Speaker 1: On the night of October twenty eighth, twenty eighteen, Saska's
Speaker 1: eyes fluttered open in the darkness, and they landed on
Speaker 1: her husband's laptop.
Speaker 2: The open screen was facing me. I saw what looked
Speaker 2: like a mostly naked back, but with some light blue underpanthon.
Speaker 1: Mike was turned away from her. He didn't see that
Speaker 1: she had woken up. She blinked against the blur of
Speaker 1: the computer light, trying to get her eyes to focus.
Speaker 2: I was so out of it, it was like I
Speaker 2: was in a dream. But I also knew that this
Speaker 2: was really serious.
Speaker 1: She fought to keep her eyes open. Her meds were
Speaker 1: pulling her to sleep, but as her mind shut down,
Speaker 1: something within her whispered, remember this moment, Remember that screen.
Speaker 2: I don't know how I was able to do this,
Speaker 2: but I remember looking and I saw the name Chatterbait,
Speaker 2: and then I remember seeing sixteen hundred followers. I didn't
Speaker 2: know what that meant, but I just knew, just remember
Speaker 2: these things. These are significant. And I passed back out.
Speaker 1: I'm Andrea Gunning, and this is Betrayal, Season five, episode three,
Speaker 1: dead Weight. The next time Saskia opened her eyes, it
Speaker 1: was morning, Sunday morning. The street outside was quiet and
Speaker 1: daylight streamed through the blinds, but as she lay in bed,
Speaker 1: she could feel panic rising in her chest.
Speaker 3: I woke up feeling so scared, like petrified.
Speaker 1: Her mind was flooded by that underwater feeling, and her
Speaker 1: body felt heavy, as if she were unable to move.
Speaker 1: But those feelings were interrupted by the image of the
Speaker 1: person in their underwear and those words chatterbait sixteen hundred followers.
Speaker 1: She remembered, what did it all mean? And what was
Speaker 1: Mike doing on his laptop.
Speaker 2: I still didn't know what was happening, and I don't
Speaker 2: know what he knows.
Speaker 1: She had no memory of whether Mike had turned around
Speaker 1: and caught her looking before she blacked out again. But
Speaker 1: that morning, Mike seemed normal. He came back in the
Speaker 1: room to.
Speaker 3: Get dressed, and he was like, I'm going to get
Speaker 3: the kids.
Speaker 1: At this point, three kids of theirs were staying with them,
Speaker 1: Soasky's two children and Mike's younger daughter they'd all spend
Speaker 1: the night at her sister house nearby. For Mike, this
Speaker 1: was any other Sunday. He had to drop his younger
Speaker 1: daughter off at his ex wife's house about an hour away.
Speaker 2: I figured I would let him do that and then
Speaker 2: I would talk to him.
Speaker 1: Mike left to get the kids from Marisa's house before
Speaker 1: Saskia could even think her fingers dialed her sister's number.
Speaker 1: Marisa remembers picking up the phone.
Speaker 4: When I spoke to her first, she was not really
Speaker 4: with it yet. She was incoherent, and she was trying
Speaker 4: to explain what she saw, and she was distraught.
Speaker 1: Saskia was trying to relay information as quickly as she could,
Speaker 1: and she was still in the fog of sleep. Marisa
Speaker 1: could barely understand her.
Speaker 3: I was like, what are you talking about?
Speaker 4: And she said something about chatterbait when I remember saying
Speaker 4: that for the first time and just not having a
Speaker 4: clue what she was talking about.
Speaker 1: She tried to get Saskia to slow down to walk
Speaker 1: her through what had happened, but just then Mike arrived
Speaker 1: to pick up the kids. They hung up the phone.
Speaker 3: And she texted me like, call me, call me when
Speaker 3: you can.
Speaker 1: Marisa didn't grasp what was going on, neither did Saskia really.
Speaker 1: What she did know was that Mike was doing something
Speaker 1: behind her back, and it involved something called chatterbait. Whatever
Speaker 1: that was. Her gut told her this was bad.
Speaker 4: It was like right away she knew the significance her
Speaker 4: life was falling apart.
Speaker 1: While Mike drove his daughter home, Saskia tried to prepare
Speaker 1: herself for the confrontation. She had no idea what Mike
Speaker 1: had been doing online. She couldn't help but go to
Speaker 1: worst case scenarios.
Speaker 3: My mind was just starting to go everywhere. I actually
Speaker 3: thought that maybe he's not who he says he is,
Speaker 3: maybe he's on the run, or maybe he has a
Speaker 3: family somewhere else.
Speaker 1: The man she had slept next to for seven years
Speaker 1: suddenly felt like a stranger. The more she thought about it,
Speaker 1: the more she realized she had no idea what Mike
Speaker 1: did every night after she took her sleeping meds. She
Speaker 1: was always out cold in those hours. He could be anyone.
Speaker 1: When Mike walked in the door a couple hours later,
Speaker 1: she was ready. Not with a thought through plan of
Speaker 1: what to do or say, she was ready in her
Speaker 1: bones to confront him.
Speaker 3: I told him I needed to talk to him.
Speaker 2: I had his laptop and I put it under my
Speaker 2: pillow in the bed, and I was sitting on it
Speaker 2: so that he didn't know where it was and so
Speaker 2: that he.
Speaker 3: Couldn't try to take it.
Speaker 2: I told him what I had seen the night before,
Speaker 2: and immediately the mask came off.
Speaker 3: His face totally changed.
Speaker 1: And then as if he was throwing his hands up.
Speaker 2: The first thing he said to me, I know things
Speaker 2: are over with us, but you can't tell my work,
Speaker 2: and you can't tell my oldest daughter.
Speaker 1: Tell them what. She didn't recognize this mic. He was
Speaker 1: calm as always, but behind his eyes there was nothing. Suddenly,
Speaker 1: she was scared, so much so that she thought about
Speaker 1: calling the cops. But this might be her only chance
Speaker 1: to get answers from him, so she told him what
Speaker 1: he needed to hear.
Speaker 2: I said, I need you to tell me exactly what
Speaker 2: you're doing, and I'm not going to tell the police
Speaker 2: or your job or your daughter if you totally come
Speaker 2: clean and you tell me what has been going on.
Speaker 2: So he explained that for many years he'd been using
Speaker 2: this website called Chatterbait.
Speaker 1: Chatterbait, he said, was a popular camming website. It's a
Speaker 1: place where everyday people perform sexual acts live on camera
Speaker 1: and anyone can watch, comment or pay for private shows.
Speaker 1: Mike worked at a bank. He often traveled for work now.
Speaker 1: He admitted to Saskia that for the last seven years,
Speaker 1: whenever he'd go on these.
Speaker 3: Trips, every time he would be camming with women.
Speaker 1: He used the site to watch live streams and video
Speaker 1: chat with women directly? Was that what Saskia had seen
Speaker 1: last night? A private show? That woman?
Speaker 3: Who was she?
Speaker 2: When I immediately said, how do you know these people?
Speaker 2: Is it the same people that you do it with?
Speaker 2: He said sometimes? Then I said, like, are you in
Speaker 2: love with somebody?
Speaker 3: And he was like.
Speaker 1: What Saskia thought, Mike was playing dumb. There must be
Speaker 1: someone else, a woman he talked to after she went
Speaker 1: to bed, So she opened up Mike's computer. If he
Speaker 1: wasn't going to come out with the information, she'd look
Speaker 1: at the website herself. She found her way to chatterbait
Speaker 1: and demanded that Mike log in and walk her through it.
Speaker 2: The way he was explaining to me was like explaining
Speaker 2: how to fold a fitted sheet or something. It was
Speaker 2: so detached from any emotion or any remorse.
Speaker 1: And what he was describing went far deeper than calls
Speaker 1: with other women.
Speaker 2: He explained to me, see all these tokens, people pay
Speaker 2: me money to look at my stuff. Then I can
Speaker 2: use those tokens to look at other stuff.
Speaker 1: Mike wasn't just watching other people can He was performing.
Speaker 1: People were paying him for sexual content.
Speaker 3: I was in shock.
Speaker 2: I wasn't disbelief. I felt like I was on the
Speaker 2: twilight zone. I think that's where he hoped it would end.
Speaker 1: Instead, Saskia took control of the computer. She started scrolling
Speaker 1: through the website, trying to make sense of it all.
Speaker 3: I was still trying to just take information in.
Speaker 1: That's when she saw it, the image that made her
Speaker 1: blood run cold.
Speaker 2: I remember looking and I saw a picture and I
Speaker 2: was like, that's my underwear.
Speaker 1: The image she'd seen the night before on his computer
Speaker 1: screen was now right in front of her, in focus,
Speaker 1: and it was posted publicly under Mike's profile.
Speaker 3: I said, is that me? And he said, yes, that's you.
Speaker 1: Saskia was scrolling on Mike's chatterbait account when she saw
Speaker 1: a still image of herself. It was a picture of
Speaker 1: her sleeping in their bed, in her underwear. She stared
Speaker 1: at her husband, too shocked to speak. The woman she'd
Speaker 1: seen on his screen it was her.
Speaker 2: He explained, I've been doing chatterbait for a long time.
Speaker 2: I didn't start using us. Until the last year or
Speaker 2: a couple of years using us.
Speaker 1: She'd never heard of chatterbait. She never agreed to have
Speaker 1: her image published on the web. She never even knew
Speaker 1: this photo was taken and by Mike, the man she
Speaker 1: trusted more than anyone.
Speaker 2: I said, how could you do this to me? How
Speaker 2: could you show people my body? And he said, well,
Speaker 2: I guess I thought it was sexy. I said, did
Speaker 2: you ever love me? And he just stayed silent. It
Speaker 2: was just no answer. He said, I guess we're both
Speaker 2: a little bit crazy. I said, no, no, I have
Speaker 2: mental health issues. You're a predator and you're a monster.
Speaker 2: We need to talk about what's going to happen. And
Speaker 2: when I said that, he started walking frenzied around the house.
Speaker 1: He was beginning to panic. Saskia had the laptop. She
Speaker 1: knew Mike wouldn't leave without it. She needed to hold
Speaker 1: on to it. She also knew it wasn't safe to
Speaker 1: continue confronting Mike alone. Her mind went to Marisa, but
Speaker 1: her sister was busy with her kids, so Saskia called
Speaker 1: her brother in law, Ronnie, and.
Speaker 3: I said, I really need you to come over, please.
Speaker 1: Ronnie couldn't be interviewed for this story. He passed away
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty two. Saskia remembers it was a relief
Speaker 1: to have Ronnie there. He was twice Mike size. Mike
Speaker 1: wouldn't do anything with him around. Immediately, Ronnie tried to
Speaker 1: diffuse the situation.
Speaker 3: He came over and he was like, what's going on, guys.
Speaker 1: But before Saskia could share what she'd just seen, Mike
Speaker 1: took control. He pulled Ronnie aside. He tried to explain,
Speaker 1: you know, guys look at porn.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: It seemed like Ronnie was buying Mike's story that this
Speaker 1: was no big deal. Saskia had to get him to
Speaker 1: understand the gravity of the situation. This wasn't about Mike
Speaker 1: looking at porn or even talking to other women.
Speaker 3: He was using me and I knew nothing about that.
Speaker 1: Mike hosted a naked photo of her online, a photo
Speaker 1: from when she wasn't awake. As she spoke, she watched
Speaker 1: Ronnie realize this wasn't right. He understood he was on
Speaker 1: her side, and he made it clear Mike needed to
Speaker 1: leave the house right away.
Speaker 3: Mike looked terrified.
Speaker 2: I said, what are you so upset? About what are
Speaker 2: you so scared of like you did this? And he said,
Speaker 2: I'm afraid of losing all this, like his stuff in
Speaker 2: his house.
Speaker 1: It was so strange and so unbelievable. Mike was already
Speaker 1: worrying about dividing up their things. He seemed sure their
Speaker 1: life together was over all because of one photo. Sask
Speaker 1: just needed Mike out, and eventually he agreed. Ronnie stayed
Speaker 1: by her side as Mike began packing a bag.
Speaker 3: He said he would leave and go to a hotel.
Speaker 2: I said, you're not coming back here until I say
Speaker 2: it's okay, and if you do everything that I ask
Speaker 2: you to do, I won't call the police. He acted
Speaker 2: like he was leaving, but then he came back up
Speaker 2: the stairs and told me he needed the laptop twice,
Speaker 2: so the second time he did that, I actually did
Speaker 2: start to call the police and he ran out.
Speaker 1: Finally Mike was gone, and as soon as he drove away,
Speaker 1: Saskia and Ronnie went back to the laptop. They had
Speaker 1: to know what else Mike was trying to hide on
Speaker 1: this website and if he'd posted any other photos of Saskia.
Speaker 2: We sat at my little kitchen island. Ronnie did a search,
Speaker 2: and he said, you're not going to be happy. And
Speaker 2: that's when I saw a ton of images.
Speaker 1: What she saw on chatterbait. It wasn't just the one photo.
Speaker 1: It wasn't even ten or twenty photos. There were dozens.
Speaker 3: They were all of me naked without clothing.
Speaker 1: When she had first seen the website that morning, she'd
Speaker 1: been groggy, her sleeping meds were still wearing off. But
Speaker 1: it was the afternoon. Now she was more alert, and
Speaker 1: now she realized that the photos Mike had taken of
Speaker 1: her weren't really photos at all. They were thumbnails of videos,
Speaker 1: videos that had been live streamed on Mike's page. The
Speaker 1: image she'd seen earlier, it was just a preview, a
Speaker 1: thumbnail showing one of Mike's past live streams. The word
Speaker 1: sixteen hundred followers now made sense. Mike had been videotaping
Speaker 1: her while she was completely undressed, broadcasting it to thousands
Speaker 1: of strangers on the Internet, and seeing these thumbnails on
Speaker 1: Mike's profile, she could tell he'd done this many, many times.
Speaker 3: You don't see my face in most of them, but
Speaker 3: you see his face, and just the look on that
Speaker 3: face was just so painful for me to see who
Speaker 3: he really was.
Speaker 1: After he went to sleep, he turned their bedroom into
Speaker 1: a set. She recognized her walls, her sheets, but looking
Speaker 1: at the body in those images, it was like seeing
Speaker 1: someone else. It was her underwear, her tattoos. And yet
Speaker 1: she had no memory of any of these videos being taken.
Speaker 1: All those nights she'd been knocked out, all those nights
Speaker 1: she thought she'd been sleeping soundly next to the man
Speaker 1: she loved. Her body was there in bed, living a nightmare.
Speaker 3: I was terrified because I knew my life would never
Speaker 3: be the same.
Speaker 2: I knew I would never be this. I knew my
Speaker 2: family would never be the same. I was just terrified,
Speaker 2: Like what am I going to find out?
Speaker 1: There was a video behind each of these images, but
Speaker 1: the videos had only been live. They weren't accessible anymore
Speaker 1: on the site. She wanted a fuller picture of what
Speaker 1: Mike was doing to her while he was streaming. Just
Speaker 1: as her brother in law was about to dig deeper
Speaker 1: to see if there was any way to access past streams.
Speaker 2: Ronnie couldn't get access anymore. He was like, oh, this
Speaker 2: stuff's not there.
Speaker 1: Suddenly, the thumbnails of Saskia, the only proof they had
Speaker 1: of what Mike had done, began disappearing from chatterbait right
Speaker 1: before their eyes. Mike was stileting the evidence.
Speaker 2: And that's when I started freaking out because I knew
Speaker 2: then he was going to try to get away with this.
Speaker 1: Within a matter of minutes, there was only one thumbnail remaining,
Speaker 1: but that wasn't going to stop her. Uploading nude videos
Speaker 1: of her had to be a crime, and Mike needed
Speaker 1: to be held accountable.
Speaker 2: So I did call the police and two officers came
Speaker 2: and I showed them one of the pictures that was
Speaker 2: still there. One police officer said, how do we know
Speaker 2: that these are his pictures?
Speaker 3: And made me feel like I was in the wrong.
Speaker 1: Saskia didn't feel like the cops took her seriously. To them,
Speaker 1: this was a routine domestic issue and the one picture
Speaker 1: wasn't enough to convince them otherwise. She pleaded with.
Speaker 2: Them, but they basically told me to file for a
Speaker 2: protective order and then to get the locks changed.
Speaker 1: So the police left and Saskia was at a loss.
Speaker 1: Then she felt her phone buzz. She looked at the
Speaker 1: screen and her stomach dropped. It was Mike, He texted
Speaker 1: her from his hotel. Let me just tell you more
Speaker 1: about the site.
Speaker 3: I have had access for years, but to not do
Speaker 3: anything with us until more.
Speaker 1: Recent us him and Saskia together. But so far as
Speaker 1: Saskia was concerned, he'd taken every one of those videos
Speaker 1: without her consent, without her being conscious. To her, this
Speaker 1: text was an admission of guilt, and that's when Saskia
Speaker 1: knew she didn't just want him out of her life.
Speaker 1: She wanted him behind bars.
Speaker 2: I wanted justice, and I promised myself that I was
Speaker 2: going to do anything possible, anything necessary, to try to
Speaker 2: get it.
Speaker 1: The day after discovering what Mike had been hiding, Saski
Speaker 1: started calling her friends, anyone who might be able to
Speaker 1: come and be with her as she navigated next steps.
Speaker 1: Her friend Heather was at work when she got the call.
Speaker 5: I answered the phone and it was the most horrible, sorry.
Speaker 6: The most horrible scream and cry I've ever heard out
Speaker 6: of another person, and she could barely get the words out.
Speaker 6: I was just like, what's wrong, what's going on?
Speaker 5: She didn't even know how to put together what she
Speaker 5: had seen and what she had experienced.
Speaker 1: Saski was still putting the pieces together about what Mike
Speaker 1: had done to her. It was difficult to process. Let
Speaker 1: alone communicate to another person. But Saskia recounted the story
Speaker 1: as best she could of seeing these thumbnails on Mike's computer.
Speaker 5: As soon as you said the computer, my mind flashed
Speaker 5: back to what she had told me about the night
Speaker 5: before the wedding.
Speaker 1: Two years before, Saskia had told Heather about waking up
Speaker 1: to Mike on his laptop and seeing people on screen,
Speaker 1: but at the time Heather and Saskia wrote it off.
Speaker 1: Now it was clear.
Speaker 5: He was testing the waters that night before the wedding.
Speaker 5: If that was the testing of the waters and had
Speaker 5: not been something that he had done before.
Speaker 1: This was serious, she knew. If Mike had been using
Speaker 1: these kinds of sights since before the wedding, the thumbnails
Speaker 1: Saskia had seen were just a sample of what was
Speaker 1: to come. The day Saskia called her with this, Heather
Speaker 1: was dealing with an emergency at work.
Speaker 5: She couldn't leave, so I called Megan and I was like, Megan,
Speaker 5: you have to go see what's going on with.
Speaker 1: Sauas Megan when is another friend of Saskia's. At the time,
Speaker 1: Saskia and Meghan were sisters in law. At the Halloween
Speaker 1: party the night before, Saskia had been drinking, and once again,
Speaker 1: she suddenly lost control. For Megan, it was a breaking point.
Speaker 1: She'd seen Saskia get like this one too many times.
Speaker 7: I was like, I'm never speaking to her again. Tonight
Speaker 7: is the end of our friendship. We're done. I'm not
Speaker 7: going to make it awkward for our family, but I
Speaker 7: am not going to be her friend anymore.
Speaker 1: But when Megan got the call about what Mike had
Speaker 1: been doing, she drove straight to Saskia's house.
Speaker 7: I forgot about everything in those moments because it didn't
Speaker 7: matter anymore. When someone needs help, I will jump right
Speaker 7: in and help.
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, Saskia was spreading the word about what Mike had done.
Speaker 1: She posted on Facebook and many people saw it, including
Speaker 1: her work friend Colleen.
Speaker 8: I was at work and I saw on Facebook's posted
Speaker 8: something like I need help. Mike turned off all of
Speaker 8: his social media profiles. This isn't a joke, and I
Speaker 8: was like, oh my god.
Speaker 1: Colleen couldn't understand how this could be. Maybe Saskia had
Speaker 1: been hacked. Just to be sure, Colleen checked Mike's page.
Speaker 8: Then his profile was gone on Facebook and I was like,
Speaker 8: oh god, that's true.
Speaker 3: This is true.
Speaker 1: As a social worker at Child Protective Services. Colleen had
Speaker 1: experience responding to crisis situations. She headed right to Saskia.
Speaker 1: When she arrived, Megan was there too. Finally Saskia had
Speaker 1: people around to help her.
Speaker 3: I felt so grateful to them.
Speaker 1: Here's Colleen again.
Speaker 8: We went to the apartment and she came out and
Speaker 8: was crying and kind of screaming, and bit by bit
Speaker 8: things came out.
Speaker 1: Old Meghan and Colleen the full story, as much as
Speaker 1: she knew of it. Anyway, Megan could hear the weight
Speaker 1: of Mike's actions in Saski's voice.
Speaker 7: She just found out she was being violated by her husband.
Speaker 7: She was just beside herself, and I don't blame her.
Speaker 3: She was just a mass.
Speaker 1: Sask couldn't think. So Megan got to work and planning
Speaker 1: the best next step.
Speaker 7: We needed to protect her from this man who is
Speaker 7: now a monster. I was like, we need to go
Speaker 7: to the courthouse right now and get a protective order.
Speaker 1: Before they could think about any kind of criminal investigation,
Speaker 1: they had to make sure Saskia was safe. Colleen agreed
Speaker 1: they should go get a protective order right away.
Speaker 8: People who've been found out or who were about to
Speaker 8: lose control are really dangerous. That's when you see people
Speaker 8: getting desperate and doing things, killing themselves, killing other people.
Speaker 8: That's the highest risk time period. So the first thing was.
Speaker 1: To have a mediate safety So Megan, Colleen, and Saskia
Speaker 1: drove to the Montgomery County Family Justice Center. It's a
Speaker 1: one stop shop for victims of intimate partner violence.
Speaker 8: The Family Justice Center and our jurisdiction does a really
Speaker 8: good job of being co located with sheriffs, with state's attorneys,
Speaker 8: connecting people with social workers and victim advocates in one location.
Speaker 1: The day is a blur for Saskia, but she remembers
Speaker 1: going with Meghan and Colleen to meet with the social
Speaker 1: worker about getting the protective order. They all waited together
Speaker 1: in a small room.
Speaker 3: I had the laptop with me, and someone came in
Speaker 3: and I started to tell them about what happened, and
Speaker 3: the lady said, there's probably nothing that we can do.
Speaker 1: Remember, Saskio only had the one thumbnail that was left
Speaker 1: on chatterbait. All the others on Mike's page had been deleted,
Speaker 1: and the videos themselves were only shown live. They weren't
Speaker 1: accessible on chatter bait after they aired. Only that one
Speaker 1: thumbnail Saskia might be able to get a temporary protective
Speaker 1: order for a few days, but there wasn't enough evidence
Speaker 1: to secure a longer term protective order. Saskia thought Mike
Speaker 1: recorded the videos on this computer. Surely there would be
Speaker 1: copies of the video stored somewhere on the laptop. Megan
Speaker 1: recalls Saskia pleading with the authorities.
Speaker 7: She was like, his computer has all the videos on it,
Speaker 7: and they were like, we can't do the computer without
Speaker 7: a search warrant. We can't get a search warrant without
Speaker 7: video evidence. We need video evidence. You have to produce videos.
Speaker 7: It was a catch twenty two. They were stuck.
Speaker 3: Of course, I was devastated and I completely lost it
Speaker 3: and started running around.
Speaker 1: Colleen went after her.
Speaker 8: She let out this blood curdling scream and ran down
Speaker 8: the hall and the film My Justice Centers located with
Speaker 8: the sheriffs just because of the high risk of domestic violence,
Speaker 8: and the sheriffs came sprinting. They didn't know what had happened.
Speaker 8: They just heard this scream and came sprinting down after her.
Speaker 8: She was just in shock, like what is going on?
Speaker 8: I think the magnitude hit her at that moment.
Speaker 2: I just flipped out because of how wrong I knew
Speaker 2: it was and how traumatized I felt.
Speaker 1: While Colleen tried to calm Saski down in the hall,
Speaker 1: Megan remained in the room with the social worker. She
Speaker 1: was determined to find evidence against Mike. Even though chatterbait
Speaker 1: doesn't save the live videos and Mike had deleted most
Speaker 1: of the evidence of prior streams, there had to be
Speaker 1: videos out there. Nothing goes away on the Internet.
Speaker 5: Once it's there, it's there.
Speaker 7: So I just searched my phone because luckily, thank god,
Speaker 7: that idiot gave her his username, Saskia Mike's.
Speaker 1: Us their name earlier that morning, so Megan searched and searched.
Speaker 1: She found Mike's user name listed on other porn sites,
Speaker 1: but she kept running into the same issue. All I
Speaker 1: could get were pictures.
Speaker 7: So I saw that these videos did exist somewhere on
Speaker 7: the Internet, but the only things that I was getting
Speaker 7: with thumbnail pictures.
Speaker 1: Meghan showed these additional images to the social worker, hoping
Speaker 1: that more photos would be enough to move ahead with
Speaker 1: the case.
Speaker 3: She's like, that's not good enough.
Speaker 1: We need video. So I'm just like, Okay, there's got
Speaker 1: to be video.
Speaker 7: On here like somewhere.
Speaker 1: So Megan continued to dig and she found even more
Speaker 1: photos of Saskia. They were all over the internet. On
Speaker 1: the one hand, finding this content was a good thing.
Speaker 1: With every image, she became more sure that they could
Speaker 1: prove this. On the other these were photos that anyone
Speaker 1: could Her friend's image was blasted without her consent across
Speaker 1: pornography websites.
Speaker 7: The amount of stuff I found online with her in it,
Speaker 7: it was tragic.
Speaker 1: In our interview, Megan went on to share what she saw,
Speaker 1: and I'll just say this. These images exposed the most
Speaker 1: intimate parts of Saskia's body.
Speaker 7: It was deep, dark searching like I searched for a
Speaker 7: long time. Luckily, there's a website that rips footage from
Speaker 7: live streams and from cams.
Speaker 1: Bots sometimes entered the streams and record them for exploitation
Speaker 1: on other sites.
Speaker 7: And they'll give you ten second grabs of the videos
Speaker 7: so that you can pay for the full video.
Speaker 1: So I found those. She located four of these video previews.
Speaker 1: Megan's known Saskia since she was five years old. She's
Speaker 1: seen Saskia asleep, drunk, even blackout drunk. This was different.
Speaker 1: She was just dead, dead weight, and the footage revealed
Speaker 1: something else. In these videos, she was being raped by
Speaker 1: her husband. Mike hadn't just been taking intimate photos and
Speaker 1: videos of Saskia. He'd been using the moments when she
Speaker 1: was knocked out to assault her. As Megan watched, she
Speaker 1: thought back to all those times Saskia was too tired
Speaker 1: to go to an event, Why it was so hard
Speaker 1: for her to get out of bed.
Speaker 7: After seeing that, it made sense why she wasn't functioning,
Speaker 7: She wasn't getting good nights of sleep. She was being tortured.
Speaker 1: The videos were deeply disturbing, and I did not want
Speaker 1: her to see them, but they were also proof of
Speaker 1: what Mike had done. So often victims of intimate partner
Speaker 1: violence only have their own word. With these videos, Megan
Speaker 1: thought there was clear documentation of Mike's crimes. These were
Speaker 1: just ten second clips, but she hoped they could get
Speaker 1: Saskia the protective order she needed to keep Mike away
Speaker 1: from her, and for investigators to get a warrant for
Speaker 1: the computer. So Megan played one of the clips for
Speaker 1: the social worker and that was enough. Mike would later
Speaker 1: claim that Saskia willingly participated in chatterbait on many occasions
Speaker 1: that she was not a victim but an active participant
Speaker 1: in his online fantasy life.
Speaker 9: We know that's going to be their defense. This isn't
Speaker 9: a case of did the sex happen, That's not an issue.
Speaker 9: This is a question of did she agree to it
Speaker 9: or not? And that's always a hard question in any
Speaker 9: sex assault case where consent is the defense.
Speaker 1: On the next episode of Betrayal, people were paying to
Speaker 1: see this go down. People in the chat is she alive?
Speaker 3: She okay?
Speaker 1: People thought she was dead and they were watching it
Speaker 1: and paying for it. For resources on sexual violence, visit
Speaker 1: RAIN dot org slash betrayal. That's our ai n N
Speaker 1: dot org slash betrayal. You can also get free confidential
Speaker 1: twenty four to seven support through rain's National Sexual Assault Hotline.
Speaker 1: Just text Hope to six four six seventy three or
Speaker 1: call one eight hundred sixty five six Hope. You are
Speaker 1: not Alone. If you would like to reach out to
Speaker 1: the Betrayal team or want to tell us your story,
Speaker 1: email us at Betrayalpod at gmail dot com. That is
Speaker 1: Betrayal Pod at gmail dot com, or follow us on
Speaker 1: Instagram at Betrayal Pod. To access additional content and to
Speaker 1: connect with the Betrayal community, join our substack at Betrayal
Speaker 1: dot substack dot com. We're grateful for your support. One
Speaker 1: way to show support is by subscribing to our show
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts. Don't forget to rate and review Betrayal
Speaker 1: five star reviews go a long way. A big thank
Speaker 1: you to all of our listeners. Betrayal is the production
Speaker 1: of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group in
Speaker 1: partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is executive produced by
Speaker 1: Nancy Glass and Jennifer Fason, hosted and produced by me
Speaker 1: Andrea Gunning, written and produced by Caitlin Golden. Our supervising
Speaker 1: producer is Kerrie Hartman. Our story editor is Monique Leboard.
Speaker 1: Also produced by Ben Fetterman. Associate producers are Olivia Hewitt
Speaker 1: and Leah Jablo. Production management by Kristin Melcurrie, additional support
Speaker 1: by Curry Richmond. Our iHeart team is Ali Perry and
Speaker 1: Jessica Crincheck. Voice acting by Steve Lelinsky, Audio editing by
Speaker 1: Tanner Robbins, with additional editing and mixing by Matt Delvecchio.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to Saskia, her friends and family, and special
Speaker 1: thanks to Will Pearson and Carrie Lieberman. Betrayal's theme is
Speaker 1: composed by Oliver Bains. Music library provided by mob Music
Speaker 1: and for more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts.