Speaker 1: Never ever did I see that coming. Ever, I truly
Speaker 1: thought I was going in to help someone else. And
Speaker 1: then I'm the in question, what do you mean? I'm
Speaker 1: his wife, This isn't a crime. We weren't a crime.
Speaker 2: I'm Andrea Gunning. And this is Betrayal, a show about
Speaker 2: the people we trust the most and the deceptions that
Speaker 2: change everything.
Speaker 1: Hindsight's a powerful thing, and we share the stories so
Speaker 1: that hopefully somebody will see it. The light bulb might
Speaker 1: go off.
Speaker 2: That's Brandy Dredge. Her story is unlike anything we've ever
Speaker 2: heard before, and she's never found anyone with the same experience.
Speaker 2: It's about a betrayal that only came into focus with hindsight,
Speaker 2: and it's the story of a surprising legal intervention that
Speaker 2: forced Brandy to reconsider her entire life. As you're listening,
Speaker 2: you may think you know where the story is going,
Speaker 2: but everything here is a little more complicated than it seems.
Speaker 2: So let's start at the beginning. When she was growing
Speaker 2: up in the eighties in Missouri, you know, a lot of.
Speaker 1: Home cooked mails, a lot of plan in the neighborhood
Speaker 1: until the street lights came on and then you had
Speaker 1: to come home.
Speaker 2: Growing up, her parents struggled to make ends meet.
Speaker 1: My dad was a hunter. I mean, you grew up
Speaker 1: rural country, so you went out and got the deer
Speaker 1: and the rabbits and the squirrel and that's what filled
Speaker 1: our freezer as far as meat.
Speaker 2: As a treat, her parents would take her and her
Speaker 2: brother to Dairy Queen, but to afford it.
Speaker 1: We had to go out and collect night crawlers, the
Speaker 1: worms from the ground. So we'd go out and we'd
Speaker 1: collect night crawlers and then you'd fill him up in
Speaker 1: the folder's can. Mom would drive us to the bait
Speaker 1: shop and then you'd watch them get weigh out, and
Speaker 1: then that determined how much money you were gonna get.
Speaker 1: So it was always good if you could get like
Speaker 1: twenty dollars, because then that meant we would be able
Speaker 1: to get blizzards.
Speaker 2: She grew up in a culture where wives served their husbands,
Speaker 2: and that was the dynamic she observed in her own household.
Speaker 1: My dad, by the time he got home, he you know,
Speaker 1: expected his mills to be there. When his tea glass
Speaker 1: would be empty, you know, you just tap the tea
Speaker 1: glass on the counter, and then that meant I need
Speaker 1: more tea and then she would go fill up the tea.
Speaker 2: She absorbed important lessons from her parents' relationship. The biggest
Speaker 2: one was that her purpose in life was to make
Speaker 2: a man happy.
Speaker 1: Just all the performance based love. That isn't really love,
Speaker 1: but it is what I felt that you were supposed
Speaker 1: to do.
Speaker 2: Most of Brandy's childhood was spent playing outside with the
Speaker 2: neighborhood kids, playing house or recreating TV shows like The
Speaker 2: Dating Game.
Speaker 1: And we'd have the boys get on the one side
Speaker 1: of the house is beyond the other corner and kind
Speaker 1: of ask them questions.
Speaker 2: In high school, she joined the cheerleading squad. It made
Speaker 2: her feel like somebody and like she was part of something.
Speaker 2: Brandy had a lot of time to herself because her
Speaker 2: dad worked double shifts and her mom was busy managing
Speaker 2: the household.
Speaker 1: Some of us were more rebellious than others and did
Speaker 1: the sneaking around behind her parents' backs.
Speaker 2: Brandy would sneak out with her high school boyfriends.
Speaker 1: I seemed to kind of gravitate towards that bad boy image.
Speaker 2: In her sophomore year, she met a boy who wasn't
Speaker 2: like the rest.
Speaker 1: He was not a bad boy at all. Man just
Speaker 1: really treated me like I was gold and special. I
Speaker 1: never felt like he wanted just a body. I felt like, Wow,
Speaker 1: he really cared about me as a person.
Speaker 2: When he left and went off to college, Brandy still
Speaker 2: had another two years of high school.
Speaker 1: And then one day I was getting ready to go
Speaker 1: to a cheerleading game and he had called and said
Speaker 1: that he wanted to break up with me and Ma
Speaker 1: and I was devastated, so devastated because I, yeah, I
Speaker 1: kind of thought that he's the one. But my friends
Speaker 1: were there to pick me up for the game, and
Speaker 1: they were like trying to cheer me up. You know,
Speaker 1: it's okay, We're going to go to this party afterwards
Speaker 1: at this apartment.
Speaker 2: She agreed to go with her friends, even though on
Speaker 2: the inside she was crushed about the breakup. She felt abandoned.
Speaker 2: The party was at an apartment where two high schoolers
Speaker 2: were living with an older guy.
Speaker 1: I would hear about this apartment because some boys at
Speaker 1: our school had lived with this man, and these boys
Speaker 1: had kind of rebelled from their parents and so they
Speaker 1: were living with him. So I would hear these rumors
Speaker 1: about this apartment, but up until this point I had
Speaker 1: never been there.
Speaker 2: The rumors were about a good looking older guy who
Speaker 2: lived there, and she was curious, but.
Speaker 1: It was kind of almost like the celebrity.
Speaker 2: When she got there, she met Gary Richard, a man
Speaker 2: so infamous he had two first names.
Speaker 1: When he walked in, I mean he was stunning. Yeah,
Speaker 1: black hair and it's like hung to his dolline, and
Speaker 1: he was muscular and had these blue eyes that ah
Speaker 1: very physically fit everything. When I saw him, like that
Speaker 1: was it. I just wanted to keep knowing more about him,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to interact with him.
Speaker 2: The sting of her breakup was still so fresh, but
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, the prospect of this older guy
Speaker 2: made her forget the pain for a minute. She was
Speaker 2: instantly intrigued. Her eyes followed him.
Speaker 1: And I could see from where I was setting in
Speaker 1: the living room he was in the bathroom and he
Speaker 1: was starting to shave his face, and so I went
Speaker 1: down there and was like, I want to shave your face.
Speaker 2: It was forward, flirtatious even, but Brandy was reeling from
Speaker 2: the rejection of the first guy who treated her well,
Speaker 2: the one she thought she would spend the rest of
Speaker 2: her life with. Now Gary Richard was making her feel
Speaker 2: seen and wanted.
Speaker 1: That attraction was just something I couldn't fight against. I
Speaker 1: guess I didn't want to fight against it. I mean
Speaker 1: I just wanted him no matter what. Age didn't even
Speaker 1: come into the equation. I knew he was older, but
Speaker 1: I didn't know what that age was.
Speaker 2: She was sixteen, and she found out later Gary Richard
Speaker 2: was twenty four. At the time, the age difference didn't
Speaker 2: even cross her mind.
Speaker 1: I mean, he just looked like he hung the moon
Speaker 1: he was hmm.
Speaker 2: But whether she thought about it in the moment or not,
Speaker 2: his age was a part of Gary Richard's appeal.
Speaker 1: When you come across somebody that seems like they've had
Speaker 1: all these life experiences, you feel like, Wow, I haven't
Speaker 1: did anything. I haven't even made it out of my hometown.
Speaker 2: He worked as a model for local businesses and bridle shows.
Speaker 2: He had multiple jobs and a car for sixteen year
Speaker 2: old brand He was the epitome of cool. After the
Speaker 2: night they met, she and Gary Richard became an item.
Speaker 1: It wasn't like a conversation of Hey, would you like
Speaker 1: to go out? Would you like to be my girlfriend?
Speaker 1: We were just together. I would lie to my parents
Speaker 1: a lot about where I was going and I would
Speaker 1: end up saying the night with him.
Speaker 2: When she was with him, she felt like a grown up.
Speaker 1: He DJ'ed at a club in town. He would get
Speaker 1: me in and so I'd set up in the little
Speaker 1: DJ booth and then he'd bring me these butterscotch drinks
Speaker 1: from the bar and we would dance, and huh, we
Speaker 1: had so much fun dancing.
Speaker 2: He always seemed in control, like he knew what to
Speaker 2: do next and how to make it happen.
Speaker 1: I mean, he had this way about him, the way
Speaker 1: he would talk to people. He had this charm, like
Speaker 1: he could make people do whatever he wanted them to do.
Speaker 1: The other thing about him was he always seemed like
Speaker 1: he had wealth, Like he just carried hisself in a
Speaker 1: way where money never seemed to be an object for
Speaker 1: him and for me, as sixteen, coming from my home
Speaker 1: where we're eating the deer and the squirrel out of
Speaker 1: the freezer, I felt like I had struck gold.
Speaker 2: One night, Brandy's parents found out she'd been sneaking out
Speaker 2: and lying about where she was, so she came clean
Speaker 2: about Gary Richard.
Speaker 1: I'm declaring, you know that I love him, and at
Speaker 1: this point, you know, we had only been together just
Speaker 1: a few months, but you know, professing my love for him,
Speaker 1: you know, and you're not going to be able to
Speaker 1: keep me from him, and all these things.
Speaker 2: Her parents disapproved, but they didn't try to stop the relationship.
Speaker 2: What Brandy didn't tell them were the rumors she'd heard
Speaker 2: about her new boyfriend.
Speaker 1: He had gotten locked up, He didn't graduate from high school,
Speaker 1: got his ged in prison, had ended up being in
Speaker 1: prison a couple different times for just different things.
Speaker 2: He told Brandy that he had spent a few months
Speaker 2: in prison, but it was on a trumped up theft charge,
Speaker 2: and in the same breath, he explained he had a
Speaker 2: hard life.
Speaker 1: His mom had abandoned him as a child, and his
Speaker 1: siblings and their grandmother raised him.
Speaker 2: She felt for him most of all. She felt like
Speaker 2: she could fix him.
Speaker 1: And then four months after meeting him, I got pregnantje.
Speaker 2: And Gary bought a pregnancy test to confirm it, and
Speaker 2: it was positive. The whole time, he stayed calm and collected.
Speaker 1: He just so confidently, like he always does, just knew
Speaker 1: what to do. He just always had a plan.
Speaker 2: His plan was to start a life together and build
Speaker 2: a family. That's what Brandy Wan wanted to.
Speaker 1: I knew as long as I had him, I would
Speaker 1: be okay. Like I have you, I love you. This
Speaker 1: will be our family, and we're gonna be okay. As
Speaker 1: long as I have him, my life's gonna be good,
Speaker 1: no matter what.
Speaker 2: Next. Brandy had to tell her parents. She wrote them
Speaker 2: a note and left it on her nightstand.
Speaker 1: I was scared because I thought they would disown me.
Speaker 1: You know, my dad was scary. Of course, they were upset,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't the reaction that I had expected.
Speaker 2: Her dad offered to get her on his insurance plan
Speaker 2: and help her through the pregnancy in exchange for staying
Speaker 2: at home, but Brandy wanted to be with Gary Richard.
Speaker 1: I wanted to move in with Gary Richard. I just
Speaker 1: wanted this perfect little family. We'll all be together, and
Speaker 1: that was all I wanted anyways, was just to be
Speaker 1: with him. So I did. But I still promised my
Speaker 1: dad I would finish high school and then I would graduate.
Speaker 2: Brandy started her senior year while she was pregnant with
Speaker 2: her son.
Speaker 1: The summer before my senior year, I turned in my
Speaker 1: cheerleading uniforms and then I turned seventeen.
Speaker 2: After that, she moved in with him at his apartment.
Speaker 1: And then a few months later, when I was eight
Speaker 1: months pregnant, I heard a knock at the door, and
Speaker 1: so I went to the door and there were two
Speaker 1: detectives standing there. They asked me if Gary Richard was home.
Speaker 2: They were investigating Gary Richard for theft. Not knowing what
Speaker 2: to do, Randy let them in where they collected evidence
Speaker 2: and thanked her for her cooperation.
Speaker 1: You see that stuff on the movies, but to have
Speaker 1: that happening right before your eyes, it's just shocking. And
Speaker 1: Gary Richard comes home and he's not scared like I am.
Speaker 1: He's just calm and confident.
Speaker 2: He denied he'd stolen anything, and Brandy didn't hear from
Speaker 2: the police again about the theft, so she assumed they
Speaker 2: closed the case and life moved on in a big way.
Speaker 2: A few weeks later, their son was born.
Speaker 1: Holding him, it just incredible. It's that kind of love
Speaker 1: that you can't I can't. It's hard to describe. It's
Speaker 1: like my heart's setting on outside of my body and
Speaker 1: I'm holding it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she made her son a promise.
Speaker 1: What I did know then, you know, even at that
Speaker 1: young age, was that I was going to be the
Speaker 1: best mom I could be for him, that I was
Speaker 1: always going to be there for him, and that I
Speaker 1: just wanted him to be safe.
Speaker 2: Sitting in that hospital room holding her new baby, Brandy
Speaker 2: was blissfully unaware of the chaos that would follow them.
Speaker 2: A few days after they got home from the hospital,
Speaker 2: Gary Richard was charged with theft. He told Brandy he
Speaker 2: was innocent, but he was already on probation, so his
Speaker 2: lawyer wanted to show the judge that Gary Richard was
Speaker 2: now a family man. They all went to the courthouse together,
Speaker 2: where he entered a not guilty plea.
Speaker 1: The attorney then proceeds to say, if we had got
Speaker 1: married before the court date, it would really help kind
Speaker 1: of show the judge, you know that he's this change man,
Speaker 1: new baby, new wife, can hopefully help lessen any sentence
Speaker 1: or anything. That was the plan. The plan was we
Speaker 1: were going to get married before he would go in
Speaker 1: front of the judge. So the wedding planning began.
Speaker 2: She started calling around to churches in their area.
Speaker 1: And when I had called one of the churches, the preacher'
Speaker 1: anybody that's under the age of eighteen.
Speaker 2: Randy was baffled. Before this moment, she hadn't given any
Speaker 2: thought to their age difference.
Speaker 1: That didn't make any sense to me because I'm thinking, Okay,
Speaker 1: you know, you're just being kind of closed minded. And
Speaker 1: she didn't want to get married at your church anyway.
Speaker 1: I didn't realize in our state, to get married under
Speaker 1: the age of eighteen, you had to have parental consent.
Speaker 2: So she went to her parents.
Speaker 1: I begged my parents to sign. I used all stops
Speaker 1: when I'm banging a complete and you know that this
Speaker 1: is the right thing to do for my family. So
Speaker 1: then finally my mom gave in. She went up there
Speaker 1: and signed the marriage license, and we got married.
Speaker 2: Randy was seventeen. After Brandy had her son, she and
Speaker 2: Gary Richard got married. They hadn't planned on it, but
Speaker 2: on his attorney's advice, they decided it would be the
Speaker 2: best thing for the family. Brandy also worked hard to
Speaker 2: graduate high school. She wanted to make sure she had
Speaker 2: a degree and could make money to provide for her family.
Speaker 2: She didn't want to become another statistic about teenage pregnancy.
Speaker 2: She wanted to defy the odds.
Speaker 1: It just kind of felt like this challenge of yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm going to show you that that's not going to be.
Speaker 2: Me but despite her efforts to start a new life together,
Speaker 2: Gary Richards's old habits followed them. He ended up taking
Speaker 2: a plea deal on the theft charge. When it came
Speaker 2: to sentencing, their plan to get married and show that
Speaker 2: Gary Richard was a family man one favor with the judge.
Speaker 1: The ploy worked and it did give him a supervised probation,
Speaker 1: which is what we had wanted. We didn't want him
Speaker 1: to go to prison, so that was a win. And
Speaker 1: the attorney did his job, you know, he kept him
Speaker 1: from going back to prison. It's like, okay, this time,
Speaker 1: we're done. Now my family's done with all this and
Speaker 1: we can move forward.
Speaker 2: But as time went on, Brandy noticed that Gary Richard
Speaker 2: was still hanging out with teenagers.
Speaker 1: And it's like, I'm at home and what are you doing,
Speaker 1: you know, hanging out with them. Oh well, you know
Speaker 1: so and so, and they wanted to hang out after work.
Speaker 1: When some of those kids were younger than myself at
Speaker 1: the time. It was never people his own age, I
Speaker 1: guess I'll say it like that, very few people were
Speaker 1: his own age. I think you kind of believe what
Speaker 1: you you want to believe, you know, when you're looking
Speaker 1: at somebody through the rose colored glasses. Red flags are invisible.
Speaker 2: For Brandy, their relationship had become bigger than the two
Speaker 2: of them. Now it was about their son and what
Speaker 2: was best for him. Four years into their marriage, they
Speaker 2: had saved enough money to move out of the apartment
Speaker 2: where they met and buy a house together.
Speaker 1: I was just shy of twenty two and started working
Speaker 1: at the local hospital. That I was excited about because
Speaker 1: that kind of felt like a big girl job.
Speaker 2: Gary Richards seemed to be growing up too. Their new
Speaker 2: home became a place for them to host family celebrations
Speaker 2: and start traditions of their own.
Speaker 1: We used to host Halloween parties, We hosted New Year's party.
Speaker 1: He DJ'ed our parties. You know that they made the
Speaker 1: best funnest garage house parties. Everybody loved our parties and
Speaker 1: loved decorating. You know. My mom and sister would come
Speaker 1: over and help that. I mean, it was just the
Speaker 1: whole production.
Speaker 2: Gary Richard even organized Halloween hay rides for all the
Speaker 2: kids in the neighborhood.
Speaker 1: He would hook up the little trailer thing and we
Speaker 1: would do the bell the hey and have the hot
Speaker 1: chocolate and drive the kids around the neighborhood that was
Speaker 1: cool and everybody loved it.
Speaker 2: And he really showed up as a father to their son,
Speaker 2: like volunteering as a little league coach and teaching him
Speaker 2: how to ride a bike.
Speaker 1: I remember watching him run up the road, you know,
Speaker 1: like when they do that where they hold the back
Speaker 1: of the seat, or one time he built him a
Speaker 1: bunk bed. My son had always wanted that, and so
Speaker 1: that was yeah when I saw that, like him being
Speaker 1: this dad that almost seemed picturesque, the dad liked that
Speaker 1: would be on the TV. All I ever wanted was
Speaker 1: my family to look like that.
Speaker 2: In those first few years their marriage felt strong.
Speaker 1: He would say like, you're the only one for me,
Speaker 1: and he would tell me how much he loved my family.
Speaker 1: You know that it felt like the family he never had.
Speaker 1: You know, That's why I stayed. That's why I loved him.
Speaker 1: That's why because it was my family. No matter how
Speaker 1: it looked or what else happened, you stay because that's
Speaker 1: your person and you just do life with them.
Speaker 2: The main struggle in their marriage was around money. The
Speaker 2: couple was constantly under financial stress. When they had first
Speaker 2: started dating, he'd made it seem like he had money
Speaker 2: but she quickly discovered that wasn't really the case.
Speaker 1: Okay, he doesn't have the kind of money he's making
Speaker 1: it out to seem.
Speaker 2: Their bills and loans were piling up.
Speaker 1: Everything's robed Peter to pay Paul, and then he would
Speaker 1: jump jobs, and there wasn't that consistent income always. So
Speaker 1: then it was like me trying to kind of figure out, Okay,
Speaker 1: how are we going to pay this one this disconnect notice,
Speaker 1: and so then I'm trying to research and find the ways,
Speaker 1: you know, always kind of to survive.
Speaker 2: As their marriage progressed, Gary Richards started putting Brandy down, insulting.
Speaker 1: Her the snide little comments. You know, you make fun
Speaker 1: of my voice, you make fun of my stretch marks,
Speaker 1: you know, the different little jabs here and there that
Speaker 1: I accepted it as that's just who he is. You
Speaker 1: either love him or you hate him. That's just who
Speaker 1: he is. You know, like he's he's gonna make jokes
Speaker 1: about me. This is the sacrifice that we make for
Speaker 1: the family. This is the sacrifice that you make as
Speaker 1: his person.
Speaker 2: This wasn't the same guy she met when she was
Speaker 2: sixteen who made her feel like the center of his world.
Speaker 2: Brandy was always trying to get that version of him back.
Speaker 2: One day, nine years into their marriage, they were taking
Speaker 2: their son and his friend, I'll to celebrate The kids
Speaker 2: had gotten straight a's in the fourth grade. As the
Speaker 2: family van was backing out of the driveway, they were interrupted.
Speaker 1: There was two sheriff cars blocking hard drive. And you know,
Speaker 1: so I look at him obviously, you know, like what
Speaker 1: are they? You know, but you got kids in the
Speaker 1: car looking at you, so you know, it's like some
Speaker 1: of our communication was more like just looking at each other,
Speaker 1: you know, saying stuff without saying stuff because you're trying
Speaker 1: to now not want to scare these kids.
Speaker 2: Gary Richard got out of the car to speak with
Speaker 2: the police while Brandy stayed with the kids.
Speaker 1: And then he walked back towards the car, and then
Speaker 1: I got out and he told me that they were
Speaker 1: serving him a restraining order and that there was some
Speaker 1: allegations made against him and they wanted him to go
Speaker 1: to the station because they needed to ask him some questions.
Speaker 2: Gary Richard told Brandy he had no idea what this
Speaker 2: was about, but he was willing to cooperate. He loved
Speaker 2: Brandy and the kids, and headed to the police station.
Speaker 1: He called from the gel later and told me the
Speaker 1: teenager had accused him of touching her inappropriately and had
Speaker 1: told her mom. Her mom went to file the restraining
Speaker 1: order against him, and then that's what started this investigation.
Speaker 2: The allegations came from a fifteen year old girl. Gary
Speaker 2: Richard denied it. He told Brandy it was a misunderstanding.
Speaker 1: He told me that he didn't know why she said it.
Speaker 1: He said that maybe she thinks I'm cute, Maybe she
Speaker 1: made up a story about me to look cool in
Speaker 1: front of her friends.
Speaker 2: She believed him, even though she had a gut feeling
Speaker 2: that something was wrong.
Speaker 1: It's not normal. None of this is normal.
Speaker 2: Then Thanksgiving ruled around. They had planned to spend the
Speaker 2: holiday with Brandy's Anne.
Speaker 1: And he acted very different. He didn't want to come,
Speaker 1: he didn't want to go.
Speaker 2: That night, Gary Richard called Brandy and told her he
Speaker 2: was camping out for Black Friday deals. So Brandy was
Speaker 2: home alone with the house to herself.
Speaker 1: And some that I can only describe is just this
Speaker 1: divine kind of guidance. I started to replant all the
Speaker 1: ways he didn't seem like hisself.
Speaker 2: Brandy's intuition told her to check his laptop.
Speaker 1: I was able to get into his computer, and when
Speaker 1: it pops up, there are communications with teenage girls, and
Speaker 1: there's photos of people.
Speaker 2: She was seeing evidence with her own eyes. Suddenly, the
Speaker 2: allegation from the fifteen year old girl no longer seemed
Speaker 2: like a misunderstanding.
Speaker 1: I can no longer believe. So at the time, I thought, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm going to print out these papers because if I
Speaker 1: have this, he can't deny it. So I printed all
Speaker 1: those things out and knew that at that point, Okay,
Speaker 1: now my exit plan is going to begin of how
Speaker 1: to get him out of our lives.
Speaker 2: She hid the printed pages in a cabinet. Then she
Speaker 2: gathered up all his belongings, packed them into her car,
Speaker 2: and drove to his workplace.
Speaker 1: And pulled up outside the door. And then I unloaded
Speaker 1: his stuff, and then I called him and told him
Speaker 1: it was starting to rain and he might want to
Speaker 1: get his stuff. And so for me, powerful moment, because
Speaker 1: usually he would have been able to talk me out
Speaker 1: of that, and he didn't. He didn't at all. And
Speaker 1: I told him he wasn't coming back to our house.
Speaker 1: You know, I was firm in it. I was powerful,
Speaker 1: and you know, it felt like for one of the
Speaker 1: first times, you know, like I'm actually in control.
Speaker 2: And she finally had the proof. She had the pictures
Speaker 2: of what he was doing online, but when it came
Speaker 2: time for her to bring that evidence to the police,
Speaker 2: she went to grab the pages and found that they
Speaker 2: were missing.
Speaker 1: I don't know where the papers went. He had came
Speaker 1: back into the house and slit the water bed and
Speaker 1: those papers were gone.
Speaker 2: While she was out, Gary Richard went to the house,
Speaker 2: found the photos she'd hidden, and destroyed her bed. She
Speaker 2: needed to figure out her next move. Even with him
Speaker 2: out of the house, she no longer felt safe.
Speaker 1: I come out of work one day, my tires flat.
Speaker 1: Later I would find out he flattened the tire.
Speaker 2: Another time, she was driving through a busy intersection when
Speaker 2: her car seized up and died in the middle of
Speaker 2: the road.
Speaker 1: Only to find out that he had put metal shavings
Speaker 1: into the oil, which then caused the engine to cease up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: cast our car to break in. We could have been
Speaker 1: severely injured.
Speaker 2: Her son was in the car with her that day.
Speaker 2: They could have been killed. It proved that Gary Richard
Speaker 2: would do anything to hurt Brandy. The final straw was
Speaker 2: a night when Gary Richard came over and threatened to
Speaker 2: hurt himself in front of Brandy.
Speaker 1: That night escalated so quickly. Thank god, my son was
Speaker 1: with Sleeps and he slept with fans, and I'm very
Speaker 1: thankful because he never ever hurt.
Speaker 2: That night, he had a box cutter in his hand.
Speaker 1: Then he would slice his wrist. And you know, now
Speaker 1: he's going to be back in control, and I'm going
Speaker 1: to watch him do this because I'm the reason he's
Speaker 1: doing it.
Speaker 2: She was afraid for her life. He took her phone
Speaker 2: and he wouldn't let her leave the house.
Speaker 1: At one point, you know, I tried to get away.
Speaker 1: I don't know where I was trying to run to,
Speaker 1: but I crouched down like at the corner of the
Speaker 1: couch and like he doesn't coming into me when I
Speaker 1: could fill his breath, nuzzling in my face, like with
Speaker 1: his scratchy hairs.
Speaker 2: He was mad, and she told herself that if she
Speaker 2: made it through the night, she'd go to the police
Speaker 2: station in the morning.
Speaker 1: And so the next day I did exactly what I say.
Speaker 1: I went to the police station. They asked me if
Speaker 1: I wanted to press charges against him for domestic assault
Speaker 1: and I said yes, so I gave him a statement
Speaker 1: and then they had me get a restraining order.
Speaker 2: Because of the domestic violence charges, they were able to
Speaker 2: arrest Gary Richard again, and this time his bail was
Speaker 2: much higher. After his arrest, the police reached back out
Speaker 2: to Brandy. The investigation into the fifteen year old girl's
Speaker 2: allegation was still ongoing. The police wanted to talk to
Speaker 2: Brandy about it.
Speaker 1: So he asked if I would come give a statement
Speaker 1: to help, and so I said absolutely so if I
Speaker 1: could help them, but again, never thinking anything else other
Speaker 1: than I'm just going in there to help. At this point,
Speaker 1: I believe her, and I'm going to go in and
Speaker 1: I'm going to do all I can to help. So
Speaker 1: I go in there. He tells me to start from
Speaker 1: the beginning, asked me when I met him, and we
Speaker 1: go through all of that, and then he tells me that,
Speaker 1: including the teen who initially had came forward, there were
Speaker 1: five girls who were willing to testify that he had
Speaker 1: victimized them in some way.
Speaker 2: Four more girls were willing to testify the Gary Richard
Speaker 2: had sexually assaulted them while they were underage, but the
Speaker 2: police were struggling with the case. Because they didn't have
Speaker 2: any physical evidence to support their allegations. Without those photos
Speaker 2: and online chats that had gone missing, Randy couldn't offer
Speaker 2: them much.
Speaker 1: I leave and I didn't get very far from the station,
Speaker 1: and my phone rings and he said, you know, can
Speaker 1: you come back. You forgot to find your statement, Okay, yep,
Speaker 1: And so I went back. When I go back in there,
Speaker 1: he tells me that they spoke to the prosecutor and
Speaker 1: that they're going to charge him, but not for what
Speaker 1: I thought.
Speaker 2: She thought the police would be charging him for assaulting
Speaker 2: the five underage girls, but she was wrong.
Speaker 1: And he said they're going to charge him for you.
Speaker 1: I went white. And then he said something that's still
Speaker 1: to this day will forever sick with me. He said,
Speaker 1: I have something that they don't. I have evidence of
Speaker 1: the crime. I have a son.
Speaker 2: After nine years of marriage, Randy went to the police
Speaker 2: to file domestic violence charges against her husband. At the time,
Speaker 2: he was already the suspect of another investigation. Five girls
Speaker 2: accused him of sexually assaulting them. Gary Richard was the five.
Speaker 2: There was no physical evidence, and the cops hoped Brandy
Speaker 2: could help their case by providing a statement. She agreed.
Speaker 2: Shortly after, the cops called Brandy back in they would
Speaker 2: be charging Gary Richard with two counts of statutory rape,
Speaker 2: one count for one of the five girls and another
Speaker 2: for the statutory rape of Brandy. When she heard this,
Speaker 2: she was in shock. The officer's words didn't make sense
Speaker 2: to her.
Speaker 1: Clearly, what he did to other people was wrong. I
Speaker 1: just couldn't see it for me. I thought, I'm not them,
Speaker 1: you know, like he's my son's father.
Speaker 2: But the police were very direct with Brandy.
Speaker 1: Then he told me that they were charging him for
Speaker 1: me because I had evidence of the crime. I have
Speaker 1: a son it's DNA, and that with the other girls,
Speaker 1: it was their word against him.
Speaker 2: She wanted Gary Richard to go to prison for what
Speaker 2: he'd done to the other girls and for the domestic
Speaker 2: violence against her, but a statutory rape charge in her
Speaker 2: case didn't make sense to her. She tried to reason
Speaker 2: with the detectives and they said.
Speaker 1: That I could take it up with the prosecutor. But
Speaker 1: with child sex crimes like statutory rape, the state can't
Speaker 1: choose to prosecute without me because they don't need the
Speaker 1: victim's consent, and they have up to twenty years from
Speaker 1: your eighteenth birthday to do so.
Speaker 2: Brandy left the station with her heart pounding in her ears.
Speaker 2: All she could think about was her son and.
Speaker 1: Those words just crime, victim evidence son, crime victim evidence, son.
Speaker 1: And then it felt like as a mom, you're seeing
Speaker 1: my son shouldn't be here, like you were saying, my
Speaker 1: son's a crime, and you know he's not evidence, he's
Speaker 1: my son.
Speaker 2: She said. It was the most destabilizing moment she's ever experienced.
Speaker 1: This is my life that they're planned with, You know,
Speaker 1: this is my life. It's not a game.
Speaker 2: Brandy's whole world was built around her role as a mother,
Speaker 2: a wife, so for the origin of those roles to
Speaker 2: be deemed a crime completely shattered her sense of reality.
Speaker 1: It just felt like, man, you just erased like my
Speaker 1: whole life and that it was all wrong.
Speaker 2: It reduced her identity to a simple story, a crime,
Speaker 2: something that was done to her by him. She'd lost
Speaker 2: control of the narrative of her life. Brandy called the
Speaker 2: prosecutor to ask why she and her son had to
Speaker 2: be at the center of Gary Richards's case. The prosecutor
Speaker 2: explained that her son's DNA evidence was the only way
Speaker 2: to guarantee a conviction against Gary Richard. If Brandy wasn't
Speaker 2: willing to give her son's DNA voluntarily, they could get
Speaker 2: a warrant for it. By the end of the call,
Speaker 2: Brandy had agreed to work with the police.
Speaker 1: They were going to send a sheriff out to do
Speaker 1: the swab, and I said I didn't want to do
Speaker 1: it at my house, so I had arranged to meet
Speaker 1: them at my brother and sister in law, and so
Speaker 1: we did.
Speaker 2: Her son was nine at the time. Randy felt like
Speaker 2: he was too young to hear the facts of the case.
Speaker 1: I told my son that his dad was sick at
Speaker 1: the jail and that they just needed to swab him
Speaker 1: to make sure that he wasn't sick too.
Speaker 2: After they processed the evidence, they were able to get
Speaker 2: two counts of statutory rape, one with me sixteen when
Speaker 2: he was twenty four. In the end, that second charge
Speaker 2: wasn't for the fifteen year old's case, the one that
Speaker 2: started the investigation into Gary Richard. It was for one
Speaker 2: of the other girls, a fourteen year old who said
Speaker 2: Gary Richard groomed and sexually assaul her when he was
Speaker 2: twenty six. That meant it happened two years into Brandy's marriage.
Speaker 2: The K's brought shock after shock. The local news got
Speaker 2: a hold of the story, making it even worse for Brandy.
Speaker 1: Our local news did a broadcast when he was going
Speaker 1: to court and they even said he would be going
Speaker 1: to court today for charges on statutory rape with the
Speaker 1: sixteen year old whom he later married.
Speaker 2: Facing the two counts and the DNA evidence, Gary Richard
Speaker 2: took a plea deal with.
Speaker 1: The DNA evidence. That was kind of the plea, if
Speaker 1: you do that, we'll roll the two up into one
Speaker 1: and then give you the seven year For the two counts.
Speaker 2: He was sentenced to seven years and had to register
Speaker 2: as a sex offender. As for the domestic violence charge,
Speaker 2: he got fifteen days. Brandy's divorce was expedited. It happened
Speaker 2: at the same time as his criminal proceedings.
Speaker 1: Our divorce hearing was right the day before he was
Speaker 1: scheduled to be sentenced.
Speaker 2: That was the first time Brandy had seen him since
Speaker 2: the charges, and when he walked into the courtroom, she
Speaker 2: felt a pang of guilt. She understood that he was
Speaker 2: her abusive ex husband and that he was a predator
Speaker 2: who had sexually assaulted teenage girls. But when it came
Speaker 2: to her own experience of statutory rape.
Speaker 1: My mind just could not go there. And I think
Speaker 1: in some ways, yeah, it's probably your you know, trauma
Speaker 1: and your body trying to just protect you know, you're
Speaker 1: trying to rationalize a lot of bad things. And I
Speaker 1: think part of that is the survival mechan you know,
Speaker 1: it is survival.
Speaker 2: The tipping point for Brandy came later when she received
Speaker 2: a letter Gary Richards sent her from prison.
Speaker 1: So then I got this letter from him, and in
Speaker 1: it was a five page letter, but the first page
Speaker 1: he said that there isn't a man that doesn't look
Speaker 1: at a teenage girl and want to have sex with her.
Speaker 1: And then it starts clicking that like if you think
Speaker 1: all people think this, this is not right, and it's
Speaker 1: like no, no, no letters, and I'm not accepting the
Speaker 1: calls from you know, the prison, and just I'm done.
Speaker 1: I'm done. There's no contact, and there's you know, never
Speaker 1: been Since.
Speaker 2: Then, with Gary Richard in prison, she became the sole
Speaker 2: provider for her household.
Speaker 1: At this point, you got to really buckle up your bootstraps.
Speaker 2: She trained to get a better job at the hospital
Speaker 2: where she worked, and relied on her community for support.
Speaker 1: But once he went away, just amazing things unfolded, as
Speaker 1: far as like the kindness of people. My sister and
Speaker 1: brother in law found a place that we could fix
Speaker 1: up up. It was a little, tiny, half bedroom house
Speaker 1: and we turned it into three and we all worked
Speaker 1: on that. It was a labor of love.
Speaker 2: Even though he was in prison, she struggled to escape
Speaker 2: Gary Richard. His voice was still in her head, telling
Speaker 2: her that this was all her fault.
Speaker 1: I was listening to a Brenee Brown. She was saying,
Speaker 1: guilt is I did something bad? And shame is I
Speaker 1: am bad? And man? When I heard that, I was like, ah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it is shame. Psychological abuse particularly is so hard to overcome.
Speaker 1: You don't realize it's happening. You don't realize how slowly
Speaker 1: pieces of yourself are fading out, and you're losing pieces
Speaker 1: little by little until there's not really a you left.
Speaker 2: She needed more emotional support, so she started going to
Speaker 2: a women's group better church.
Speaker 1: The ladies that I thought had these perfect lives because
Speaker 1: of what they're wearing or just you think they have
Speaker 1: it all together. And when they would open up and
Speaker 1: share about the common threads that run through us all
Speaker 1: the ways they feel insecure, the way they feel like
Speaker 1: not enough. Just hearing that come out of their mouths
Speaker 1: that was so eye opening and freeing at the same time, like, Wow,
Speaker 1: we're just human beings trying to figure this out.
Speaker 2: It took years of meetings and conversations like this for
Speaker 2: Brandy to fully understand and accept what she had gone through.
Speaker 2: She had to go back to when she first met
Speaker 2: Gary Richard.
Speaker 1: Now looking back, even from the very beginning, the fact
Speaker 1: that kids from my high school lived with him, that
Speaker 1: very first thing, you know what I mean, It's not normal.
Speaker 2: She now sees this from an adult lens as unhealthy
Speaker 2: and inappropriate. She became grateful for the prosecutor and police
Speaker 2: officers who decided to include her in the charges.
Speaker 1: Now I applaud them because I think they one hundred
Speaker 1: percent did the right thing, because that took him off
Speaker 1: the street, that protected other girls, And I am so
Speaker 1: thankful that they could see what I couldn't.
Speaker 2: And she's become an advocate. She works on raising the
Speaker 2: minimum age required for marriage.
Speaker 1: I'm part of a national coalition to end child marriage
Speaker 1: as a survivor Ally, I'm actually getting ready to go
Speaker 1: speak at jeff City at our capital for the ending
Speaker 1: the child marriagecause they're getting ready put that on the bill.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna go next week and give testimony.
Speaker 2: Looking back on her decision to get married at seventeen,
Speaker 2: she sees how that legitimized their relationship and made her
Speaker 2: legitimize it too. Gary Richard's attorney suggested that if they
Speaker 2: got married, the judge might go easier on him. To Brandy,
Speaker 2: that looks different today.
Speaker 1: I can see the manipulation now, even when the attorney
Speaker 1: suggested getting married I can see grooming. That is a
Speaker 1: form of forced marriage that I would have never seen
Speaker 1: until literally, now that I've been doing this work, it's
Speaker 1: like ah, kind of light bulb moment of you know,
Speaker 1: I can see the manipulation.
Speaker 2: In twenty twenty five, Missouri changed the state laws to
Speaker 2: require all parties to be over eighteen, regardless of parental consent.
Speaker 1: So had that law been on the books at the time,
Speaker 1: my marriage would have never been able to happen.
Speaker 2: She started using new words when talking about her experience.
Speaker 1: It took me a long time, first of all, to
Speaker 1: say that I'm child marriage, sex crimeate, domestic violence survivor,
Speaker 1: like to even say those words took a long time
Speaker 1: because I felt like I didn't have the right to
Speaker 1: call myself that. When I'm going to go speak next week,
Speaker 1: I'll say that I married my rapist. Hindsight's a powerful thing.
Speaker 2: Brandy wanted to reclaim her story and tell it publicly,
Speaker 2: so she started reaching out to publishers to find a
Speaker 2: way to write a book about her life.
Speaker 1: And then I just thought, you know what, Life's too short.
Speaker 1: This is an investment I want to make into myself.
Speaker 2: She found the perfect copy editor for the job.
Speaker 1: And then I ended up working with gender Coldbaba. She
Speaker 1: agreed to copy edit, and she said, we'll go chapter
Speaker 1: by chapter because if we don't, you'll quit, you know,
Speaker 1: just because it's going to get real. And she was right.
Speaker 1: Best advice ever.
Speaker 2: She connected with. She Writes Press, an independent publisher that
Speaker 2: focuses on women's stories. Her book was published in fall
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four and it's titled Girl Uncoded. This is
Speaker 2: the last passage from her book.
Speaker 1: I was no longer ashamed of my life, my home,
Speaker 1: or the choices I had made. I saw the happy
Speaker 1: ending from the beginning. I saw how the DNA of
Speaker 1: my son was the indisputable evidence to hold Gary Richard
Speaker 1: accountable for his actions and bring justice to all the
Speaker 1: survivors of his crimes, including me. I leaned into the
Speaker 1: pool of sunlight on the windowsill, closed my eyes as
Speaker 1: a smile splashed across my face and flooded my body
Speaker 1: with joyful thoughts of being free. I'm proud of it,
Speaker 1: proud of me.
Speaker 2: We end every weekly episode with the same question, why
Speaker 2: do you want to share your story?
Speaker 1: It's to help somebody see what I couldn't. To help
Speaker 1: somebody see sooner, to be able to change their circumstances.
Speaker 1: If this can help one person see abuse in a
Speaker 1: different way, see manipulation in a different way, grooming in
Speaker 1: a different way. To help somebody see what I could
Speaker 1: not see, what has taken me so long to see.
Speaker 1: That's why.
Speaker 2: On the next episode of Betrayal Weekly.
Speaker 3: He would tell some of them that he was there
Speaker 3: sold me and that they were twin flames and they
Speaker 3: had a deeper connection. And then I realized, Wow, he
Speaker 3: is not a mentor. He's pretty much a monster. I
Speaker 3: probably should shut the studio down immediately.
Speaker 2: Before we end the episode. I have some exciting news.
Speaker 2: Betrayal will be doing our first ever live show as
Speaker 2: part of the Virgin Voyages True Crime Cruise, we'll be
Speaker 2: answering listener questions and discussing them live on stage with
Speaker 2: Stacy and Tyler from Betrayal season three, as well as
Speaker 2: Caroline from season four. So if you have a question
Speaker 2: for us, please email us at Betrayalpod at gmail dot
Speaker 2: com with the subject line listener question And if you
Speaker 2: want to join us on the Caribbean cruise, there are
Speaker 2: still spots available. Search Virgin Voyages dot com slash true crime.
Speaker 2: If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal
Speaker 2: team or want to tell us your Betrayal story, email
Speaker 2: us at Betrayalpod at gmail dot com. That's Betrayal Pod
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Speaker 2: Five star reviews go a long way. A big thank
Speaker 2: you to all of our listeners. Betrayal is a production
Speaker 2: of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group in
Speaker 2: partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show was executive produced by
Speaker 2: Nancy Glass and Jennifer Fason, hosted and produced by me
Speaker 2: Andrea Gunning, written and produced by Monique Leboard, also produced
Speaker 2: by Ben Fetterman. Associate producers are Caitlin Golden, Olivia Hewitt,
Speaker 2: and Kristin Melcurie. Casting support from Curry Richmond. Our iHeart
Speaker 2: team is Ali Perry and Jessica Crincheck. Audio editing by
Speaker 2: Matt Doavecchio, Mixing and mastering on this episode by Dave Saya.
Speaker 2: Additional audio editing by Tanner Robbins. Portrayals theme composed by
Speaker 2: Oliver Bains. Music library provided by my Music and For
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