Speaker 1: When you think of a paternity scandal, this is probably
Speaker 1: what comes to mind.
Speaker 2: Sir, you are not. The five.
Speaker 1: Men have a millennia old reputation for refusing parental responsibilities.
Speaker 1: It can destroy families and alter the course of lives.
Speaker 1: As Maury Povich proved, a paternity test is the ultimate
Speaker 1: dramatic reveal. It's a definitive answer, a yes or no.
Speaker 1: But what happened to Clayton eckered? Isn't that simple?
Speaker 3: I said, okay, hey, we got to do the paternity
Speaker 3: test that's coming up. And then she's making excuses and
Speaker 3: saying like, I don't think I really need to do this.
Speaker 3: I already know you're the father. I haven't done with
Speaker 3: anybody else, so I'm not going to do it. I'm
Speaker 3: not going to waste my money. I'll just wait until
Speaker 3: the due date.
Speaker 1: I'm Stephanie Young and this is love trapped there.
Speaker 2: No, you'd better believe.
Speaker 1: I'll be razy ho hellas if you ever, ever, ever ever.
Speaker 2: Try to.
Speaker 1: On May twentieth, twenty twenty three, Clayton invited a woman
Speaker 1: named Laura Owens over to his house. They'd been flirting
Speaker 1: over text. According to Clayton, they had oral sex that night,
Speaker 1: not penetrative sex. Then just eleven days later, Laura had
Speaker 1: news she was pregnant and she was sure the baby
Speaker 1: was his.
Speaker 3: I was having a hard time believing it because we
Speaker 3: didn't have sex, so I wanted her to take a
Speaker 3: test in front of me so that I could see
Speaker 3: you with my own eyes.
Speaker 1: Laura came over to his place to take another pregnancy test.
Speaker 1: It was positive.
Speaker 3: Bab my hand pressing against my forehead, elbows on the countertop.
Speaker 3: I'm leaning over the sink and I'm just in disbelief,
Speaker 3: and she's just like, how are you feeling?
Speaker 2: She starts rubbing my back. I'm like, is this real?
Speaker 2: And in a moment, I was like, fuck, she is pregnant.
Speaker 1: On one hand, Clayton believed his own eyes. He believed
Speaker 1: the proof he was now seeing right in front of him,
Speaker 1: and I'm.
Speaker 2: Like, I'm sorry. She's like for what I said, for
Speaker 2: not believing you. I dought you were lying.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, Laura had been behaving erradically since
Speaker 1: their hookup, so much so that he decided to block
Speaker 1: her phone number. But now she was in his house,
Speaker 1: positive pregnancy test in hand, and she was distraught.
Speaker 3: We sat down on my couch and talked for probably
Speaker 3: an hour and a half two hours, and I was
Speaker 3: reassuring her.
Speaker 2: The entire time.
Speaker 1: It was almost reflexive to comfort her and tell her
Speaker 1: it was going to be okay. But something about Laura
Speaker 1: felt off.
Speaker 3: It felt a little bit forced, or it felt a
Speaker 3: little bit like it was a production. There was an
Speaker 3: element of insincerity.
Speaker 1: Nevertheless, he told Laura he would unblock her number and
Speaker 1: they would figure it out. After a few hours. She left.
Speaker 1: When he shut the door behind her, reality sunk back in.
Speaker 1: There was no way she could be pregnant. He replayed
Speaker 1: the night of the hookup in his memory, and his
Speaker 1: mind went to extreme places. She'd run to the bathroom
Speaker 1: right after the blowjob. What had happened behind that bathroom door?
Speaker 1: Was there some way she could have impregnated herself.
Speaker 3: I was ninety nine point nine percent sure she wasn't pregnant.
Speaker 3: Unfortunately for me, there was one point one percent chance
Speaker 3: of doubt that I was like, maybe she got it
Speaker 3: there in quick enough time when she went to the bathroom.
Speaker 3: Maybe she had a syringe on hand that I was
Speaker 3: unaware of. There's a small chance. I don't believe it,
Speaker 3: but I can't fully rule it out.
Speaker 1: Then he got an email. It was from Laura.
Speaker 4: Don't bother reading this. If you don't want to have
Speaker 4: the dating conversation.
Speaker 1: Her emails are being read by a voice actor.
Speaker 4: If you don't want to try things, that's fine, But
Speaker 4: if I'm alone, either way, the abortion is off the table.
Speaker 4: I strongly believe that, regardless of your feelings for me,
Speaker 4: it's unfair to the child to not be exposed to
Speaker 4: both parents.
Speaker 1: The messages were bizarre and they kept coming.
Speaker 4: You act like it would be a punishment to date me,
Speaker 4: but I bring a lot to the table.
Speaker 3: My exact thought was, either I'm dealing with the craziest
Speaker 3: woman I have ever met, or I'm dealing with someone
Speaker 3: that's telling the truth, and there's really no one between.
Speaker 1: Clayton's plan was to figure it out on his own
Speaker 1: before anyone online got wind of the situation. He was
Speaker 1: a public figure. This could be a huge reputation blow.
Speaker 2: If the scroll goes to the media.
Speaker 3: It's just going to be a pain in the ass
Speaker 3: because we have to wait on the paternity test, which
Speaker 3: is going to take some time.
Speaker 2: It's something that I'm going to be fighting up. He'll
Speaker 2: battle on.
Speaker 1: He started frantically googling. Maybe this was a misunderstanding, maybe
Speaker 1: there was another explanation.
Speaker 3: She had mentioned that she had epilepsy, and so I
Speaker 3: just had this feeling of you need to google epilepsy
Speaker 3: medications and see if there's any correlation between epilepsy meds
Speaker 3: and hCG, which is the pregnancy hormone. And I googled that,
Speaker 3: and sure enough, there was a correlation where certain medications
Speaker 3: could cause elevated levels of hCG. When I saw that,
Speaker 3: that was the bingo. This is what's going on. Maybe
Speaker 3: she's not lying, she's just not aware that her medications
Speaker 3: are causing this, and so it's a false positive.
Speaker 1: Clayton told me he emailed Laura to let her know
Speaker 1: this could be a possibility, and less than two hours later,
Speaker 1: Laura responded.
Speaker 3: She said she placed a quick call to her doctor,
Speaker 3: and her doctor told her that it's extremely rare to
Speaker 3: happen at all, and if that were to happen, it
Speaker 3: would be when someone just started it.
Speaker 1: Laura was adamant that it wasn't a false positive. She
Speaker 1: really was pregnant and it was his. She told him
Speaker 1: multiple times that she hadn't been with anyone else in
Speaker 1: over a year. At this point, Clayton is desperate for
Speaker 1: concrete answers. First, he just needed proof of pregnancy, and
Speaker 1: the easiest way to get that is with an ultrasound
Speaker 1: at the doctor's office.
Speaker 3: We talked about doing an ultrasound so that I could
Speaker 3: get visual proof that she was in fact pregnant.
Speaker 1: Laura made an appointment for an ultrasound, but right before
Speaker 1: the day came, she canceled it. Her sister couldn't make it,
Speaker 1: and Laura wanted her there.
Speaker 3: That was the first cancelation, and then she's like every
Speaker 3: scheduled for this date.
Speaker 1: I've seen these messages. Clayton was trying his best to
Speaker 1: be as flexible with the doctor's appointment as possible. If
Speaker 1: she was pregnant, this was the only way he could
Speaker 1: get the confirmation he needed. But Laura changed her mind
Speaker 1: again and said she didn't want him at the doctor's appointment.
Speaker 3: My pushback was okay, well I'll FaceTime you from the
Speaker 3: doctor's office.
Speaker 1: Then Laura threw a grenade, something that caught Clayton off
Speaker 1: guard and changed the tone of their entire conversation.
Speaker 3: She ended up saying, Hey, I'm scared for my safety.
Speaker 3: I'm going to reschedule it, but I don't want you
Speaker 3: showing up and potentially harming me.
Speaker 1: Clayton couldn't believe what she was saying, and he was offended.
Speaker 1: He was only asking for transparency and real answers. Just
Speaker 1: a few days before, Laura said she wanted him to
Speaker 1: be involved.
Speaker 2: I'm like, are you kidding me? I've never once threatened you.
Speaker 3: Now you're trying to say that, like your friend, I'm
Speaker 3: gonna get physical in a doctor's office of all places.
Speaker 3: In general, I've never put my hands on a woman.
Speaker 3: But I was like, now you're basically stating you're fearful
Speaker 3: for your safety.
Speaker 1: It was a red flag, but Clayton was committed to
Speaker 1: getting an answer from a doctor that was the right
Speaker 1: next step.
Speaker 3: Then it was no, I don't want you to know
Speaker 3: like when I'm going at all. So then again it
Speaker 3: was just excuse after excuse, and it was like, I
Speaker 3: need some type of proof, and she just wouldn't oblige
Speaker 3: to anything that I said.
Speaker 1: The harder he pushed for proof, the more volatile Laura became.
Speaker 3: You have no idea what was going on behind the scenes,
Speaker 3: and I have all of the receipts to prove it.
Speaker 1: The back and forth about the ultrasound was only the
Speaker 1: tip of the iceberg. After she told Clayton she was pregnant,
Speaker 1: Laura sent him a lot of mixed messages about keeping
Speaker 1: the baby. Most of them were emails. Actually this went
Speaker 1: on for four months. I decided to take a page
Speaker 1: out of Clayton's book and asked him if he could
Speaker 1: show them to me in person. A few days later,
Speaker 1: I flew to Arizona and was back at Clayton's house.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about where we left off with
Speaker 1: this story. You've kind of told me that there was
Speaker 1: a lot going on from June to let's say September
Speaker 1: of that year. Can you show me what you're talking about?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Look, I have it all stored here on a
Speaker 3: drive called the LO file for Laura Owens.
Speaker 2: Okay, any time that I've spoken with Laura is all
Speaker 2: right here.
Speaker 1: There is a folder pretty much for every single day
Speaker 1: from June all the way through like the end of October.
Speaker 1: I cannot stress enough how many messages are in these folders.
Speaker 1: There are hundreds. Having the receipts is an understatement.
Speaker 3: Some days there were ten messages, some days there was
Speaker 3: just one. There was probably less than five times where
Speaker 3: there was a day or two where she didn't send anything,
Speaker 3: but those days were far and few in between.
Speaker 1: The messages unsettled him so much that he started cataloging them.
Speaker 1: Here are a few subject lines from those early emails.
Speaker 4: June twenty fifth, went to the abortion clinic. Important June
Speaker 4: twenty eighth, having the baby. If I don't hear back
Speaker 4: tonight July first, the final opportunity to consider abortion.
Speaker 2: The messages would come in.
Speaker 3: I would screenshot them, I would put that day's date,
Speaker 3: and then i'd put it in the folder. I put
Speaker 3: my own responses just so I could have a full
Speaker 3: track record, because I felt I need to have evidence
Speaker 3: of all of our communications because who knows what she's
Speaker 3: going to eventually accuse me of.
Speaker 1: How are you handling that? And how is your mental
Speaker 1: health doing at this time? Were you trying to work?
Speaker 1: How do you even go about your day? If these
Speaker 1: keep flooding in, I.
Speaker 3: Couldn't help but read them because I had to extract
Speaker 3: information from them to understand where she was going with
Speaker 3: her next move. But it was tough because yeah, I'd
Speaker 3: be at work and I couldn't help.
Speaker 2: But like, check my email every hour.
Speaker 3: It's as if someone tells you that I'm going to
Speaker 3: send you a message with test results in the next
Speaker 3: twenty four hours. I'm not sure when it'll come in,
Speaker 3: but yeah, we can all relate to that, just waiting
Speaker 3: looking at your messages, being like when's this coming through?
Speaker 3: And the second you hear the ding, you're like, oh
Speaker 3: my gosh, this is it. That's how I felt all
Speaker 3: the time, because it was just like, when's this next
Speaker 3: message coming and how serious is it going to be.
Speaker 1: Clayton was on edge. It wasn't just about whether or
Speaker 1: not she was pregnant. He'd just gone through the hardest
Speaker 1: year of his life and felt like the media was
Speaker 1: hungry for any scandal around him. This would deliver it
Speaker 1: on a silver place, and Laura seemed to know that.
Speaker 1: She even told Clayton that when she was at his
Speaker 1: apartment to take the pregnancy test, that she'd recorded the
Speaker 1: entire conversation.
Speaker 3: She had her phone in her purse and it was
Speaker 3: recording the entire time. She mentioned that to me as
Speaker 3: like a threat to say that she was going to
Speaker 3: go public.
Speaker 1: Clayton did not want any kind of press about the situation.
Speaker 1: He decided he could handle it himself. The weeks dragged
Speaker 1: into months. The whole time, Clayton felt like he was
Speaker 1: trying to quietly diffuse a bomb. Were you fighting this
Speaker 1: battle alone? Like at this point had you told anyone
Speaker 1: in your life what was going on?
Speaker 3: I really truly was waking up every day dealing with
Speaker 3: this and having nobody to help me through because I
Speaker 3: was ashamed.
Speaker 2: I saw the.
Speaker 3: Emotions that I elicited from my family following the whole
Speaker 3: Bachelor experience.
Speaker 2: And they are the ones that.
Speaker 3: I would bring it to. I took a show that
Speaker 3: was my mom's favorite and turned it into a show
Speaker 3: that she despised, a show that made her sick to
Speaker 3: her stomach. No matter how much I wanted to have
Speaker 3: support in this scenario, to me, it would have felt
Speaker 3: selfish to bring them back in.
Speaker 1: It became clear that these emails had a strong effect
Speaker 1: on Clayton and that I'd be at his place for
Speaker 1: a week if I tried to read every email in
Speaker 1: one sitting. He was kind enough to share the file
Speaker 1: with me so I could go through each email carefully.
Speaker 1: I took the l file home with me to start
Speaker 1: combing through it myself. Some of these emails have never
Speaker 1: been made public before.
Speaker 3: That's the thing with Laura is I kept just getting
Speaker 3: more intense with every single email.
Speaker 1: Later, these messages would be introduced as evidence in court.
Speaker 1: Here's Laura Owens herself during a court deposition, reading one
Speaker 1: of the emails she sent Clayton.
Speaker 5: It occurred to me that you might believe me more
Speaker 5: about paternity if you were inside of me and felt
Speaker 5: how tight I was after not having sex in more
Speaker 5: than a year. Maybe then you'd believe I hadn't been
Speaker 5: sleeping around.
Speaker 1: Messages like this stopped me in my tracks. I didn't
Speaker 1: know what I'd gotten myself into, but I knew I
Speaker 1: had to keep going. When I started reading the screenshots
Speaker 1: of messages between Clayton and Laura, I was dumbfounded. After
Speaker 1: I spent weeks going through each and every message, I
Speaker 1: decided to meet Clayton again to discuss them. Like I said,
Speaker 1: some of these have never been made public before. She
Speaker 1: kept saying in these emails that she has proven time
Speaker 1: and time again that she's pregnant. She has showed you
Speaker 1: so much proof. She has sent a drop box link.
Speaker 1: Can you tell me what that proof actually was?
Speaker 2: That was the thing that She's like, I've sent you
Speaker 2: all this proof. I'm like, what proof.
Speaker 3: You've sent me a doctor's note, You've sent me a
Speaker 3: pregnancy test, and I'm like, I think you're trying to
Speaker 3: convince me you've proven me. You have these hard facts,
Speaker 3: which you don't like. You keep saying you've shown all
Speaker 3: the proof, but there's nothing here. It's all just your words.
Speaker 1: My sister called me at eight weeks pregnant to tell
Speaker 1: me she was pregnant with a photo of an ultrasound.
Speaker 2: On face times when we would do right, like.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was so simple to prove it, which
Speaker 1: is concerning that she wouldn't just send you an ultrasound
Speaker 1: because you were begging for proof in these emails.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, look like I really did want just something.
Speaker 3: I was like, either show me something or show me nothing,
Speaker 3: like I'm tired of playing the games. I'm tired of
Speaker 3: playing Like, well I will if this, I'm like, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 3: if this, then statements like just do it or don't
Speaker 3: like I'm and that's where I was like, it really
Speaker 3: should be super simple, right, Your doctor that you just
Speaker 3: saw should be able to take a phone call with
Speaker 3: me right now. And if I'm the actual father, then
Speaker 3: it's my right to be able to have this conversation.
Speaker 1: He's right, and he brings up another important point about
Speaker 1: if he's actually the father. We'll get to that in
Speaker 1: a minute. As far as I can see in all
Speaker 1: their messages, the proof Laura was sending him was mostly
Speaker 1: in the form of photos and a few videos of herself,
Speaker 1: like this one where she's standing in her bron underwear
Speaker 1: showing her protruded stomach to the camera.
Speaker 5: I am just trying to show you that I am pregnant,
Speaker 5: and I wanted to do this on video so that
Speaker 5: you didn't think that I was photoshopping anything in.
Speaker 1: The video is over four minutes long. She turns from
Speaker 1: side to side to show him her stomach.
Speaker 2: Here's the tour.
Speaker 1: You can see my front.
Speaker 5: You can see the line there that women get that
Speaker 5: pregnant women get. I'm starting to get. You can see
Speaker 5: from here I have a stomach right.
Speaker 1: This video came in response to Clayton again asking for
Speaker 1: proof of her pregnancy. At this point, he'd been asking
Speaker 1: for over a month.
Speaker 6: I hope you realize this is all real.
Speaker 1: The pictures and videos weren't the medical confirmation Clayton wanted,
Speaker 1: but they did make him question his own certainty.
Speaker 3: Every time I would see a physical image, it would
Speaker 3: just like cycle back to maybe there is some truth
Speaker 3: to this.
Speaker 1: At first, Laura said she would give him any of
Speaker 1: the medical confirmation and to say in the decision making
Speaker 1: if he did something she wanted. This one is highlighted
Speaker 1: and flagged in this folder. I want you to read
Speaker 1: the highlighted part starting at the bold.
Speaker 3: Oh yes, yeah, I would like to get together tomorrow
Speaker 3: night to talk and explore intimacy. It's time for you
Speaker 3: to make an effort if that is something we are considering.
Speaker 3: I would love to have sex in the future and
Speaker 3: feel like I am the safest person you could have
Speaker 3: sex with since I'm pregnant. But if you really think that,
Speaker 3: like you said yesterday, my goal was to date and
Speaker 3: get pregnant during this time, we can absolutely hold off
Speaker 3: on it. However, it occurred to me that you might
Speaker 3: believe me more about paternity if you were inside of
Speaker 3: me and felt how tight I would be after not
Speaker 3: having sex in more than a year. Maybe then you'd
Speaker 3: believe I hadn't been sleeping around. And again, you wouldn't
Speaker 3: be doing me any big favor. Having sex with me
Speaker 3: is a privilege and not something I have done.
Speaker 2: For a long time.
Speaker 1: There's a lot to unpack that.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I mean, oh man, I remember that when
Speaker 3: that message came through.
Speaker 1: I had a moment during this conversation with Clayton where
Speaker 1: I really couldn't believe this was my job and this
Speaker 1: is what I was talking to the former bachelor about.
Speaker 1: It's also interesting too where she says it also occurred
Speaker 1: to me that if you felt how tight I was,
Speaker 1: if you were inside of me, to me, that's signifying
Speaker 1: that she's saying you hadn't been inside.
Speaker 2: Of me before. That was her admitting it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, Like she said so much, so many times,
Speaker 3: she started to basic trip over her own story, and
Speaker 3: that was a moment where I go, well, you just
Speaker 3: admitted to not having sex with me, because you're saying
Speaker 3: if only I felt how tight you were, meaning I
Speaker 3: haven't felt it yet.
Speaker 1: Were you reading the whole thing? This one is.
Speaker 2: Pages long? Yeah?
Speaker 3: I did read every single line, because again I'm now
Speaker 3: reading into the mind of somebody to try to understand
Speaker 3: where my out is. She forecasts a lot of times
Speaker 3: these were things where I was looking at every sentence
Speaker 3: being like, where is she going? And can I get
Speaker 3: ahead of it before she gets there?
Speaker 1: But that wasn't always possible because Laura threw some curveballs.
Speaker 2: There is a dating contract that was sent to me
Speaker 2: by Laura.
Speaker 1: Can you what is go back? What's a dating contract?
Speaker 2: Well, it was new to me. I've never signed one before.
Speaker 1: This was something she wanted you to sign.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 3: Yes, an official document that she wanted me to sign.
Speaker 3: It was written in a formal format and it's said
Speaker 3: that if you date me for one week, then I
Speaker 3: will have an abortion, but if you don't date me,
Speaker 3: then I'm having the kid.
Speaker 1: This dating contract has a sixteen point list of demands,
Speaker 1: and while it looks like a formal legal document and
Speaker 1: attempts to use formal legal jargon, it includes highly unusual
Speaker 1: stipulations like this one read by a voice actor.
Speaker 4: For a period of one week while determining the best
Speaker 4: course of action for their pregnancy. Party A and party
Speaker 4: B will exclusively explore a relationship with intention meaning with
Speaker 4: the goal of it turning into something long lasting and meaningful,
Speaker 4: and there is no obligation for the relationship to work
Speaker 4: out beyond the one week. However, if it is apparent
Speaker 4: that the agreement was entered into for the wrong reasons,
Speaker 4: evidenced by abuse of any kind, verbal, emotional, or physical.
Speaker 4: It is null and void.
Speaker 2: I'm like, I can't believe I'm reading this. Is there
Speaker 2: any validity to this?
Speaker 3: Again, It's like you're seeing something for the very first
Speaker 3: time and you're in disbelief that it's actually something that
Speaker 3: you're reading.
Speaker 1: Laura sent this dating contract after she told Clayton she
Speaker 1: was too scared of him to tell him when the
Speaker 1: ultrasound appointment was. There's no clear logic to her requests.
Speaker 1: It's chaos in the dating contract. She even offered to
Speaker 1: compensate Clayton with one hundred thousand dollars if he's proven
Speaker 1: not to be the father. As I read through the emails,
Speaker 1: I realized at a certain point Laura isn't even talking
Speaker 1: about a baby anymore. For his part, Clayton is just
Speaker 1: trying to get the messages to stop. He replied to
Speaker 1: Laura's dating contract with a contract of his own, one
Speaker 1: where he's trying to get her to cease all communication.
Speaker 1: And you said, this is what I'm willing to offer you,
Speaker 1: since I want to give you grace and an opportunity
Speaker 1: to let this all go. Away, and you said, I
Speaker 1: really think you need to consider this document, and what's
Speaker 1: in your document is also very professional party A party B.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I used to her language.
Speaker 1: And basically you have a couple of terms and stipulations
Speaker 1: on there. But all you wanted her to do was
Speaker 1: was sign that. And you said that upon signature, you
Speaker 1: cease communication and that you'll keep everything confidential indefinitely. I'll text,
Speaker 1: phone calls, images, emails that have been exchanged between both
Speaker 1: parties as long as it's signed. Did she sign that?
Speaker 6: No?
Speaker 3: Now, that was her out. That was her out. I
Speaker 3: was willing to bury all of it up until that point,
Speaker 3: all of the emotional abuse, all of the manipulation, all
Speaker 3: of the time wasted.
Speaker 2: I was willing to bury it all in that moment.
Speaker 3: And I was giving her an out where I was
Speaker 3: telling her, look, you've messed up. Okay, you've taken this
Speaker 3: act too far, and I already have enough grounds to
Speaker 3: sue you or at least like get you into some trouble.
Speaker 3: But yet I'm willing to drop it all and just
Speaker 3: act like it never happened. So just sign this, please, Like,
Speaker 3: I really don't want to have to take this any further.
Speaker 3: Can we just be done.
Speaker 1: The answer was no. Clayton didn't know it at the time,
Speaker 1: but this nightmare was only just beginning.
Speaker 2: He says.
Speaker 1: One of the most uncomfortable parts was when Laura used
Speaker 1: an abortion as a bargain.
Speaker 3: It just was so frustrating because I had told her
Speaker 3: I don't want to have a child with you. So
Speaker 3: put two and two together, it's pretty obvious what my
Speaker 3: stance on this is take the pills and that's it.
Speaker 3: I just told her one time over and then it
Speaker 3: was like.
Speaker 2: Well, I'll take them. Well, man, I'm not going to.
Speaker 2: Well if we do this, maybe I will. Now I
Speaker 2: have them again. I threw them away. Now I have
Speaker 2: them back. Oh, just kind of threw them away. Oh,
Speaker 2: now I have them back. And it was really really frustrating.
Speaker 3: At that point, I was already like just very anxious
Speaker 3: and stressed, like I'm not playing the game with you.
Speaker 1: He started to notice patterns in her behavior.
Speaker 3: I mean, there's empty threats. There's also the theme of
Speaker 3: like no response equalling a response. That was another one
Speaker 3: that surfaced multiple times, Like.
Speaker 1: That subject line that says if I don't hear back,
Speaker 1: I'm having the baby.
Speaker 2: Yes, there's one right there.
Speaker 3: And that also feeds into the deadline theme, which is
Speaker 3: another thing that she would also constantly is like, here's
Speaker 3: this date. If I don't hear back from you by then,
Speaker 3: then this will happen. And as time went on, it's
Speaker 3: like things would escalate.
Speaker 1: He says he felt trapped. If he did respond, he
Speaker 1: would be re engaging with someone who was increasingly erratic.
Speaker 1: But if he didn't respond, then he'd be missing some
Speaker 1: fabricated deadline she'd just set In the back of his mind.
Speaker 1: Was that point zero one percent chance that question about
Speaker 1: what Laura had been doing in the bathroom right after
Speaker 1: their hookup, the almost impossible chance that she was really
Speaker 1: pregnant with his baby or pregnant by someone else and
Speaker 1: trying to pin it on him. Something we haven't talked
Speaker 1: about yet is the constant legal threats, ultimatums, and handcrafted
Speaker 1: legal documents Laura was sending him. The documents look official,
Speaker 1: but they're not. To double down on this, she sent
Speaker 1: Clayton a PDF of an attorney's fee agreement she'd paid.
Speaker 1: She added, quote, money truly isn't an object for me.
Speaker 1: That scared Clayton because for him, money didn't grow on trees.
Speaker 1: And the legal threats kept coming. She even alleged consulting
Speaker 1: a business lawyer for what happened with Clayton and the
Speaker 1: investment properties he showed her. Her email started coming with
Speaker 1: threats of police action or legal action. In one email,
Speaker 1: she demands Clayton respond within the hour to avoid her
Speaker 1: filing a police report against him. Then she claims she's
Speaker 1: going to go to the police to report him for
Speaker 1: domestic violence. I need to say. Clayton vehemently denies that
Speaker 1: he was ever physically abusive. In fact, he says he
Speaker 1: hadn't seen her in person since she came to his
Speaker 1: place to take the pregnancy test. I asked him about
Speaker 1: this threat directly. I want to know more about this
Speaker 1: threat to report you for domestic violence. You weren't seeing
Speaker 1: her in person, so where did this even come from.
Speaker 3: I believe she was claiming it was emotional abuse. She
Speaker 3: obviously knew I never put my hands on her. She
Speaker 3: was like, yeah, I'm gonna file this. It's like, there's
Speaker 3: no way for what There's literally nothing I've done.
Speaker 1: There's even a legal waiver at the bottom of an
Speaker 1: email stating if after proof of opening is obtained, I
Speaker 1: choose not to respond to this email. I am confirming
Speaker 1: that its content is true. This includes my acknowledgment of paternity.
Speaker 1: How would she have proof of the email being opened?
Speaker 3: She put mail trackers with read receipts on all of
Speaker 3: her emails. I didn't know that until later on, and
Speaker 3: I'm like, damn it, she has a read receipt on
Speaker 3: that's why.
Speaker 1: Then on August first, after almost two months of back
Speaker 1: and forth, Laura went all in. She filed a petition
Speaker 1: to establish paternity in the Maricopa County Superior Court. That
Speaker 1: filing made their dispute a matter of the public record.
Speaker 1: This was the very thing Clayton had been trying desperately
Speaker 1: to avoid. He felt like the bomb was about to
Speaker 1: detonate in his hands.
Speaker 2: At that point, I was like, damn it, how do
Speaker 2: I respond? I don't know. I don't know how to
Speaker 2: go to court and respond this. So I end up
Speaker 2: calling a family law.
Speaker 3: Company that I googled, and I said, look, I just
Speaker 3: need you.
Speaker 2: To help me file this on my behalf.
Speaker 3: So I paid like five hundred dollars for an hour
Speaker 3: and they gave me the response, and then I carried
Speaker 3: that to the courthouse and submitted it.
Speaker 1: Clayton submitted his response to her petition to establish paternity
Speaker 1: a few weeks later, stating Laura was making up the
Speaker 1: entire claim.
Speaker 3: I decided in that moment to just go with it,
Speaker 3: and I figured, hey, like show me the evidence.
Speaker 2: Why can't you show me that you're pregnant.
Speaker 1: It still felt like a gamble, but Clayton decided to
Speaker 1: take the chance and say on the record that he
Speaker 1: believed Laura was fabricating the pregnancy.
Speaker 3: I said, Hey, I'm going to put all my chips
Speaker 3: on black and if I am right, then great. If
Speaker 3: I'm wrong, then I will actively destroy my own reputation.
Speaker 1: After months he hadn't seen any medical proof, he was
Speaker 1: done giving her any benefit of the doubt, and he
Speaker 1: adopted a new tactic.
Speaker 3: I was just now trying to play her game better
Speaker 3: than she was playing it.
Speaker 1: That turned out to be a grave miscalculation because Laura
Speaker 1: was always one step ahead.
Speaker 3: She said something along the lines of, Hey, just so
Speaker 3: you know, the twin Jean runs in my family.
Speaker 1: After two months of back and forth with Laura Owens,
Speaker 1: Clayton opened the door to a police officer he'd been served.
Speaker 1: It was a paternity claim filed by Laura, but at
Speaker 1: this point Clayton hadn't seen any medical proof of the pregnancy.
Speaker 1: He was done humoring her.
Speaker 2: She successfully served me the papers.
Speaker 3: I ended up like talking to somebody close to me
Speaker 3: and said, well, I'm just gonna throw them away.
Speaker 2: They said you can't do that.
Speaker 3: They said, like, if you throw these papers away, the
Speaker 3: judge will submit it default judgment and they'll likely assume
Speaker 3: it's truthful. So I was like, really, so I google it.
Speaker 3: Sure enough, it's like, yeah, I know. If you don't
Speaker 3: show up, they're going to basically assume you're the guilty
Speaker 3: party and they'll rule in favor of the one that
Speaker 3: served the papers.
Speaker 1: I decided to reach out to family law attorneys in
Speaker 1: Arizona to understand the legal process for establishing paternity.
Speaker 2: There.
Speaker 1: They told me, and I was surprised by this, you
Speaker 1: don't have to provide medical proof of a pregnancy to
Speaker 1: file a paternity claim in Arizona. The only requirement is
Speaker 1: signing an affidavit stating that you're pregnant. Paternity is then
Speaker 1: proved either by agreement of the parties or by DNA confirmation,
Speaker 1: but in the legal system, it is generally the burden
Speaker 1: of the father to take the lead and establish paternity
Speaker 1: so that rights can be confirmed. Some men will file
Speaker 1: that action during a pregnancy, but it usually happens after birth.
Speaker 1: In this case, Laura signed the affidavit asserting she was pregnant.
Speaker 1: She began taking measures to legally establish the pregnants and
Speaker 1: the baby's father while she was still in the first trimester.
Speaker 1: It's usually never done that way. Before this point, Clayton
Speaker 1: had been more concerned about finding out if she was
Speaker 1: really pregnant, but now he was legally and financially implicated
Speaker 1: in a paternity claim, so that brought up a new question.
Speaker 1: If she was pregnant, was he the father? Then Laura
Speaker 1: doubled down, literally, she.
Speaker 3: Said something along the lines if she has the twin
Speaker 3: gene in her family. So I knew again she always
Speaker 3: would prep something so she warms you up to the
Speaker 3: idea of it. So she warmed me up to the
Speaker 3: idea of the twins, where she said, Hey, just so
Speaker 3: you know, the twin gene runs in my family.
Speaker 1: Clayton had a hunch about what Laura was going to
Speaker 1: say next. Within a few weeks, she followed through and
Speaker 1: told him she was not only pregnant, she was pregnant
Speaker 1: with twins.
Speaker 3: I think part of it was so overwhelmed, right, Like
Speaker 3: to scare a man into being like, oh, hey, by
Speaker 3: the way, it's not just one, it's two.
Speaker 2: That's double the responsibility. But that wasn't the fear for me.
Speaker 3: I'm like, the whole fear behind this is first off,
Speaker 3: I don't believe you, But if by chance you actually
Speaker 3: got pregnant, I'm not afraid of how many kids.
Speaker 2: I'm afraid of you.
Speaker 1: Clayton wanted to take the paternity test right away so
Speaker 1: we could prove that he wasn't the father.
Speaker 3: So as she states there's twins, She's like, there's not
Speaker 3: a testing facility that will test on twins. I've looked,
Speaker 3: and they won't do it because there's potential for the
Speaker 3: children to have separate fathers. I'm like, you can't be serious.
Speaker 1: It's true that a lot of prenatal paternity testing companies
Speaker 1: won't test when there's twins. There's a remote possibility of
Speaker 1: two fathers. By this point, Clayton found it difficult to
Speaker 1: believe anything Laura said, and he wasn't about to just
Speaker 1: take her word for it.
Speaker 2: So I google it.
Speaker 3: I basically typed in like paternity testing for twins, and
Speaker 3: boom rabjin pops up and I reached out.
Speaker 2: To him and they said, yeah, yeah, we test on twins.
Speaker 3: And I said, what about the chance if there's like
Speaker 3: two separate fathers, Like, oh, yeah, that hardly ever happens.
Speaker 3: They're like, and we can basically compare the DNA that
Speaker 3: we get and it's really easy to match it to
Speaker 3: yours if it is yours.
Speaker 1: Indeed, So Clayton messaged Laura to tell her the good news.
Speaker 3: And she sends back like, that's incredible, that's awesome. I
Speaker 3: would love to schedule it.
Speaker 1: You might be able to guess what happens next.
Speaker 3: And then she goes, you know, I don't think I
Speaker 3: really need to do this. I already know you're the father.
Speaker 3: I haven't done with anybody else, so I'm not getting
Speaker 3: to it. I'm not going to waste my money.
Speaker 1: I've seen these email exchanges about the paternity test. Clayton
Speaker 1: offers to pay for the whole thing himself. Then the
Speaker 1: emails get messy. It's a constant back and forth about
Speaker 1: who was scheduling or canceling the appointments with Ravjet. Eventually
Speaker 1: they both took the test but we'll dive into those
Speaker 1: details later. The whole time, Laura was still sending Clayton
Speaker 1: a barrage of messages. As I searched through the messages
Speaker 1: from August, I discovered an alarming pattern. Between August twelfth
Speaker 1: and August sixteenth, Laura intacted Clayton via text, using twelve
Speaker 1: different phone numbers, generating a new one each time he
Speaker 1: blocked her. And whenever Laura was blocked via text, she
Speaker 1: would start sending emails like this one, where she brought
Speaker 1: up something Clayton really wants to go on Dancing with
Speaker 1: the Stars. He takes hip hop dance classes and told
Speaker 1: Laura about his passion for dance in their early text messages,
Speaker 1: which is what makes this email from Laura stand out.
Speaker 1: It's read by a voice actor.
Speaker 4: My dad's old entertainment agent lawyer, who I've known since
Speaker 4: I was little and who still has big clients, came
Speaker 4: to town on Friday from New York City to see
Speaker 4: him one last time without my permission. My dad told
Speaker 4: him that I was pregnant and that you were the
Speaker 4: father of the kid. Apparently they called to do some
Speaker 4: checking on you and said they found out there were
Speaker 4: rumors about you possibly being on Dancing with the Stars,
Speaker 4: which I didn't know about, but I'm guessing you did.
Speaker 4: My dad's agent lawyer told me that even if I
Speaker 4: didn't say anything to the press, that ABC would find
Speaker 4: out about the paternity papers being filed with the court
Speaker 4: as part of their due diligence since they're filing as
Speaker 4: public record, and given the circumstances, it would almost certainly
Speaker 4: ruin your chance of being on the show.
Speaker 1: Okay, so let's talk about this. I know one of
Speaker 1: your dreams is to go on Dancing with the Stars.
Speaker 1: Were you actually in talks to go on the show?
Speaker 2: Not even close?
Speaker 3: When that came through that email, I remember just laughing
Speaker 3: and being like, Okay, now, you're just making stuff up.
Speaker 1: Laura followed up with a copy of a letter she
Speaker 1: planned to send to the Dancing with the Stars PR team.
Speaker 1: She told Clayton, you need to devote time getting ready
Speaker 1: to have twins instead of focusing on a dance show.
Speaker 3: Ultimately, I remember thinking, I haven't heard anything from ABC,
Speaker 3: but if this were to be true, I would at
Speaker 3: least think they'd reach out to get my side of
Speaker 3: the story.
Speaker 1: At that time, Clayton didn't want any media outlet reaching
Speaker 1: out to him to ask about Laura Owens. He just
Speaker 1: wanted her to go away, and the good news was
Speaker 1: the story hadn't hit the press yet, even though Laura
Speaker 1: had filed for paternity and named Clayton as the father.
Speaker 1: It was a relief because he was trying to spare
Speaker 1: his family from another public embarrassment. But the people he
Speaker 1: was most worried would find out, his mom and dad,
Speaker 1: had started getting strange emails of their own. They were
Speaker 1: from someone named Laura Owens.
Speaker 6: She probably emailed me fifteen or twenty times.
Speaker 1: That's Clayton's dad, Brian.
Speaker 6: I'm like, this is strange.
Speaker 1: Clayton wanted to handle this situation on his own, but
Speaker 1: by finding his parents' emails online and contacting them directly,
Speaker 1: Laura forced his hand.
Speaker 3: After I had been holding off on telling my parents,
Speaker 3: I had no choice but then to bring it to light.
Speaker 1: At first, Clayton's parents were alarmed by the emails.
Speaker 3: My parents early on weren't certain if it was true
Speaker 3: or not as well, right, so they start then talking
Speaker 3: to me about like, well, if this is real, then
Speaker 3: you need to be a man and step up and
Speaker 3: take accountability for your actions.
Speaker 1: Clayton explained to them what was really going on. He
Speaker 1: didn't believe Laura could possibly be pregnant with his babies.
Speaker 1: Then Laura reached out to his mom, Kelly.
Speaker 7: She tried to Facebook friend me, and of course I
Speaker 7: didn't accept, but you know how you can message and
Speaker 7: it was almost identical to what she had emailed, and
Speaker 7: she was just trying to convince me that Clayton really
Speaker 7: is the father and she needs help raising these kids.
Speaker 2: And yeah, I was just unbelievable.
Speaker 1: His parents never responded to Laura's messages all.
Speaker 6: The times she was trying to influence us, to make
Speaker 6: us get involved with him and tell him what to do,
Speaker 6: and like, he's a grown man, do what or Elly wants.
Speaker 1: They knew their son was an honest person.
Speaker 2: I've never doubted him because he's always told the truth.
Speaker 6: My thought was, I believe you, and I believe everything
Speaker 6: he says.
Speaker 7: He's always been very honest and very transparent, So I
Speaker 7: didn't doubt my son.
Speaker 1: When I talked to his mom, Kelly, she told me
Speaker 1: something that still sticks with me. When she first heard
Speaker 1: about Laura and the pregnancy, she felt a rush of joy,
Speaker 1: even though it was an ideal circumstances, this would be
Speaker 1: her first grandchild. Her first thought was that she and
Speaker 1: her husband would relocate to Arizona to help take care
Speaker 1: of the baby. I've spent hours reading through the hundreds
Speaker 1: of emails from Laura to Clayton. They're contradictory, they're chaotic,
Speaker 1: sometimes they're scary, but most striking of all, they're not
Speaker 1: really about the babies. I didn't even live through it,
Speaker 1: and I felt emotionally and physically exhausted just reading them.
Speaker 1: I can't even am what Clayton was feeling being on
Speaker 1: the receiving end of this fire hose. The truth was,
Speaker 1: Laura couldn't keep avoiding the paternity test forever, and by
Speaker 1: mid September she was running out of options. At this point,
Speaker 1: she'd be almost four months long.
Speaker 3: Of course, she knows that her game is basically coming
Speaker 3: to an end because she can't prove that I'm the
Speaker 3: father because I'm not.
Speaker 2: She realizes at this point she's losing the battle again.
Speaker 1: He was wrong because he wasn't accounting for the narrative
Speaker 1: war that was about to start when this story finally
Speaker 1: hit the news.
Speaker 8: I literally find out about these things this second they
Speaker 8: get published. When you cover this. You know, you have
Speaker 8: thousands of people that are tuning in for news of
Speaker 8: Bachelor or pop culture, so if there's a big story,
Speaker 8: it's in my inbox.
Speaker 1: That's Dave Neil. He's a comedian who hosts a daily
Speaker 1: podcast about pop culture and The Bachelor. When Dave got
Speaker 1: the tip about this story.
Speaker 8: Initially I'm bummed out. If this is true, I go, oh, please,
Speaker 8: don't let this be true. I have vouched for Clayton.
Speaker 8: He was kind of edited to be this villain. I
Speaker 8: never believed him to be.
Speaker 1: Dave was about to become a major player in this
Speaker 1: twisted tale.
Speaker 8: I didn't want it to be true, but I went
Speaker 8: into it going I have to take these claims seriously
Speaker 8: for the sake of my audience.
Speaker 1: Dave was part of a whole ecosystem of Bachelor content creators,
Speaker 1: people he's known for years, like Reality Steve.
Speaker 3: Immediately, Dave Neil and I contacted each other and we
Speaker 3: were like, oh, my gosh, this is crazy.
Speaker 1: It turns out they weren't the only ones in the
Speaker 1: press who'd been alerted about a paternity case against Clayton
Speaker 1: eckered on September eighteenth, twenty twenty three. What had been
Speaker 1: a private crisis suddenly became a public disaster. And we
Speaker 1: begin tonight with the paternity case involving a former Bachelor contestant.
Speaker 8: Following the Clayton Eckered Clayton Gate unity scandal.
Speaker 1: Ecker, the star of season twenty six of The Bachelor,
Speaker 1: shared intimate moments with Laura Owens.
Speaker 8: The subject of the email, as seen by the US
Speaker 8: Sun is as follows threats, intimidation, verbal abuse, endangerment, and
Speaker 8: extortion from Clayton.
Speaker 1: Eckert says the two did not have sexual intercourse.
Speaker 8: We're going to pick up with this story.
Speaker 2: Right now.
Speaker 1: Coming up on the next episode. Clayton is determined to
Speaker 1: get answers.
Speaker 3: So I was just scrolling through my Instagram dms, and
Speaker 3: all of a sudden, I see this message from a
Speaker 3: woman named Ashley that said.
Speaker 2: Hey, you need to look into this court case. You're
Speaker 2: not the only one.
Speaker 1: Tracts to read verified copies of some of the emails
Speaker 1: mentioned in this episode go to our Instagram at Glass Podcasts.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for listening. Please be sure to
Speaker 1: follow Love Trapped on Apple Podcasts, the iHeartRadio app, Spotify,
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts, and please leave us
Speaker 1: a review. A five star rating helps others find this show.
Speaker 1: We're grateful for your support. If you would like to
Speaker 1: reach out to the Love Trapped team, email us at
Speaker 1: Love Trapped Pod at gmail dot com. That's Love Trapped
Speaker 1: Pod at gmail dot com. Love Trapped is a production
Speaker 1: of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group, in
Speaker 1: partnership with iHeart Podcasts. This show was executive produced by
Speaker 1: Nancy Glass, Andrea Gunning and Ben Fetterman, written, produced and
Speaker 1: hosted by me Stephanie Young. Our story editor is Monique
Speaker 1: labourd Additional production support from Sidney Gladoo and Todd Gans.
Speaker 1: Our production manager is Kristin Melchiri. For iHeart Podcasts, Ali
Speaker 1: Perry was our executive producer. Audio editing and mastering by
Speaker 1: Anna McClain and Matt Delvecchio. Additional editing support by Zach Prote.
Speaker 1: Thank you to our voice actor Leslie Tolly. This podcast
Speaker 1: was developed in collaboration with Danny Passman and Lev Abramoff
Speaker 1: at Crybaby Media. The Love Trapped theme is composed by
Speaker 1: Oliver Bains. Music library provided by Mob Music. A special
Speaker 1: thanks to Carrie Lieberman, Will Pearson, Jessica Crincheck Ali Canter
Speaker 1: and the entire iHeart podcast team, And for more podcasts
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