Speaker 1: Hi, It's Andrea and we are re releasing some of
Speaker 1: our past Weekly episodes and there's a good reason why.
Speaker 1: For the last year, I have been working with ABC
Speaker 1: on turning some of your favorite episodes of Betrayal Weekly
Speaker 1: into a TV show. The show is called Betrayal, Secrets
Speaker 1: and Lies, and it airs every Sunday at ten pm
Speaker 1: on ABC. This week, we are re releasing Deb proctor story.
Speaker 1: You may have heard deb story before, or you may
Speaker 1: be new to her story. A little bit about Deb.
Speaker 1: She is an incredible and beautiful spirit. If you talk
Speaker 1: to her, you know instantly she is just a genuine
Speaker 1: good person and a good friend, a true advocate. And
Speaker 1: in my conversations with Deb, sure we talked about her
Speaker 1: experience of betrayal and life, but what I really wanted
Speaker 1: to pick her brain about was golf. She's an avid
Speaker 1: golfer and you hear a little bit about that in
Speaker 1: the episode. I just started learning, so I even sent
Speaker 1: her videos of my swing.
Speaker 2: Why does this matter to Betrayal?
Speaker 1: Well, for me, learning something new is to confront and
Speaker 1: push through failure. It's pushing through discomfort and self criticism.
Speaker 1: It's celebrating the small wins and It's about showing up.
Speaker 1: Deb has overcome so much in her life, from addiction
Speaker 1: to betrayal, and today I hope she is on a
Speaker 1: golf course somewhere celebrating how far she's come. If you
Speaker 1: have not heard this story, I won't give any more away.
Speaker 1: Hearing Deb's story is fascinating, but seeing it unfold is
Speaker 1: a whole new experience. So please be sure to check
Speaker 1: out Betrayal, Secrets and Lies on ABC and Hulu to
Speaker 1: see deb and where her story takes place. Enjoy the episode.
Speaker 2: It was a profound moment. It's the duality of Oh
Speaker 2: my god, what in the world? Who is this cruel?
Speaker 2: Who can pull this off? Whose friends pull it off?
Speaker 2: How do you fabricate the details like that?
Speaker 1: I'm Andrea Gunning and this is Betrayal, a show about
Speaker 1: the people we trust the most and the deceptions that
Speaker 1: change everything.
Speaker 2: My real name is Deborah, but typically everyone calls me Dad.
Speaker 1: Deb Proctor grew up on the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma.
Speaker 1: She recently retired from her role as the senior director
Speaker 1: of her tribe's domestic violence program, and before that, she
Speaker 1: spent her entire career as a nurse.
Speaker 2: After being an rin well now it's been forty eight
Speaker 2: and a half years.
Speaker 1: Like a lot of people in the medical profession, she
Speaker 1: developed a keen sense for when someone is lying.
Speaker 2: When you mention bullshit detectors, I can spot them a
Speaker 2: football field away or further.
Speaker 1: Deb is Cherokee and proud of her Native American heritage.
Speaker 2: My grandmother who lived until she was ninety nine years old.
Speaker 2: She is actually our family's original in rolly, which means
Speaker 2: she is on the Dows Roll.
Speaker 1: The DAWs Roll was a list compiled by the US
Speaker 1: government in the late eighteen hundreds and early nineteen hundreds.
Speaker 1: It named about one hundred thousand Native Americans who were
Speaker 1: allotted land.
Speaker 2: Which was pretty unusual to have an original roley in
Speaker 2: your life.
Speaker 1: For most of it growing up, Deb's grandmother was a
Speaker 1: constant presence and a source of inspiration.
Speaker 2: I think I thought a lot of my propter will
Speaker 2: and strength and courage from her. She was born before
Speaker 2: statehood and she was still stacking her own wood when
Speaker 2: she was in her early nineties. She was a survivor
Speaker 2: of many many situations in her life.
Speaker 1: Her grandmother experienced a lot of violence firsthand. Deb's father
Speaker 1: did too. As a child his own father was murdered
Speaker 1: in front of him.
Speaker 2: Those life events are what gives the background and the
Speaker 2: experience to what we would call intergenerational trauma or historical trauma.
Speaker 1: She saw the impact of that on her family. There
Speaker 1: was alcoholism and emotional turmoil, and when she was young,
Speaker 1: Deb struggled to process it.
Speaker 2: When you're a very sensitive nature child, your little heart's
Speaker 2: open and you're intuitive, you pick up that energy.
Speaker 1: From a young age. She experienced violence and abuse herself.
Speaker 2: The violence I experienced, I truly am my heart know
Speaker 2: that it's as a result of those that could not heal.
Speaker 1: Deb believes her father's unresolved trauma led him to become
Speaker 1: a civil servant.
Speaker 2: He taught me a lot about community service. He would
Speaker 2: be in his vehicle driving through the rural areas seeing
Speaker 2: what the natives needed, and ultimately he was a councilman
Speaker 2: for their tribe, served many many years.
Speaker 1: Deb grew up quickly in more ways than one. In fact,
Speaker 1: on her sixteenth birthday, her high school boyfriend surprised her.
Speaker 2: They had a birthday party for me and he asked
Speaker 2: me to marry him and I accepted. That was the
Speaker 2: day I turned sixteen.
Speaker 1: But her engagement didn't just strapped her from prioritizing education.
Speaker 1: Her father insisted that she earn an advanced degree.
Speaker 2: He was the one in the family who said you
Speaker 2: must have an education, and so at age seventeen, I
Speaker 2: did start college and I finished at nineteen with my
Speaker 2: first RN degree. That was as a result to my
Speaker 2: dad pushing me.
Speaker 1: Before she even had a chance to know herself, she
Speaker 1: was married and working as a full time nurse.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm running the hospital as a baby nurse.
Speaker 2: I'd probably turn twenty maybe twenty one by then. It
Speaker 2: was tough, but I spent a good part of my
Speaker 2: energy on trying to achieve perfection.
Speaker 1: Deb and her husband shared a very similar upbringing.
Speaker 2: He came from a violent background, very similar to mine,
Speaker 2: and so we just went together like peanut, butter and jelly.
Speaker 1: They had two sons together, but a few years into marriage,
Speaker 1: her husband's behavior became a problem.
Speaker 2: He struggled with drugs and drinking, and he had violent tendencies.
Speaker 2: It was really hard.
Speaker 1: She eventually left her husband and resolved to end the
Speaker 1: cycle of violence to make a safe and stable environment
Speaker 1: for her and her two sons.
Speaker 2: And so for many years I remained single, and just
Speaker 2: spent time with myself and the boys. And so for
Speaker 2: the next few years after we divorced, I sought to understand.
Speaker 2: I bought books, I joined book club, anything on self understanding.
Speaker 1: She started going to therapy and joined support groups for
Speaker 1: families impacted by alcoholism. She was creating a better life
Speaker 1: for herself and for her sons. When her sons became teenagers,
Speaker 1: she looked around and realized, I did.
Speaker 2: Want to partner in live. I know someone to enjoy life,
Speaker 2: that I meant something too, that I'm mad or too.
Speaker 1: She was forty one and felt ready to explore a
Speaker 1: new partnership, so she made an online dating profile. This
Speaker 1: was nineteen ninety seven, back when online dating was a
Speaker 1: novel concept.
Speaker 2: Yeah this egg bumble this a yeah, this is none
Speaker 2: of that stuff.
Speaker 1: One man piqued her interest. His name was Jeff Walton.
Speaker 2: His profile was just romantic. It was something like I'm
Speaker 2: looking for my gwinevere.
Speaker 1: Jeff said he wanted to treat his next partner like
Speaker 1: a queen. Deb wrote him an email. He lived a
Speaker 1: couple states away in Kentucky, but their conversation flowed easily,
Speaker 1: and Deb quickly discovered they shared the same interests. They
Speaker 1: both loved golf, and Jeff wanted to hear more about
Speaker 1: Deb's Cherokee culture.
Speaker 2: You know, the music, a spiritual journey. He loved the
Speaker 2: Native America spiritual practices. And when I talked to him,
Speaker 2: I was just smitten with him.
Speaker 1: She looked forward to his phone calls and emails.
Speaker 2: I saved all of that. I printed everything. I had
Speaker 2: a huge three inch purple binder with all of our exchanges.
Speaker 1: As they got closer, she got to know more about
Speaker 1: his backstory.
Speaker 2: He was born in Alaska and moved to Canada.
Speaker 1: He was a dual citizen of Canada and the United States,
Speaker 1: and he had a complicated relationship with his biological family.
Speaker 2: He didn't know his real dad. His stepdad was very violent,
Speaker 2: and he would share stories like, you know, his stepdad
Speaker 2: murdered the family poodle in front of his sister and
Speaker 2: his mom and him, and I mean it was horrible stories.
Speaker 1: Deb had seen her share of violence as well well.
Speaker 1: She understood what it was like, so they bonded over
Speaker 1: their difficult childhoods. Jeff's family was still in Canada, but
Speaker 1: they'd fallen out of touch. He moved to New Orleans
Speaker 1: as a young man, and along the way he picked
Speaker 1: up the accent.
Speaker 2: So when he would talk to me on the phone,
Speaker 2: he would have that you know dialect. He would say hello,
Speaker 2: Darlin and a dory. Yeah, I can't do it. But
Speaker 2: it was definitely New Orleans.
Speaker 1: Jeff's ex wife and adult son still lived in New Orleans,
Speaker 1: but after his divorce, he'd taken a job in Kentucky.
Speaker 2: He was a project manager for a big construction company
Speaker 2: that you know, worked on Toyota plants, that worked on
Speaker 2: the University of Kentucky, that had done all this great work.
Speaker 1: Jeff was the kind of person who'd lived a million
Speaker 1: lives in one.
Speaker 2: He just fascinated me. He was a pilot and played
Speaker 2: football for Woody Hayes, oh State, and was phenomenal.
Speaker 1: Step could really see herself with this guy.
Speaker 2: We're gonna embark upon this journey together. We love music,
Speaker 2: we love golf, We're both seekers. I just was so
Speaker 2: excited about meeting this man.
Speaker 1: After a year of talking, they decided to finally meet
Speaker 1: each other in person. Jeff flew to Oklahoma. When he
Speaker 1: arrived at the airport, she was waiting for him with
Speaker 1: a gift.
Speaker 2: I'd had a traditional here a medicine man gone to
Speaker 2: him and asked him to be a feather. There was
Speaker 2: a song by Robbie Robertson and the name of it
Speaker 2: was gold and Feather, Give my love a golden feather,
Speaker 2: and if you would look it up, it's so that
Speaker 2: I never lose my way home. And I thought, what
Speaker 2: a beautiful expression of love for this new man in
Speaker 2: my life to give him a feather, because he loves
Speaker 2: that Native American song so much. So I met him
Speaker 2: at the plane with that and I said, here's so
Speaker 2: you can always find your way home.
Speaker 1: And Jeff had come with the surprise of his own.
Speaker 2: As soon as he got off the plane and he
Speaker 2: was walking toward me, it seemed like his voice was shaking,
Speaker 2: and he said, you will marry me, won't you. You're
Speaker 2: gonna marry me right. You are marrying me right.
Speaker 1: That was Jeff's marriage proposal.
Speaker 2: And I was like, well, of course, of course, yes.
Speaker 1: The weekend could not have gone better. Jeff wanted to
Speaker 1: get to know her world, you know.
Speaker 2: I drove around, showed ing the rural area, my history,
Speaker 2: some of the culture where I were. We went out
Speaker 2: to my golf course. I introduced him to a lot
Speaker 2: of my friends met the family. It was just a
Speaker 2: really good weekend. I just loved him. Jeff loved him.
Speaker 1: They started making arrangements for him to move to Oklahoma.
Speaker 2: And I'm a planner and an organizer in every aspect
Speaker 2: in my life. So shoot, the next thing, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm getting busy. I'm helping him find jobs. He's getting
Speaker 2: his resumeating. Of course, we're still using facts as then,
Speaker 2: and he would send things and I would write cover
Speaker 2: letters for him to help him get relocated.
Speaker 1: A few months later, Jeff moved in. They spent the
Speaker 1: next year planning a small family wedding in the Ozarks.
Speaker 2: We married on April twenty third, two thousand.
Speaker 1: It was the anniversary of the day they met in person.
Speaker 1: Deb's youngest son walked her down the aisle, and Jeff's son,
Speaker 1: Little Jeff, flew in to support his dad. It was
Speaker 1: a true merging of their lives.
Speaker 2: I really thought it was meant to be.
Speaker 1: They planned their first trip together as newlyweds, a golf
Speaker 1: trip with Deb's group of friends. Deb had been golfing
Speaker 1: for her entire life. Every year she and her friends
Speaker 1: traveled the country to play. Jeff was eager to join.
Speaker 1: He'd been an avid golfer when he was younger, but
Speaker 1: he hadn't played in years.
Speaker 2: So he lost these golf clubs. Well, heck, you know,
Speaker 2: I gotta go buying golf clubs, you know, because he's
Speaker 2: got to have golf clubs if for a month play
Speaker 2: So then he needed lessons because he just hadn't got
Speaker 2: to play in a while. He said, needed to brush up.
Speaker 1: But on their first golf trip with her friends.
Speaker 2: Once we got all scores in and everything, the winner
Speaker 2: was him, and I was like, well, golly, eat, great job.
Speaker 1: But Deb's friends were standoffish with Jeff about his win,
Speaker 1: and one of her friends was quick to point out.
Speaker 2: A real golfer is not going to leave their clubs behind.
Speaker 2: It makes sense.
Speaker 1: Her friends had never acted like this before. She didn't
Speaker 1: know what happened, and neither did Jeff. But after that,
Speaker 1: they weren't invited on any more golf trips.
Speaker 2: I felt like everybody was mistreating him.
Speaker 1: A year into their marriage, Jeff was still struggling to
Speaker 1: find the right job in Oklahoma. One day when Deb
Speaker 1: was helping him with an application.
Speaker 2: Well, I sound an old resume, and on this particular
Speaker 2: resume it says Vietnam veteran.
Speaker 1: I was like, my god, he'd never told her he
Speaker 1: was a veteran. But Deb had a lot of experience
Speaker 1: with the VA. While getting her advanced nursing degree, she
Speaker 1: worked on a program at the VA that specifically studied
Speaker 1: Vietnam veterans with PTSD.
Speaker 2: I'm like, you never told me you were a veteran.
Speaker 2: You never told me you were in the Vietnam War.
Speaker 2: That is a significant event in life. Was flabbergasted it
Speaker 2: had never come up, and he said, well, I don't
Speaker 2: like to talk about it. Deb, I use it on
Speaker 2: my resumes because you know that ought to tell you something.
Speaker 2: I was like, but she should have told me. I
Speaker 2: should never found out here.
Speaker 1: Dev felt like he needed to talk about it, even
Speaker 1: if he didn't want to. She'd had first hand experience
Speaker 1: with veterans and PTSD.
Speaker 2: And so over the course of time, he began to
Speaker 2: tell me what happened. It was an elaborate story, intricate details.
Speaker 1: As an eighteen year old, he'd been in the Special
Speaker 1: Forces in Vietnam. One night, he caught his senior officers
Speaker 1: using drugs. Fearing he would turn them in, the officers
Speaker 1: allowed Jeff to be captured. He was held as a
Speaker 1: prisoner of war and for months he was.
Speaker 2: Tortured and they bust at his feet with the butt
Speaker 2: of a gun so that he couldn't walk. But he
Speaker 2: got out. He escaped and he made it back to
Speaker 2: the US forces by following the path of a stream,
Speaker 2: and it was so difficult because his feet were busted up.
Speaker 1: He was taken to a veteran's hospital.
Speaker 2: He had to have metal put in his feet because
Speaker 2: they were broken and if we flew anywhere, it would
Speaker 2: trigger the metal alarms as you go in.
Speaker 1: He recovered physically and was discharged, but psychologically he was scarred.
Speaker 2: The trauma was so bad. He said, it was just
Speaker 2: so awful that sometimes he would just get in the
Speaker 2: closet and he would just hide.
Speaker 1: Deb was worried about his mental health, especially because his
Speaker 1: support system was then he was in a new place
Speaker 1: and wasn't in touch with his biological family, so Deb
Speaker 1: was happy when his siblings reached out to reconnect. They
Speaker 1: invited him back to Canada.
Speaker 2: His siblings had said that his mother's eightieth birthday party
Speaker 2: was coming up and they wanted him to come, and
Speaker 2: he talked to him about it, and I said, well,
Speaker 2: we've got to I've never met any of your family,
Speaker 2: and absolutely.
Speaker 1: A few months later, they flew to Alberta to meet
Speaker 1: his family. They hadn't seen Jeff in decades. They were
Speaker 1: elated to welcome him home and Deb never thought you'd
Speaker 1: get the chance to meet his siblings.
Speaker 2: I finally got to meet his family. I was just
Speaker 2: so excited to be there and to meet them. And
Speaker 2: you know, at one of the brother's houses, we might
Speaker 2: play games and just chat and get to annoy each other.
Speaker 1: Deb fit right in.
Speaker 2: We didn't have any serious, meaningful conversations about lie for anything.
Speaker 2: We were just doing a friendly, cordial meet the family thing.
Speaker 2: He was up be, everyone was up b. It was
Speaker 2: a good trip.
Speaker 1: It was a good trip. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
Speaker 1: Deb didn't know it at the time, but everyone there
Speaker 1: was in on a secret, everyone except for her Her husband.
Speaker 1: Jeff wasn't who he said he was. In fact, everyone
Speaker 1: and his family knew Jeff by a different name.
Speaker 2: Come to find out, he met his siblings at the
Speaker 2: door and told him I'm going by Jeff Wall now.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you later.
Speaker 1: Deb and her husband went to Canada to reconnect with
Speaker 1: as estranged family, and to her surprise, the trip was
Speaker 1: a success. Meeting his family brought the two of them closer.
Speaker 1: But one day after they returned from their trip, Jeff
Speaker 1: collapsed on the golf course.
Speaker 2: And a friend of ours founding setting up against a
Speaker 2: tree and wanted him to let him take him into
Speaker 2: the hospital, and he said, no, just take me to
Speaker 2: my car, and so he did that. He got in
Speaker 2: his car and he drove home.
Speaker 1: Deb met him at their house and forced him to
Speaker 1: go to the hospital. Jeff had suffered a major heart attack.
Speaker 1: It would require ongoing care, but Jeff still had it
Speaker 1: nailed down a steady job, so the couple needed help
Speaker 1: covering his medical expenses. Deb had worked at the VA
Speaker 1: years ago and insisted it was their best resource.
Speaker 2: And he absolutely said, I will not go. I don't
Speaker 2: trust the government. I'm not going. And I said, well,
Speaker 2: that's bullshit. We're going broke. We've got to get your
Speaker 2: health care.
Speaker 1: That's when Jeff explained the VA what didn't take him.
Speaker 2: He said, they don't even have a list of me
Speaker 2: because I was dishonorably discharged because I reported the officers.
Speaker 2: They won't even have me on the well. Anything to
Speaker 2: do with VA, and I said, that's bullshit. You were
Speaker 2: a soldier, you were captured, and he said, I won't go.
Speaker 2: He got up and he never talked about it again.
Speaker 2: In that moment, I was like, that is weird.
Speaker 1: His explanation just didn't add up. Deb even considered hiring
Speaker 1: someone to look into Jeff's background.
Speaker 2: I wonder if I need to get a private investigator
Speaker 2: or something. And I logged on to the internet and
Speaker 2: then I was like, God, I don't have any money
Speaker 2: to get a private detective.
Speaker 1: She didn't have the money or the time to hire
Speaker 1: a PI. Shortly after Jeff's heart attack, he had a stroke.
Speaker 1: Then his memory began to falter all the while he
Speaker 1: was refusing to go to the VA. It financially strained
Speaker 1: the family, and Deb was at a loss.
Speaker 2: I had begun to say, I do not know what
Speaker 2: is wrong with my life. How am I going to
Speaker 2: get this guy health care? He's got to have healthcare.
Speaker 1: Deb was his primary caretaker on top of her full
Speaker 1: time nursing job. It was overwhelming.
Speaker 2: I begin to drink, and then I drank heavily, and
Speaker 2: then it was uncontrollably.
Speaker 1: Alcohol became an escape from her marriage and its problems.
Speaker 2: When I started drinking, I didn't have to be confused
Speaker 2: anymore because my brain was numb.
Speaker 1: Spent so many years taking care of other people that
Speaker 1: she neglected herself.
Speaker 2: As the person that was going to alan on from
Speaker 2: the mid eighties, taken family, taking coworkers, taking friends to
Speaker 2: aa NA rehab. I was taken everybody to get help,
Speaker 2: but myself had, I guess, reached just a hard stop
Speaker 2: where I couldn't deal with it.
Speaker 1: Deb had just turned fifty and had been with Jeff
Speaker 1: for a decade, but life with him was becoming harder
Speaker 1: year after year. At first he failed to bring in
Speaker 1: a steady income, Then when he became sick, he refused
Speaker 1: resources for affordable health care. Deb turned to booze for
Speaker 1: the stress. But one day, after a long night of drinking,
Speaker 1: she found herself too shaky to put the golf ball
Speaker 1: on the tee. She checked herself into a thirty day rehab.
Speaker 2: Best move I ever made. I'm not going to tell
Speaker 2: you it was pretty. It was ugly, but there's always
Speaker 2: been a driving force within me to rise above.
Speaker 1: Being alone. In rehab give her a lot of clarity,
Speaker 1: and with that clarity came questions, specifically about Jeff. When
Speaker 1: she left rehab, she looked at Jeff's behavior with a
Speaker 1: new set of eyes.
Speaker 2: I begin to really observe he was strange. Something was
Speaker 2: not right, not right.
Speaker 1: She wasn't ready to leave the marriage. Her focus was
Speaker 1: on her new sobriety, but she did come up with
Speaker 1: a plan to get some answers out of Jeff. She
Speaker 1: gave him an assignment, and.
Speaker 2: I began to say to him, Jeff, every day while
Speaker 2: I'm at work, I want you to work on your
Speaker 2: life story because I don't understand it. You told me
Speaker 2: you were born in Alaska and you moved to Canada,
Speaker 2: but I don't know where you even went to school.
Speaker 2: I don't even know when you moved to Canon. If
Speaker 2: something happens, I'm going to be honest with you. I
Speaker 2: can't even write an obituary.
Speaker 1: She thought it would be a good exercise for both
Speaker 1: of them, and she hoped it could help her understand
Speaker 1: why he was the way he was.
Speaker 2: And so every day I would come home and I
Speaker 2: would we'll share your story with me. Oh, I couldn't
Speaker 2: work on it today.
Speaker 1: After his stroke, Jeff's memory was worse than ever.
Speaker 2: He began to claim that he just didn't have much
Speaker 2: of a memory, but the neurologist at the time of
Speaker 2: his stroke had already advised me that the stroke was
Speaker 2: not going to impact his memory. Then he wanted me
Speaker 2: to get in checked from possible early dementia.
Speaker 1: He needed more care than she could provide a home,
Speaker 1: so she applied for him to be in a funded
Speaker 1: outpatient care facility and he was accepted.
Speaker 2: It's a wonderful program that where you stay in your home,
Speaker 2: but they basically have a center that's opened during the
Speaker 2: day and there's activities and transportation. There's clinic on side,
Speaker 2: everything that you could need, and if you need something outside,
Speaker 2: they'll take you.
Speaker 1: He started going to the center every day.
Speaker 2: That was until the program called me and they said,
Speaker 2: have you talked to Jeff? Because nobody confining he's gone.
Speaker 1: Deb was at work. She didn't know where he was.
Speaker 1: With his memory issues, she worried he could have gotten lost,
Speaker 1: so they called the police come to find out.
Speaker 2: He had left the group and the care team to
Speaker 2: go to the bank.
Speaker 1: When Deb got there, Jeff seemed confused about what was happening.
Speaker 1: The whole situation confirmed that he really needed this facility.
Speaker 1: His memory must be worse than she thought. But shortly
Speaker 1: after Jeff's incident at the bank, Deb received another phone call.
Speaker 1: Only this one would change her life forever.
Speaker 2: It was a number I didn't recognizing. I typically didn't
Speaker 2: pick those up in my office.
Speaker 1: It was an international call, but Deb had a strange
Speaker 1: feeling when she picked up. There was a police officer
Speaker 1: on the other line.
Speaker 2: And I was like, what is this about.
Speaker 1: The officer was Canadian and he was investigating a cold
Speaker 1: case from thirty years ago.
Speaker 2: That's when he began to say that they were looking
Speaker 2: for ron Stan and they had believed that they've trackeding
Speaker 2: down through social media.
Speaker 1: But Deb didn't know a Ronstan. The officer continued, explaining
Speaker 1: that Canadian police had been looking for a man named
Speaker 1: ron Stan for over thirty years. He disappeared during a fire.
Speaker 2: There was a fire in his barn at night, and
Speaker 2: initially he was presumed to have been in that fire,
Speaker 2: and he had left a wife and another child.
Speaker 1: Deb's blood ran cold. She knew what the officer was
Speaker 1: about to say before he said it. The man she
Speaker 1: was married to, who she knew as Jeff Walton.
Speaker 2: Was actually the complete fraud. He was ron Stan, who
Speaker 2: was this missing person?
Speaker 1: Here's the thing about Ron Stan. He was originally declared dead,
Speaker 1: but in reality he'd been on the run ever since
Speaker 1: that barnfire. Eleven years into her marriage, Deb Proctor got
Speaker 1: a phone call out of the blue from a Canadian
Speaker 1: police officer. They were looking for Ron Stan, a Canadian
Speaker 1: man who'd been missing and later declared dead after an
Speaker 1: arson fire in nineteen seventy seven, and they believed they'd
Speaker 1: found him in the United States. He was hiding out
Speaker 1: in a rural part of the Cherokee Nation, using the
Speaker 1: name Jeff Walton. When the police explained this to.
Speaker 2: Deb, initially, I thought it was perhaps just a cruel joke, so.
Speaker 1: She asked the officer for proof, for details.
Speaker 2: The more I pushed for dates, times, names, locations, the
Speaker 2: more I realized, oh Ugh.
Speaker 1: She didn't see much on the phone. She just listened,
Speaker 1: writing down everything the police told.
Speaker 2: Her, every detail, dates, times, information. I still have that notepad.
Speaker 1: Canadian officials wanted to speak to Jeff or Ron directly.
Speaker 1: Deb explained that he was in a care facility during
Speaker 1: the day because of his memory problems. She confirmed their
Speaker 1: home address, thanked the officer and hung up the phone
Speaker 1: in disbelief.
Speaker 2: I was sitting there when there was a nurse that
Speaker 2: looked at me from an office door and she said,
Speaker 2: are you okay. I remember saying I don't know. I've
Speaker 2: just had the most bizarre phone call. So I went
Speaker 2: to talk to my director of nursing and she said,
Speaker 2: get out of here. What in the world.
Speaker 1: She debated whether this phone call was real, if the
Speaker 1: person on the phone was even a police officer. A
Speaker 1: coworker who was afraid for Deb suggested another possibility, he.
Speaker 2: Probably is in witness protection and you just blew it,
Speaker 2: so you're probably not safe, nor is he. And they said,
Speaker 2: we'll go with you to the Cherokee Nation Marshals and
Speaker 2: we will get to the bottom of this.
Speaker 1: So Deb went straight there. She wanted to know if
Speaker 1: the call she'd received was real or if Jeff could
Speaker 1: be in witness protection. An investigator took Deb's concern seriously
Speaker 1: and started making calls.
Speaker 2: I gave her the sale number, the badge number, and
Speaker 2: everything from the officer that called. And she did call,
Speaker 2: and she confirmed every last detail.
Speaker 1: She verified that Jeff Walton didn't exist. Her husband of
Speaker 1: eleven years was a missing person, a man named Ronald
Speaker 1: stan who'd faked his death in an arson fire and
Speaker 1: had been on the run for thirty years.
Speaker 2: I was just heartsick, gut sick, heartsick, my whole body responded,
Speaker 2: and all I could think of was, who are you?
Speaker 2: How could you do this?
Speaker 1: When Ronald stan disappeared from his farm in rural Ontario
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy seven, he abandoned his wife and two
Speaker 1: young sons. In order to escape. He had lit his
Speaker 1: barn on fire, killing all the animals. His family watched
Speaker 1: the blaze, helpless, fearing that ron was trapped in sand.
Speaker 2: That poor wife and those two sons that he walked
Speaker 2: away from in this barn far in the middle of
Speaker 2: the night. What horror, what pain, what trauma that they
Speaker 2: must have endured thinking that they were watching him burn
Speaker 2: up in front of their eyes.
Speaker 1: Why he'd faked his death. Deb wouldn't find out until
Speaker 1: much later. In that moment, she just knew she couldn't
Speaker 1: go home, not to the house she shared with him.
Speaker 1: He was a criminal, a fraud, a total stranger. So
Speaker 1: the Cherokee Marshals helped her come up with an immediate plan.
Speaker 2: Go to an attorney, go to the bank, and get protection.
Speaker 2: So that's what I did.
Speaker 1: She made an appointment with a divorce attorney for the
Speaker 1: following day, and a friend offered to let deb stay
Speaker 1: at her place while she figured out her next move.
Speaker 2: I just was in a state of robot just trying
Speaker 2: to put one foot in front of the other and
Speaker 2: then formulate a plan on how to tell the family.
Speaker 1: She met with her sons to break the news, and
Speaker 1: with all of their support, she called Jeff's son, the
Speaker 1: one he'd had in America after he went on the run.
Speaker 1: After all, he was the only child Deb knew about.
Speaker 2: I loved that boy. He was my son too, you know,
Speaker 2: he was a third son. So my heart hurt for him,
Speaker 2: just like it did for my boys.
Speaker 1: To tell him, everyone in the family called him little Jeff.
Speaker 1: He was named after his father, or rather his father's alias.
Speaker 2: And his response was, you know, silent initially as you
Speaker 2: could imagine, and then just struggling. We both needed some
Speaker 2: time to just deal.
Speaker 1: The one person she didn't want to speak with was Jeff.
Speaker 2: I really did not have any communication with him whatsoever.
Speaker 2: I just had nothing to say.
Speaker 1: When the authorities finally got a hold of Jeff, they
Speaker 1: questioned him and asked to see his proof of identity.
Speaker 2: He admitted to everything.
Speaker 1: In fact, he seemed amused. He made a joke to
Speaker 1: police officers asking what took them so long? Because the
Speaker 1: arson had happened so long ago, the statute of limitations
Speaker 1: had expired in Canada, and authorities in the US couldn't
Speaker 1: charge him either.
Speaker 2: There was no charges to be made here. You know
Speaker 2: he's a scam, but there's no charges that I could file.
Speaker 1: The only legal action Deb could take was filing for divorce.
Speaker 2: The domestic Violence Service of the tribe helped me and
Speaker 2: just took the papers, and when they served in the papers,
Speaker 2: he just signed it. He didn't even question.
Speaker 1: The news got wind of the story and it was
Speaker 1: a media frenzy.
Speaker 2: Media showed up some Canada and some Oklahoma from the UK.
Speaker 2: I just didn't have any peace. I could rarely go home.
Speaker 2: My phone ranked constantly. I was just completely overwhelmed.
Speaker 1: Debs niece drafted a statement to send to the press
Speaker 1: on her behalf, and Deb kept tabs on the news.
Speaker 1: That's how she learned Jeff's real life story, the one
Speaker 1: he claimed he couldn't remember. A journalist with the Toronto
Speaker 1: Star had been reporting on it. Through their investigation, they
Speaker 1: uncovered a possible motivation for why he faked his death.
Speaker 2: Evidently, he was messing with young college girls and he
Speaker 2: was getting ready to get in trouble.
Speaker 1: At the time of the arson, Ron was working at
Speaker 1: a college in Canada. He was having a relationship with
Speaker 1: a local girl who was much younger. The day he
Speaker 1: went missing, it seemed this information was about to be revealed.
Speaker 1: Not clear how old the girl was, but the threat
Speaker 1: of being discovered prompted him to go on the run
Speaker 1: for three decades. Deb also learned how he pulled it off.
Speaker 2: When he left Canada in the fire in Cana, New Orleans,
Speaker 2: he said, I've got to find a woman with money.
Speaker 1: He did. In fact, he had two other marriages he'd
Speaker 1: never told deb about. And after he found a woman
Speaker 1: with money, he needed papers to validate his new identity.
Speaker 2: He got a social Security from somebody that had died
Speaker 2: in the seventies, a girl, so he took over her
Speaker 2: social security.
Speaker 1: He used his stolen identity to find work and even
Speaker 1: collect social Security benefits.
Speaker 2: That's how he worked in the decades that he came
Speaker 2: to the United States. He used this social security and
Speaker 2: false name. I don't know how anybody pulls this off.
Speaker 2: It's so elaborate.
Speaker 1: When the story broke, himself spoke to the media about
Speaker 1: how and why he faked his death, and he seemed
Speaker 1: to revel in it.
Speaker 2: He sought that attention. He wanted to be a star,
Speaker 2: he said.
Speaker 1: He chose the name Jeff because it was the name
Speaker 1: of his infant son he abandoned in Canada, and the
Speaker 1: last name Walton was inspired by the TV show The Waltons.
Speaker 1: It sounded like a classic American last name. As for
Speaker 1: the documents he used to marry deb they appeared to
Speaker 1: be forged.
Speaker 2: I had seen his birth certificate and I still have it.
Speaker 2: But when you look there are things that have been changed.
Speaker 1: Like the arson. Too much time had passed for him
Speaker 1: to be charged in the US with identity fraud. And
Speaker 1: what about his elaborate stories like being a prisoner of
Speaker 1: war in Vietnam.
Speaker 2: It's all made up.
Speaker 1: That's why he was so resistant to using the VA.
Speaker 1: He never fought in the Vietnam War. He wasn't even
Speaker 1: an American citizen. The pow story, well, he ripped those
Speaker 1: details straight out of a movie called Platoon starring Charlie
Speaker 1: Sheen and his football career at Ohio State with Woody Hayes.
Speaker 2: There was never anybody that played football, so Woody Hayes
Speaker 2: by his name.
Speaker 1: Ever, Deb was left wondering if anything he'd ever told
Speaker 1: her was true. Today, she doubts if he'd even swung
Speaker 1: a golf club before she met him. After all his
Speaker 1: lies were exposed, one of Deb's friends finally came clean
Speaker 1: about something. Remember the golf trip where Deb's friends iced
Speaker 1: them out. Well, back then, the group had discovered that.
Speaker 2: He cheated all day. He never countsy strokes, and when
Speaker 2: he was out of bounds, he never counted it.
Speaker 1: He cheated and basically stole a pot of money from
Speaker 1: Deb's friends. That's why they were never invited to play
Speaker 1: with the group again. Even his memory issues were alie.
Speaker 1: When he talked to the press after the fact, he
Speaker 1: seemed to remember every detail just fine. So what was
Speaker 1: really going on that day when he went missing from
Speaker 1: the facility and was found at the bank. Deb suspects
Speaker 1: he was planning an escape. She also wonders if he
Speaker 1: targeted her because she lives in a rural part of
Speaker 1: the Cherokee Nation.
Speaker 2: It's very possible because look, this is rule, this is
Speaker 2: a dead end road. Maybe he did think, Hey, I
Speaker 2: can get out in the woods and rule Oklahoma and
Speaker 2: continue the hide.
Speaker 1: One of the most baffling aspects of his deception is
Speaker 1: that visit to Canada a few years into their marriage.
Speaker 1: Back then, the reunion seemed completely normal, but behind the scenes,
Speaker 1: Jeff had asked all of his family members to use
Speaker 1: his new name instead of calling him Ron. They said
Speaker 1: they were so happy to see him again that they obliged.
Speaker 2: They did it because they'd lost him once and they
Speaker 2: didn't want to lose him again. And I think they
Speaker 2: were just so happy to have him back in their lives.
Speaker 1: There's clearly so much more to his family dynamics than
Speaker 1: she'll ever know. It still doesn't sit right with her.
Speaker 2: What makes it okay that you support this kind of deception.
Speaker 1: In the beginning, she didn't even know how to refer
Speaker 1: to him, what name to call him by, whether to
Speaker 1: call him Ron or Jeff.
Speaker 2: But I had a really dear friend. She nicknamed him Raf,
Speaker 2: and so for a while when I referred to him,
Speaker 2: it was ref But now I usually just say Jeff.
Speaker 1: In the weeks after his double life was revealed, deb
Speaker 1: was emotionally destroyed. It all happened in her first year
Speaker 1: of sobriety. Jeff moved back to New Orleans with his son,
Speaker 1: and Deb was left alone in the house they shared.
Speaker 2: I just remember it was a profound moment. It's the
Speaker 2: duality of Oh, my god, what in the world along
Speaker 2: with you have to live, you have to deal with
Speaker 2: this and go on. And I remember just laying in
Speaker 2: the floor, just face down and just sol me and saying,
Speaker 2: my God, how does another human do this to a human?
Speaker 2: And the guise of love.
Speaker 1: In that moment, she couldn't get up. It felt like
Speaker 1: her world had ended.
Speaker 2: I just had so much pain and confusion. I got
Speaker 2: on my knees, I leaned into a chair, and I
Speaker 2: just kept praying and asking for help and just if
Speaker 2: you can get me on my feet, I will go forward.
Speaker 2: I will keep my sobriety. I promise a promise. I
Speaker 2: made a commitment to live life, to help others, to
Speaker 2: be the best person I can, to be loving kind.
Speaker 2: I mean, those were the things I'd always been. But
Speaker 2: I was not gonna let this make me harsh and hateful.
Speaker 1: In the throes of despair, she gained vivid clarity.
Speaker 2: You know, we often talk of spiritual awakenings. I feel
Speaker 2: like I've had a few in my life, but that
Speaker 2: was profound, profound, And when I stood up, you know,
Speaker 2: I was still crying, but I wasn't suffering as much.
Speaker 2: I didn't feel the pain as deep at the betrayal
Speaker 2: or shock, and I knew that when I stood up,
Speaker 2: that it was something greater than me. It said get up, Yeah,
Speaker 2: it were to do.
Speaker 1: Go on. She got up that day, and she stayed
Speaker 1: on her feet ever since.
Speaker 2: I made a commitment to do that in that moment,
Speaker 2: and I've never turned back, and I've never tried to
Speaker 2: rewrite the story. And I don't want to live in bitterness.
Speaker 2: I still wanted to be open hearted and help others,
Speaker 2: and that's what set the tone for the years to
Speaker 2: where we are today.
Speaker 1: She's now eleven years sober.
Speaker 2: I maintain sobriety. I was dedicated to my meetings, and
Speaker 2: I was dedicated to the spiritual journey and dealing with
Speaker 2: my loss and grief and shock.
Speaker 1: She took on a leadership role in her tribe as
Speaker 1: director of a program providing resources and support to victims
Speaker 1: of domestic violence.
Speaker 2: I would say, You've still got to stay working on
Speaker 2: your emotional health, because it's a tough service. What I
Speaker 2: know for sure is that we can't help others adequately
Speaker 2: or appropriately if we haven't begun our own work to hear.
Speaker 2: I feel like I'm more effective in these last years
Speaker 2: because of all the work I've done.
Speaker 1: In twenty nineteen, she got a call from Jeff's son,
Speaker 1: Jeff had passed away.
Speaker 2: It was a sense of relief, but also all the
Speaker 2: emotions that fled into that moment, you just have to
Speaker 2: hold them.
Speaker 1: In the last few years, her life has taken an
Speaker 1: unexpected turn.
Speaker 2: I've just recently married on September seventh, and I never
Speaker 2: saw it come in both of us or never's And
Speaker 2: it was the most beautiful wedding outdoors overlooking the lake.
Speaker 2: It was just beautiful, romantic, just wonderful.
Speaker 1: After all, she did make a commitment to being open hearted.
Speaker 1: Her new husband meets her at her level, and he's
Speaker 1: put in the work too.
Speaker 2: He is also sober him forty something years. Both of
Speaker 2: us love golf, both of us love music. It's just
Speaker 2: a blessing for us both. We feel so grateful. Well,
Speaker 2: it's too bad we're meeting each other at seventy and
Speaker 2: sixty seven. But here we are.
Speaker 1: We end all of our weekly episodes with the same question,
Speaker 1: why did you want to share your story?
Speaker 2: If my story could help others identify lies from their
Speaker 2: partner earlier, that's one part. The real part is we
Speaker 2: can hear, and we can have a good lie, and
Speaker 2: we can live well the trauma and the pain and
Speaker 2: the suffering and the sorrow. We have the potential to
Speaker 2: just be an amazing human. On the other side, leave
Speaker 2: your heart open, love of help others learn boundaries, set limits.
Speaker 1: On the next episode of Betrayal, my mom was the
Speaker 1: first one to be like, does this seem off at
Speaker 1: all to you?
Speaker 2: It was really the first time someone like said something
Speaker 2: that made me think, what do you mean off? Like?
Speaker 2: I had never considered doubting it.
Speaker 1: If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal
Speaker 1: team or want to tell us your Betrayal story, email
Speaker 1: us at Betrayalpod at gmail dot com. That's Betrayal Pod
Speaker 1: at gmail dot com. We're grateful for your support. One
Speaker 1: way to show support is by subscribing to our show
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts, and don't forget to rate and review Betrayal.
Speaker 1: Five star reviews go a long way. A big thank
Speaker 1: you to all of our listeners. Betrayal is a production
Speaker 1: of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Ennertime Group and
Speaker 1: partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is executive produced by
Speaker 1: Nancy Glass and Jennifer Fason, hosted and produced by me
Speaker 1: Andrea Gunning, written and produced by Monique Leboard, also produced
Speaker 1: by Ben Fetterman. Associate producers are Kristin Mercury and Caitlin Golden.
Speaker 1: Our iHeart team is Ali Perry and Jessica Krincheck. Audio
Speaker 1: editing and mixing by Matt del Vecchio, Additional editing support
Speaker 1: from Tanner Robbins. Betrayal's theme composed by Oliver Bains. Music
Speaker 1: library provided by Mob Music and For more podcasts from iHeart,
Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts.