Speaker 1: Hey everyone, Andrea here with something special for you today.
Speaker 1: What you're about to hear as a conversation I had
Speaker 1: with my Betrayal production team producer Carrie Hartman, story editor
Speaker 1: Monique Laboard, audio editor Tanner Robbins, and associate producer Caitlin
Speaker 1: Golden on how we went about making season four of Betrayal.
Speaker 1: We sat down as a team and debriefed a post mortem,
Speaker 1: if you will, only this time, we recorded it and
Speaker 1: launched a video on our new community, Beyond Betrayal exclusively
Speaker 1: on Substack. In this conversation, we get into the nitty
Speaker 1: gritty details about how we conducted our reporting, the relationships
Speaker 1: we've built with our sources, and how working on this
Speaker 1: season impacted each of us personally. You'll hear about the
Speaker 1: moments that shocked us, the challenges we faced, and why
Speaker 1: we made some of the bigger storytelling.
Speaker 2: Decisions we did.
Speaker 1: These are the kind of conversations we're having on Beyond Betrayal.
Speaker 1: If you like this, please consider subscribing to Beyond Betrayal
Speaker 1: exclusively on Substack.
Speaker 2: It is completely free.
Speaker 1: And you'll have access to conversations like these and a
Speaker 1: lot more content from me, my team, and our subjects
Speaker 1: from the Betrayal podcast. Here is my conversation about the
Speaker 1: making of Betrayal season four. Okay, guys, we are here
Speaker 1: today with a special video to commemorate the end of
Speaker 1: season four of Betrayal, and I wanted to have everyone,
Speaker 1: or mostly everyone that made the season happen, So if
Speaker 1: you guys would all do me a favor to introduce yourselves,
Speaker 1: We'll go around, starting with Carrie.
Speaker 3: Hi. I'm Carrie Hartman and I'm the producer of Betrayal
Speaker 3: season four.
Speaker 4: I'm Monique Leboard and I was the story editor on
Speaker 4: Betrayal season four.
Speaker 3: Hi.
Speaker 5: I'm Gitlin Golden and I'm the associate producer on season four.
Speaker 6: Hello. I'm Tanner Robbins.
Speaker 7: I was the audio editor for season four of Betrayal.
Speaker 1: I'm really excited to sit and talk with you guys,
Speaker 1: because we haven't really debriefed the season altogether, and I
Speaker 1: have questions for all of you. But I want to
Speaker 1: start with Tanner because I've been able to meet everybody
Speaker 1: like week to week with Carrie, MO and Caitlin and
Speaker 1: talk about episodes that we've produced, but I haven't sat
Speaker 1: or talked with.
Speaker 2: You about the experience.
Speaker 1: Tell me a little bit about what it's been like
Speaker 1: for you to work on this season as an editor
Speaker 1: and as a listener.
Speaker 7: Working on this season has been really fun, just because
Speaker 7: there's been so much fascinating tape and things that I
Speaker 7: would just get audio from.
Speaker 6: Carrie and Caitlin and realize, how did they how did
Speaker 6: they get this? This is absolutely wild.
Speaker 7: So it's been a pleasure to year just such a
Speaker 7: fully well rounded story told in in audio that I
Speaker 7: feel like, it's so it's so hard to get. It's
Speaker 7: so uncommon to have such a like deep access to
Speaker 7: a group of people and to an investigation within a
Speaker 7: police department, to have access to those files too, And
Speaker 7: then just the random sort of people involved in this
Speaker 7: story that, you know, nameless people who we can't name
Speaker 7: because they you know, had were involved in the affairs
Speaker 7: that Joel committed. Having audio from those people and their
Speaker 7: interactions with Joel gives you a lot to work with.
Speaker 7: And I actually told Carrie, don't tell me anything in advance.
Speaker 6: Every episode I get. I want it to be new.
Speaker 7: I want to experience the show as I'm putting it together,
Speaker 7: you know, literally, you know, putting it together, hearing the
Speaker 7: story for the first time, I thought that would make
Speaker 7: it for, you know, a better experience for me. They
Speaker 7: helped me give better feedback, but also just I get
Speaker 7: to hear this story as if I'm a listener.
Speaker 1: I was going to mention that that was one of
Speaker 1: your requests to not know anything about the story ahead
Speaker 1: of time, and so you're really meeting the material fresh
Speaker 1: with really limited understanding of where we're going. Can you
Speaker 1: tell me a little bit about some of the moments
Speaker 1: that you've found shocking or that were really memorable to you,
Speaker 1: like hearing it for the first time.
Speaker 2: I'm curious what those were for you.
Speaker 7: The one that stands out in my mind is when
Speaker 7: Joel is confronted at his front door by the husband
Speaker 7: of one of the women that he slept with, cheated
Speaker 7: on his wife with, and finding that we hear this
Speaker 7: guy recorded it on his phone or something recorded this interaction,
Speaker 7: and then we have that.
Speaker 3: My wife home.
Speaker 1: Do you know who I am?
Speaker 6: No, here's my wife, elf, the one that.
Speaker 3: You talk in your cruiser.
Speaker 8: What are you talking about?
Speaker 9: I'm not here to harass you, but I'm saying, Joel, Yeah,
Speaker 9: i'mbout about you.
Speaker 6: Okay, my wife is there. I wouldn't want to know
Speaker 6: if you know her, I know you're.
Speaker 7: Talking about I was like, this is amazing. We sort
Speaker 7: of have talked about this moment, and now we're getting
Speaker 7: to hear it and hear the lies coming from Joel directly,
Speaker 7: hearing him being confronted with what he's done and trying
Speaker 7: to deflect it, and I was just like, this is
Speaker 7: this is incredible.
Speaker 6: That was surprising.
Speaker 7: The recording of the the renter also was surprising, because
Speaker 7: I just love anytime we have in the field, in
Speaker 7: the moment audio that.
Speaker 6: Can really take you to the actual events.
Speaker 7: Because a lot of time and shows like this, especially
Speaker 7: true crime shows, you're looking back on what happened right
Speaker 7: you're asking people.
Speaker 6: What did you do, what did they do? What did
Speaker 6: you say? What did they say? How did this go down?
Speaker 7: And here we got audio where we're we get to
Speaker 7: hear it, We get to hear exactly how it went down.
Speaker 7: And because it's such natural tape, there's so much I
Speaker 7: don't know, texture to it that you feel like you're there.
Speaker 7: I could see it when I was hearing it same
Speaker 7: and that stuff was exciting to me as an audio
Speaker 7: editor because it really helps me to, you know, paint
Speaker 7: the picture with the audio.
Speaker 1: Those two moments are extremely intimate. It is like you're
Speaker 1: kind of dropping in on a moment and thinking should
Speaker 1: I be hearing this? And you're right, like we're asking
Speaker 1: audiences to imagine because it is a lot of its
Speaker 1: past tense, or they're talking about something that has happened.
Speaker 1: You're asking the audience to imagine something that has happened,
Speaker 1: or create a person or an image of a person
Speaker 1: in their head. But you're really giving examples through this
Speaker 1: intimate tape to really showcase exactly what the interaction with
Speaker 1: this person is and was. It's really fascinating and incredible access.
Speaker 1: So it's been a joy working with you on this season,
Speaker 1: and I'm glad that you were hearing things as we
Speaker 1: were producing, and I think that was a really great
Speaker 1: way to work together and get feedback.
Speaker 2: So that was really cool.
Speaker 5: Could I pop in with just one quick story about
Speaker 5: that audio, specifically about that Yeah, of course, we actually
Speaker 5: almost didn't get that audio of the husband of the
Speaker 5: person that Joel had an affair with coming to the
Speaker 5: front door. So what happened when we initially got that
Speaker 5: huge dump of records is there was one corrupted file
Speaker 5: in it that I could not open, and at first
Speaker 5: we were like, oh, this is probably just it had
Speaker 5: a really vague name of just an address, so we
Speaker 5: had no idea what that was.
Speaker 10: But I just had a feeling that it would.
Speaker 5: Somehow matter, and I went back and I poked the
Speaker 5: police department and said, oh.
Speaker 10: I think there's a mistake here. Can we have this?
Speaker 10: And then all of a sudden we get it back.
Speaker 5: And it's this insane in the moment tape. And I
Speaker 5: just remember, you know, getting on the phone right after
Speaker 5: we got that tape with Andrea and Carrie and Mo
Speaker 5: and I really feel like that was a big moment
Speaker 5: for us of this could be a season long story.
Speaker 5: So yeah, it's cool to think about how that tape
Speaker 5: is really integral to how we are where we are now.
Speaker 3: Since we're popping in here, I just want to mention.
Speaker 3: Tanner responded in real time. Yeah, okay. So as soon
Speaker 3: as he listened to these things, we would get these
Speaker 3: wild texts like, oh my god, are you kidding he did?
Speaker 8: What?
Speaker 3: So he really was like a listener, And it was
Speaker 3: another way we kind of knew we were telling a
Speaker 3: good story. Was because editors are sort of notoriously I
Speaker 3: don't want to generalize, but I'm going to generalize, like
Speaker 3: very steady, I have like a kind of a flat affect.
Speaker 3: You know, they work with tape all day. He was
Speaker 3: like so emotive about these things, so we kind of
Speaker 3: knew from his response it was interesting and different.
Speaker 6: I was angry.
Speaker 7: I was like, this guy's a piece of shit, is
Speaker 7: what I was thinking. And it's like every every new episode.
Speaker 7: I was like, Wow, this guy is plumbing the depths
Speaker 7: of human depravity every single episode.
Speaker 6: And I didn't mention.
Speaker 7: There's the tape of the two people who are well,
Speaker 7: the guy who's accusing him and then the woman who's
Speaker 7: sort of helping him cover up the renter who is
Speaker 7: being forced to lie. Joel's making her lie right, And
Speaker 7: later on we have the interviews, the internal affairs investigation
Speaker 7: interviews with Joel.
Speaker 8: Can you describe that for us?
Speaker 9: Just met her through there and then we started talking
Speaker 9: and then share common interests and became friends. But I
Speaker 9: just know it's our first name. I don't know her
Speaker 9: last name or anything like that.
Speaker 8: Well, you recognize the pictures, right, yeah?
Speaker 6: Now I do?
Speaker 8: Yep, Julie. You know how that's looking right?
Speaker 9: Is this the person making allegations.
Speaker 6: We'll get to.
Speaker 8: That, but I mean, if we're trying to establish credibility
Speaker 8: and veracity, I'm showing you a picture. I'm giving you
Speaker 8: a chance to take a look at it. You're telling
Speaker 8: me to my face that you don't recognize him.
Speaker 7: Well, I.
Speaker 9: Was mistaken. I apologize for that. I recognize her because
Speaker 9: I just met her at the prow functions.
Speaker 6: But that's it.
Speaker 7: Where you get to hear him lie through his teeth
Speaker 7: to his colleagues about what's going on. All the while
Speaker 7: we already know that he's lying, and we get to
Speaker 7: hear him waffle back and forth they know he's lying also,
Speaker 7: which was so exciting to hear the just the tension,
Speaker 7: and I had a lot of fun building that moment
Speaker 7: in audio with sound design, these questions that are like
Speaker 7: leading questions, and it's very obvious that the police know
Speaker 7: what's going on and Joel's just not picking up on it.
Speaker 7: And it was so satisfying after all the what the
Speaker 7: fuck moments before that.
Speaker 6: To get to the.
Speaker 7: I mean, it's hard to call it come up, and
Speaker 7: but it's the closest to come up and that we
Speaker 7: were getting at that moment, So that was really exciting too.
Speaker 1: I've gotten a lot of messages from you know, friends
Speaker 1: and family members and listeners saying, you know, Joel's one
Speaker 1: of the most complicated characters out of the all four
Speaker 1: seasons for a lot of people. And I'm not saying
Speaker 1: his crimes are the most egregious, because we know that
Speaker 1: they aren't. But I think a lot of people are
Speaker 1: struggling with Joel because you could know this guy and
Speaker 1: not know meaning it feels so close. Yeah, And I
Speaker 1: really appreciate that messaging because that's actually the point of
Speaker 1: the show, which is like these everyday betrayals that really
Speaker 1: root the you know, the pervasiveness of what's happening I
Speaker 1: think often is overlooked. It's like we can't always have
Speaker 1: these massive, extreme betrayals for.
Speaker 2: People to lean in and listen. It's these really every day.
Speaker 1: Things that make people question, Okay, actually there's something that's
Speaker 1: going on and this is actually close to home. Mo.
Speaker 2: My next question is for you.
Speaker 1: You story edited the season, but you also had the
Speaker 1: privilege of interviewing doctor Jennifer Fried, who was featured in
Speaker 1: the last episode, and you were a huge advocate for
Speaker 1: getting doctor Fried on the show. Can you tell me
Speaker 1: a little bit about why you felt like that was
Speaker 1: important and walk me through you know the importance of
Speaker 1: why we had her on the show.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So with doctor Fried, I hadn't heard of her
Speaker 4: before I started on this show, But after I started
Speaker 4: working on Betrayal, I was interested in the psychological experience
Speaker 4: of betrayal trauma and what it does to a person's brain,
Speaker 4: a nervous system, mostly just so I could better understand
Speaker 4: the subjects we were working with and better tell their stories.
Speaker 4: And so when I was doing that research, doctor Frey
Speaker 4: is the godparent, the godmother of betrayal, the godmother of
Speaker 4: betrayal trauma. I mean, she pioneered the field, coined the
Speaker 4: term betrayal trauma. And then the more I was watching
Speaker 4: interviews with her, listening to interviews with her, and reading
Speaker 4: about her work, I realized, especially betrayal blindness as a
Speaker 4: concept was pretty mind blowing to me, and I think
Speaker 4: really clicked made a lot of sense in what we
Speaker 4: see in the subjects we work with. We get so
Speaker 4: many comments from listeners saying, how could this person not
Speaker 4: have known? And I think there is a lack of
Speaker 4: understanding about how thetriyal blindness really functions and that psychological phenomena.
Speaker 4: So I thought having her explain it would be incredible
Speaker 4: for the show and really educational for our audience because
Speaker 4: I had learned so much researching her. She is really
Speaker 4: the academic, foremost expert on this topic. Without her, a
Speaker 4: lot of the concepts we talk about, you know, we
Speaker 4: wouldn't have this cultural understanding about betrayal trauma, We wouldn't
Speaker 4: have these words without her work. So I was really
Speaker 4: honored and grateful that she agreed to the interview with us.
Speaker 1: You had a really interesting job this season, Vall, Carrie,
Speaker 1: Caitlin and the.
Speaker 2: Editors were in the weeds of the every day You were.
Speaker 1: That larger perspective of keeping the train on the tracks,
Speaker 1: and it's like, are we making it to our destination?
Speaker 1: Tell me a little bit about what episode you found
Speaker 1: the most challenging at the same time rewarding.
Speaker 4: So for me, I couldn't come in blind. Yeah, we've
Speaker 4: talked about before on the Substack. I had worked with
Speaker 4: Caroline potentially making her story for the weekly series, and
Speaker 4: I had done the first interview with her that was
Speaker 4: a pretty long interview, like five hours, and so I
Speaker 4: knew already a lot of the details of the story,
Speaker 4: but seeing it all come together with the tape we
Speaker 4: were able to access from the police department and from
Speaker 4: the current family's life that they gave us the people
Speaker 4: around Caroline and her family, that was really incredible. And
Speaker 4: I think one of the challenges that we hit was
Speaker 4: when we decided to expand the story out to be
Speaker 4: about more officers in the Colorado Springs Police Department that
Speaker 4: were also breaking the code of conduct, And so we
Speaker 4: talked a lot internally about is this the right thing
Speaker 4: to do to zooml We're shifting focus from caroline story,
Speaker 4: but there is a larger pattern here and Joel is
Speaker 4: not a one off case. And I think a lot
Speaker 4: of what we do, the work we do on Betrayal
Speaker 4: is taking a story and then expanding out to a
Speaker 4: larger pattern of behavior of wrongdoing and looking into how
Speaker 4: that plays out in society and how people are able
Speaker 4: to get justice or able to try to repair those wrongs.
Speaker 4: So I think that was one of the biggest challenges,
Speaker 4: but I'm really happy that we did that, so we
Speaker 4: have a larger perspective and scope on the Calado Springs
Speaker 4: Police Department outside of just Joel's employment there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to turn my attention to Caitlin. You've
Speaker 1: been on a few sub stacks, so people kind of
Speaker 1: already know you as our associate producer. I want to
Speaker 1: talk to you specifically about tracking down the artal and
Speaker 1: certain people of access for this season.
Speaker 2: What were some of your roadblocks, what were some of
Speaker 2: your breakthroughs.
Speaker 1: What was it like because you were kind of a
Speaker 1: dog on a bone this season.
Speaker 5: One of the biggest challenges was, like Moe was talking about,
Speaker 5: figuring out, how do we zoom this out without getting
Speaker 5: too far away from that initial story and these issues
Speaker 5: that were really asking people to think about of you know,
Speaker 5: police officers who are betraying the badge, and Claudia Aldrich,
Speaker 5: the whistleblower, was really at the core of all of that,
Speaker 5: and I think gaining her trust and getting her to
Speaker 5: see that we are people who would honor her story
Speaker 5: and the story of so many other former cops and
Speaker 5: employees at CSPD was really difficult.
Speaker 10: But you know, one of the things that doesn't get.
Speaker 5: Featured on the show is that we build real relationships
Speaker 5: with these people, and you know, it's been really nice to, yeah,
Speaker 5: feel like we now have a relationship with Claudia and
Speaker 5: that we've been able to you know, she's connected us
Speaker 5: to so many different sources that we had on the show,
Speaker 5: like a former cop named John Right who really helped
Speaker 5: us to understand the story of Glenn Thomas, and that
Speaker 5: was a really big get for us.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think the biggest challenge of this season was trying
Speaker 1: to get former officers, current officers, current employees, former employees
Speaker 1: of CSPD to participate. And when we were out in
Speaker 1: Colorado Springs, we had people lined up.
Speaker 2: They fell through.
Speaker 1: But while we were on the ground, we had already
Speaker 1: known about this whistleblower network, but it wasn't something that
Speaker 1: we had really dug into yet to get access to.
Speaker 1: And I remember Carrie and I just like looking through
Speaker 1: all of the posts, sitting down with our attorney at
Speaker 1: lunch and being like, look at what's out here, look
Speaker 1: at what's online and being reported and figuring out a
Speaker 1: way to make contact.
Speaker 2: And that was something that you took on.
Speaker 1: And really ran with and create a relationship with Claudia,
Speaker 1: which was incredible. It went from this thing that felt
Speaker 1: far away online to an interview in a matter of months,
Speaker 1: which was amazing and I think had impact and I
Speaker 1: think one of the biggest struggles, and I think you
Speaker 1: guys can all probably like understand, is that there was
Speaker 1: this balance of leaning into misconduct and culture, because I
Speaker 1: do think the culture at CSPG is like the larger discussion, right,
Speaker 1: because it breeds opportunity for misconduct. You know, we kept saying,
Speaker 1: this isn't an example of the most egregious misconduct out there,
Speaker 1: but we were really examining what does a culture do
Speaker 1: and how does culture affect the behavior of people that
Speaker 1: are trying to protect your community. And I think that
Speaker 1: was the larger point of episode six and seven. I
Speaker 1: don't know how that occurs for any of you guys
Speaker 1: or how you feel about that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it was important for us because in
Speaker 4: our previous seasons, especially two and three, we've been able
Speaker 4: to zoom out and talk about child sexual abuse materials
Speaker 4: and how they're prosecuted or those crimes are not prosecuted often. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and then with child sexual abuse in particular boys in
Speaker 4: season three, we were able to zoom out and talk
Speaker 4: to one at six with this one, you know, we
Speaker 4: don't have the same kind of statistics and we can't
Speaker 4: universalize it in the same way but there are people
Speaker 4: like Joel in a lot of police departments, and for me,
Speaker 4: it just comes down to the fact that if I
Speaker 4: would call nine one one in a crisis, I don't
Speaker 4: want someone like that showing up. It's a position of power,
Speaker 4: it really is, and I think it's important to be
Speaker 4: able to talk about those people. So I do think
Speaker 4: that zooming out for episode six and seven, even though
Speaker 4: it was a departure, added something to the larger story.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I also think it's in a lot of true crime media,
Speaker 5: there's a really deep focus on the psychology of perpetrators,
Speaker 5: and I think that's super interesting to find out, you know,
Speaker 5: how does a person become a serial killer, for instance.
Speaker 5: But I think the trap that a lot of true
Speaker 5: crime media gets into with that is if it's just
Speaker 5: about individual psychology, then it's just about these bad apples.
Speaker 10: And I think what we've been able to do with
Speaker 10: this season is.
Speaker 11: Explore how is that psychology coupled with this broader culture
Speaker 11: of misconduct creating these perfect storms and you know, making
Speaker 11: it so that these people who maybe did have histories
Speaker 11: of abuse or you know, maybe naturally were more inclined
Speaker 11: towards lying, were then pushed even further right.
Speaker 7: I just wanted to add, you know, we were talking
Speaker 7: about institutional betrayal in episode ten, and I feel like
Speaker 7: these these.
Speaker 6: Episodes like episode six and seven, where.
Speaker 7: We're broadening out and talking about police misconduct, I feel
Speaker 7: like that's also in the cultural context that we live
Speaker 7: in right now. I think people are very aware, maybe
Speaker 7: more aware than ever, that there are bad apples, but
Speaker 7: they also spoil the whole bunch, as the expression goes,
Speaker 7: and that it is a culture that we all experienced
Speaker 7: and does have an impact on our lives. And so
Speaker 7: hearing this, it's kind of like we're telling the audience
Speaker 7: what they already in some ways, no, but we're giving
Speaker 7: them this view of this very specific department and how
Speaker 7: the sausage of this institutional betrayal is made, which I
Speaker 7: thought was really valuable and also, if not shocking, at
Speaker 7: least validating to the way that a lot of people
Speaker 7: feel and think about their own police department.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's another reason I was so glad we were
Speaker 4: able to interview doctor Fried because Caroline, having put twenty
Speaker 4: years of her life into supporting her husband and believing
Speaker 4: in the police department and his career in the police department,
Speaker 4: bringing him food and making food for the other officers,
Speaker 4: and just opening her home up to be a place
Speaker 4: where they felt welcome. Like the experience of having the
Speaker 4: officers who date employed their turn their backs on her
Speaker 4: and not believe her was something that it's hard to
Speaker 4: understand the magnitude of that betrayal. So having doctor Fried
Speaker 4: be able to talk about institutional betrayal the metaphors she
Speaker 4: used about the second concussion in like a brain injury,
Speaker 4: the first hit on the head being the betrayal, and
Speaker 4: then the second hit of the head being the lack
Speaker 4: of being supported or lack of being believed by an
Speaker 4: institution when you report or when you try to say
Speaker 4: this is what happened. And I think doctor Fried being
Speaker 4: able to contextualize institutional betrayal with real research was really
Speaker 4: helpful to illustrating the point of the lost Caroline experienced totally.
Speaker 1: And it didn't dawn on me until this season. The
Speaker 1: one main thing that will get you fired as a
Speaker 1: police officer is not telling the truth, is lying. And
Speaker 1: we all understand like misconduct and excessive force and things
Speaker 1: like that, but the standard like that's there.
Speaker 2: Is no you get caught lying, you're done.
Speaker 1: That was something that was a new concept for me,
Speaker 1: and I really think that it was an important exploration
Speaker 1: this season of why truth is important, why truth is
Speaker 1: important in our justice system, and how that works, because
Speaker 1: I don't think as a society is just citizens of
Speaker 1: your community, you think about the importance of truthfulness when
Speaker 1: it comes to law enforcement is so important something you
Speaker 1: just kind of take for granted. You see someone in
Speaker 1: a uniform, you assume that they're a respectful person, a
Speaker 1: truthful person. But when you really pressure tests and second guess,
Speaker 1: is that person capable of lying to me? And what
Speaker 1: does that mean for my basic civil liberties? I think
Speaker 1: that it just makes you sit with those questions that
Speaker 1: I think are really important for our society today.
Speaker 6: I think it's worth.
Speaker 7: Noting that Joel got in trouble for lying to his
Speaker 7: own department, to other police officers, not for lying to
Speaker 7: anybody else.
Speaker 6: He didn't. I mean, he can lie to people out
Speaker 6: in public. He can.
Speaker 7: Police officers notoriously are able to lie to the suspects
Speaker 7: and the people they're interrogating.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a really good point, Tanner.
Speaker 4: I want to say with that too, the internal affairs tape,
Speaker 4: like we've said before this is we know this is
Speaker 4: not the most egregious example of Joel's case is not
Speaker 4: the most egregious example of police misconduct, but having an
Speaker 4: internal affairs proceeding with all this tape. One of the
Speaker 4: reasons it's so valuable is because these things are often
Speaker 4: happening extraditiously, even if someone could be charged with a crime. Instead,
Speaker 4: what happens is the internal affairs process, and so it's
Speaker 4: kind of it's almost like the military court systemily, so
Speaker 4: like a military trial, like what is happening inside when
Speaker 4: something goes wrong, and that is not something we see
Speaker 4: because it's not often brought to court unless it's the
Speaker 4: most egregious examples.
Speaker 1: Carrie, We've unpacked a lot of this season, but I'm curious,
Speaker 1: I don't know if we've talked about this yet. What
Speaker 1: was it like for you to build a relationship with Caroline,
Speaker 1: especially since she had gotten so comfortable with Mo was
Speaker 1: something that this season we had never encountered before in
Speaker 1: previous seasons.
Speaker 2: So I'm just curious, what was that like for you?
Speaker 3: A challenge? Yeah, I think one of the things that
Speaker 3: helped was I kind of acknowledged it from the gate,
Speaker 3: So when we were out in Colorado and she's like,
Speaker 3: I love you, but you're not MO. I was like,
Speaker 3: and I said no, no, And you know, she brings
Speaker 3: a set to the table, but I'm like, I'm like
Speaker 3: a fungus. I will grow on you. And that's what
Speaker 3: I think happened, honestly, because you know, when you pour
Speaker 3: your guts out to somebody, and sometimes I think it
Speaker 3: really is easier with a total stranger. When somebody doesn't
Speaker 3: know all the players, they don't know your family, you
Speaker 3: can tell them everything. But she had just done that,
Speaker 3: So me walking into the picture after that was like,
Speaker 3: you know, having said that, she said it like in
Speaker 3: a cheeky way, and I think we over time established
Speaker 3: trust and I would get funny little tidbits or she'd
Speaker 3: have a thought and text me, and that's when I
Speaker 3: know we've kind of rounded that corner. One thing that
Speaker 3: we do as a team we go out wherever they live, Utah, Colorado, wherever,
Speaker 3: and we spend real time. We have meals together, we
Speaker 3: meet family and friends, and I think that has a
Speaker 3: lot to do with how we're able to build rapport
Speaker 3: because you know, we're not in a thirty minute zoom
Speaker 3: call we're together for hours, and people can get a
Speaker 3: better idea of who you are, what your goals are,
Speaker 3: and how you work. So I think that that helped,
Speaker 3: but she did set a high bar for me to
Speaker 3: jump over.
Speaker 4: I have to say, well, you know, when we first
Speaker 4: did that, when I first did the interview with Caroline,
Speaker 4: we didn't know that it would become season four. We
Speaker 4: thought it would be for the weekly series. And so
Speaker 4: once we've got this tape from the police department and
Speaker 4: decided this is a bigger story and got season four
Speaker 4: greenlet as Caroline story. It was also important for me
Speaker 4: to really take a step back and hand do an
Speaker 4: official pass off and says, going to be your producer now,
Speaker 4: knowing that you were going to be there in person
Speaker 4: with Andrea, meeting her in her home, and that that
Speaker 4: relationship would grow over time and deepen in a way
Speaker 4: that I would never had access to because you're there
Speaker 4: in person in her life, and like, it was important
Speaker 4: for me to officially kind of transition it off so
Speaker 4: that there weren't two I wasn't a shadow producer where
Speaker 4: she's calling me also and telling me about something, and
Speaker 4: then I have to tell you she told me something.
Speaker 3: I was like, I've had that happen. I know exactly
Speaker 3: what you're talking about. Yeah, yeah, it could be. I
Speaker 3: mean this is like really behind the curtains, like inside baseball,
Speaker 3: but this is what happens. I mean, you have a
Speaker 3: whole team working on a story and you develop like
Speaker 3: real feelings for people. I still hear from some of
Speaker 3: the women we worked with. These are continuing relationships, which
Speaker 3: which is why one of the reasons I like being
Speaker 3: here because we're we're a little bit more invested.
Speaker 1: And speak to that investment when you're dealing with working
Speaker 1: on something so intense and heavy, that has real impact,
Speaker 1: that can be hard to deal with day in and
Speaker 1: day out for six months, eight months, nine months a year.
Speaker 1: I'm curious for all of you, what boundaries or emotional
Speaker 1: scaffolding do you guys have to help get through some
Speaker 1: of the hard days when you're hearing stuff that are
Speaker 1: really intense.
Speaker 10: I know, for me, I.
Speaker 1: Work out, I do weightlifting, and that's a huge way
Speaker 1: of me like kind of processing the day before. So
Speaker 1: I'm curious for you guys, like, how do you man
Speaker 1: because you feel the stress, you can feel that sadness,
Speaker 1: and I can stay.
Speaker 3: With you I'm really good at compartmentalizing that stuff. There
Speaker 3: have been a few occasions where I leave work. I mean,
Speaker 3: when I leave work, it means like I leave this
Speaker 3: room and go to another room. But I leave work
Speaker 3: and it's still you know, I'm thinking about it and
Speaker 3: thinking about it, I'm dreaming about it. But those those
Speaker 3: instances are few and far between, so I'm able to
Speaker 3: kind of like keep things in a place, and when
Speaker 3: I can't, you know, break out the KIANTI not as
Speaker 3: healthy as your solution, obviously, Tanner, how about you?
Speaker 7: For me, luckily, I have some distance from all of this.
Speaker 7: I'm getting, you know, the pieces of the interview that
Speaker 7: have already been like looked through by the producers. They've
Speaker 7: already picked the best parts, and so I don't have
Speaker 7: to hear maybe the worst elements as well. Shows where
Speaker 7: you're talking about see Sam, or you're talking about gruesome crimes,
Speaker 7: I would say, I don't think I handle it very
Speaker 7: well in the sense that I'm like, everything's fine. But
Speaker 7: you know, I worked on a true crime show where
Speaker 7: I had to start some anxiety medication because I was
Speaker 7: just like getting too paranoid about you know, like my
Speaker 7: own safety. You hear stories sometimes and things happen to
Speaker 7: people and you can't help but extrapolate that to like, well,
Speaker 7: could somebody do that to me?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I had that on there and gone, yeah.
Speaker 7: It's terrifying, especially when there's so much mystery around, like
Speaker 7: what happened to a personally? It really opens up the
Speaker 7: floodgates of your mind to you know, catastrophize.
Speaker 2: I do bring some of my betrayal stuff home with me.
Speaker 1: I mean, Caroline was asking this about when we were
Speaker 1: in Colorado Springs, when we were meeting with her and Suzanne.
Speaker 2: They because I had recently.
Speaker 1: Got engaged, and they were like, does any of this
Speaker 1: effect how you feel about marriage and relationships? And I
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna lie, like there are moments where I'm
Speaker 1: I'm really tough, and even it's any how I approach
Speaker 1: finances and like really big decisions about bringing fully together
Speaker 1: are is impacted by these stories that I've worked on
Speaker 1: because I focus on people who are dealing with the
Speaker 1: aftermath of relationship falling apart, and so I give a
Speaker 1: lot of credit to my fiance. It's hard, so that
Speaker 1: stuff I think I definitely I'm not necessarily conscious of,
Speaker 1: but I'm definitely it comes out.
Speaker 5: It's also so interesting, you know, because we're always kind
Speaker 5: of dealing with the big story on the limited run
Speaker 5: and then dealing with many stories at once on Betrayal Weekly,
Speaker 5: and you never really know what is going to really
Speaker 5: hit for you. I mean, you know, we were working
Speaker 5: on a Betrayal Weekly episode just a few weeks ago,
Speaker 5: where you know, I think all of us had this
Speaker 5: moment of Wow, this is something that's really physically violent
Speaker 5: and is hitting us in really different ways. I feel
Speaker 5: like I often get the question from friends of mine
Speaker 5: of like, are you depressed all the time from all
Speaker 5: this material? And I think one thing that's been really
Speaker 5: helpful for me is just centering a deep sense of gratitude.
Speaker 5: It is so remarkable that every single day, each of
Speaker 5: us are talking to people who have been through some
Speaker 5: of the hardest things that people can to ever go through,
Speaker 5: and they are not only coming out on the other
Speaker 5: side of it for themselves, but they are making the
Speaker 5: choice to help other people. And to be a part
Speaker 5: of helping those people help other people is a huge
Speaker 5: honor and I think.
Speaker 11: Makes our work feel a.
Speaker 10: Lot less heavy to me.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Well, for me, there's really two different emotional experiences,
Speaker 4: and the one that's the most difficult is the interview.
Speaker 4: When I'm in an interview with someone, I really am
Speaker 4: feeling their emotions with them, and sometimes I'm crying with them,
Speaker 4: and you know that that's a really emotional experience that
Speaker 4: I like have to recover from and like take care
Speaker 4: of myself afterwards. But after that happens, you know, when
Speaker 4: we say goodbye, almost always they're thanking me for listening,
Speaker 4: and they're saying how it feels good to be able
Speaker 4: to be heard and believed and to tell their story
Speaker 4: in one sitting, and so that I leave ultimately feeling
Speaker 4: positively about the interaction that we've had, even though they've
Speaker 4: told me about some of the worst things they've ever experienced.
Speaker 4: And then it's that gratitude that comes with the continued
Speaker 4: interaction with them as they're with the storytellers, as they're
Speaker 4: screening the episodes, as we're following up, that they're so
Speaker 4: proud to have shared their story and happy to have
Speaker 4: shared their story. I'm able to focus on that feeling
Speaker 4: and not the feeling or the experience of the worst
Speaker 4: part of their story. But yeah, the larger point is
Speaker 4: that like the interview, I feel one way, and then
Speaker 4: once I'm seeing it in a script, I feel a
Speaker 4: little more clinical about it. It's a little bit it's removed.
Speaker 4: It's like, Okay, this is an episode now, and I'm
Speaker 4: able to separate, compartmentalize those two experiences out and think
Speaker 4: about it from the listener's experience when making the episode
Speaker 4: as opposed to the interpersonal experience I'm having in the interview.
Speaker 2: I have a question for you, Oh you do.
Speaker 4: I was going to ask you Drey about how this
Speaker 4: because this season is different in a few ways from
Speaker 4: the other seasons we've worked on. One of the biggest
Speaker 4: differences is that the person who was doing the betraying
Speaker 4: was never convicted of a crime. So I'm wondering about
Speaker 4: your experience reporting this as well, and how do you
Speaker 4: think about this one differently from previous seasons you've worked on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, because he wasn't convicted of a crime,
Speaker 1: we needed to see what was in the public domain
Speaker 1: and what was out there, and so that's really what started.
Speaker 2: The hunt for the IA files.
Speaker 1: And so once we got all of that reporting and
Speaker 1: understood we have all of these files and this is
Speaker 1: really what's underneath it was kind of like any other
Speaker 1: season because there was so much documentation, so much reporting,
Speaker 1: like the investigation files were there, and this story I
Speaker 1: feel like kind of met me at the right time,
Speaker 1: because I think we all kind of are in a
Speaker 1: place in time where like what is truth and what
Speaker 1: does the truth mean to you? And I think that
Speaker 1: this season really really explores that. Well, before we wrap up,
Speaker 1: we have this is not the end of Betrial.
Speaker 2: We have a lot of news.
Speaker 1: So mo obviously you produce the always on that show's
Speaker 1: coming back. You want to tell the audience when to
Speaker 1: expect to hear the first episode.
Speaker 4: Yes, our first episode of season two of Betrayal Weekly
Speaker 4: comes out Thursday, August seventh, so market calendars subscribe, and
Speaker 4: we are going to be starting with some episodes, some
Speaker 4: incredible episodes, some stories unlike anything.
Speaker 2: I've ever heard.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we really found some storytellers who are able to
Speaker 4: reflect on what they've been through and have overcome things unimaginable.
Speaker 4: So it's been a really rewarding season to start working on.
Speaker 4: We're about six episodes in to our production, so we're
Speaker 4: really excited to start sharing these episodes with y'all in.
Speaker 1: August, and season five is right around the corner, Caitlin,
Speaker 1: you are producing the season, you want to give a
Speaker 1: little bit of a teaser and when we should expect
Speaker 1: that to launch, Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 5: So season five is coming out mid January, and it's
Speaker 5: a story about what happens when the person who is
Speaker 5: caring for you turns out to be the one causing
Speaker 5: you to be suffering. And it's also a story about
Speaker 5: what happens when the law isn't on your side. And
Speaker 5: I think it's very relevant to a lot of global
Speaker 5: stories that are going on right now, and it's coming
Speaker 5: directly from many stories that we've been hearing from listeners
Speaker 5: in our inbox.
Speaker 10: So I think it'll be a very special season.
Speaker 1: Well, I have to say I'm really proud of everyone
Speaker 1: and their work this season, and thanks for all of
Speaker 1: your hard work. It's been kind of a race to
Speaker 1: the finish line. So congrats to everyone, and congrats to
Speaker 1: Matt who is another editor on the show who is
Speaker 1: not here today, but thank you so much, and I've
Speaker 1: loved every second of working on this season with you guys.
Speaker 10: Thank you for.
Speaker 2: Listening to Betrayal season four.
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.
Speaker 2: Also, please be sure.
Speaker 1: To follow us at Glass Podcasts on Instagram for all
Speaker 1: Betrayal content, news and updates. One way to support the
Speaker 1: series is by subscribing to our show on Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 10: Please rate and.
Speaker 1: Review Betrayal five star reviews help us know you appreciate.
Speaker 2: What we do.
Speaker 1: Betrayal is a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of
Speaker 1: Glass Entertainment Group and partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show
Speaker 1: is executive produced by Nancy Glass and Jennifer Fason. Betrayal
Speaker 1: is hosted and produced by me Andrea Gunning, written and
Speaker 1: produced by Kerrie Hartman, also produced by Ben Fetterman. Our
Speaker 1: associate producers are Kaitlyn Golden and Kristen Mercury. Our iHeart
Speaker 1: team is Ali Perry and Jessica Krincheck. Story editing by
Speaker 1: Monique Laboard, Audio editing by mattel Vecchio and Tanner Robbins
Speaker 1: and mixed by mattel Vecchio and special thanks to Caroline
Speaker 1: and her family. Betrayal's theme is composed by Oliver Baines.
Speaker 1: Music library provided by mid Music and for more podcasts
Speaker 1: from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts.