Speaker 1: Hey guys, it's Andrea Gunning and this is our first
Speaker 1: bonus episode after finishing our season of Weekly stories this year.
Speaker 1: Our team has been working hard behind the scenes to
Speaker 1: put every weekly episode together, and the we I'm referencing
Speaker 1: is my amazing production team, our producer Monique Leboard, our
Speaker 1: associate producer Kaitlin Golden, and our audio engineers Matt del
Speaker 1: Vecchio and Tanner Robbins. For the special bonus episode, I'm
Speaker 1: joined by my producer to answer some of your listener questions.
Speaker 1: Hey mo, Hi, dre.
Speaker 2: So fun to come out from behind the scenes. My god,
Speaker 2: I am glad to be here, and I am excited
Speaker 2: to dive into some listener questions that we have been
Speaker 2: receiving all season on Portrayal Weekly.
Speaker 1: I love it. I'm so excited to jump in. I
Speaker 1: actually want to start with a question for you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, go for it.
Speaker 1: You know, this has been an evolving journey just from
Speaker 1: the format and how we're approaching our interviews, So I
Speaker 1: just wanted to ask, what has it been like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I've been a podcast producer for eight
Speaker 2: years and I've worked on all kinds of shows. I've
Speaker 2: produced chat shows, pop culture, news, narrative. But this show
Speaker 2: has been a complete standout in my work experience. I
Speaker 2: mean from the day that I came on to this team,
Speaker 2: y'all have built this framework of doing something really unconventional
Speaker 2: and trying to, i think, develop a trauma informed storytelling model,
Speaker 2: this collaborative kind of storytelling that we're doing, where we're
Speaker 2: working with these survivors, we're giving them a lot of
Speaker 2: autonomy in the storytelling process. So getting to join that
Speaker 2: in getting to connect with the people that tell their stories,
Speaker 2: these people who've been through something really traumatic and are
Speaker 2: wanting to share their experiences, has been incredibly rewarding for me.
Speaker 2: I think it's an uncommon experience in the audio industry
Speaker 2: to see a show work so closely with the storytellers
Speaker 2: and to collaborate with them in the way that we do.
Speaker 2: I want to ask you about what it has been
Speaker 2: like for you to work on the Weekly series, because
Speaker 2: you worked on three seasons, you were really a meshed
Speaker 2: in those stories. Yeah, and then this is a totally
Speaker 2: new format for you, So I want to talk a
Speaker 2: little bit about what your experience has been like in
Speaker 2: hosting the weekly series.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's completely different workflow for seasons one through three.
Speaker 1: So Jen's story, Ashley story, Stacy and Tyler's story. I'm
Speaker 1: in these individuals' homes, I'm in their towns, I'm with them,
Speaker 1: Like I just came back from a few weeks ago
Speaker 1: from Colorado Springs preparing for season four, and I was
Speaker 1: with her and her kids and her family and her
Speaker 1: best friends over the course of two weeks. And you
Speaker 1: just create this bond and this connection and you really
Speaker 1: understand these individuals' lives. And I don't get that opportunity
Speaker 1: on the weekly series. We don't have the opportunity of
Speaker 1: like eight to ten episodes for us to really take
Speaker 1: our time. We are really boiling down hours and hours
Speaker 1: of interview into a linear timeline, and we want to
Speaker 1: get it right. This is one or two episodes where
Speaker 1: we have to like really do it in a concise
Speaker 1: and thoughtful way, and it's just been a really interesting experience,
Speaker 1: like making sure that we honor everything that's important to
Speaker 1: the individual.
Speaker 2: Another thing that has been so special about Betrayal and
Speaker 2: working on Betrayal is the community that's developing. I mean,
Speaker 2: from the people who write into us into our Gmail,
Speaker 2: to the people who share their stories on the podcast.
Speaker 2: They're like a part of making this with us. And
Speaker 2: as you know, some of our storytellers choose to receive
Speaker 2: listener mail and connect with people directly who want to
Speaker 2: share their story and connect with them, you know, over
Speaker 2: the phone. So it feels like there is a real
Speaker 2: community around this show and.
Speaker 1: We're actively seeing it, Like we're seeing individuals who have
Speaker 1: participated that are getting together in real time that live
Speaker 1: across the country from one another. Yeah, really only know
Speaker 1: one other person that may've experienced a betrayal like them,
Speaker 1: Like that is so special and cool, and we've only
Speaker 1: been able to really experience that because of the weekly series,
Speaker 1: which is diverse stories in a short amount of time,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Okay, let's get on to some listener questions.
Speaker 2: I want to start with like a rapid fire around
Speaker 2: of questions. We've gotten a lot of, Okay, So first off,
Speaker 2: the question is why do you mostly feature stories from women?
Speaker 2: Why are there so few men on Betrayal Weekly?
Speaker 1: This is one we talk about a lot. It is
Speaker 1: we want to represent duals who experience betrayal, like all
Speaker 1: different walks of life, right, because it's not specific to
Speaker 1: any gender, race, religion. I don't think that men are
Speaker 1: being deceived or betrayed less. I just think that there's
Speaker 1: a stigma around that vulnerability and like sharing that may
Speaker 1: relate more to how men process that trauma and are
Speaker 1: willing to share that trauma. You know, we find a
Speaker 1: lot of the stories from our own listeners, like our
Speaker 1: audience who write in, and our primary demographic is women,
Speaker 1: and so a lot of that's coming from the people
Speaker 1: and our communities. So there's a little bit of that
Speaker 1: going on. I'm interested to hear what hypothesis you have.
Speaker 2: You know, what's interesting is that sometimes we get women
Speaker 2: writing in being like I know a man who was betrayed,
Speaker 2: but it's not the man writing into us. Men do
Speaker 2: write into us, and we have featured a few stories
Speaker 2: from men on the weekly series, and some of those
Speaker 2: we had to go looking for, like Ramon and Sosa.
Speaker 2: We had to intentionally find him because we didn't want
Speaker 2: to create a lineup of exclusively women. Yeah, but at
Speaker 2: the same time, there is something going on that's bigger
Speaker 2: than just our podcast and the selection for our podcast,
Speaker 2: which is I think that maybe there's more shame.
Speaker 1: Men have more shame.
Speaker 2: About saying I was deceived, that might not be as
Speaker 2: common or as practiced for men.
Speaker 1: This is just like my armchair perspective. But shame is
Speaker 1: a huge deal when it comes to betrayal, like how
Speaker 1: did I not know? How did I not see it coming?
Speaker 1: I should have known better, I should have this, I
Speaker 1: should have that, and I didn't, and I put myself
Speaker 1: into harm's way. And there's a lot of shame and
Speaker 1: the reckoning that comes with that. And so I think
Speaker 1: you're dead, aunt.
Speaker 3: Not.
Speaker 1: Everyone comes forward, and we'll always have a safe space
Speaker 1: for men to share their story here.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Our next question is do we vet people? Or similar question,
Speaker 2: how do we fact check these stories?
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. We go through such a rigorous legal
Speaker 1: process because there's a lot of legal vetting in terms
Speaker 1: of pulling legal support, what's in the public domain, divorce paperwork,
Speaker 1: personal records. It gets filtered through our attorney a few times.
Speaker 1: But before we get to that, you have initial conversations
Speaker 1: at the very beginning. Do you want to talk about that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So when we get a story that comes in
Speaker 2: through the inbox and we reach out to the person
Speaker 2: to talk for what we call a pre interview, which
Speaker 2: is just you know, not recorded hearing a little bit
Speaker 2: about their story. One of the first things we ask
Speaker 2: is for documentation, and it's not that we don't believe them.
Speaker 2: In fact, a trauma informed approach to this work is
Speaker 2: that we're approaching everyone with belief. However, we do put
Speaker 2: all these stories through a rigorous legal process in order
Speaker 2: for them to air. We ask our guests for documentation
Speaker 2: like divorce records, criminal records, and throughout the process we're
Speaker 2: checking those things against the story that they're telling us.
Speaker 2: Another part of the vetting process, which is just as
Speaker 2: big that we talk about internally, is is this person
Speaker 2: ready to tell this story at this time?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's huge, And.
Speaker 2: Generally we like to work with people who are a
Speaker 2: few years out from their betrayal experience, so they've had
Speaker 2: a little bit more time to process it. And so
Speaker 2: when I'm first reaching out to someone who's written us
Speaker 2: an email and they want to share their story, you know,
Speaker 2: in that initial cull, we ask them about their support system,
Speaker 2: if they've told this story to other people. And I
Speaker 2: don't mean in a formal sense like writing a book,
Speaker 2: but I mean like do people in your life, your kids,
Speaker 2: your friends, do they know this has happened to you?
Speaker 2: Which is not necessarily, you know, mutually exclusive of telling
Speaker 2: your story on this show. But I think it's a
Speaker 2: sign that this person is comfortable in this story and
Speaker 2: having the story associated with who they are.
Speaker 1: Right. Also, when we're working on an episode, we are
Speaker 1: running initial, like broadstroke background information to the extent that
Speaker 1: we can, just to make sure that we can kind
Speaker 1: of corroborate certain things in people's story, just like time
Speaker 1: and place, just make sure things are matching.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we have a pretty conservative in house legal team
Speaker 2: that wants to bet everything and make sure that anything
Speaker 2: that's potentially defammatory claim has documentation behind it, and so
Speaker 2: that is a burden on us to make sure we
Speaker 2: get that documentation in order to run the episodes. Yep.
Speaker 2: And something else that this brings up is we hear
Speaker 2: from a lot of people who want to write books
Speaker 2: or want to tell their story publicly and they don't
Speaker 2: have the documentation, or let's say they were so mad
Speaker 2: they burned it all, something like that, they threw it away.
Speaker 2: You know, if someone's listening right now, and if you're
Speaker 2: in a situation where you're feeling taken advantage of or
Speaker 2: you're feeling like something's going really wrong, definitely. From where
Speaker 2: I am right now producing these stories and getting them
Speaker 2: legally vetted, I can say it's super important to keep
Speaker 2: those receipts and keep those pieces of paper, those emails,
Speaker 2: those interactions, those financial statements. That kind of stuff can
Speaker 2: allow you to be able to legally tell your story
Speaker 2: in the future. It can't be overstated how important it
Speaker 2: is or.
Speaker 1: As Heather Gay once said, receipts, proof, timeline, screenshots, everything.
Speaker 2: Yes, exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe this is a good opportunity to talk more
Speaker 1: about our production process.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean a lot of times, in working with
Speaker 2: people who've experienced any kind of trauma, there is a way,
Speaker 2: a trauma informed way you're supposed to approach what they've experienced.
Speaker 2: The sort of three principles are I believe you, it's
Speaker 2: not your fault what happened, and you're not alone in
Speaker 2: this feeling. So anytime we're interacting with the storytellers, we're
Speaker 2: basically trying to take those three principles and adapt them
Speaker 2: into a media framework, so setting like an interview or
Speaker 2: in the finished product of the podcast. That's all because
Speaker 2: we want to give the storytellers, who are the lifeblood
Speaker 2: of this show, autonomy and respect throughout the whole process.
Speaker 2: A little bit about what this looks like in practice
Speaker 2: is that in the pre interview, we explain what the
Speaker 2: process is going to look like. We talk to them
Speaker 2: about the options of keeping it anonymous or using their name,
Speaker 2: which is every storyteller's choice. Of course, if you use
Speaker 2: your name, your burden of documentation to provide is hire.
Speaker 2: When we're on the pre interview, I encourage everyone to
Speaker 2: talk with their family and friends as they're deciding if
Speaker 2: they want to tell this story, and we let them
Speaker 2: know in that first call that we're going to request
Speaker 2: documentation as part of the legal review. And then once
Speaker 2: they consider all of that, if they want to participate
Speaker 2: and we think that their story is the right for
Speaker 2: the show, then we move on with an interview. I
Speaker 2: tell everyone basically, you're in control of what you say
Speaker 2: starting from here. If I ever ask you anything that
Speaker 2: you don't want to answer, you don't have to answer it.
Speaker 2: In fact, what I want most is for them to
Speaker 2: close their laptop that day feeling like they are proud
Speaker 2: of how they represented themselves, and not feeling like they
Speaker 2: disclose anything that they're going to stay awake good night
Speaker 2: worrying about sometimes we do the interview in two sittings,
Speaker 2: especially if someone is feeling really emotional. We might break
Speaker 2: and come back another day. In terms of if someone's
Speaker 2: ready to tell their story, I don't think of crying
Speaker 2: as something that is a bad sign. I'm a crier.
Speaker 2: I cry almost every day I am to.
Speaker 1: So it's fine, you are I cried earlier today.
Speaker 2: Great. So it doesn't mean that the person isn't ready
Speaker 2: to tell their story. I really trust them when they
Speaker 2: tell me I want to do this. And of course
Speaker 2: most of our stories come from people who wrote in
Speaker 2: to us, and we are never pushing anyone into telling
Speaker 2: a story, or are not in the business of convincing
Speaker 2: people to tell these stories. After I do the interviews,
Speaker 2: then Dre you come in and we work together with
Speaker 2: our associate producer Kaitlin Golden to shape the stories. So
Speaker 2: do you want to you want to take it from
Speaker 2: here and talk a little bit about what happens once
Speaker 2: we start shaping the stories.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So you do the hours long interviews and then
Speaker 1: you have a really good understanding from meeting with the
Speaker 1: storytellers and having the pre interview of like what's important
Speaker 1: to them to share and the journey that you want
Speaker 1: to go on. And so you present me and our
Speaker 1: associate producer Caitlin like a ton of material for us
Speaker 1: to work with, and we talk about each bite that
Speaker 1: you've taken out of the interview and how do we
Speaker 1: introduce it, like how do we write into it, how
Speaker 1: do we write out of it? And we put it
Speaker 1: in a linear fashion, and then we just write around
Speaker 1: it and.
Speaker 2: Then once we have the finished product. This is something
Speaker 2: I really love about Betrayal Weekly that many mini shows
Speaker 2: do not do. We send the episode to the guest
Speaker 2: before it's released. Yeah, and we want them to do
Speaker 2: a fact checking path, but we also want them to
Speaker 2: do a red flag pass if something came out in
Speaker 2: the interview that would really make them feel extremely uncomfortable,
Speaker 2: would make a material impact in their daily life if
Speaker 2: it were to go out and they don't want it
Speaker 2: to run. We respect people's feedback on that and we
Speaker 2: work with them to change it before it goes out.
Speaker 2: Like I'm thinking of the example of stephaniepsode one right,
Speaker 2: who was the storyteller in our first two episodes. She
Speaker 2: had read out loud some of the captions her husband
Speaker 2: or ex husband wrote online under photos of her and
Speaker 2: when she heard it back out loud in her own voice,
Speaker 2: she said, I don't want that out there. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: so we revised it so that you read it in
Speaker 2: your narration and she was okay with that. It wasn't
Speaker 2: that she she didn't want it to be known. It's
Speaker 2: that hearing her own voice say it was so uncomfortable
Speaker 2: for her, and that was a small fix that was
Speaker 2: easy for us to do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you never can really anticipate how certain things occur
Speaker 1: to the storyteller when they hear it back. We're operating
Speaker 1: from a place of these are individuals that have gone
Speaker 1: through a traumatic event and their foundation of trust and
Speaker 1: reality have been either distorted or destroyed, and they're rebuilding,
Speaker 1: and so it's really important for us to operate in
Speaker 1: a safe place of trust and transparency and sharing. That
Speaker 1: is a huge part of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and this is something that I don't see in
Speaker 2: other podcasts. I've never worked on a show that has
Speaker 2: allowed the storyteller to hear the episode before it goes out.
Speaker 2: I think there's this idea that if you do that,
Speaker 2: then the person's not going to like it. They're going
Speaker 2: to have a bunch of changes. And I have to
Speaker 2: say in the thirty two episodes we made that maybe
Speaker 2: only happened once or twice, and then we worked through
Speaker 2: it right, and so it actually was more rewarding than
Speaker 2: it was difficult, because at the end of the day,
Speaker 2: I can know the day that it goes out that
Speaker 2: the person who's story worry this is is happy with
Speaker 2: the story.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: It's actually pretty easy to give people a chance to
Speaker 2: review the content and just at the very least to
Speaker 2: familiarize themselves with it before it goes out and other
Speaker 2: people start reaching out to them on strangers on the internet.
Speaker 2: Hear it because it sounds so different when it's the
Speaker 2: episodes all produced than what the raw interviews sounded like. Yeah,
Speaker 2: let's take a quick break, and then when we come back,
Speaker 2: I have a few more of our most commonly asked
Speaker 2: listener questions. All Right, we're back, and I have a
Speaker 2: few more of the most commonly asked questions we get.
Speaker 2: And then a little later on we are going to
Speaker 2: get to questions about specific episodes.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, Dray.
Speaker 2: Another frequently asked question we have is how do you
Speaker 2: decide which episodes are two parts and which are only
Speaker 2: one part?
Speaker 1: This is such a good question for the two parters.
Speaker 1: A lot of them were like, oh wow, this has
Speaker 1: a lot of twists and turns. There's a lot going
Speaker 1: on that we don't feel like we could pack in
Speaker 1: in under fifty minutes, So let's just approach it like
Speaker 1: two parts and gives us more freedom.
Speaker 2: Yeah. A lot of times it's dictated by how much
Speaker 2: good tape we have, Like with a Hannah, a lot
Speaker 2: of good tape, and it's hard to pair that down.
Speaker 1: But let's talk about Hannah. Sure, Yeah, because sometimes I
Speaker 1: think it's just as much as like the twists and
Speaker 1: the turns of the story of like, you know, understanding
Speaker 1: someone's background, how they met the person that ultimately betrayed them,
Speaker 1: the betrayal, and then it's ending and it's aftermath. Sometimes
Speaker 1: there's like these incredible, beautiful scenes, like she talks about
Speaker 1: being on the train from DC to Philly, and I
Speaker 1: particularly love the fact that this guy was getting off
Speaker 1: in Philadelphia and she was like crying and she was hysterical,
Speaker 1: and this person was like, I'm sure there's somebody that
Speaker 1: loves you and cares about you, like and she goes,
Speaker 1: people are just the best, And it is this moment
Speaker 1: of like, you know, sometimes if we're cutting a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff, you're missing moments where you get to just
Speaker 1: sit with the human experience. I just love that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and sometimes you just don't want to sacrifice it. And
Speaker 1: that's why.
Speaker 2: And I think that's a big part of what our
Speaker 2: audience likes about this show is that we're not just
Speaker 2: focusing on the true crime and then this happened, and
Speaker 2: that happened in the body buried in the basement and
Speaker 2: the you know. But I think a big part of
Speaker 2: the Betrayal listenership, they're here because they're getting something out
Speaker 2: of these real people's stories. All Right. The last question
Speaker 2: that we have gotten a lot of, in fact, probably
Speaker 2: the most common question we get in our inbox in
Speaker 2: our reviews. Do you know what it's going to be?
Speaker 1: Uh? Ads?
Speaker 5: Yes?
Speaker 2: Why are there so many ads on your podcast?
Speaker 1: I don't know what to saying, guys. I mean, this
Speaker 1: is how we fund the show. And there's like a
Speaker 1: formula that we have with iHeart in terms of like
Speaker 1: ad markers of when you know, if your episode's X
Speaker 1: amount of time long, like forty minutes long, there's ad
Speaker 1: breaks and they sell the ad space and we're forever
Speaker 1: grateful because it keeps us in business. So that's why
Speaker 1: we have ADS funds the show.
Speaker 2: Yes, and the show is free. That's the trade off
Speaker 2: with ads. The show is free. But if you love
Speaker 2: the show and you don't want to hear ads, you
Speaker 2: can subscribe to iHeart True Crime Plus. Sorry I have
Speaker 2: to do a plug.
Speaker 1: Good job, mo, you do my job for me.
Speaker 2: Thank you. I love podcasts. I listen constantly to podcasts,
Speaker 2: and like with iHeart True Crime Plus, you also get
Speaker 2: dozens of other great true crime shows.
Speaker 1: It's three ninety nine a month, and so if you
Speaker 1: want an ad free experience, it's not just betrayal. It's
Speaker 1: a ton of shows. You know. If that means something
Speaker 1: to you, to help support creators, support producers, that's the
Speaker 1: way to go.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: If you're already a subscriber, thank you. It really makes
Speaker 2: a difference.
Speaker 1: So much gratitude for that.
Speaker 2: Okay. I want to move on to questions about specific episodes.
Speaker 1: Okay, and I'm going to do a little.
Speaker 2: Recap of each episode because I know it's been a
Speaker 2: few months since listeners have heard some of these stories.
Speaker 2: So our first question is about the Torah episode. Torah
Speaker 2: was episode number eight. She was a history professor. She
Speaker 2: met a student named Aaron in her class, an adult student.
Speaker 2: He was a veteran. He told her that he had
Speaker 2: had his foot blown off in an explosion while he
Speaker 2: was serving in Afghanistan, and that he wore a prosthetic,
Speaker 2: but his death began the process of her learning that
Speaker 2: the amputation was a lie, that he actually had both
Speaker 2: of his feet. So a listener wrote into us and said,
Speaker 2: how could anyone live with a person and have a
Speaker 2: sexual relationship with them for three years and never see
Speaker 2: their foot.
Speaker 1: I have a lot of opinions on this great I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't judge Dora, but it's fair to just understand
Speaker 1: like the mechanics of it. But one of the things
Speaker 1: that Tora shared in her episode is she had very
Speaker 1: specific boundaries around her intimacy and her physical intimacy. And
Speaker 1: she also shared that he was really embarrassed by this
Speaker 1: part of his body. He always wore a sock and
Speaker 1: he covered it up. And I think just you know,
Speaker 1: we talked about this a lot. Like perpetrators, they'll find
Speaker 1: the right person, the people that are understanding and trusting.
Speaker 1: You know, it works because she honored his boundaries physically.
Speaker 1: You know, when you trust someone, when you're coming from
Speaker 1: a place of believing someone, it starts there. And he
Speaker 1: was embarrassed by it, and he wanted to cover it up.
Speaker 1: And she's already coming from a place of respecting intimate
Speaker 1: boundaries and physical boundaries because she has her own I
Speaker 1: can see it. It didn't seem crazy to me. It didn't.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, there are the practical elements, like he
Speaker 2: not only wore a sock, but he also wore a
Speaker 2: hard plastic brace underneath the sock, so when he walked
Speaker 2: it sounded like a prosthetic. And I mean he always
Speaker 2: used a different shower that he said was easier for
Speaker 2: him to get into. So there are logistics of how
Speaker 2: he actually pulled off the deception. But then there's I
Speaker 2: think a deeper level too that it's more important to
Speaker 2: understand than the logistics of how he covered this up,
Speaker 2: is that he said it was an injury from a
Speaker 2: traumatic experience, an explosion that killed one of his friends
Speaker 2: in the war, which didn't happen. And there is a
Speaker 2: larger pattern about how these people who are manipulating others
Speaker 2: often work. There's this research psychologist doctor Jennifer Fried who
Speaker 2: we talk a lot about yeah, and her work is
Speaker 2: foundational to understanding betrayal trauma. She coined the term betrayal trauma.
Speaker 2: She also coined this acronym DARVO DARVO, which is a
Speaker 2: manipulation technique and it stands for deny, attack and reverse
Speaker 2: victim and offender. It's super powerful and effective. We see
Speaker 2: this tactic all the time in the world, but in
Speaker 2: a case like Torah, Aaron was claiming that he had
Speaker 2: this very sympathetic and very traumatic victim narrative of how
Speaker 2: he lost his foot, And so oftentimes people who are
Speaker 2: doing darvo are basically flipping the script of who the
Speaker 2: victim is, and their victim narrative is compelling and is
Speaker 2: powerful and emotional, right, and it's the kind of thing
Speaker 2: that no sympathetic, reasonable person would say, I don't believe
Speaker 2: you that you had a injury in the war, like
Speaker 2: you don't want to push someone on that. And the
Speaker 2: victim narratives can be so effective. I mean, we saw
Speaker 2: it also with Tammy McCrary in that episode where her
Speaker 2: husband was a fake doctor. He had said that he
Speaker 2: had two children, and the reason that Timmy could never
Speaker 2: talk to his parents is that his children and his
Speaker 2: parents all died in a car accident. Right, That's not
Speaker 2: the kind of story you are going to force someone
Speaker 2: you love to go into details about. You know, it's
Speaker 2: a very effective manipulation tool. Yeah, okay. Our next question
Speaker 2: about a specific episode is about John Yelle's story. John Yelle,
Speaker 2: just as a reminder for listeners, she was married to
Speaker 2: a man named Chad. They had a big family. Chad
Speaker 2: was a financial advisor. She did all the homeschooling and
Speaker 2: all the labor in the house, and he did basically
Speaker 2: the money making. But over time he's behaving strangely. Weird
Speaker 2: things are happening, and one night when she wakes up
Speaker 2: in the middle of the night, he's not there and
Speaker 2: the car is gone, but you know, when she tries
Speaker 2: to press him on it, he just gets mad at her.
Speaker 2: Then years pass and nothing big happens. You know, things
Speaker 2: are a little weird, and he's pulling away from her
Speaker 2: and sleeping oftentimes in his office in the basement. And
Speaker 2: then one night she wakes up to the FBI and
Speaker 2: the state police having raided her house because it turns
Speaker 2: out Chad has kidnapped two of their family friends, an
Speaker 2: elderly couple that they actually went to church with and
Speaker 2: he had put them in a dungeon that he had built.
Speaker 2: He's not actually a financial advisor. He was planning on
Speaker 2: having them go into a bank and wire him a
Speaker 2: check for multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars, and thankfully
Speaker 2: the FBI was called in very quickly, and then they
Speaker 2: found the couple alive. So a listener wrote to us
Speaker 2: and said, Chad leaves his home regularly at night, even
Speaker 2: on vacation. But why to go, where to do? What?
Speaker 2: Is there no other info on this disturbing habit other
Speaker 2: than that it happened.
Speaker 1: I wish we had these answers. I mean, Danielle's a
Speaker 1: mom of six that's homeschooling and managing all of those
Speaker 1: children every day and is just focused on keeping the
Speaker 1: family afloat and is like just trying to keep her
Speaker 1: head above water. I don't think she even knows the
Speaker 1: extent of what he was doing. I genuinely I don't
Speaker 1: get the sense that she knows the full extent.
Speaker 2: No, she doesn't, Like, she doesn't know where he actually
Speaker 2: was that night, And even if she were to ask
Speaker 2: him after the fact, you know, call him in jail,
Speaker 2: which she does not communicate with him. But like, even
Speaker 2: if she were to ask him, I don't think she
Speaker 2: believes she would get an honest answer, right. But you know,
Speaker 2: I think this question of how did someone not know
Speaker 2: comes up a lot in our inbox and in our reviews,
Speaker 2: and we often hear about these scenarios where something happens
Speaker 2: like I wake up in the night and my partner's
Speaker 2: out here, m h and it's off, but they don't
Speaker 2: know how off it really is. And it's important to
Speaker 2: remember that in these episodes, we're hearing the whole story
Speaker 2: told at once. We're hearing all the red flags strunk
Speaker 2: together in a row.
Speaker 1: It's true, but of course this was happening.
Speaker 2: You know, there were years, years exactly yours that were
Speaker 2: totally fine, and they took family vacations and nothing went wrong.
Speaker 1: I mean, before we even started producing season one, my
Speaker 1: producer for the Narrative limited run seris Carrie Hartman, and
Speaker 1: I were reading Talking to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell and
Speaker 1: we went to go see him speak at the University
Speaker 1: of Pennsylvania and we were both really interested in this
Speaker 1: whole concept of default truth, which is a concept that
Speaker 1: you're more likely to believe someone is telling you the
Speaker 1: truth than assuming that they're lying to you. And then,
Speaker 1: especially when it comes to strangers, people are generally bad
Speaker 1: at detecting when someone's lying to you, and I think
Speaker 1: sometimes we often worry about how did you not know
Speaker 1: than the reality of this person did a bad thing.
Speaker 1: There are bad people, people like Donielle's husband that are
Speaker 1: doing bad things, and I think your assumption is my
Speaker 1: husband isn't capable of kidnapping to elderly people from our
Speaker 1: church and putting them in a dungeon, Like we're not
Speaker 1: necessarily wired to do that line of thinking. Even if
Speaker 1: your husband is out late, it's like maybe worst case scenario,
Speaker 1: he's blowing off seam in the car and driving around,
Speaker 1: and you're not going to my husband's kidnapping somebody, Like,
Speaker 1: let's really talk about the reality here that's is not
Speaker 1: just more often than not, you're rationalizing, and you're bringing
Speaker 1: in your historical information of the person that you think
Speaker 1: that they are based on a lifetime of experience and
Speaker 1: just evidence, and then you're making assumptions. And so it
Speaker 1: was important for us when we did this show, especially
Speaker 1: when we started Jen's season, to really explore this because
Speaker 1: these stories are born out of the scenarios where people
Speaker 1: didn't see it, people didn't see red flags.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think default truth is really important, and I
Speaker 2: think people want to believe that they are good at
Speaker 2: detecting liars.
Speaker 1: Because it makes makes you feel safe, Yes, makes you
Speaker 1: feel safe.
Speaker 2: That feeling of I would have known is a self
Speaker 2: soothing feeling of it couldn't happen to me because I
Speaker 2: can tell, and I can tell when I hear this story.
Speaker 2: But we're producing this story, and if you're living it,
Speaker 2: it's a different experience, right. Scary, it's really scary. Yeah,
Speaker 2: all right, moving on to another question. We got about
Speaker 2: a specific episode, and it's the episode with doctor Carrie.
Speaker 2: Carrie macvoy. She is a clinical psychologist. Her husband of
Speaker 2: twenty five years, Brad, dies of cancer and she's devastated.
Speaker 2: She's experiencing this grief trying to find a way to
Speaker 2: move on. She decides she wants to throw herself back
Speaker 2: into dating. She meets a guy online who we in
Speaker 2: the episode call Caesar, and he is a Mexican American
Speaker 2: dual citizen. He brings her into this world essentially of
Speaker 2: like Mexican real estate development, and she puts a lot
Speaker 2: of Brad's life insurance money into developing a real estate
Speaker 2: company with Caesar, they get married, all of these things happen.
Speaker 2: There are so many deceptions. You have to go listen
Speaker 2: to both the parts to really get the full picture.
Speaker 2: But we got quite a lot of comments on this
Speaker 2: episode that there was one specific thing listeners were seeing
Speaker 2: that we did not say explicitly, but they wanted to
Speaker 2: point out. And I think you know what I am
Speaker 2: referring to.
Speaker 1: I know exactly what you're talking about. During Doctor carry
Speaker 1: McAvoy's episode, there's a part in her story where she's
Speaker 1: getting really sick. She's really ill, and the listeners heard it,
Speaker 1: picked up on it and noted something very specif. I
Speaker 1: don't even know if I can mention it here, just
Speaker 1: for legal reasons, right, So.
Speaker 2: Let me just play the section from the episode that
Speaker 2: we're referring to.
Speaker 1: And then she began noticing other symptoms.
Speaker 3: I have really severe diarrhea, real strange diarrhea that I'd
Speaker 3: never seen before. It's water, it's clear water. It frightens
Speaker 3: me because I've never seen this before. And I had
Speaker 3: white lines like you hit your fingernails as a hammer.
Speaker 3: I was searching for what causes white lines across all
Speaker 3: the fingernails. They're called niche lines.
Speaker 1: And it only got worse.
Speaker 3: My toenails were falling off, and my year and was
Speaker 3: now dark like tea and frothing.
Speaker 1: And like we said earlier in the episode, we go
Speaker 1: through a rigorous legal process and all we could report
Speaker 1: on was what she was experiencing, what her symptoms were,
Speaker 1: But we couldn't necessarily name what the audience is basically
Speaker 1: flirting with because we didn't have any evidence to show.
Speaker 1: We didn't have medical records, Like to say that that
Speaker 1: happened is defamatory, and there are certain things like that
Speaker 1: like we just cannot do. I mean, he was never arrested.
Speaker 1: And so for doctor Carrie McAvoy's episode, you know, she
Speaker 1: thought that something was happening to her. Our audience thought that,
Speaker 1: but we couldn't specifically name it for legal reasons.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. That comes up in many of our episodes,
Speaker 2: almost a half of them. We have a situation where
Speaker 2: there's something we want to include, but for legal reasons,
Speaker 2: we can't. Okay, Dre, I have one more question that
Speaker 2: is about a specific episode, and this one is something
Speaker 2: that we heard from quite a few listeners, and I
Speaker 2: think there's a few things we need to say. So
Speaker 2: this comes from the Chelsea episode. The Chelsea episode that
Speaker 2: was one of our.
Speaker 1: Most intense ones, really intense m M.
Speaker 2: She had been dating a guy named James.
Speaker 1: And James was having issues with who she was talking to,
Speaker 1: even at work, and so it was seeming like the
Speaker 1: walls were kind of closing in, like he was really
Speaker 1: controlling every aspect of her communication with people, and there
Speaker 1: was this moment where things really escalated. She took his phone.
Speaker 1: She saw things in a hidden folder, very similar to
Speaker 1: Ashley from season two, and she saw what she would
Speaker 1: assume is illegal material on the phone that she felt
Speaker 1: like was see Sam child sexual abuse material. She found
Speaker 1: a photo. I don't really want to go into too
Speaker 1: much detail, but it was disturbing to her and she
Speaker 1: couldn't get the picture out of her head and she
Speaker 1: felt like there was something familiar to this photo and
Speaker 1: she like woke up in the middle of the night,
Speaker 1: so like, I know who these children are. James had
Speaker 1: friends who had children and it could be their daughters.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she did a Facebook deep dive. She was never
Speaker 2: one hundred percent sure, but she was feeling like it
Speaker 2: probably was, and that's ultimately what led her to go
Speaker 2: to the police and report it. So let me share
Speaker 2: one of the questions that we got after the Chelsea episode.
Speaker 2: This is from a listener who said in episode sixteen
Speaker 2: about Chelsea, she mentions discovering that she thought she knew
Speaker 2: who the girl in the picture was. Was the girl
Speaker 2: found and taken out of the home. So this is
Speaker 2: just one that's representative of I want to say ten
Speaker 2: questions we got to the same effect, which is what
Speaker 2: happened to this little girl?
Speaker 1: Is she safe? Is she okay?
Speaker 2: I wish we had the answer to that, and I
Speaker 2: wish that it was yes, she's safe.
Speaker 1: There's so much we don't know about the photo. First
Speaker 1: and foremost, Yeah, this could a photo he found on
Speaker 1: social media and cropped, you know, because they were wearing
Speaker 1: bathing suits. So we don't really know. What we do know,
Speaker 1: and what we discussed with Chelsea is that when she
Speaker 1: ultimately went to law enforcement, she reported the photo and
Speaker 1: let them know this is who I think could be
Speaker 1: the family who has children, and she left it in
Speaker 1: their hands. And that was something that we didn't include
Speaker 1: in the show, which.
Speaker 2: Looking back on it, we should have You're definitely right
Speaker 2: that we should have included that information that she did
Speaker 2: tell the police who she thought the child was. I mean,
Speaker 2: the day the episode came out, we were starting to
Speaker 2: get these questions in from listeners, and we frantically went
Speaker 2: back to the script and we realized immediately, like, oh
Speaker 2: my god, this one piece of tape didn't make the cut,
Speaker 2: and that would have clarified so much. And we had
Speaker 2: been so focused on Chelsea's experience and Chelsea's story that
Speaker 2: when we ended up recounting that moment when she finally
Speaker 2: goes to the police, here's the piece of tape that
Speaker 2: we did include in the episode.
Speaker 4: I met with the detective and we had a three
Speaker 4: hour recorded interview. I showed him everything, told them the
Speaker 4: same story that I'm telling you now. He was so validating,
Speaker 4: and he said he told me, he's like, this isn't contraband,
Speaker 4: but it is absolutely wrong, and you were doing absolutely
Speaker 4: the right thing by reporting it. But I want to
Speaker 4: manage your expectations. There are things I can try to do,
Speaker 4: but this by itself isn't enough. And I was like,
Speaker 4: I know, that's why it's taken me so long to
Speaker 4: get here.
Speaker 2: But then there was this one critical piece of information
Speaker 2: and tape that we should have put in the episode.
Speaker 2: It's in that same scene where she's reporting to the
Speaker 2: police officer, finally reporting James, and this is the piece
Speaker 2: of tape we should have include in this episode.
Speaker 4: But I told him, I'm like, this is who I
Speaker 4: think this child is. And he took all that down
Speaker 4: and he said he would look into it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that would have been that would have helped a
Speaker 1: lot of people. Yes, when hearing the episode, definitely lesson
Speaker 1: learned column, Lesson learned column.
Speaker 2: And I know a lot of people who wrote in
Speaker 2: about this episode are just concerned and they want something
Speaker 2: more to be done. They want to make sure the
Speaker 2: girl is okay. And so did Chelsea, you know, and
Speaker 2: some idea of her, like going directly to James or
Speaker 2: going directly to those friends' house, like that is not
Speaker 2: a safe option, That is physically not a safe option
Speaker 2: for her.
Speaker 1: And I know that, you know, Chelsea was fearful of
Speaker 1: retaliation from James. He threatened her with legal action.
Speaker 2: He also threatened that he would release nude photos of
Speaker 2: her that she had consentually sent him and that he
Speaker 2: said he had deleted, but he had kept he threatened
Speaker 2: to send those to her colleagues. So she was feeling
Speaker 2: pretty scared of this person.
Speaker 1: Right, and so I think she felt safest letting law
Speaker 1: enforcement do what they needed to do, and she did
Speaker 1: the right thing by reporting it.
Speaker 2: She did everything she could have while also keeping herself safe. Yeah,
Speaker 2: all right, those are all of the questions I have.
Speaker 1: Great. It's always so good to see and hear feedback
Speaker 1: from the listeners, no matter what it looks like, good, bad,
Speaker 1: the ugly, like, we really do want to know, you know,
Speaker 1: especially if they are like gaps in history where people
Speaker 1: were asking we either have an answer or you just
Speaker 1: taught us something that we didn't think about. So we
Speaker 1: really appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we love engaging with listeners. We love it when
Speaker 2: people send in questions and they send in commentary. One
Speaker 2: of my favorite emails we got this year with someone
Speaker 2: who wrote in with feedback. And then I'm just going
Speaker 2: to read from I think one of the most salient
Speaker 2: points quote one pain point from you and listening is
Speaker 2: when you focus on survivors who quote bound Love Again.
Speaker 2: Donielle's story is case in point. Then she goes on
Speaker 2: to say it frustrates me when others tell me I'll
Speaker 2: find love again or I should date again. I want
Speaker 2: to heal and build my self esteem, and I want
Speaker 2: to hear more stories about people who come back from
Speaker 2: this and build a business, or go find an incredible
Speaker 2: and satisfying hobby, start traveling, or anything other than jump
Speaker 2: into another relationship and hope for the best with a
Speaker 2: new person. I hope you'll keep this in mind when
Speaker 2: making future episodes.
Speaker 1: I've thought about that feedback from that listener every episode
Speaker 1: since me too, And we can't necessarily editorialize people's life
Speaker 1: path or where they are when we meet them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but what I really thought was fascinating is being careful
Speaker 1: about the language.
Speaker 2: Yes, and I think she was writing into us to
Speaker 2: bring our attention to language, like, you know, so and
Speaker 2: so found love again, and it's like, well, what do
Speaker 2: you call that first relationship?
Speaker 5: Love?
Speaker 1: Using the right language is really important. So I'm very
Speaker 1: grateful for that person to write in.
Speaker 2: Yeah. All this to say in bringing up this email
Speaker 2: we got is that you know, we're real people making
Speaker 2: this show, and we are grappling with these big questions
Speaker 2: every day, and we love hearing from listeners who have
Speaker 2: you know, thoughtful and constructive commentary about the way we
Speaker 2: present these stories. I think it makes the show better.
Speaker 2: So we're finished with these weekly episodes for the next
Speaker 2: few months. We are going to be back in August
Speaker 2: with new weekly episodes. What is coming up next on
Speaker 2: the Feed? Do you want to talk about it?
Speaker 1: Drey, I can't believe we've wrapped the weekly series. I
Speaker 1: think it's been really successful and I absolutely love this show.
Speaker 1: We air season five of Betrayal the limited run on
Speaker 1: May twenty second. It's about a woman and her family
Speaker 1: of Colorado Springs. You know, we're gonna hear that story
Speaker 1: over eight to ten weeks, and then shortly after that
Speaker 1: we'll go back into the weekly series, where it's a
Speaker 1: different story every week or every other week, but in between,
Speaker 1: So from now through May twenty second, we have a
Speaker 1: ton of really exciting bonus material that we've been working on.
Speaker 1: You've been working really hard on mo. We have a
Speaker 1: great bonus episode with a woman named doctor Kate Truett,
Speaker 1: and she explains the neuroscience of storytelling and how storytelling
Speaker 1: can be healing after experiencing trauma. We have listener essays
Speaker 1: that people have submitted based on our prompt, which is
Speaker 1: resilience in the face of devastating betrayal, and we have
Speaker 1: a woman named Andrea dunlop her story. It's kind of
Speaker 1: like a regular weekly episode, but a little bit shorter
Speaker 1: to kind of satiate our listeners. So I'm really excited
Speaker 1: to see what people think of the content that I'll
Speaker 1: be coming out in the next few weeks.
Speaker 2: Well, Dre, I'm gonna scurry back behind the curtain.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad everyone got to meet you though. You're
Speaker 1: the nuts and bolts of this and so it's really
Speaker 1: great for the listeners to hear the people that make
Speaker 1: the show work, and you do great work. Mo, so
Speaker 1: thank you.
Speaker 2: Thanks stray. I feel honored to get to work with
Speaker 2: a team that is this thoughtful and mission driven and talented,
Speaker 2: and also to get to work with individuals who are
Speaker 2: trusting us with some of the worst experiences of their
Speaker 2: life and trusting us to tell those with respect and care.
Speaker 2: It's really an honor.
Speaker 1: Oh all right, bye bye.
Speaker 5: If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal
Speaker 5: team or want to tell us your betrayal story, email
Speaker 5: us at Betrayal Pod at gmailed that's Betrayal Pod at
Speaker 5: gmail dot com We're grateful for your support. One way
Speaker 5: to show support is by subscribing to our show on
Speaker 5: Apple Podcasts, and don't forget to rate and review Betrayal.
Speaker 5: Five star reviews go a long way. A big thank
Speaker 5: you to all of our listeners. Betrayal is a production
Speaker 5: of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group, in
Speaker 5: partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is executive produced by
Speaker 5: Nancy Glass and Jennifer Fason, hosted and produced by me
Speaker 5: Andrea Gunning, written and produced by Monique Leboard, also produced
Speaker 5: by Ben Fetterman. Associate producers are Kristin Mercury and Caitlin Golden.
Speaker 5: Our iHeart team is Ali Perry and Jessica Krincheck. Audio
Speaker 5: editing and mixing by Matt Delvechio, Additional editing.
Speaker 1: Support from Tanner Robbins.
Speaker 5: Betrayal's theme composed by Oliver Bains. Music library provided by
Speaker 5: Mob Music and For more podcasts from iHeart, visit the
Speaker 5: iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast wherever you get your podcasts.