Texted Lies, Whispered Truths: Jason Collier's Story

by Terri Anne Browning

  Not long after I started talking to Tiffany on Facebook, I once again started chatting with Candie. At this point in time, I hadn’t met Candie. The extent of our relationship had only been a few times chatting via the Facebook dating app. She disappeared for several weeks, and out of the blue, I saw her again on the app in January.

  On my way home from Sweetwater on January 17, I drove straight to Amarillo and met Candie for the very first time. We went to dinner while her ex had the kids, rounding out one of the longest weekends of my entire life.

  I was running on pure testosterone and adrenaline after the craziness of that extended weekend. My testosterone levels are high to begin with, something I found out about the hard way in June 2020 when I had a stroke. My levels get so high that it thickens my blood and causes clotting. One of those clots happened to travel to my brain, causing the stroke.

  Thankfully, it didn’t cause any lasting damage, and I recovered quickly.

  14

  I met Candie in person for the second time the following day, Monday, January 18, 2021. Normally, that would have been the time I would have needed to attend the city council meeting, but something came up with one of the council members, and it was rescheduled for later in the week.

  While I was meeting up with Candie in Amarillo, O thought I was at the council meeting. Candie snapped a picture of us together and wanted to get it printed, so she sent it to CVS from her phone while we had dinner. Afterward, we picked it up, and she gave me a copy to put on my desk at work.

  Once dinner was over, I was ready to head home, but she invited me over to meet her kids and her parents. As with Linda, I felt pressured to meet both, but I reluctantly agreed because I wanted to have sex with her. It was at that point that Candie started bringing up how it would be easier for everyone if I just moved in with her and her kids in Amarillo.

  That freaked me out more than a little, but I still played along. This was only the second time we had met in person, and that was within twenty-four hours. But I was still in the game, and the prize for me was sex. Laughing it off, I agreed to her plans for us to go to Taos, New Mexico, together the next weekend—something she had brought up before we had even officially met in person.

  On January 19, Candie started sending me pictures from O’s Facebook, questioning about us being married. She and O had a mutual friend, and this friend had recognized me when Candie had made a Facebook post. I’d denied that I was married to O, but I figured she would try to contact O in some way, and I quickly talked to my wife about it.

  I explained to her that I had an informant who had discovered that I was married, and it could make the case blow up if she didn’t help me out. If this informant happened to contact her, she needed to tell them that we’d had our marriage annulled, to protect the case I was working on.

  When Candie called later that day, she didn’t speak to me or anyone I worked with, or even someone I paid to take the call and pretend to be O.

  She spoke directly to my wife.

  I sent Candie a message on Marco Polo, apologizing for all the confusion regarding my supposed marriage, and she seemed satisfied after speaking to O.

  On January 20, I realized O was starting to get suspicious. She kept asking me to put Life360 on my phone so she could track me. After arguing about it for a while, I simply agreed, knowing there was no way around it without causing a fight between us.

  That day, I drove down to Candie’s house, which happened to be near a Taco Villa. O was tracking me the whole time because she would send me texts, asking why I had stopped at certain places throughout the day. At first, she thought I stopped at Taco Villa.

  The entire time I was at Candie’s house, O kept texting me, and I knew I needed to get back. But Candie pushed me onto her bed and tried to get me to have sex with her for the first time. I was tempted, but I knew I was already in trouble, because O continued to text me.

  The next day, Candie started questioning me about O again.

  Candie called me as she was on her way to the police station because she said she wanted to do a ride-along, but really, her stopping by was to test me about my wife. I, of course, panicked. Everyone at the station knew I was married and who O was. Unsure how to get out of this particular situation, I snuck her into the station through the back, but I happened to get caught by the city secretary.

  When I didn’t introduce Candie to the secretary or a few other people, she got angry.

  I took her into my office, and she produced a frame for the picture we had taken and gotten copies of back on January 18. Earlier in the week, I’d taken a picture of that same photo on my desk, and in the background, my Police Officer’s Prayer and even a picture of my two children were showing. When she saw that our picture was just taped there, she decided to bring me a frame for it. But when she saw that the picture was no longer where it had been in the photo I’d sent to her, she got even more upset.

  Candie wanted to do the ride-along, so I took her for a drive around Stinnett. From what I can remember, we didn’t even talk about O again that day, so I assumed we were okay and still going to Taos.

  15

  Things appeared to be smoothed out, and I picked her up on January 22 for our weekend in Taos. If she still had suspicions at the time, she didn’t mention them, so I thought we were good.

  We explored some of the tourist spots as soon as we got to Taos, and we started kissing. Things became heated, and we barely made it back to the hotel, where we had sex for the first time.

  It was around that time that Stephanie started liking things I was tagged in on the Stinnett Police Facebook page. My assistant chief of police saw that she was liking the pictures I was in and commented jokingly, “Who is this? New girlfriend?” on the posts. To which, some of Stephanie’s friends started gushing to her that we were making it Facebook official. I hadn’t seen her since the weekend before, but we were still texting, although I was trying to distance myself more and more in hopes she would get the message.

  While Candie was showering, I responded to a few texts from Stephanie to keep her from annoying me all weekend.

  By the next day, I realized Candie and I had nothing in common. Although I had drifted so far from God by this time that I couldn’t clearly see the road back to Him, I was still very much a religious man. Candie didn’t attend church, and that bothered me. On top of that, she continued to push for me to move in with her—after only having met in person six days before. Throughout the weekend, she just seemed to act more and more off, and it was disturbing to me.

  I dropped her off at home on January 24, and as I drove back to my own house, I texted her that I thought we were moving too fast and should slow things down. As with Stephanie, I used the excuse that we were too different—she was a cat person, I was a dog person, I was religious, she wasn’t—and in this case, it was absolutely true. She called me and we talked, and that was when I informed her I absolutely would not be moving in with her.

  Candie became irrationally angry and started yelling. I couldn’t take her like that, so I hung up.

  I got several messages from her on January 25. “You’re a lying piece of shit,” came in at 9:00 p.m., followed by, “I’m telling everyone.” And then the last one was received at 9:08 p.m. that said, “You fucked with the wrong person.”

  The next day was when she made the post on the City of Stinnett, Texas, Facebook page. It seemed like, within no more than a blink of my eyes, that post went viral, getting shared thousands upon thousands of times. She and Stephanie started talking, and everything escalated from there.

  Things began getting crazy fast, and my head was spinning that so many people around the world were commenting on what was going on. But it wasn’t until my kids began getting threats that I messaged both Candie and Stephanie to ask them—beg them, if that was what it took—to stop.

  That was the last contact I had with either of them.

  That same day, I was put on administrative leave at work.

 
16

  I confessed to O as soon as everything started blowing up in my face.

  While I was still at work, she called our pastor and his wife, who came over immediately. The three of them talked about what was going on and prayed for guidance. When I got home, O told me that everything was going to be okay. She forgave me and said we would work everything out.

  Relieved, I vowed to go back to counseling with her and do whatever else she thought was needed to make our marriage work.

  But that was when we started getting inundated with phone calls from the media, talk shows, and everyone in between. People wanted to know my story or tell me what they thought of me or laugh at me. Suddenly, all the attention I was getting wasn’t the kind that made me feel good at all. Everyone I loved was now in pain, and it was the one to blame.

  O and I went to bed together like normal, and I honestly thought everything was going to be all right, that I wasn’t going to lose my wife. We just needed a few days for things to calm down, and life would get back to normal. I just had to have patience and faith that it would all be over quickly.

  Then in the middle of the night, O suddenly sat up in bed. Concerned, I asked if she was all right, and she said no. I’d embarrassed her and her family too much. She no longer had faith in our marriage, and she was done.

  She told me to get out of our room. I didn’t want to push her more, so I didn’t argue any further, and I slept on the couch.

  The next morning, she came into the kitchen and told me she was going to her parents’ for a few days. I had to get out by Saturday. During that time, I could use the truck she had bought, but it couldn’t leave the city limits. If it did, she would report it missing and have me arrested for theft.

  I couldn’t seem to catch my breath. I was losing everything right before my eyes, and on top of that, someone had released my home address and phone number on Facebook. All the local police agencies decided that I was in possible danger and put my house on close patrol.

  Not long after O left for her parents’ house, the city manager called to ask me to come back to the station to discuss the situation. I was met by a Texas Ranger and a member of the district attorney’s office. They questioned me, and then the city manager came in to speak to me alone once again.

  I knew I had two choices: resign or be fired. At least with resignation, I would be released with an honorable discharge.

  As soon as I resigned, the Ranger arrested me for allegedly tampering with a government document—the annulment papers. Fortunately, a family member was able to bail me out so that I didn’t have to spend the night in lockup.

  When I look back on everything that happened from November to January, I can see that I was being a narcissist the way I played all of those women along. I realize I may not have abused anyone physically, but I did abuse them emotionally by making them think I loved them.

  I basked in all the attention they gave me because I wasn’t getting any of it at home. But I struggled with breaking it off every time. I got somewhat emotionally attached to them and didn’t want to hurt them. Even though I only wanted far, far away from Candie, I still didn’t enjoy hurting her or the other women I strung along for all those weeks.

  Now, my life is in shambles. But that isn’t the part that bothers me the most. I realize I am the only one responsible for what happened to me. It is the destruction of my children’s lives that keeps me awake every night. They started getting threats and then bullied by their peers in school—by grown adults on social media!

  I hate that I’ve put my family through so much because of my poor decisions.

  My daughter had to be pulled from school to do virtual learning at home due to all this. Her junior year of high school became nothing like she imagined, and that is all on me. I have no words I can give her that can possibly make up for all the chaos I have brought into her and her brother’s lives. “I’m sorry” will never heal the hurt I have caused them, as well as the others whom this madness has touched.

  I was selfish and even immature. But I swear, from this day on, my only goal is to protect my children.

  The Authors Sit Down with Jason for a Quick Q&A

  Terri Anne and I also wanted you to hear from Jason Collier directly, in more of an interview format. After discussing it, we both decided that I was the more…shall we say…diplomatic of the two of us. As Jason has discovered, Terri Anne tends to go straight for the throat when asking questions. Whereas I will be a little gentler—when I have to be. So, I sat down with him to ask a few questions. I know you all are wondering at this point if he brought me a coffeepot. No, he did not. But we did each have a coffee while doing the interview. For me, an iced caramel macchiato. For Jason, dark roast with two Sweet’N Lows and a splash of sweet cream creamer.

  Lonnie Doris (LD): Thank you, Jason, for sitting down with me. Over the course of the last few weeks, I have gotten to know you, and I want to thank you for opening up to me and Terri Anne. I know a lot of what you told us had to take you back to times in your life that were very painful. As I stated on our first phone call, I don’t condone you cheating, but I think this story got stretched way beyond the truth. So, with that being said, when did you catch wind that Candie’s post went viral and your personal indiscretions were being plastered all over the internet?

  Jason Collier (JC): I started receiving messages on Facebook from my staff at the time, asking, What is going on? So, I checked Facebook and saw her original post. The next day, I saw all the social media posts. I went to work the day after that, worked about a half a day, got called into my boss’s office, and was placed on administrative leave.

  LD: As the readers have read in Texted Lies, Whispered Truths, you have gone through a lot of emotional trauma in your life, leading up to the internet scandal in late January/early February, 2021. Did you ever seek out help with a licensed mental health counselor?

  JC: With the trauma of my parents’ death, I dealt with it on my own. A friend of mine told me to just put it away, and so I did and just let other stuff pile on top. Even after the shooting, I just stuffed it away again.

  A friend and coworker of mine saw I was struggling, and he went to my chief to help get me counseling. I saw that counselor for about seven months.

  O and I went to a Christian marriage counseling couple. They weren’t licensed. They were through the church.

  I would love to see somebody now, but at the moment, I don’t have any insurance.

  LD: You mention in the book that you were a momma’s boy. What would your mother say to you if she were still here to see what has happened?

  JC: That’s a tough one. Honestly, I think my mom would embrace me in a hug, tell me she loves me no matter what, but she would also look me in the eye and tell me she was disappointed. She would have told me she and my dad raised me better. And she expects better, but that she loves me, and we would cry together.

  All my life, I was always scared of disappointing either of my parents, and I know this would have had her disappointed in me the most. Yet, I feel as if my mom would have been behind me every step of the way as my family and I struggle through this.

  LD: After everything the two of you have gone through together, when exactly do you think things within your relationship with O changed the most to make you seek attention outside of the relationship?

  JC: I think with everything held over my head, everything that happened with my daughter—and the perpetrator getting the attention for what he had done—I got tired of getting beat down. You can only get beat down for so long, and that’s when I decided to step out.

  LD: Did the thought of divorce or separating from O ever cross your mind before joining the various dating sites? What stopped you from separating from her?

  JC: A lot of the times when O and I would get into arguments, she threw out divorce as a threat. That always hurt. I would always tell her when we reconciled, we don’t use that word. She would agree. Then she’d do it again. She kept divorce forms on her computer
, so I knew she could do it at any time.

  What stopped me was that I loved her. I still love her. I don’t understand why—with everything we have put each other through, it makes no sense—but I love her still.

  I knew what the final outcome would be. I guess my feelings for her are what stopped me.

  LD: What made you decide to set up profiles on the various dating apps?

  JC: I just wanted to branch out and see what was out there. I could learn more about someone from a dating app vs. going to a bar. One thing you don’t do as a police officer is go out to a bar or drink within the city you work in. Mostly because you don’t want the citizens to see you like that. They lose respect for you. Plus, with COVID, there really weren’t any bars to go to since they were all closed. The dating apps were more available and easier to use. Also, if you were getting red flags, you could block them and just be done with them.

  LD: Did you get a rush out of seeing multiple women at once? Was that your original intention when you started this, to see how many you could date and not get caught?

  JC: No, not really. It was actually pretty tough. I was working full time and, at some point, going to college. I don’t remember getting a rush. I might have talked to several at once, but the meetings were spaced out.

  No, it wasn’t my intention at all. I never wanted to get caught. I was just wanting to get attention. If I found someone I connected with, maybe that would spark me to leave O. I was looking to see what options I had out there.

  There was one woman I found, and if things had worked out for us, I might have actually left O for her. I was just that into and that attracted to her. But this all blew up before things could progress to that possibility.