This was one of the larger items of contention between us. Tarl outright refused to admit that Mel was retarded. I have gathered that he did tell Sam that Mel was retarded, and that her parents wished he would take her off their hands and take care of her. He must have realized this was a mistake when Sam publicly doxed Mel's address & the fact that she is mentally disabled. To me, Tarl vehemently insisted that she is not retarded, but instead, very intelligent. He could not back up his claims with any evidence except for Mel repeating historical facts & things that she had just watched in a documentary.
That's the thing. If they spoke on the phone, she would talk about whatever. If she just watched a documentary, then she would tell him what she saw in it & he would say, "oh look, she's so smart, Nikki!" But she was just repeating all these facts because she just watched him 30 minutes ago. Mel is a hypochondriac. She would always claim that she had health problems like poop parasites. She would literally just tell him how her body was feeling and what she was eating, just normal surface level retarded things. That is why he vastly preferred speaking to her instead of me, because I would want to have more substantial conversations about deeper topics.