Speaker 1: Topics featured in this episode may be disturbing to some listeners.
Speaker 1: Please take care while listening. I'm Andrea Gunning and this
Speaker 1: is our second bonus episode of season two of Betrayal.
Speaker 1: Betrayal is a universal feeling. The shock and hurt that
Speaker 1: deception creates from someone so close crosses all cultures, and
Speaker 1: we found that the secrets and lies we've heard in
Speaker 1: season two happen everywhere. We received emails from a mom
Speaker 1: in Northern Ireland from a young woman in India, and
Speaker 1: the woman will introduce to you today lives in Australia.
Speaker 1: We are far apart, of course, but our interest in
Speaker 1: protecting those who cannot protect themselves cuts through those miles
Speaker 1: and time zones. Melanie is a Canadian expat living in Australia.
Speaker 1: Reaching her was a little tricky. Our today is her tomorrow,
Speaker 1: but we figured it out.
Speaker 2: It's quite surreal to actually talk to you because you've
Speaker 2: just been in my years while I've been running what
Speaker 2: happened with me? In October twenty seventeen, I just met
Speaker 2: this guy on an app. He lived in a different town,
Speaker 2: like eight hours away, so he had just been chatting
Speaker 2: and then about two months into our chatting, he made
Speaker 2: a trip to my city and we met up for
Speaker 2: the first time and we hung out and we had
Speaker 2: like a really lovely weekend together. I don't know, treated
Speaker 2: me well, Like it was very early stages of dating,
Speaker 2: but like there weren't any red flags at that juncture.
Speaker 2: So he went back to his little town and then
Speaker 2: we just kind of started long distance dating.
Speaker 1: About four months later, Melanie's new guy ended up leaving
Speaker 1: his job and moving closer to her. She lived in
Speaker 1: a cosmopolitan town in South Australia called Adelaide. Housing in
Speaker 1: that part of the country is expensive and hard to find,
Speaker 1: so even though the relationship was still new, he ended
Speaker 1: up staying with her. Melanie was living in what's called
Speaker 1: a sharehouse down Under. That refers to a rental house
Speaker 1: where people who may not know each other rent a
Speaker 1: house together. It's a common living arrangement in Australia.
Speaker 2: He was looking for a place to live and the
Speaker 2: sharehouse was really cramped and we were like spending all
Speaker 2: our time together. Anyway, we just decided like, oh well,
Speaker 2: we'll just move into like another sharehouse together. Things were
Speaker 2: going well. I guess, like he treated me really well,
Speaker 2: almost suspiciously well, Like he just behaved like I was
Speaker 2: the greatest person he'd ever met in his life. He
Speaker 2: was always going out of his way to do nice
Speaker 2: things for me. He would like think of me and
Speaker 2: finding little things. He would like do my laundry when
Speaker 2: I was at work, Like, I don't know, he was
Speaker 2: just he was very attentive and very sweet.
Speaker 1: There were some subtle things that bothered her, but they
Speaker 1: weren't exactly red flags.
Speaker 2: He didn't talk too much about his past. He'd come
Speaker 2: out of like a seven year marriage prior to this
Speaker 2: and had a four year old daughter from his previous marriage.
Speaker 2: He didn't have custody of his daughter, but he still
Speaker 2: saw her fairly regularly and was having FaceTime calls with
Speaker 2: her and stuff like that pretty often.
Speaker 1: And their physical relationship shifted pretty quickly.
Speaker 2: After the first few months of the relationship. He just
Speaker 2: kind of stopped being interested in intimacy and he had
Speaker 2: like really bad performance issues. I definitely was confused by it.
Speaker 2: It made me feel like there's something wrong with me,
Speaker 2: like he doesn't find me attractive, But that didn't really
Speaker 2: ligne with how he was behaving the rest of the time,
Speaker 2: so it was just very confusing.
Speaker 1: Melanie worked during the day and her partner worked in
Speaker 1: the evening. I spent much of his day home alone, and.
Speaker 2: Then I guess it finally came out at some point
Speaker 2: in conversation that he had been watching a lot of
Speaker 2: porn during the daytime.
Speaker 1: Melanie started to wonder if this was impacting their intimate relationship.
Speaker 2: I think I started to get concerned about what his
Speaker 2: interests might be and what he might be watching. That
Speaker 2: kind of spurred me to do some digging.
Speaker 1: So she started by looking at his recently viewed files.
Speaker 2: There was a video called dog, and I was like,
Speaker 2: what is this video.
Speaker 1: I'm going to spare you any more details about that,
Speaker 1: but it's exactly what you're thinking. Fucked up, Yes, relationship ending, Hell, yes, illegal, God,
Speaker 1: I hope. So Melanie was down the rabbit hole now
Speaker 1: and steeled herself for whatever other information she was going
Speaker 1: to discover.
Speaker 2: I clicked on a folder and it opened. I could
Speaker 2: just see a thumbnails. It was just all of these images.
Speaker 2: These are small children in horrifying positions. There's no mistaking
Speaker 2: what that was. I slammed the laptop shut. You're aware
Speaker 2: that this material exists, but actually seeing it is very different.
Speaker 2: You had spoke to someone earlier on the podcast who
Speaker 2: describe it as beyond imagination and like the seventh circle
Speaker 2: of Hell or something like that. Yeah, that's what it is.
Speaker 2: It was like looking at a little thumbnail straight into hell. Basically,
Speaker 2: I don't think I've entirely been the same person since then.
Speaker 1: The realization that the man she shared a bed with
Speaker 1: was getting sexual pleasure from that material was revolting. Eleanie
Speaker 1: was upset and infuriated.
Speaker 2: At this point. It was like eleven PM and he
Speaker 2: was going to be coming home from work, and it
Speaker 2: was just so late at night. I didn't know what
Speaker 2: to do. I was still trying to process everything that happened.
Speaker 2: So I had gotten into bed and I just pretended
Speaker 2: to be asleep, and then he got into bed next
Speaker 2: to me, and I just laid there in the dark,
Speaker 2: just like praying that he wouldn't try to touch me
Speaker 2: or anything. And thankfully he didn't, but I just remember
Speaker 2: the feeling of like laying there in the dark and
Speaker 2: he was right there, and I felt so sick.
Speaker 1: She slipped out of bed and went downstairs to call
Speaker 1: her family back home in Canada. They were scared for her.
Speaker 1: Who was this guy. Obviously she didn't know him at all.
Speaker 1: They urged her to get away from him as soon
Speaker 1: as possible. He found her asleep downstairs on the sofa
Speaker 1: in the morning, and unable to contain herself, she confronted him.
Speaker 2: He just didn't really have an answer for it. He
Speaker 2: was just like, I'm sorry, I forgot I had that.
Speaker 2: I downloaded it a long time ago. I'm not interested
Speaker 2: in those things. You know. I'll get rid of it,
Speaker 2: or I'll leave if you want me to. And I
Speaker 2: was like, do you understand what this is like? This
Speaker 2: is a very serious crime.
Speaker 1: He didn't seem to really be grasping the gravity of
Speaker 1: what he had done. Melanie reached out to his family.
Speaker 1: They didn't seem to grasp it either.
Speaker 2: His mother was concerned about whether or not I was
Speaker 2: going to report it because she was like, oh, what
Speaker 2: if you lose access to our granddaughter, and his brother
Speaker 2: was like, oh, well, would you consider trying Popple's counseling.
Speaker 1: She made it clear he needed to leave. Then she
Speaker 1: erased every trace of him from the house.
Speaker 2: It just felt like he had died one day. There's
Speaker 2: this person that you think you know and you're in
Speaker 2: a loving relationship with and the next day that person
Speaker 2: is just gone.
Speaker 1: Melanie grieved the loss of the relationship she thought she had.
Speaker 1: She also felt compelled to turn him into law enforcement.
Speaker 1: After all, he did have a daughter. A lawyer friend
Speaker 1: of a friend accompanied her to the police station.
Speaker 2: It's just it's this little police station and he just
Speaker 2: like a little reporting counter, and there's like constantly people
Speaker 2: reporting things there, Like the person ahead of us in
Speaker 2: line was like reporting like a stolen bicycle. He took
Speaker 2: us back into a separate little room and then I
Speaker 2: gave this incredibly detailed statement. It took about an hour
Speaker 2: and a half. I was still completely in a state
Speaker 2: of shock, but I think I felt a sense of
Speaker 2: relief in the sense that like, I have done what
Speaker 2: I can do with this, I've done the right thing.
Speaker 2: I can go to sleep at night knowing that I
Speaker 2: have reported this and it's out of my hands.
Speaker 1: She heard Ashley's case on the podcast. The Riverton police
Speaker 1: had gathered evidence and made the arrest quickly. That didn't
Speaker 1: happen here.
Speaker 2: This is where it gets really surprising. I imagined, like
Speaker 2: they're gonna want to swoop in on him and get
Speaker 2: the hard drives and get all of those things, and
Speaker 2: that's just not really what happened. They did arrest him,
Speaker 2: but it took two weeks.
Speaker 1: Melanie feared that was plenty of time to dispose of
Speaker 1: the evidence.
Speaker 2: But he didn't delete the material. Maybe he deleted some
Speaker 2: of it and not all. Like, I have absolutely no idea. They,
Speaker 2: I guess took him in and questioned him and took
Speaker 2: all of his devices. I don't think he spent a
Speaker 2: night in jail, and he was just kind of instantly
Speaker 2: out on bail. He was just like out in the world,
Speaker 2: and he went straight back on Tinder and just started
Speaker 2: dating other people. At one point, he did send me
Speaker 2: a bunch of messages on Facebook, just apologizing and being like,
Speaker 2: I just want to explain myself to you. And the
Speaker 2: explanations were just very unsatisfying. You know. It was kind
Speaker 2: of like, oh, I had a difficult childhood and I'm
Speaker 2: not really interested in this material. I just found it,
Speaker 2: and you know, I was just messed up in the
Speaker 2: head for a while. I don't know, just nonsense.
Speaker 1: She forwarded those messages, admitting his behavior to law enforcement.
Speaker 1: Then she wanted to be done with the whole awful experience.
Speaker 1: But soon after she saw online that he had a
Speaker 1: new girlfriend.
Speaker 2: Adelaide is the sort of city where like everybody knows everybody,
Speaker 2: but I don't know, you're never more than two degrees
Speaker 2: away from anybody. I didn't know this woman, but we
Speaker 2: had mutual friends and she had a job working with children,
Speaker 2: So I ended up reaching out to this woman. We
Speaker 2: spoke on the phone. I was like, hey, I don't
Speaker 2: know how involved you are with this guy, but this
Speaker 2: is the reason we broke up. And you never know
Speaker 2: how anyone's going to take that information, like they might
Speaker 2: just think you're a jealous ex girlfriend or something like that.
Speaker 2: But fortunately she believed me instantly and was horrified. And
Speaker 2: I guess had somewhat of a similar experience to me
Speaker 2: that night, because he came home from work and she
Speaker 2: just said to him I've spoken to Melanie, and he
Speaker 2: was like, oh, okay, I'll get my stuff and go,
Speaker 2: like he just knew. He ended up meeting up and
Speaker 2: we became incredibly good friends. And if there was like
Speaker 2: anything good to come out of the situation, it was
Speaker 2: me meeting this woman. Like we're still very close friends,
Speaker 2: just one of my favorite people. We don't joke about
Speaker 2: it in a weird way. It's kind of like dating
Speaker 2: the same pedophile as a weirdly bonding experience.
Speaker 1: But there was something she learned from her new friend
Speaker 1: that she couldn't let go.
Speaker 2: She told me that nobody contacted his ex wife and
Speaker 2: told her. His family didn't the police did it, and
Speaker 2: so he was still seeing his child in this period
Speaker 2: of time. It's not up to me whether he sees
Speaker 2: this child or not. I have nothing to do with that.
Speaker 2: But I was just so stunned that nobody gave her
Speaker 2: this information so that she could make an informed decision.
Speaker 2: At this point, I was like, is it my job
Speaker 2: to tell her? Do I get involved in this?
Speaker 1: It's maddening. Doesn't it feel like something law enforcement or
Speaker 1: protective services should do? But they hadn't. And this is
Speaker 1: where we want to say bravo and thank you to
Speaker 1: Melanie because she stepped up. She took it on for
Speaker 1: no other reason but concern for someone else's child.
Speaker 2: I phoned her and I was like, I know, this
Speaker 2: is weird. I just see five minutes of your time.
Speaker 2: I told her what had happened, and she was understandably horrified,
Speaker 2: crying on the phone because she was married to this man.
Speaker 2: For seven years and had a child with him, had
Speaker 2: no idea that any of this had happened. And that
Speaker 2: was kind of like the last that I had to
Speaker 2: do with it, because I was like, I now need
Speaker 2: to step away from this.
Speaker 1: You may remember from the podcast and erin situation, it
Speaker 1: took three years for the state of Texas to bring
Speaker 1: her husband to justice. It seemed to be similar in Adelaide.
Speaker 2: At the time that they had arrested him and taken
Speaker 2: all his devices and stuff like that. The police said
Speaker 2: they had such a backlog of these cases that it
Speaker 2: could be like a year, year and a half before
Speaker 2: they even got around to searching his drives, because that's
Speaker 2: how common these crimes were. This wasn't even priority. It
Speaker 2: was like more than a year later that I finally
Speaker 2: followed up with them because nobody contacted me. I was like,
Speaker 2: you know, what happened. Did he go to court? And
Speaker 2: so the investigator told me that, yeah, he did go
Speaker 2: to court. He pled guilty and he was given a
Speaker 2: seven month jail sentence, but it was just a suspended sentence,
Speaker 2: so he didn't actually serve any of the jail time.
Speaker 2: I guess, like the most baffling part of this is
Speaker 2: that he started seeing a psychologist, which would that's what
Speaker 2: he should be doing, but the psychologists provided a statement
Speaker 2: as part of the court proceedings. In her statement, she
Speaker 2: said that she felt that he did not meet the
Speaker 2: diagnostic criteria for pedophilia because he was attracted to all
Speaker 2: forms of depraved and extreme acts of sexual sadism, and
Speaker 2: the children were not necessarily the focus of that interest.
Speaker 2: So I don't know what to make of that. I'm
Speaker 2: not a psychologist, so I don't know how these things work.
Speaker 2: I don't even want to try to understand what was
Speaker 2: going on in his mind. But it surprised me because
Speaker 2: just the fact that they're like, well, children aren't his
Speaker 2: only interest. Therefore that's somehow less batter.
Speaker 1: Melanie's story resonated for a few reasons. She listened to
Speaker 1: her gut and didn't dismiss her feelings of something being
Speaker 1: off with her partner. She refused to accept excuses that
Speaker 1: made no sense, and she went to great lengths to
Speaker 1: protect women and children. She doesn't even know. People like
Speaker 1: Melanie don't get parades, but I'd give her a cape.
Speaker 1: If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal Team,
Speaker 1: email us at Betrayal Pod at gmail dot com. That's
Speaker 1: Betrayal Pod at gmail dot com. To report a case
Speaker 1: of child sexual exploitation, called the National Center for Missing
Speaker 1: and Exploited Children's cyber Tipline at one eight hundred the Lost.
Speaker 1: If you or someone you know is worried about their
Speaker 1: sexual thoughts and feelings towards children, reach out to Stop
Speaker 1: it Now dot org. In the United Kingdom, go to
Speaker 1: stop at now dot org dot UK. In Australia, stop
Speaker 1: it now dot org dot AU. These organizations can help.
Speaker 1: We're grateful for your support, and one way to show
Speaker 1: support is by subscribing to our show on Apple Podcasts
Speaker 1: and don't forget to rate and review Betrayal. Five star
Speaker 1: reviews go a long way. A big thank you to
Speaker 1: all of our listeners. Betrayal is a production of Glass Podcasts,
Speaker 1: a division of Glass and our Tament Group, and partnership
Speaker 1: with iHeart Podcasts. The show was executive produced by Nancy
Speaker 1: Glass and Jennifer Fason, hosted and produced by me Andrea Gunning,
Speaker 1: written and produced by Kerry Hartman, also produced by Ben
Speaker 1: Fetterman Associate producer Kristin Melcurie. Our iHeart team is Ali
Speaker 1: Perry and Jessica Crincheck. Special thanks to Melanie for sharing
Speaker 1: her story. Audio editing and mixing by Matt Albecchio. A
Speaker 1: Trails theme composed by Oliver Bains. Music library provided by
Speaker 1: my Music and For more podcasts from iHeart, visit the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts