Speaker 1: Hey, it's Andrea Gunning. Our season of weekly stories is
Speaker 1: coming to an end, but don't worry. We'll be back
Speaker 1: soon with more episodes. So if you have a story
Speaker 1: of your own that you'd like to share on the podcast,
Speaker 1: email us at Betrayal pod at gmail dot com. In
Speaker 1: the meantime, we want to do something new and exciting.
Speaker 1: This month, we're taking short creative essays submissions from listeners.
Speaker 1: The theme is resilience in the face of a devastating betrayal.
Speaker 1: We want to hear the story of how you healed
Speaker 1: scars and all. Here's the catch. The limit is a
Speaker 1: thousand words. If your story stands out, it might be
Speaker 1: featured in a bonus episode. Please save your submission as
Speaker 1: a PDF and email it to Betrayal pod at gmail
Speaker 1: dot com. Okay, now onto the episode.
Speaker 2: If he can lie about that, he can lie about anything.
Speaker 2: I mean, he used his dead mother's name, he used
Speaker 2: his dead father's name, he used I think his aunt,
Speaker 2: he used my name, all these people. It was absolutely
Speaker 2: crazy making.
Speaker 1: I'm Andrea Gunning, and this is Betrayal, a show about
Speaker 1: the people we trust the most and the deceptions that
Speaker 1: change everything.
Speaker 2: Listen, I've always craved drama, and I got it. I
Speaker 2: got it. That's Abby Ellen.
Speaker 1: She's an independent journalist where outlets like The New York
Speaker 1: Times in Washington Post.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I'm in my fifties and I have been a
Speaker 2: freelance writer since I'm like twenty two.
Speaker 1: Storytelling comes naturally to her.
Speaker 2: Even as a kid, I was interested in people's story
Speaker 2: I was interested in gossip. I was interested in people's lives.
Speaker 2: I just wanted to know how things work. And I
Speaker 2: also was always interested in getting to the bottom of things.
Speaker 1: To say, she's curious as an understatement. When she was
Speaker 1: in elementary school, Abby was on a children's show called
Speaker 1: Romper Room. It was popular in the nineteen seventies. On
Speaker 1: the show, the host would hold up a magic mirror
Speaker 1: and through it she would pretend to see straight into
Speaker 1: living rooms across the country. She'd named dozens of children
Speaker 1: who were watching the show. Kids at home thought she
Speaker 1: was talking directly to them through the mirror. As a kid,
Speaker 1: Abby knew the magic mirror was faked, and when she
Speaker 1: was on the show, she was determined to figure.
Speaker 2: Out how well they would put the kids in the
Speaker 2: control room and you could see all of the monitors
Speaker 2: and you could see what was happening, and I remember
Speaker 2: pointing to that with the kid next to me. I
Speaker 2: was like, check it out, like there's no magic, and
Speaker 2: he was really upset. He was like, I don't want
Speaker 2: to know that, you know, And I was like, see,
Speaker 2: I got to the truth.
Speaker 1: Fifty years later, she's still that same person.
Speaker 3: I hate magic tricks.
Speaker 2: I hate going to magic shows. I need to know
Speaker 2: how they do things.
Speaker 1: That dogged curiosity has motivated Abby's work for decades. When
Speaker 1: she first started her journalism career in New York.
Speaker 2: City, I could have gotten a job like in The
Speaker 2: Devil Worst Prada.
Speaker 3: I could have gotten a job as an assistant to
Speaker 3: an editor.
Speaker 2: But I thought, what am I going to learn about
Speaker 2: writing from picking up some of these dry cleaning Nothing?
Speaker 2: What am I going to learn about like from faxing
Speaker 2: their correspondence nothing. I didn't want to do that.
Speaker 1: Instead, she got her start writing for women's magazines. It
Speaker 1: was the nineties when magazines still ruled the media landscape,
Speaker 1: and Abby had to start at the bottom.
Speaker 2: Of the ladder. The women's magazines had you do like quizzes,
Speaker 2: is he a jerk? Are you a control freak? I
Speaker 2: mean those kind of things. I didn't give a shit.
Speaker 2: I mean, I hated that stuff, and I just got
Speaker 2: terrified that I was going to get stuck doing that.
Speaker 1: She wanted something more hard hitting, so she started cold
Speaker 1: pitch stories to The New York Times, and she finally
Speaker 1: got a story accepted. It was an expose on simulated
Speaker 1: military boot camps for civilians.
Speaker 2: And I wrote a big story about that. It was
Speaker 2: a full page of The New York Times. I framed
Speaker 2: it and I thought, that's that never going to happen again. Well,
Speaker 2: the editor who I wrote that for called me up
Speaker 2: one day and he said, we're starting a column. He
Speaker 2: wanted Abby to write for it.
Speaker 1: So for the next five years, she wrote a column
Speaker 1: about young people and money for the Business section of
Speaker 1: the New York Times.
Speaker 2: She was in her late twenties.
Speaker 1: The stars were aligning for her career and she was
Speaker 1: building a life for herself.
Speaker 2: My mother is really a super feminist and has always
Speaker 2: been profoundly independent and has always been like, what women
Speaker 2: need is their own money, no matter what, they all
Speaker 2: need their own money, you know. So she wanted me
Speaker 2: to always have my own space.
Speaker 1: On her mother's advice, Abby bought her first apartment. It
Speaker 1: was a loft in New York City. She had everything
Speaker 1: she wanted. Even dating came easily for Abby.
Speaker 3: Oh God, men were everywhere, men were everywhere.
Speaker 1: In her twenties, her relationships usually ended because he was
Speaker 1: more into her and she was into him. I, you know,
Speaker 1: had my boyfriend, then we broke up, and then I
Speaker 1: had other boyfriends.
Speaker 2: And I continued to work, and I continued to travel,
Speaker 2: and I kind of never really wanted to get married,
Speaker 2: per se, that wasn't my agenda. Didn't want to be
Speaker 2: tethered to somebody all the time.
Speaker 1: In her thirties, she dated more seriously, but none of
Speaker 1: the guys were quite right.
Speaker 3: One was a guy on me in Peru.
Speaker 2: He was a furniture maker and he was great, but
Speaker 2: that didn't work out. A couple guys in the.
Speaker 4: Theater, I mean just different nice. I mean they were fine,
Speaker 4: they were fine people. But I wanted something that mattered.
Speaker 4: I wanted something that mattered.
Speaker 1: Abby had traveled the world, reported for prestigious publications, and
Speaker 1: made friends in every corner of the city, but there
Speaker 1: was one thing she still hadn't experienced.
Speaker 2: Again, I didn't care if I got married, but I
Speaker 2: wanted to be mount in love. She wanted to be
Speaker 2: madly in love.
Speaker 1: By the time she was forty, she started looking for
Speaker 1: love in new places.
Speaker 2: If you've been single little while, you know, sometimes you're
Speaker 2: just like, oh God, maybe I should go out with
Speaker 2: somebody who I never thought i'd be with, just because
Speaker 2: maybe I'd been barking up the wrong tree all this time.
Speaker 1: After a string of relationships with struggling artists, she thought
Speaker 1: she'd try something more traditional. First, she went with the
Speaker 1: conservative Wall Street type.
Speaker 2: Then she thought, I'm Jewish. I was brought up Jewish.
Speaker 2: I thought, I've always dated non Jewish guys. Maybe I
Speaker 2: need to be with somebody who's Jewish. Maybe that's what
Speaker 2: I need.
Speaker 1: On a lark, her friend recommended a psychic. Apparently she
Speaker 1: had great insights on love.
Speaker 2: Oh god, Carmela is psyching from younger, that's what she said.
Speaker 2: I like.
Speaker 1: But Carmela saw something in Abby's future, a man.
Speaker 2: And she was like, you're going to meet somebody you're
Speaker 2: gonna move. His first initial is going to be RP,
Speaker 2: B or D and all when he's gonna wear a uniform.
Speaker 2: And I said, I don't know anybody in uniform other
Speaker 2: than the FedEx guy.
Speaker 3: And she was like, no, that's not a FedEx guy.
Speaker 1: Around the same time, Abby was working on a piece
Speaker 1: for The Times.
Speaker 2: I was working on an article for the New York
Speaker 2: Times about detox diets and whether or not they had
Speaker 2: any validity or whether they were just kind of bullshit.
Speaker 2: And somebody suggested I call this guy who worked in
Speaker 2: Beverly Hills, California, who was a doctor there.
Speaker 3: He had written some articles or studies about detox diets.
Speaker 1: This Beverly Hills doctor gave Abby a great quote for
Speaker 1: her article. We're going to call him Richard.
Speaker 3: I quoted him and we had a nice conversation and
Speaker 3: that was the end of it.
Speaker 1: A few months later she had to call Richard again
Speaker 1: to fact check the article.
Speaker 3: And I said, are you still in Beverly Hills And
Speaker 3: he said, no, I'm in the Navy.
Speaker 2: I'm a Navy doc.
Speaker 1: Richard had been a Navy seal in his twenties, then
Speaker 1: left to go to medical school. After decades of private
Speaker 1: medical practice, he rejoined the Navy to work on special projects.
Speaker 2: He was working on opening up a hospital for kids
Speaker 2: with cancer in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Speaker 1: At the time, Abby wanted a new beat. She wanted
Speaker 1: to report on international relations.
Speaker 2: I was looking to do something different to expand my career.
Speaker 2: I wanted to do international reporting, and even if possible,
Speaker 2: I wanted to do war correspondence.
Speaker 1: Richard was a good source, someone who might have stories
Speaker 1: and connections she would need.
Speaker 2: I said, well, tell me, bet you know, keeping posted
Speaker 2: on how this goes, this is right up my alley,
Speaker 2: and he did.
Speaker 3: He capped keeping me posted. He kept telling me what
Speaker 3: was going on.
Speaker 1: At first it was regular updates about his job in
Speaker 1: the Middle East.
Speaker 2: And then we began talking more and more.
Speaker 1: They started writing to each other every day, and she
Speaker 1: learned more about Richard's personal life.
Speaker 3: Apparently he had been divorced since I met him.
Speaker 2: His two kids lived in California, and he was liddy
Speaker 2: in Jacksonville, and he was going to move to Washington.
Speaker 2: And I thought, well, isn't that ironic because I was
Speaker 2: going to move to Washington too to go to grad school.
Speaker 1: Abby had just been accepted to an international relations master's program.
Speaker 1: It was in Washington, d C. Where Richard was headed next.
Speaker 1: By this point, their conversations veered into flirtations. So when
Speaker 1: they found out they were both moving to the same.
Speaker 2: City, it seemed almost. You know where there's a word
Speaker 2: in Hebrew beshert, which means meant to be, And I thought, okay,
Speaker 2: this is meant to be.
Speaker 1: Their flirtation expanded into late night phone calls and surprise deliveries.
Speaker 2: And he called when he said he would, and he
Speaker 2: sent flowers. And he wasn't like a suffer bring artists
Speaker 2: and paint splattered jeans. You know, he was really a
Speaker 2: good guy. Richard was mature and accomplished. He was a doctor.
Speaker 2: Maybe this was the guy she'd been waiting for. I
Speaker 2: was forty two, so I wasn't a kid, and he
Speaker 2: was fifty eight, so he wasn't a kid.
Speaker 3: But it didn't matter because he was nice to me,
Speaker 3: and he was good to me.
Speaker 1: After months of talking, have you emailed him a poem?
Speaker 2: So I thought, all right, I can woo. I'm gonna
Speaker 2: send it to him.
Speaker 1: She knew this poem was his favorite.
Speaker 2: I'm going to read it. It's very short. This is
Speaker 2: just to say by William Carlos Williams. I had eaten
Speaker 2: the plums that were in the ice box in which
Speaker 2: you were probably saving for breakfast. Forgive me. They were delicious,
Speaker 2: so sweet and so cold, and I sent it to him,
Speaker 2: and he wrought me back three words, I love you.
Speaker 2: And I thought, all right, it's a little fast, but okay.
Speaker 1: She'd only been talking to Richard for a few months,
Speaker 1: but when she got his reply, she smiled. Richard was
Speaker 1: scheduled to be in New York the following month. Abby
Speaker 1: hadn't started school yet and was still in town, so
Speaker 1: they decided to meet in person for the first time.
Speaker 3: He said, I've got to be in New York to
Speaker 3: give his talk at the eun So I'm going to
Speaker 3: be wearing my outfit, my navy uniform, and he said,
Speaker 3: let's go somewhere celebratory.
Speaker 1: He made a reservation for them at the Four Seasons restaurant.
Speaker 1: It's now closed, but in the early two thousands it
Speaker 1: was one of the most glamorous date spots in New York.
Speaker 2: It was a very CNBC kind of place. There was
Speaker 2: a giant pool in the middle of it. Then it
Speaker 2: was just very expensive and swanky and ritzy, and it.
Speaker 3: Was just kind of the place to be.
Speaker 1: On the night of their date, Richard met her in
Speaker 1: the lobby, wearing his white Navy officer uniform. As he
Speaker 1: walked towards her, she realized this was the man in uniform,
Speaker 1: the one the psychic had foreseen. Richard even brought her
Speaker 1: a gift.
Speaker 3: He brings what is called a cover, but it's a
Speaker 3: navy cap.
Speaker 2: You know, it's the hat I brought you one, he said.
Speaker 1: They walked into dinner hand in hand, Abby wearing his
Speaker 1: white navy cap.
Speaker 3: And at dinner, he was so funny and he was charming,
Speaker 3: and he was good to me, and he was charismatic, and.
Speaker 2: You know, he kind of wound me. He was wooing me,
Speaker 2: and I like that. It was after dating all sorts
Speaker 2: of shit has it was nice to be with somebody who,
Speaker 2: you know, seemed to be who they said they were.
Speaker 1: That was the beginning of Richard's regular visits to New
Speaker 1: York to take Abby out on romantic dates.
Speaker 3: He comes to visit for a weekend or maybe overnight.
Speaker 2: I mean, he always reading me with a big kiss,
Speaker 2: and he'd tell me how beautiful I was.
Speaker 1: When he met Abby's friends, he impressed them too.
Speaker 2: He cared about people, He cared about the world. He
Speaker 2: was always picking up tabs, he was always doing things
Speaker 2: that made people really like him.
Speaker 1: Richard had two kids by his first wife, and even
Speaker 1: though he lived apart from them. He was still a
Speaker 1: family man.
Speaker 2: He was very close to his son, so that that
Speaker 2: was nice and daughter. He talked to his kid, his
Speaker 2: son all the time.
Speaker 1: And then there was his illustrious military career. He was
Speaker 1: constantly traveling for work.
Speaker 2: He always said that he had certain things that he
Speaker 2: did that he wouldn't be able to tell me about,
Speaker 2: and then he would often go off on these sort
Speaker 2: of secret missions and he couldn't tell me what he
Speaker 2: was doing, and I was kind of intrigued by that.
Speaker 1: Abby was the kid who needed to know how the
Speaker 1: magic mirror worked, and now with Richard, she wanted to
Speaker 1: know about his classified military projects.
Speaker 2: It drove me mad that I didn't know what he
Speaker 2: was doing, and a friend of mine said, well, that's
Speaker 2: obviously a lesson. You need to learn that you can't
Speaker 2: know everything.
Speaker 1: Her intrigue turned to concern when Richard began having horrible nightmares.
Speaker 2: He would just have these screaming nightmares, and so he
Speaker 2: had to sleep with the lights on and the TV on.
Speaker 1: When she asked, he brushed it off. All he would
Speaker 1: say is that he had bad memories, things from the
Speaker 1: military that he couldn't talk about.
Speaker 2: I thought badly, and I thought something must have happened,
Speaker 2: but I didn't know. I didn't know what it was.
Speaker 1: Before long, his career began bumping up against their relationship.
Speaker 2: Anytime he broke any plan, which we began to do
Speaker 2: pretty regularly, it was it's a secret mission. I can't
Speaker 2: tell you anything more about it. That's it.
Speaker 1: Abby nicknamed him the Commander. It was a joke at first,
Speaker 1: but it stuck because Richard couldn't seem to escape his career.
Speaker 2: The commander told me that we were being followed by
Speaker 2: the Secret Service.
Speaker 1: This was jarring for Abby and she demanded a reason
Speaker 1: why they were being followed. To her surprise, the commander
Speaker 1: began revealing some details about his career.
Speaker 2: He said that he had been a doctor at Guantanamo.
Speaker 1: He had been recruited to be the head doctor for
Speaker 1: prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. This was the mid two thousands,
Speaker 1: at the height of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Speaker 1: The commander explained that there was intense infighting with personnel
Speaker 1: at Guantanamo. It had to do with classified information that
Speaker 1: wasn't being delivered up the chain. That's why he was
Speaker 1: being protected by men in black SUVs.
Speaker 2: And he said, when I was at Guantanamo, all these
Speaker 2: guys are after me. They hate me, and they threatened
Speaker 2: me and my family. So my loved ones are being
Speaker 2: followed by the Secret Service.
Speaker 1: Abby tried to play it down to act casual, but
Speaker 1: this was a big disclosure.
Speaker 2: And I remember I said to him, well, you know,
Speaker 2: next time, why don't you ask them if they can
Speaker 2: give me a ride so I don't have to call taxis.
Speaker 2: It was just like, this is absurd.
Speaker 1: She wasn't even sure if she believed his story about
Speaker 1: the Secret Service. But then one day his son called
Speaker 1: from California.
Speaker 2: And there was a car outside and said, Dad, is
Speaker 2: that your guys? Why are they outside the house? So
Speaker 2: I remember, I thought something really must have happened.
Speaker 1: Now Abby needed answers. What had really happened at Guantanamo.
Speaker 2: I need to know everything.
Speaker 1: Eventually Richard confided.
Speaker 2: In her and he said that one of his patients
Speaker 2: was a very high level terrorist. And I said who,
Speaker 2: and he said Osama bin Laden And I said that's insane,
Speaker 2: and he said no, it's not. And he began to
Speaker 2: list all the physical problems that have been Lauden had.
Speaker 1: This was two thousand and eight. At the time, the
Speaker 1: military claim to be actively searching for bin Laden, so
Speaker 1: him being held at Guantanamo just didn't make sense.
Speaker 3: And I said to him, that is a stupid thing
Speaker 3: to to tell a person.
Speaker 2: I said, that's also not possible because the president, it
Speaker 2: was Bush at the time, that he was never let
Speaker 2: this happen without getting it out because it was a
Speaker 2: big deal and you know, it would have helped Republicans,
Speaker 2: so he would never have been quite about that if
Speaker 2: he knew where bin Laden was. And he said, no,
Speaker 2: the President doesn't know. I said, that's impossible. He said,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of things that they don't know. And
Speaker 2: I remember thinking, Okay, this is insane, but maybe here's
Speaker 2: a story here.
Speaker 1: Abby's new boyfriend, Richard, made some pretty surprising claims, biggest
Speaker 1: of all that Asama bin Laden was being held at
Speaker 1: Guantanamo and that he had treated bin Laden for medical issues.
Speaker 1: This was the early two thousands and bin Laden was
Speaker 1: one of the biggest fugitives on the planet, so Richard's
Speaker 1: story was hard to believe. But Abby knew for a
Speaker 1: fact that the commander worked in the Navy with a very.
Speaker 2: High security clearance.
Speaker 1: At that she'd met some of his colleagues, so like
Speaker 1: a good journalist, she wanted to verify the commander's claim.
Speaker 2: I was trying to do my own checkups because I
Speaker 2: was feeling crazy and I couldn't call up the CIA
Speaker 2: and say, hey, do you have this guy on your payroll?
Speaker 2: I mean, you can't do that.
Speaker 1: So she started asking around using vage details.
Speaker 2: My brother in law said that doesn't make sense because
Speaker 2: he was in the Navy, and he said he wouldn't
Speaker 2: tell you about that. I had another friend who said
Speaker 2: the same thing. They're not supposed to tell you.
Speaker 1: She doubted the story, but wasn't prepared to write it
Speaker 1: off entirely. Even if there was a remote possibility it
Speaker 1: could be true, it would be the biggest story in
Speaker 1: the world, and as someone who wanted to be a
Speaker 1: war reporter, that was undeniably enticing. She hit a dead
Speaker 1: end trying to fact check the bin laden story, so
Speaker 1: instead she decided to fact check Richard. She started with
Speaker 1: one time when he said.
Speaker 2: That he had a vault full of medals for operations
Speaker 2: that didn't really exist. They were unofficial, you know, like
Speaker 2: homelandy kind of things that you're not supposed to know about.
Speaker 2: Abby asked her new professors. If this could be true.
Speaker 3: I would ask my teachers, you know, is that possible?
Speaker 2: They said, yeah, absolutely this.
Speaker 1: If that checked out, Richard's other classified projects could exist
Speaker 1: as well. Abby realized she could in fact check the
Speaker 1: bin Laden story, and after Richard shared that he never
Speaker 1: talked about it again. He wanted a relationship separate from work.
Speaker 1: After all, the rest of his life is pretty tame.
Speaker 2: I met his family, I met his son, I met
Speaker 2: his brother, met his aunt, I met some friends, I
Speaker 2: met everybody, you know, so it just seems kind of normal.
Speaker 1: And he met her family. Abby introduced him to her mom.
Speaker 2: He was a Jewish doctor. What's not to like.
Speaker 1: As their lives began to merge, Abby was ready to
Speaker 1: bring up a big topic of her own.
Speaker 2: I wanted to adopt, and I had said to him
Speaker 2: at some point, listen, I'm gonna want a kid.
Speaker 1: When she told Richard this.
Speaker 2: Basically he was willing to do it. He said, I
Speaker 2: love you, I'm in love with you. I'll do anything
Speaker 2: you want. I'm gonna ask you to marry me, So
Speaker 2: whatever makes you happy makes me happy.
Speaker 1: That conversation brought their relationship to a new level. It
Speaker 1: was like an unspoken marriage proposal.
Speaker 2: I'm forty two, he's fifty eight. We're not kids anymore.
Speaker 2: And we would discuss that.
Speaker 3: He said, you know, his father always said when you
Speaker 3: know your no, and I've heard that before.
Speaker 2: So then he began he would visit me in New
Speaker 2: York and he would come and he would say, ah,
Speaker 2: I just went to Debiers and I was looking. I
Speaker 2: was looking at rings there and I thought, okay, great,
Speaker 2: that's cool. But one day he says to me, you know, Abby,
Speaker 2: I'm really upset. I can't afford a thirty thousand dollars ring.
Speaker 2: Forty thousand dollars ring. You know. I said, I don't
Speaker 2: need a forty thousand dollars ring, which is true. I didn't.
Speaker 1: After six months together, Richard officially proposed. She said, yes,
Speaker 1: it's true. The ring was nothing extravagant, but they both
Speaker 1: knew they wanted to be to again. And then, keeping
Speaker 1: with their low key attitude, Abby began planning for a
Speaker 1: small wedding maybe the next year. They weren't in a rush.
Speaker 2: I had never really expected to get married. That wasn't
Speaker 2: my goal, so it was very odd buying a dress.
Speaker 2: I decided I would just do something very small, like
Speaker 2: a dinner or something, just something chill.
Speaker 1: They made plans to move in together in Washington, DC.
Speaker 2: Eventually we found a place at the Watergate, which you know,
Speaker 2: was obviously very famous.
Speaker 1: The apartment was being paid for by the Navy. But
Speaker 1: even still, Abby didn't like the Watergate or DC.
Speaker 2: It was just sort of bleak and the Watergate was empty,
Speaker 2: and I didn't find Washington to be an especially hospitable town.
Speaker 1: It didn't help that the commander was always traveling for work.
Speaker 2: Sometimes go in Afghanistan, sometimes going to Iraq. Sometimes he's
Speaker 2: doing all these things that I can't.
Speaker 3: You didn't I'll tell you when there's a secure line,
Speaker 3: is what he would say.
Speaker 1: And when he came home, he struggled to keep his
Speaker 1: eyes open.
Speaker 2: He's a drag, like falling asleep early. He'll fall asleep
Speaker 2: at dinner. We're at dinner at like six o'clock and
Speaker 2: he's at the table like falling asleep.
Speaker 1: She chalked it up to him being a bit older
Speaker 1: and traveling so much for work, but Abby still had
Speaker 1: her mindset on the future.
Speaker 3: Well, I had put don money to adopt by myself,
Speaker 3: so I was all going to do that.
Speaker 2: As time went on.
Speaker 1: Richard wasn't so into the idea.
Speaker 2: Anytime he talked about adoption, he always would say, you know,
Speaker 2: I'll do it if that's what you really want to do.
Speaker 2: But a lot of those kids really have problems. And
Speaker 2: I thought that was a really callous thing to say.
Speaker 2: I thought that was awful because I know a lot
Speaker 2: of kids who were not adopted who had problems.
Speaker 1: He was changing. He wasn't the accommodating and doting man
Speaker 1: she'd met. That guy was rarely around.
Speaker 2: And one day I was talking about something about getting
Speaker 2: married and we didn't even have a date, but he
Speaker 2: started breaking down. He's like, I'm so overwhelmed. We have
Speaker 2: to push the wedding back.
Speaker 1: Maybe he was stressed out with work, or maybe he
Speaker 1: was having cold feet. Shortly after this conversation, Abby confided
Speaker 1: in her mom.
Speaker 3: And I told her about the bin laden thing, and
Speaker 3: she said, something's not.
Speaker 2: Right to Abby. She said, that doesn't make sense, I said,
Speaker 2: and I got mad at her. I said, why isn't
Speaker 2: it possible that there are things that you don't know
Speaker 2: that we don't know and we don't know the answer yet.
Speaker 2: And I got so mad at her. I was like,
Speaker 2: you're so suspicious.
Speaker 1: Abby was defensive in the moment, but her mom's suspicion
Speaker 1: rubbed off on her.
Speaker 2: So then I kind of went back and would ask
Speaker 2: him questions, you know, more targeted.
Speaker 3: And he would get mad at me.
Speaker 1: One night, at dinner with Abby's parents, the commander made
Speaker 1: a big show of complimenting a meal.
Speaker 2: We're at a restaurant and he raves about the Brussels sprouts. Right,
Speaker 2: these are the best Brussels sprouts ever. Okay, my parents,
Speaker 2: that's nice. They didn't make it, they didn't care.
Speaker 1: But as soon as they were alone, he told Abby
Speaker 1: the exact opposite.
Speaker 3: And he said, that's I think the worst meal I've
Speaker 3: ever eaten.
Speaker 2: And I just thought to myself, what I said, Why
Speaker 2: did you lie? Why did you lie? They didn't care,
Speaker 2: he said, I wanted it to make them feel good.
Speaker 2: It just was too discordant. You can't verify the CIA,
Speaker 2: you can't verify navy seal, you can't do that. But
Speaker 2: that was something tangible that I could verify, and I
Speaker 2: just thought, I can't do this anymore. I just can't.
Speaker 2: I can't do this. This is insane. If he can
Speaker 2: lie about that, he can lie about anything that.
Speaker 1: Small lie about the Brussels sprouts broke something inside of Abby.
Speaker 1: It was proof that he felt the need to compulsively lie.
Speaker 1: She was disgusted with him, but she wasn't prepared to
Speaker 1: call off the wedding. That was until a few weeks later.
Speaker 2: It was Christmas and we were spending it with his
Speaker 2: brother and sister in law in their big house in Georgetown,
Speaker 2: and his son and daughter were there, and I overheard
Speaker 2: the son saying, what's that ring on Abby's finger?
Speaker 3: Is that from you?
Speaker 2: And I didn't hear the response, but I remember thinking
Speaker 2: to myself, this kid doesn't know that we're getting married.
Speaker 3: The son had no idea that he had proposed to me.
Speaker 1: Richard had told Abby that his kids do and that
Speaker 1: they were happy about it.
Speaker 2: The commander told me that when he told his son
Speaker 2: that he had proposed to me, his son said, well,
Speaker 2: what took you so long?
Speaker 1: And now she had proved of a very consequential lie.
Speaker 2: You're lying to me and I can't there's something I'm done.
Speaker 2: I'm out of here.
Speaker 1: That night, she called off the engagement, and the timing
Speaker 1: turned out to be pretty convenient.
Speaker 3: About two weeks later, he came over and he said, listen.
Speaker 2: The Navy, who was apparently paying for the apartment, needs
Speaker 2: the apartment, and they're shipping me out somewhere else. I'm
Speaker 2: leaving Washington, so we have to pack up everything and
Speaker 2: get out.
Speaker 1: So Abby packed up and moved back to New York.
Speaker 2: And I didn't know what I was going to do
Speaker 2: because I again was going to school. I ended up
Speaker 2: commuting to Washington from New York City and I finished
Speaker 2: my degree.
Speaker 1: In the wake of the breakup, Happy second guest yourself.
Speaker 2: I felt bad.
Speaker 3: I felt maybe I overreacted.
Speaker 2: You know, every time I would interrogate him, he'd be like, well,
Speaker 2: that's why you're single, because you always question and you
Speaker 2: don't trust and you interrogate. That's why. That's why you've
Speaker 2: been singles all this time. And I thought, well, maybe
Speaker 2: that's right, you know, maybe that's right.
Speaker 1: A few months after the breakup, she was in DC
Speaker 1: for school and one night she was in a cab
Speaker 1: driving by the watergate.
Speaker 2: And the light was still was on in the apartment,
Speaker 2: and I called him. I said, are you you in
Speaker 2: the apartment? He said, you know, it was a comedy bearers.
Speaker 2: I got everything moved, and everything was in storage, and
Speaker 2: everything was great, and I was ready to be relocated,
Speaker 2: and then the Navy said, no, you got to move
Speaker 2: back into the apartment. You got to stay in Washington.
Speaker 3: We're keeping you here. So remember I'm Nancy true.
Speaker 2: I'd said, well, I need to pick up my cookbooks
Speaker 2: that are in the apartment.
Speaker 1: I left the cookbooks, so she told the cab driver
Speaker 1: to pull over. She wanted to investigate.
Speaker 2: I didn't have a key, and I said to the doorman,
Speaker 2: I'd like to go up to the apartment, and the
Speaker 2: doorman said, you're not allowed up.
Speaker 3: I have a note, Abby Ellen is not allowed up.
Speaker 2: So I called the commander. I said, wow, what's up
Speaker 2: with that? Like, why was I there was specifically a note?
Speaker 2: And he said, oh, somebody was assaulted in the buildings,
Speaker 2: so they're being really careful about who they let in.
Speaker 2: I said, I don't believe you.
Speaker 1: She told Richard she needed to get a few things
Speaker 1: she left behind, so we let her out.
Speaker 5: Up.
Speaker 2: I looked in the house and the cookbooks were exactly
Speaker 2: where I had left them.
Speaker 1: It wasn't just the cookbooks.
Speaker 2: His baseball glove was exactly where it had been when
Speaker 2: I left, and there was a sliver of soap in
Speaker 2: exactly the same place, the same sliver that had been
Speaker 2: there when I left. And I looked at him and
Speaker 2: I said.
Speaker 3: You didn't move and he said, oh, yes, I did.
Speaker 1: There was no way he moved out of the apartment
Speaker 1: and put a tiny, used up sliver of soap back
Speaker 1: in the exact same place, stuck to the same bath tile.
Speaker 2: And I thought, you're nuts, And that was it. That
Speaker 2: was it. I didn't really talk to him after that.
Speaker 1: She knew he was a liar, but how big of
Speaker 1: a liar She wouldn't find out for another year and
Speaker 1: a half.
Speaker 2: And then I got a phone call. It's a two
Speaker 2: two area code. The only two two area code I
Speaker 2: knew was the Commanders, So I thought, okay, I don't
Speaker 2: know why he's calling. And I picked it up and
Speaker 2: it was Special Agent Dan Ryan with NCIS.
Speaker 1: Abby hadn't talked to Richard in over a year. When
Speaker 1: a DC number cold called her, she assumed it was him,
Speaker 1: but to her surprise, it was a special agent with NCIS,
Speaker 1: the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.
Speaker 6: And he says, there's a doctor who's writing prescriptions for
Speaker 6: narcotics for vicodin, and your name is one of the
Speaker 6: names he's been using.
Speaker 1: Abby's name had shown up on a list of falsified
Speaker 1: narcotics prescriptions, scripts written by a Navy doctor named Richard.
Speaker 3: I said what, and he said, yeah, he's been writing
Speaker 3: prescriptions for drugs.
Speaker 2: Do you know him? You have a prescription? And I said, no,
Speaker 2: I know him, and I do not have a prescription
Speaker 2: for Vicadin. You know, I prefer valuume. I mean.
Speaker 1: The phone call didn't upset Abby. In fact, she was
Speaker 1: excited because maybe she was finally going to get answers
Speaker 1: about Richard.
Speaker 2: I thought, maybe this is the culmination. Everything's kind of
Speaker 2: coming to a head. CIA and Navy Seal and all that.
Speaker 2: You know, everything is just coming together.
Speaker 1: It turned out Richard wasn't working with Special Forces on
Speaker 1: secret missions. He was actually a Navy doctor working at
Speaker 1: the Pentagon.
Speaker 2: But while he was there.
Speaker 3: People he worked at the Pentagon he had used their
Speaker 3: names to forge drugs.
Speaker 1: He forged hundreds of opioid prescriptions using the names of
Speaker 1: his coworkers and his family.
Speaker 2: He used his dead mother's name, he used his dead
Speaker 2: father's name, he used I think his aunt, he used
Speaker 2: my name. All these people.
Speaker 1: He'd been caught filling scripts at the Pentagon's pharmacy. It
Speaker 1: was a brazen scheme. What was he doing with all
Speaker 1: those painkillers?
Speaker 2: I asked if he was selling and Dan Ryan said no,
Speaker 2: we have no evidence of that.
Speaker 1: Presumably Richard was taking the pills himself, at least that's
Speaker 1: what he later claimed to a judge. Abby thought back
Speaker 1: to dinners with the Commander, the ones where he was
Speaker 1: falling asleep at the table. In hindsight, that was her
Speaker 1: only clue that Richard could have been taking opioids.
Speaker 3: So why kicked into journalist's mode.
Speaker 2: She tracked down Richard's ex wife and gave her a call.
Speaker 1: His ex wife knew Richard had a girl friend, but
Speaker 1: it wasn't Abby. She was one who told me about
Speaker 1: the girlfriend. Abby would call one woman who told her
Speaker 1: about another. It was like a phone tree of Richard's
Speaker 1: ex girlfriends. That's how she found a woman who'd been
Speaker 1: engaged to Richard at the same time Abby started dating.
Speaker 2: Him, and her name was Christine.
Speaker 3: She was a doctor, She was awesome, and he proposed
Speaker 3: to her right.
Speaker 5: Around the time he started beginning corresponding with me, and
Speaker 5: he one day said to her, I've got to go
Speaker 5: off on a secret mission.
Speaker 2: I'll call you when I come back, and he never
Speaker 2: came back.
Speaker 1: Christine never knew why Richard disappeared. Abby had the other
Speaker 1: half of the story, and.
Speaker 2: The secret mission was Operation Abby.
Speaker 1: But Richard's romantic con took an even darker turn. The
Speaker 1: last woman he'd been seeing was named Gail. Richard had
Speaker 1: been her college boyfriend. When Gail was diagnosed with breast
Speaker 1: cancer in her sixties, he reappeared she was getting divorced.
Speaker 1: He had reached out to her, and.
Speaker 6: You know, and I never stopped loving you after thirty years,
Speaker 6: blah blah blah, all this stuff.
Speaker 1: He swept Gail off her feet. He even claimed he
Speaker 1: could help her beat cancer. After all, he was a doctor.
Speaker 2: He was helping manage her cancer, but she was one
Speaker 2: of the names he was using to get narcotics as well.
Speaker 1: Gail was the last woman Richard kahnned before he got caught.
Speaker 2: And then I called up Gail, who was basically was
Speaker 2: dying at the time. She had cancer. She had breast cancer.
Speaker 1: When NCIS informed Gail about the fraudulent prescriptions in her name,
Speaker 1: she was so angry she flipped on Richard immediately.
Speaker 5: She wore a wire and he admitted that he had
Speaker 5: been forging signatures and everything he admitted to her, and
Speaker 5: she got them in trouble.
Speaker 1: Gail passed away shortly after that. Her story is the
Speaker 1: one Abby still thinks about. If there is a hero here,
Speaker 1: she says, it's Gail. Richard ultimately pled guilty to two
Speaker 1: felony charges of prescription fraud. In his sentencing hearing, he
Speaker 1: told a judge that he'd become addicted while he struggled
Speaker 1: to cope with his girlfriend's terminal cancer diagnosis. Between that
Speaker 1: and his history of military service, the judge went easy
Speaker 1: on him.
Speaker 2: He was sentenced to I think two years in one day.
Speaker 1: After Abby found out about Richard's crimes, she began parsing
Speaker 1: out every lie he ever told her. Ben Lawden, Richard
Speaker 1: never treated him at Guantanamo. The Secret Service wasn't following
Speaker 1: him or his kids. He had never been a Navy
Speaker 1: seal because Abby found a Navy seal impersonation expert military
Speaker 1: records and confirmed it and those screaming nightmares Richard had,
Speaker 1: while the seal expert said fake nightmares are a common
Speaker 1: feature of con artists like Richard.
Speaker 2: Abby had been duped.
Speaker 3: After this happened, I was like, now I got a book,
Speaker 3: thank you.
Speaker 2: She titled her book Duped.
Speaker 1: Once she got started on it, she realized it was
Speaker 1: about much more than just her own experience. It was
Speaker 1: about the experience of being lied to.
Speaker 2: It's not a straight out memoir, It is really an investigation.
Speaker 2: We decided to focus on the victims. What is it
Speaker 2: like to be deceived? What is it like to be duped?
Speaker 2: What is it like to not have all the facts
Speaker 2: and that the life you've been living is not the
Speaker 2: life you thought you were living. So that was my book.
Speaker 1: Abby never blamed herself for believing Richard's lies.
Speaker 2: You know what's the worst thing you did.
Speaker 3: The worst thing is you trust somebody, and we.
Speaker 2: Have to trust. Society works on trust.
Speaker 3: You have to stop at the red light, you have
Speaker 3: to stop at the stop light. You have to trust
Speaker 3: that the pilot knows how to fly the plane.
Speaker 2: You have to trust that that cop is really a cop.
Speaker 3: You have to and if you don't, society will fall apart.
Speaker 1: Working on her book, she researched experts on deception like
Speaker 1: doctor Jennifer Fried who coined the term betrayal blindness.
Speaker 2: And it was just about you know how when children
Speaker 2: are being abused by their caretakers. They don't see it
Speaker 2: because they need that caretaker. They can't believe that that
Speaker 2: person was working against them. And it's the same thing
Speaker 2: in any relationship, whether it's somebody you're a business colleague
Speaker 2: or your romantic partner. You don't want to believe that
Speaker 2: someone's going to do this to you. You can't believe it,
Speaker 2: and it's to your benefit not to see it because
Speaker 2: of your life that you built up.
Speaker 1: And she even explored this stigma around being deceived, that
Speaker 1: feeling of self blame and stupidity when we've been lied to.
Speaker 2: So then I found this study that said, actually, smarter
Speaker 2: people are more susceptible to being duped because they don't
Speaker 2: think it would happen to them.
Speaker 3: So actually people who've been duped are smarter.
Speaker 2: They tend to be smarter, specifically because of fatal overconfidence.
Speaker 2: It would never happen to me.
Speaker 1: Abby turned Richard's betrayal into a story, a story for
Speaker 1: herself and for the world.
Speaker 2: I never felt ashamed, I never felt embarrassed.
Speaker 3: To me, it was a story and it was a
Speaker 3: great story.
Speaker 1: Instead of covering international relations today she mostly reports on fraud.
Speaker 6: I think it's fair to say that it changed the
Speaker 6: trajectory of my career.
Speaker 2: That began reporting on different things. I became somewhat of
Speaker 2: an expert on fraud. I guess read a book about
Speaker 2: white color fraud, and I did a podcast which led
Speaker 2: into a documentary that I did with The New York
Speaker 2: Times called to Live in Die, Alabama. So it did
Speaker 2: change my.
Speaker 1: Life, and thanks to her experience with Richard, she's learned
Speaker 1: a few things about herself.
Speaker 2: I always knew I was resilient. I always knew I
Speaker 2: was strong, but I don't know that I realized just
Speaker 2: how capable I was. That's nice to know.
Speaker 1: We end all of our episodes with the same question,
Speaker 1: why are you sharing your story?
Speaker 2: I think it's very important for people to know that
Speaker 2: they're not alone and that this happens to other people.
Speaker 2: It's very easy for it to happen now with technology.
Speaker 2: You're not a terrible person, You're not a stupid person.
Speaker 2: Lots of people are in this situation and don't feel
Speaker 2: like an idiot, because, again.
Speaker 3: What's the worst thing you did? You trusted, that's okay.
Speaker 1: On the next episode of Betrayal, I said, well, I'm
Speaker 1: not a suspicious person, and he said, maybe you should
Speaker 1: be more suspicious, you should ask me questions.
Speaker 7: At this point, my heart dropped and I feel like
Speaker 7: I'm going to vomit. The betrayal felt so intentional and
Speaker 7: possibly like it was a long time coming.
Speaker 1: If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal team,
Speaker 1: email us at Betrayalpod at gmail dot com. That's Betrayal
Speaker 1: Pod at gmail dot com, and be sure to follow
Speaker 1: us on Instagram at Betrayal Pod. We're grateful for your support.
Speaker 1: One way to show support is by subscribing to our
Speaker 1: show on Apple Podcasts, and don't forget to rate and
Speaker 1: review Betrayal. Five star reviews go a long way. A
Speaker 1: big thank you to all of our listeners. Betrayal is
Speaker 1: a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment
Speaker 1: Group and partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is executive
Speaker 1: produced by Nancy Glass and Jennifer Fason, hosted and produced
Speaker 1: by me Andrea Gunning, written and produced by Monique Leboard,
Speaker 1: also produced by Ben Fetterman. Associate producers are Kristin Mercury
Speaker 1: and Caitlin Golden. Our iHeart team is Ali Perry and
Speaker 1: Jessica Kriintech audio editing and mixing by Matt del Vecchio,
Speaker 1: additional editing support from Tanner Robbins. Betrayal's theme composed by
Speaker 1: Oliver Bains. Music library provided by mybe Music and For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts