How it All Began...

Then the Shelby CSX-T.  Design by Carroll Shelby by Dodge in 1988, it wasn't even close to his other namesakes designed with Ford.  This CSX-T wasn't sold to the public, only made 1001.  The T in the name stands for Thrifty Rental.   I bought it in boxes, replaced everything.  Only one was made with a sunroof and it belonged to Thrifty's owners daughter.  It's had been through 4 owners who never put it together.  I mean of the 100's of cars I've restored, this was mine. She transferred this into her name too.

 

Next, in the back yard I had several customers vehicles plus a friends camper.  She contacted them and told them to get them out. And my friend had a few hundred unopened biohazard military issue suits in the basement he set up a booth at the gunshow for.  Out.  One car in the shop was still in pieces she had towed to the guys house, by one of my best friends Lee....  One of the part delivery drivers that delivered to my shop later told me that she had asked her if she knew anyone buying tools. Kathy is her name. She noticed unopened parts offered to return them so she wouldn't try selling my tools.  Of course Traci accepted.

 

Back to me at the hospital. I was later told by nurses that Traci was there trying to tell the nurses what to do, as if she was a doctor.  I need to find a way to share gmail Traci's files to this. 

 

Oh, and my sister Linda appeared on the scene mad. She got some screwed up idea in her head the I had been shooting dope or something, and that I jumped.  She even started this Go fund Me like page, telling everyone I was on drugs and that she was going to put me in a place that used drugs to cure abuse?  As you could understand, that really pissed me off.  She put this out on FB, everywhere. I've never did hard drugs and had maintained my 13 years sober from alcohol.  I didn't find this out yet, I was still in the coma.

 

But first good thing Linda did was take Traci of my visitors list, because she was next of kin. It didn't stop Traci.  She learned how to sneak up with the nurses during shift changes and would stay for hours, I guess.  This is copy/paste her email - 

​

8/09/2014 7:50AM Bullshit

Traci

x

Traci 

8/9/14

to me

this is such bullshit that Linda will not let me be with you when you have your surgeries or even let me talk to your doctors at all.

 

i am a fucking doctor, for christ's sake....i have done neurological and orthopedic surgery countless times!

 

i have had the same injuries!

 

i feel so useless.

 

makes me want to throw my degrees in the garbage.

 

and i have to go out and pull weeds and wait.

 

jesus christ.

 

sigh.

(She was not a doctor. ever)

​

I don't think I was really comatose though.  I mean I have these vivid memories of things like them putting the tube down my throat with the belief that they were really punishing me for something I'd done.   I found out later that I would wake up and try to leave the bed. This was with the fixation on my foot, not to mention broken neck, back and pelvis, ribs and this back brace - literally a full leather jacket.  These dreams were  wild.  The things they were doing to me were playing out in a different scenario in my mind.   And  Traci, she was there.  She was playing the heroine.

 

So when I came out of it, she was there.  It was like I wasn't all the way out of it. Dreamlike, not sure it was even real sometimes.  She told me that I'd been on life support and my family had chose to take me off and just let me die.  That she had fought with the doctors, it's all that kept them from unplugging me.  I didn't even know why I was there yet.   I remember her telling that the only way to get out was to sign what turned out to be  a power of attorney.  I was so full of painkillers... I couldn't remember my life.  

​

Someone told me, don't remember, that my actually wife had showed up but I don't remember.  Supposedly she showed me our wedding pictures, etc.  I remember other friends, like Chuck and his 2 boys,  they were close friends.  And then Lee, my best friend.  My sister showed once.  

​

Traci did take care of me, bring stuff to use in my hands, help me eat again. But she told me these horrible stories of what people had done to me, what they said.  The part about my sister thinking about treatment was true.  Stuff my wife did, I didn't know what to do, just hate them for what I was told they did.   She would show me videos of my house and all the things she'd done to it that she'd taken on her phone.  She told me that her SSI settlement check had came in.    What she did one day brought most on my life memories back. It was a 3 ring binder.  Pictures, and some printed notes from facebook friends.  I kept that until a week ago then asked my present girlfriend Treva to throw it away.  She just said now that she didn't.  It had pictures of my house (it's just a rental by the way).  of my truck, shop, and the one that brought my memory back most.  It was a picture of my 13 year sobriety chip.  I guess the fact that I would have none of the others without my sobriety.  I think it was at that time I started slowing down on the painkillers too.

​

Need to jump ahead here a little bit.  Memories of that hospital are the worst.  They finally put me back on solid food.   I had had lost so much weight.  So they finally got the boot for my ankle, I said I needed out. Concerns about the loss of feeling in my left leg sent me to the mri.  And that's when my memory came back of the fall.  Inside that tube.

 

I was scheduled to go to rehab, was waiting for the transport.  Then my wife showed up.  Traci got mad, told me not to let her in, and I didn't.  She needed me to sign my divorce papers. Notary, who requires ID. Traci had mine and not with her, but on file at the desk was the power of attorney.  Traci signed my divorce papers.

 

Next stop rehab, was suppose to be 6 weeks.   Much better food but 3 hours outta bed a day wasn't enough. Signed myself out after a week. 

​

Going home to my home that didn't look like my home was hard.  And what she did may seem to most like an awesome thing to do, but not for me.  This place and I had been through a lot together.  The yard was simple before, didn't require too much work.  The back was private and I could put 5-6 cars back there. Now it looked like something in Home & Gardens.  The front looked good but the whole back was turned to garden.  This use to be the perfect place for what I do.  Now everything has to park on the street,  and I couldn't even walk yet.  Then she spent money on a wheelchair ramp, but built so short that maybe superman could get someone in a chair up it. I barely made it up in the walker.

​

The next few weeks were rough.  She kept me from my computer still, Told me my friends didn't understand and had said bad things she didn't think I could handle.  My sister came by, Traci had me convinced she was my savior.  Right now it's hard to say good things about her because I'd shut everyone else out so she was the only one there and at the time I believed I loved her.  Some of the things she had done I just couldn't for the life of me understand why.  And she wouldn't tell me what had happen to Pepper, except that someone had taken him from the house while she was at the hospital.  And why she transferred the titles into her name before I was out of the coma, without asking.  She said it had to be done.  She had money now, a lot of it.  She never said how much but 1300 a month what she got and she said almost 5 years back pay.  And then, the Fund Me page my sister had made for me.  My sister brought me a check for somewhere close to $1,000.  She made me give in to her for paying 2 months rent owed while in the hospital.  August rent was the $1200 in my pocket she took from my property in the hospital.

​

Another thing that wouldn't set right.  My good friend John, the one I had them call from the hospital, she had told me some really sick stuff about.  It just came to me.  She had claimed that John had threatened to reveal some video of me involved in gay sex, which I didn't believe, never happened.  Said that he was sending these texts to her through my phone. When I wanted to see the text, she gave me my phone but told me that something had happened and she had to do a factory reset that deleted all text.

​

She had promised to replace my laptop because before the fall, when we met she had been trying to fix a sticky key, she said, and broke the keyboard.  Had to use an external keyboard.  Never happened.  Friends were helping me out, gave me some money.  In 2012 I was elected state delegate for the revolution and another delegate I knew actually called.  He knew my situation and sent me a $1,000 check.  I remember one time, must have been October, 2014, I became so frustrated trying to figure it out I just walked outta the house.  Took my laptop and caught a bus downtown,  I hooked up with an Alcohol Anonymous  friend Skip.  Hit a couple AA meetings.  We did some things then took me to this hostel downtown. Next morning I called Traci.  Said she was going to come get, then changed her mind.  .. Think I finally was picked up a couple hours later.  I told her later that meetings were important to me.  She went to one with me. She spoke up to the whole group, probably 70 people, and said that AA was all bullshit, just embarrassed me.  I walked out.

 

 I went back to working, started doing bigger and bigger jobs, getting my body strength back. She decided to by this F-150 4x4 and had to do a bunch to it to get it to pass emissions. the Go fund me money was spent on this.  I paid november rent, then when December came around I was really sweating in.  My landlord was pretty good.  He brought his car by for me to look at something and out of the blue he said "hey Tim, I can see you're hurting.  I'll tell you what, you give me a booklet of 40 free oil changes, I'll supply the oil and filter, and there's your rent this month". $1200.  I remember holding back tears I was so relieved. 

​

Traci bought what must have been $1,000's in camera equipment.  Also a dog, Trinity.  She was suppose to be for me but Traci decided the dog was hers.  Great dog, smart, loving.   She would take this dog everywhere looking for the perfect shot. Then she became obsessed with stopping the prescription drugs.  Researching late into the night, every night.   Then she decided to get a DNA test.  Oh, did I mention that she had no friends - not one.  The DNA test was the wrong idea. It told her stuff she didn't wanna know.  And worse than finding that the heritage she'd believed her whole life was different, and to top it off the man she thought was her real father was not.  

 

That kinda threw her into a tail spin.    Calling her mom, dad, researching.  All these people she said she was connecting with to solve her problem with prozac.  She finally laid down after 6 days without sleep.  I tried to wake her a couple times and couldn't. I called her husband  who said let her sleep. I tried to wake her next day, she's wet herself. I bought depends cleaned her up.  Finally I called 911.    They took her to the closest hospital, but she was so bad they life flighted her to Swedish Medical Center in South Denver.  The same hospital I was in, into ICU, just 3 doors down from where I was comatose.

​

I drove down there and when I entered the ICU it was weird.  I was comatose most of the time in there but some things from what I believed were in my dream before were really there.  And like the picture of me in a coma, there she laid looking that way. They said she had had a pulmonary embolism. No idea what had caused it.   I'd given all her meds to the doctor, but she hadn't been given them to her.  Her prozac and xanax.   We finally found out that they had been sent to the pharmacy and she couldn't get them back.  The doctor who'd proscribed them couldn't be found,   

​

They moved her up to medical, which was 6th floor. In 2014 it was the Trauma ward.  Just around the corner from the room I was in.  I spent an hour just talking to nurses that where there went I was, when I went to the 3 floor where they moved Trauma. A couple of them recognized me, or my case.    I didn't looked anything like I did then. 

​

I brought home from the hospital and she was different.  She expected it to be trashed but it was clean.  Trinity, the dog we'd was excited. They had her back on prozac but she had detoxed from the Xanax.  She never said thanks for anything.  She convince me to go to this new life church, but I really went to please her.

​

I believe soon after that we argued about something, it's about time I was coming to.  I couldn't talk to her, I took my computer and phone and went down to the basement apartment.    I couldn't get over this rage of something was wrong.  I said something about it on Facebook and it was weird! Not 10 minutes later my friend John called and said  he was wondering when I'd come to.  I asked him why they had decided to take me off life support.  He said that I'd never been on life support other than the respirator for my punctured lung, and that he had an active restraining order on Traci because she had threatened to kill him.  That when I had signed the power of attorney he had been denied access to me.  That's when I realized it had all been a lie.  That my family had never decided to let me die.

​

I was raving mad at this time.  She came down and I confronted her.  All the crap about the videos was a lie, about everything.  She really went nuts calling me crazy, threatening me. I dial John and turned on speaker phone as she went outta control.  I told her to get outta my house.  I had gotten her to transfer my vehicles back into my name a few weeks earlier.  I have a good friend who's a lawyer and called him, explained the situation.  Told him I was scared of going to sleep, that she might kill me.  I told her that I talked to him and that he was contacting the police and explain the situation. She had a lot of stuff to move and no place to go.  The next day she wasn't moving fast enough.  I felt like a prisoner in my own house.  I called the sheriff and explained the situation, who talked to her.  She was moving out, she said.  My phone happened to ring, it was Jim, my lawyer.  I handed it to the cop and said it's my lawyer, he'll explain things.   Traci spoke up and said, "it's John, isn't it?" I said no, it's Jim.  She then said she's getting out, but she needed time. 2 days it took, she hired someone off craigslist to help.  I was on edge  but she was out in 2 days.  

​

I called my family and friends and explain things.  They'd thought I'd lost my mind.  I also called he husband and explained, because he'd cut her off when she went into the hospital.  All the stuff she had told me about herself was a lie. She had convinced everyone she was a doctor, all bs. She was a vet tech.   The big rape story she talked about was a lie,  Nothing about her was real.

​

I had Christmas dinner with my family that year. Got to see my nephew, nieces, John.  My vehicles were back but I sold them. Needed the money and now the memories were tainted, forever stained.

About a year later I got a call from someone. A man that said he had false charges pressed against her and he wanted me to testify about the her.  I agreed.  That was the last time I saw Traci.  In the hallway of the courthouse.  They wouldn't let me testify but she didn't know that. She left the court before.  But he was found not guilty because her story changed 5 times on the stand.   But I got a call about 2 months later.  His name was Kevin but the call was from someone else. Kevin was dead.

​

I survived the Traci Trip.  I'm still in the same place, doing the same thing - building cars and trucks.  Where Traci in at, I don't know. Probably with another victim.  Not sure exactly how he died, someone said overdose.  He had family that loved him and I now remember that she met him through Craigslist.  He was a carpenter.  He took her to court not only to prove his innocence but also to get his tools back. I remember him calling me saying that she had gotten rid of all his tools, probably broke more of him heart doing that.  Don't know if it's okay to do this but here's a link to his Facebook page - Kevin.  May you rest in peace brother. Don't know if anyone can open it, but messages from his children saying they miss him, RIP.  He was a good man.

I received this email from Taci last night, 11-4-18

​

​

From: Traci 
Date: Sun, Nov 4, 2018 at 11:14 AM
Subject: Just Wanted You to Know
To: Tim Branthoover <timthemechanic@gmail.com>

 

Hey, Tim:

 

Well I am sure I am the last person in the word that you want to hear from.  But there is something I have wanted to say to you for years now and it's time.  I figure that if anyone can understand addiction and regret it would be you.  So maybe you'll read this and maybe you have already deleted it but I have to try.  

 

I know you won't accept my apology but I'll say it anyway.  I am terribly sorry for everything that happened between us and all the outrageous things that I did when we were together.  I was very sick and very addicted to a lot of prescription drugs that were destroying my life and causing me to destroy the lives of others.  It's no excuse but it is what it is.  I do want you to know that all the things I did I sincerely thought I was doing because they were in your best interest and because I loved you with all of my heart.  I was crazy in love with you Tim, and I went way overboard and it's something that I regret deeply and will have to live with for the rest of my life.  I was so out of touch with reality from the drugs but I never meant to hurt you.  I just wanted to love you and take care of you and it all came out as one crazy, controlling, disastrous mess.  I am so sorry, Tim.  I wish there was a way to erase it all from ever happening. Please just know that I know the way I handled things and whatever crazy shit that I did was not even remotely me. When I look back on those few years I was misdiagnosed and Big Pharma owned me, I am horrified at what I had become.  After you threw me out I dumped all the drugs and stopped trying to fix myself with supplements and other crazy crap.  My life has been a complete turn around back to the old me I was before I let the doctors and the pharmaceutical industry take me over and turn me in to a psychotic mess.  

 

Tim, despite all my bullshit I really did love you more than life itself.  I will always remember how in love we were before I derailed and I wish that things had turned out much differently.  I had, and still do have, a great deal of respect and admiration for you.  I just wanted you to know that I realize how horrible I was and what awful things that I did, that I take full responsibility for my actions and the consequences of them, and how sorry I am that you suffered so greatly for what I did.  

 

I see you are still doing what you do and being who you are and I am so proud of you and everything that you have accomplished in life.  You still look great and I hope that your life brings you all that you want and desire. 

 

Traci

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Traci

​

​

​