It was one of those New York nights as Emma Klipstein went out to meet friends for cocktails; one filled with energy, excitement and the sense that absolutely anything could happen.
The 22-year-old headed straight for the historic Stone Street district, known for its vibrant party scene, especially among ‘finance bros’ and the scantily clad women hoping to date them.
Emma was one of those women – she has no qualms admitting it.
She and her friends, all students at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), shared the same goal: to meet men. Ideally rich, tall and attractive ones.
It wasn’t long before Emma spotted what she was looking for. A handsome man in his late twenties who oozed charisma and charm, even from across the room.
‘I’m attracted to men with confidence who can work a room and that’s what I saw in him,’ Emma, now 31, explains.
‘I immediately saw my future. I was like, “This guy is husband material.”‘
After a few minutes, she locked eyes with him and he immediately invited her and her friends over to join him.
Whenever Emma Klipstein (pictured) and her college girlfriends went out in New York City, they had one goal: to meet men. Ideally rich, tall and attractive ones
‘Jake* smelt like sandalwood and his posse were not his friends but his employees,’ recalls Emma, host of the ‘Too Much’ podcast.
‘He was working the room, he had his own company, he seemed like a kind, generous and well-rounded person.’
‘Everyone else was singing his praises. I was smitten, he was attractive and we got along great.’
After talking and flirting over cocktails, Emma told a friend in the bathroom she thought she had met ‘the one’.
‘I made him out to be so perfect in my mind that I suddenly had this attachment to him that never even existed,’ she admits.
‘I saw this guy and I was blinded by a future I’d created in my mind.’
After two hours of chatting at the bar, Emma made a decision.
‘There was great chemistry right away. So, as a college student does sometimes, I went home with him. I told my friends before I left and we spent the night together,’ she says.
What started as a fun night out turned into a nightmare for Emma who went home with Jake*
‘His apartment was in the West Village. It was nice. It didn’t seem like a slummy kind of college guy apartment, because he wasn’t a college guy. I think he was 28 at the time, maybe a little bit older. So it was an impressive apartment for someone that age.’
The sex was every bit as incredible as Emma had hoped.
When she woke the following morning, Jake was already getting ready for work.
While he had to leave, he encouraged her to stay and ‘have a whole morning’.
As Emma lounged in his luxury apartment, she decided she wanted to know more about her mystery man.
‘I had a gut feeling to google him, mostly because I wanted to know more about his company,’ Emma says.
‘I didn’t have to dig to find anything. I just typed in his name… The first thing that came up was that he was convicted for killing someone. My stomach dropped. I just ran out of there, I was sweating.
‘I was a 22-year-old woman, so I ran for the hills and back to my dorm.’
For her own safety, Emma doesn’t want to reveal the name of the killer she spent the night with. However, we have independently verified his identity and can confirm he served eight years of a 15-year sentence for voluntary manslaughter.
For Emma, none of this added up. Jake had seemed so kind, so ‘normal’. There were no warning signs that he was capable of intentionally killing a person.
‘It wasn’t obvious to me, nothing he did signalled that he had killed someone and spent time in jail,’ Emma says.
‘It made me question who else at the bar knew – did any of his employees know? If they did, why didn’t they tell me? I had a million questions.’
In the coming days, Jake called her several times. Emma was too scared to answer.
He started to leave voicemails, including a minute-long one in which he sounded drunk.
‘The voicemails scared the crap out of me at that point, knowing what I knew. I was alarmed because it felt freaky – he had killed someone!’ she says.
‘Eventually he stopped and I never saw him again but it’s definitely ingrained in my mind and was a huge life lesson.
‘It’s so important to not put people on a pedestal when you first meet or think you know them, because that’s what I did.’
*Name has been changed
