cases that happen all the time,
but there's also cases that don't break past local news,
wherever that they're from.
And they just don't have the resources to really
like investigate fully.
So I've been helping out with like certain like departments
and you know, like small towns.
Wait, I take that back.
There is a case actually, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm like, I don't think so.
There's Richard Patrone and Daniel Imbo.
It's a big case in Philly.
It's a 20 year unsolved and the FBI like couldn't crack it.
And it's like so weird how this one happened.
I got reached out to you
because they were doing a show on it, right?
Like they were like, it's a 20th anniversary.
We know your involvement with law enforcement.
We fact checked, blah, blah, blah.
Let's see what you got.
Like, let's see if you can do anything.
And supposedly from what I was told,
they took my reading and they're investigating
some of the stuff in my reading.
Like, because they're like, wait a minute,
this checks out to this, which checks out to this, this.
And they're like, we never really dove fully like into that.
So I was told that, you know,
the FBI in Philly have been using it.
And I'm not sure the status of it to be honest,
but that's just a case that recently just happened.
Like I recently just found out about that.
They're using what I said to, you know, further along a case.
Brilliant.
Well, that's obviously the kind of, you know,
crime law enforcement side.
Talk to me about the regular people and even, you know,
the first responded military,
because I saw on the website, obviously talk about closure.
Yeah, for example, my beautiful wife, you know, that,
you know, her and then his family members
and all his friends, you know,
when someone takes their own life,
they're left with the sense of, you know,
why didn't we see it?
And there's a lot of guilt and, you know,
I've really unpacked so many elements of issues
that lead to a mental health crisis, for example.
And, you know, at that point,
the brain isn't working the way it's supposed to be working,
you know, so you can't make sense
of what happened because if you've got a healthy brain,
trying to understand an unhealthy brain,
you're not gonna be able to connect the two.
And so emotionally that leaves people, you know,
with guilt, with shame,
whatever the negative emotions are.
So talk to me about just being able to bring some closure,
whether it's with regular civilians or even in my community.
Yeah, I mean, I don't take that lightly
is what I tell people, because it's the truth.
Like they're coming to you for answers and, you know,
it's tough to say, but a lot of people are broken,
I think, when it comes out, because you're right.
Like sometimes people can't see it coming.
Most of the time people don't.
And they're left with why, what happened,
and just things like that.
So anytime I get, I get a lot of military,
I get a lot of military,
and a lot of the military people that I get,
I'm trying, I don't wanna sound like, you know,
their friends in the military take their own lives,
because of various different reasons,
maybe the resources when they came back
weren't the greatest.
And I think sometimes doctors throw antidepressants
at people at times and, or whatever it is.
So when I go into a reading, my first and foremost thing
is to always try to give them closure in the sense of like,
I know how serious this is,
and I don't wanna take it lightly.
So I want to go into it softly.
I'll never be like, this person's here,
and this is what I see, and it's intense,
because if I was sitting on the other end,
I would be like, why the hell did you just say it like that?
Like, show some empathy.
So I don't take it lightly.
And a lot of people come, like I said,
and they're broken, and they just need something.
So I give everyone, no matter who it is, everything I got.
I will never just go into a reading
and just be like, all right, it's this amount of time,
let's just coast it in.
People know I'm drenched in sweat after,
I can only do so much after.
There's physical side effects of it for me,
and with this, when I push myself the way that I do with this.
But I never take it lightly,
because I wanna make sure someone leaves
with some type of closure.
Do I think I'm going to provide the full closure for people?
Probably not, probably not.
But if I can help them take a step forward in that journey,
then that's a win.
If they're stuck and they can't take a step forward,
and I help them take their first step,
just in general, after the reading, they're like, wow,
like this helped.
I think I won, in the sense like,
it's the most rewarding feeling to me.
Because I'm a realist,
and I know majority of the time coming to me,
you're not gonna get the full closure.
That's just not realistic in life, that's just not.
So I try to go into everything very softly.
This would be an interesting perspective.
As I've progressed, as I've matured and learned
from so many of these incredible people I have on the show,
a lot of them have very powerful mental health stories
of their own.
Some are more in the kind of clinical setting.
But you start to realize that, as I said,
the brain becomes miswired.
It becomes, you know, it's broken
in a very, very compassionate way.
So you think about all the contributing elements,
you know, what happened in your childhood
if it was left unaddressed, sleep deprivation,
organizational betrayal, the side effects of meds,
social media, you know, I mean, all the different,
you know, elements that cause a perfect storm
in some people's minds.
I grew up in a generation where suicide is viewed
as selfish and cowardly and how could you
and think of your kids.
But then when you actually hear from people
who have been there, some who even went through
with their attempts and they survived,
you hear that at that point,
their entire reality is distorted.
And they believe that they were the reason
for their family's pain.
So the guilt and shame just even amplifies then.
So you take someone in the military
and law enforcement in fire who was already sworn
to die for a complete stranger if it comes to it.
And then you get this deep belief
that they are now the problem.
One could argue that suicide becomes selfless
and, you know, a very courageous act.
Now it's not saying that's what people should be doing,
but in that moment, it's not cowardly and selfish.
That person truly believes that they're doing
the right thing for the family,
even though, as I said, a healthy brain,
it doesn't make any sense.
Did you get a sense of that element
of that person not wanting to escape their family,
but also almost like a sense of doing the right thing,
even though in this actual world, you know,
when you're not in a mental crisis,
that, you know, obviously is the opposite of what happens.
Yeah, I would say in some cases, yes.
I will say definitely that, you know,
they felt like there was nothing, like,
there's a couple of things,
because there's a lot of different situations.
I've seen where they felt like they would be,
the family would be better off without them.
Like, you know, like they fully believe that.
They fully believe that they caused issues, trouble,
that they're, you know, a failure, whatever the case is,
because that does come through
where they share their thoughts with me
before they took their own life.
And because I need to get the specifics and an understanding.
But what I've also saw is that, you know, you are right.
They thought it was a selfless act, you know,
because they felt like it was like constant ups and downs
and disappointment and just tearing people left and right.
And they were the cause of it.
And they know that they were the cause of it.
Whether that's the case or not, in their minds,
they thought that they were ripping people apart.
And I have to be honest, in most scenarios that like,
when I speak to the parents or whoever of a child
that like did this, like they thought everything was good.
Like they didn't even know.
Like they had no idea.
They thought at times maybe he or she was like a little
like to themselves, but they thought they're a teenager.
Like that's what they want.
They want their alone time.
They don't want to be with mom and dad or whoever.
But speaking to parents and doing this,
whether it's parents, brother, sister, and uncle,
it really doesn't matter.
It all comes down to the same thing
where they all thought this was the right move
for them to do.
Like they thought that this was the right thing
to help the family.
They thought it was the right thing
because they just couldn't live anymore
based on like their perception was not reality.
Like their perception of the world was not like reality,
but to them it was.
So sometimes when I do these readings and stuff
and in those cases of people taking their own lives
and everything, it's,
because I've lost a lot of people to suicide.
Like I lost a lot.
And I always think I'm like, I never saw it coming.
Like I just didn't see one of my closest friends doing this.
I just didn't.
Like, and then another one and then another one.
And then I'm starting to find out kind of what you're saying.
It's like, sometimes they don't address things
because they felt like they were embarrassed
or they didn't have the resources, whatever the case is,
but they never asked, right?
It's like the parents, when I read them or whatever,
will be like, they never asked.
Like, and it's so tough to be in that position
to deliver that message to those families
being like, this is why from what I see.
And then they validated by giving me examples
of what was left behind and looking back.
And yeah, I've realized that they feel
like their brain was wired to the point
where they felt this was the only option for them.
And they were doing their family such a service.
Like they were doing them such a service
of removing themselves from a picture of life.
And it's like kind of hard for me
to wrap my head around at times,
even when I'm doing readings
or even speaking about it to people.
Like it is hard because they come back
and when they come through,
they come through as their best selves, right?
Healthy, happy, they come through as their best selves.
But then they bring me back to how they were.
So it's like, I see two versions of people of like that,
like pretty quickly.
I see their best version and then their worst version.
So it's just tough to go through a reading
like that with people, but it's my job
because I wanna help people in that way.
It's such a powerful perspective to hear it,
obviously from a set of eyes, a lens
that none of us would have ever heard this before,
but it aligns and I've just got this Venn diagram now
of this podcast and hundreds and hundreds,
I'm almost at a thousand episodes now.
Those lines intersect and that truth really kind of radiates.
And I think what we can glean from these,
hearing these stories is just simply,
if you are starting to feel like you're a burden,
that is a huge red flag.
That is your sign to go and get help.
Not when you're sitting there
with a pistol and a bottle of whiskey,
that whole call me if you're struggling,
that isn't gonna land with that person at that point.
But yeah, when you believe that you're a piece of shit,
that you're the reason,
that your kids are scared of you,
all this stuff, which I hear over and over again in uniform,
that's the red flag, but also that post-traumatic growth,
that best version of that person,
that could have been them.
If the stars had aligned and they'd actually been able
to get the help that they needed,
I truly believe that that person struggling
can then navigate through and become
an even more resilient version of themselves.
So that puts hope into doing the work.
But you can't get someone through that crucible
if you don't know they're hurting.
And I think, going back to what you said with your parents,
so many of us are just drowning in work.
My profession, they're understaffed,
so they're getting, the hours are already insane,
then they're getting told they have to stay extra shifts.
And so it's easy then for the people that are struggling
to fall between the cracks, whether it's those in uniform,
maybe it's the family members of those in uniform.
Yeah, because I'm also seeing it too
with all my close friends that are still active on the job.
It is extremely understaffed.
They're working their tour times
and then they get pulled into overtime
and they get pulled in for another six to eight hours
of work when they're supposed to have days off.
And then a lot of my friends become zombies, they just do,
and they forget to put themselves first.
They forget to take care of themselves mentally, physically,
anything that can be an outlet for them.
And I see it all the time, I see it all the time.
Anytime I'm supposed to meet up with a couple of my friends
that are still active, I get a text like,
hey, I got pulled in, I got compact,
over time I got this, I got that.
And I'm like, wow, you really have little to no time off.
And I see when they do come and have a drink with me
or whatever, right?
They're zombies.
And I tell them, I'm like, go home and sleep.
And because I try to explain to them,
I'm like, if you're not sharp just in general,
you're going to, it's going to affect you mentally
when you're not even realizing it's affecting you mentally.
You're just gonna be sad, you're gonna be depressed.
And then I've seen it happen so many times,
like so many times with my friends that are on the job.
And I'm trying to be an advocate for them
in the sense of like, I check in on them all the time.
All my close friends that are on the job.
I just wanna make sure that they're doing okay.
Like if they ever wanna talk to me,
they ever wanna sit down with me,
I'm like, let's just grab a drink
or let's grab a bite to eat.
Let's go like work out together, like whatever, right?
Like anything that they can do just to vent,
I'm trying to be that person for them because it's tough.
Absolutely.
Well, especially another element that I've discovered
is extremely crushing is that organizational betrayal.
And so if you're in a city and obviously,
FDM, excuse me, NYPD, we see the videos
of all these little assholes riding on the police cars,
standing on and beating up cops
and their hands being tied as far as who they can
or can't arrest anymore.
And that's another compounding element.
So you've got this recruitment crisis,
you're putting it on the shoulders of the men and women
who are still holding the line.
And then you're not backing them up
when they need to use force or enforce,
when a crime is happening, who cares
if it was only $800, it's still a crime.
So you got all these compounding parts, which then again,
if you think about an ancient tribal mentality,
it's like the tribe that you've been a part of,
that you swore to possibly die for
has now turned them back on you.
So that emotionally can be crushing as well.
Yeah, I also know all my friends are like,
literally exactly what you just said,
their hands are tied,
they're afraid to do their job properly, they really are.
They're afraid to go through procedural things
where 10 years ago, I don't know
that would have been the same thing.
And it's crazy about the recruitment stuff
that you're talking about
and trying to get people on the job
because I'm not gonna name any names obviously,
but I've heard stories where people got fired
from like corrections or whatever, right?
They were on a different civil service job and got fired.
And they're struggling,
so they let them go through the process, they just did.
And it's like, they need people and it's tough,
it's tough, it's a tough time.
A lot of people that I know
that are going through the process now
or wanna be a police officer,
I tell them like, listen,
it's one of the best things you can do.
I'm like, trust me, but I'm like,
you just have to be like on,
like head on a swivel like times 10,
like it's a times 10 now.
It's not like head on a swivel,
like kind of like, like know your surroundings.
I'm like, it's a times 10 because I'm like,
you're viewed as, which is kind of crazy,
like public enemy number one,
even though like they're the first people to call you
when something happens,
I'm like, you're still viewed as public enemy number one.
So I'm like, you always have to protect yourself
and head on a swivel times 10.
I always like for like these new recruits
that I see at the gym and stuff
that come up to me and ask me.
Absolutely.
Yeah, I mean, we need to, you know,
if there's not gonna be a support,
there's not gonna be a police force anymore.
People gotta understand that.
And I've talked about this a lot.
When you lower standards,
you're just increasing the chance of a mistake
being made in your department.
If you hold standards high
and you support your men and women in uniform,
then I wouldn't argue, we know this is the case.
When the standards are high
and working environments are improved,
you'll have people lining up around the building
to test for you again.
But lowering standards and not fixing the things
that are broken is just a recipe for disaster.
Yeah, like I remember when I was going through the process,
you had to be at the, you know,
like I don't wanna say the building,
but you had to be at the building, you know,
clean shaved in a suit, everything filled out by 6 a.m.
So if you're not there by 6 a.m.,
I remember they were throwing people out.
I remember people would come without a tie,
they were thrown out.
You weren't standing in formation correctly,
even in a suit, thrown out.
Like I just remember that.
Like I remember going through that
and like calling my mom and being like, wow,
like a kid like came from Long Island
and his train was delayed and he showed up at 6 15
and they still threw him out.
Like they still threw him out.
And they made him like, you know, come back another day,
but was like trying to prove a point, I think to everyone.
But I just remember going through the process
and seeing that and being like, oh my God,
like if I didn't come an hour before in line
with paperwork, clean shaved, suit, tied, everything pressed,
I was petrified to like not do that.
And now my, you know, I see people come in with beards,
I see people come in without, you know, just like I,
it's a little different.
It was, it's a little different.
Absolutely.
Well, moving away from that topic to you, you know,
as far as the medium side, you talked about some
of these readings, you know, you're dripping with sweat.
You hear this a lot from mental health counselors.
I mean, I've even observed it just doing this podcast.
Some of the people that come on the show,
there's an extremely emotional journey that, you know,
I'm listening to and sharing with them.
And if you're not careful, it does take a toll.
So how do you offset that?
How do you kind of, you know, repair, rest,
recover from some of these readings?
You know, it's, I have to rely heavily on my family
and my new wife and, you know, going outside,
going for runs, working out, staying active, you know,
because if I sit with my thoughts after it, you know,
just like in anything that's heavy,
it's like, you don't want to bring work home,
even though like majority of the time people do,
you know, I try just to rely on my family.
And like I said, my wife and being active,
being normal, running, volleyball, surfing,
snowboarding, everything.
You mentioned your wife.
I saw an article just from a few weeks ago
when you got married and obviously they did a piece on that.
So talk to me about being Jonathan Mark the medium,
but trying to date, so having some anonymity,
but then having to ultimately reveal to your girlfriend
that you are actually a medium.
Yeah, no, I, you know, in previous relationships before,
that's when I started going out to Los Angeles
for like a little bit.
And I was like, you know, reading public figures
and, you know, doing stuff.
And I could see sometimes,
and just in past relationships and stuff,
it doesn't really matter who it was.
I saw them want, like wanting to go to Los Angeles
with me, meeting people, like being in like rooms and stuff.
And I kind of got to a point where I'm like,
I'm just not going to say anything, right?
Like we're just going to talk.
And if she asks what I do,
I'm just going to say like an entrepreneur, like, you know,
just things like that make it vague until I feel
like there's a real connection and there's a real future.
So with now my wife, Jess, she would hear like FBI calling me,
the DA's calling me, like, she heard all the calls.
So she thought I was working with law enforcement,
but she wasn't sure what I was doing for them
because she would hear the calls, I would be with her.
And those calls would just randomly come
and I would have to take them.
I couldn't not not take them.
So I never corrected her.
I just like kind of just was like, yeah,
I work with law enforcement.
I'm like, I help them with unsolved or something.
And she's like, okay.
And then I was going to LA and I was, you know,
I was like, do you want to come?
And she's like, yeah.
So I had to tell her being like,
this is like not like a trip for vacation.
This is like a work thing for me where I'm, you know,
having meetings and things like that.
So I told her and she had no idea what a medium was.
Like, so she said, prove it.
Like that was her New York thing, prove it.
Like, and I pulled in someone that she's never spoken about.
Her family doesn't speak about because kind of,
I think what you mentioned before
about taking someone's own life and like some people like,
cause she's a Colombian, like half Colombian
and with like religion and just how people view stuff
with like, you know, taking your own life.
Like her family just doesn't talk about it.
Like they say that this person died from natural causes.
Like that's what the family says
cause they don't want people to know.
So I said the specifics of how it was done, what happened.
And she like stared at me and started crying.
And she's like, I've, you know,
I don't understand how you know that because like
worst case scenario, kind of what you brought up,
even if, if, if I was to Google it,
it says from natural causes, I'm sure.
Cause that's what everyone says in her family still.
So once that happened, you know, she was crying
and like we were watching TV and she was just staring at me
like what the hell just happened.
And you know, from there, she became my biggest supporter.
And then I kind of opened up like what my life
in the medium space was.
And then, you know, she just became my biggest supporter.
Now she is obviously my biggest supporter.
She's my wife and you know, my best friend.
And you know, I, I credit a lot to her
because she brings me back down to grounds, you know,
to ground zero kind of when I'm either, you know,
not in a good place or anything.
Like she'll bring me back down to that level
where I need to like, you know, take a deep breath.
And now that she knows who I guess Jonathan Mark is
at that time, and then kind of now, you know,
she's just been pretty awesome about it.
Was it online dating that you met each other?
Yeah, yeah.
So it was during COVID.
It was an app called Bumble.
And the app is like, the girl has to reach out
to the guy first for people who don't know.
And all she wrote was, hey, like it wasn't anything crazy.
Right? She just wrote, hey.
And I, we, we were talking and then this was during the time
in COVID and I don't know if people like blacked
or blocked it out, but this was the time during COVID
where you go to a restaurant or a bar, but you had a,
there was like the plexiglass stuff to separate you,
but in order for you to sit down at a table,
you had to order food.
And then there was a curfew at like 1130 at night.
So like, there was like all these rules in place.
And that's when we first met was during that.
So we had a curfew at the bar and we had, you know,
we had to get dinner.
Like it was like a little bit of an interesting thing
because they would give us like popcorn and chips to,
to be like your food when you ordered a drink,
but you had to sit down.
You couldn't like stand up at the bar, like,
and just like chat and like whatever.
So it was a really interesting time.
Like we really got to know each other like really well
because of that, like we had no other option.
There's nothing that kills romance
like rubber gloves and perspex.
Yeah, literally.
And being like, all right,
you have to be out of the bar at 1130.
Like, and we're like, what?
We just got here two hours ago.
It was crazy.
Yeah, I met my wife on match.com.
This was 12 years ago now, but yeah, I mean,
there's some stigma around that,
but it's a great way of, you know,
trying to narrow down a group of people
and then find someone who seems to match.
And it's funny, cause we, I mean,
we've been talking about this kind of sensitivity
and the medium element, whatever you call it,
this bloody woman is my soulmate
because we joke with each other.
Like if I'm thinking something,
she knows exactly what I'm thinking and vice versa.
So neither of us would ever be able to be unfaithful
because we'd know about it straight away.
So she can't fake an orgasm, any of that stuff.
Yeah. I would know.
Yeah, I think same with Jess too.
Jess, like she would not be able,
like I would know if something bad like that happened
and vice versa.
We just, like, I haven't found someone ever,
like obviously I married her,
but you know, I can't even really explain it.
Like it's just the best thing.
Like I don't have to say anything.
She knows what I'm like feeling, thinking.
Like I literally don't have to say anything.
And same with her, I can tell by facial expression,
a face movement, same with her.
Like, you know, I love it.
Well, speaking of that, one last question
before we go to some closing questions.
Sure.
You mentioned about us having, you know,
so much more kind of ability to tap into this
when we're younger.
And I can literally remember being so much more,
you know, tuned in.
And then sometimes in a bad way, I had night terrors.
And so there was a lot of kind of the other side, you know,
that I had to deal with as a child as well.
But as we get older and certainly, you know,
all the things that you mentioned with your men and women
in NYPD, just the kind of beat down, you know,
we get further and further and further away from that.
What are some of the tools that people can use
to just simply try and tap back into that thing
that seemed innate when we were a child?
That's a really good question.
It's gonna sound, trust me,
it's gonna sound so basic and it's gonna sound like,
kind of like a no shit, I think people are gonna be like,
but meditating is the best thing.
And I'll tell you why.
Because when you do readings in general,
if I go into a reading, like a client reading,
not even like an unsolved,
just like a normal client reading,
but maybe I'm, you know, having issues with Jess,
like worst case scenario,
the reading will be heavily geared towards relationship stuff,
whether it's with her loved ones or et cetera,
because that's still in the back of my mind.
So in order to be able to connect to people
and to reopen that,
to be able to connect to loved ones, friends, whoever,
the moment you're able to get into a meditative state,
to blank your mind out, like there's no thoughts going on.
You can't have any thoughts.
That's when the message is
and that's when the stuff starts to happen.
And I also tell people too, you know,
when you're just waking up or just falling asleep
and you feel like you saw something,
then all of a sudden you like wake up,
you become like wired because it startles you,
that's a visit.
The most times people will get visits,
it's when they're kind of falling asleep,
they're super tired or just waking up.
But in order to like kind of control that
and to like tap in, like again, it's gonna sound stupid.
My advice is to learn how to truly blank your mind out
and meditate.
That's like my advice only because it works
and I've seen it work with like, you know,
myself and other like people that are close to me.
Cause I don't even like train mediums,
like I don't even know how I would even do that
because I don't even know how the hell I do this.
So it's like, but I do know when you blank out your mind,
they're able to put that stuff in your head.
Like they're able to put something in your head.
I thought you were probably gonna say that when I asked it
and I'm so glad that was the answer.
When you look at the mental health conversation,
you know, more often than not,
meditation is a very powerful tool for us.
And it's just that busy-ness,
anxiety is that there was intrusive thoughts,
depression is kind of, you know, past intrusive thoughts.
But what's interesting is you can have
the same exact conversation,
especially with people that maybe think
that that's all woo-woo when it comes to performance.
Okay, well then forget about your mental health
for a second.
Do you wanna be the best, you know, tactical operator
or, you know, firefighter, whatever it is,
the clearest mind when you're searching for that child
in that building, well then meditation is the answer again.
What's really exciting is I recently had a guy called
Jim Poole on the show, who is the CEO of Newcom, N-U-C-A-L-M.
And that is a passive, it's an app now,
it used to be a big machine.
And you basically put on a blindfold or a sleep mask,
excuse me, and earphones, and it's the undulation.
And the backstory is basically a very,
very intelligent scientist figured out the frequency
the brain is at certain states,
and then figured out how to put the brain
into certain states.
And I can tell you hands down, it's not snake oil,
it works amazingly.
But I've had numerous people now,
someone just the other day, who when they do Newcom,
their meditation goes even deeper.
So you add that tool in as well,
which is like I said, it's an app.
And then you have meditation, now you've amplified that
and got to an even deeper state and an even calmer mind.
Oh, wow, I need to try that out for me.
Honestly, I'm gonna download it, honestly.
It's amazing, it really is.
Yeah, I mean, you'll feel it, it's passive.
So even if you got a busy mind that day,
you'll be thinking, you'll be thinking all of a sudden,
you just kind of drop and it's almost like
you got one foot in sleep, one foot in wakefulness,
and you're kind of dancing around it.
And then the time of the session,
it doesn't feel like it was 20 minutes, 30 minutes,
whatever it is.
But you get this kind of feeling
of you've done like a full sleep cycle.
But yeah, it just takes everything down, it down regulates.
So it's an amazing, and then you couple that with headspace
or whatever the meditation is that you do,
the same day or the next day, whatever it is.
Yeah, it's those two together are incredible.
That's awesome, that's very cool.
Brilliant, all right, well then the first
of the closing questions, is there a book
or are there books that you love to recommend?
It can be related to our discussion today
or completely unrelated.
It's probably completely unrelated, honestly.
I think it goes back to like the military stuff.
I read a lot of like military books,
like people that have served.
I actually have a couple on my phone that I still have
because I read them on my phone,
which is also very silly and trust me,
I know I'm gonna pull them up.
So the one that I read recently was The Red Circle
by Brandon Webb.
That's a book that I really, really like
and I read Lone Survivor, American Sniper,
those types of books
because I wanna hear the real stories of everything.
So those are the books that I typically read
and I'm sure your fan base probably listens to them
or reads them too, but I don't really read anything
in the spiritual thing.
Like I know that sounds silly, but I just, I don't.
I'm very fascinated by military.
What about films and documentaries?
Okay, so this is gonna sound silly, so trust me.
I know I keep saying that, but when I tell people
they like look at me like I have 10 heads.
Because I work a lot on the unsolved stuff,
I don't really watch too much because I feel like now
a lot of what's on TV and the documentaries and stuff
are a bunch of unsolved cases.
And I'm like, I need to like get away from that.
Like I can't, so I watch like, you know,
I just started watching The Rookie
because I'm very close with two of the actors on there.
I started watching Shrinking, the show with Jason,
I think it's Jason Segel.
Yeah, I watch like those comedy shows, I think,
just because I try to get away
from the documentaries and stuff.
Beautiful.
Well, speaking of amazing people,
is there a person that you'd recommend to come
on this podcast as a guest to speak to the first responders,
military and associated professions of the world?
Oh yeah, I have two.
I mean, I'm sure people probably may have said the same.
Sean Ryan, I think he's very fascinating
and I think he's, you know, great and brilliant.
And Nick Irving too.
I think those two would be awesome.
I need to get Nick on.
We went back and forth a long time ago
and he was gonna come on and then it kind of petered out.
So I need to circle around and see
he's a Green Beret author now, isn't he?
Yeah.
And then Sean is funny.
His name's come up a lot recently
and I've wanted to get him on for a while now.
So I gotta stop really pooling my Navy SEAL resources
to see if I can find a mutual friend.
Absolutely.
I mean, he's just super intelligent and, you know,
similar to you, you guys are really smart
and you're both really trying to help this community.
And it's pretty awesome.
And I think it would just be such great synergy
between the two of you.
That's why like immediately.
And that's why I didn't want you to be like,
you know, everyone says this, but there is a rhyme or reason.
You're both very smart and great synergy, I would assume.
And also you're both, like I said,
helping such an important community
that isn't spoken about a lot.
Absolutely.
Yeah, I'm hoping we'll make it happen.
I'll definitely let you know.
Fingers crossed, man.
All right, we talked about how you decompress already,
which is normally my next question.
So before we go to where people can find you,
do you wanna give a kind of teaser about the show
or is that still under wraps at the moment?
Yeah, so it's really just my season two, my podcast.
That's like, you know, the big thing right now.
And it's called Connect with Jonathan Mark.
And the first season, the first like 10 episodes
were celebrities and stuff, which is great.
But then I started working, you know,
I brought Gaby Petito's mom on.
That's with the Richard Patrone and Daniel Imbo stuff came in
like, cause that team came on mine.
And this next season, which we started to,
like we're recording and we started
are a bunch of unsolved cases.
Some that are absolutely huge, like they made movies on
and stuff with the family members and detectives.
And then there's some, like I said,
that haven't broken past local news.
And I wanna give them a platform
to maybe have someone speak up or bring attention to it.
And I wanna help the family in closure
and to give them answers.
So this season coming up will be a lot of unsolved
and there will be some celebrities that pop in,
but it's gonna be predominantly helping families
with unsolved cases.
Beautiful.
So where are the best places then for people to find you,
you know, as a medium, find the podcast
and any other areas.
So the podcast is, you know,
on wherever you get your podcasts.
So Spotify, Apple, and my Instagram, you know,
is Jonathan Mark Medium.
And it has my website on there and an email button.
If you are interested in a reading,
you can 100% reach out whenever anyone is ready,
like no pressure to anyone.
Beautiful.
Well, Jonathan, I wanna say thank you so much.
It's been such an interesting conversation,
very, you know, outside the box as it were,
but so much synergy again, this is what happens, you know.
When you explore outside your own kind of echo chamber,
you know, you start seeing so many parallels,
so many intersections.
So I wanna thank you so, so much for being so generous
with your time today and coming on
the Behind the Shield podcast.
Thank you so much for having me.
This has been amazing.
And I recommend to anyone who's listening
to come on if you have the opportunity.
And I'll see you next time.