Speaker 1: Hey, it's Stephanie back with the bonus episode. We talked
Speaker 1: in episode three about the many emails Clayton received from
Speaker 1: Laura Owens during the summer of twenty twenty three. He
Speaker 1: compiled the emails into a Google drive that he calls
Speaker 1: the L File. There was so much more about the
Speaker 1: L file and these emails that we didn't have time
Speaker 1: to get to in episode three, so I sat down
Speaker 1: with Clayton to hear a bit more. We're going to
Speaker 1: start with their back and forth about the paternity test.
Speaker 1: Laura claimed that Clayton was refusing to take one. He
Speaker 1: says that wasn't the case, and the emails seemed to
Speaker 1: corroborate his account. In the last episode, we talked about
Speaker 1: the paternity testing and who was paying for it. Now,
Speaker 1: the whole conversation gets messy as the months dragon, but
Speaker 1: I mention that you agreed to pay for the whole
Speaker 1: thing yourself, So let's get into that a little bit deeper.
Speaker 1: In the email from Laura to you on June twenty fourth,
Speaker 1: about three weeks after she told you she was pregnant,
Speaker 1: she says, I wanted to let you know that I
Speaker 1: will not be paying for the paternity test. It's of
Speaker 1: no use to me because I know I wasn't physically
Speaker 1: involved with anyone else, and therefore no one else could
Speaker 1: be the father. I promise that if it came back
Speaker 1: any other way, I will fully reimburse you, but trust me,
Speaker 1: it won't. I haven't lied to you yet, and I
Speaker 1: don't need to pay several hundred or one thousand dollars
Speaker 1: for information that I already have. Okay, So what was
Speaker 1: your response to that email?
Speaker 2: So my response to was I will pay for one
Speaker 2: hundred percent of it. You have my word. Let this
Speaker 2: message serve as the proof. Just schedule it and let
Speaker 2: me know where you scheduled, and I'll pay.
Speaker 1: Throughout this entire LO file, I don't see one email
Speaker 1: of you refusing to take a paternity test. I know
Speaker 1: you really wanted to take the paternity test based on
Speaker 1: what I was seeing in the emails. So I found
Speaker 1: something in the emails that might explain why Laura said
Speaker 1: you were refusing to take it. Can you read that
Speaker 1: for me?
Speaker 2: So she had sent me an email saying, just confirming
Speaker 2: that you are refusing a paternity test. No answer equals
Speaker 2: refusing it, Okay.
Speaker 1: So it's my understanding. And I came to this conclusion
Speaker 1: by reading the emails and you telling me about how
Speaker 1: no response equals a response, that that's what's happening here.
Speaker 1: You weren't responding to her emails, and she was taking
Speaker 1: your lack of response as a no.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's ridiculous in nature, but I mean you've heard,
Speaker 2: even from a societal state ABO when people say silence
Speaker 2: speaks volumes. And I think that's what she was trying
Speaker 2: to lean into, is I know you're reading this because
Speaker 2: I have the mail trackers, and if you're choosing not
Speaker 2: to respond, that is still a response. I obviously didn't
Speaker 2: agree with that. I just didn't want to communicate with her,
Speaker 2: But she was just looking for ways to manipulate and
Speaker 2: gaslight me and eventually the people that were going to
Speaker 2: see these emails and messages.
Speaker 1: You just mentioned something that I want to talk about.
Speaker 1: You mentioned the mail trackers, which we do talk about
Speaker 1: in the episode with the emails. How did you know
Speaker 1: that she had those trackers on?
Speaker 2: Eventually she had told me, but I also just knew
Speaker 2: because whenever I'd opened them and I'd read them, she
Speaker 2: had send over another one right away. But if I
Speaker 2: was ever just busy and I couldn't get around to
Speaker 2: my emails. Then, Yeah, nothing would come through.
Speaker 1: Then she eventually told you that she had a tracker on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and she eventually then told me that she had
Speaker 2: the trackers. I'm like, okay, this makes sense to me
Speaker 2: why she continues to send them. I thought I was
Speaker 2: able to trick her by not responding and to thinking
Speaker 2: that like I had her on a block folder and
Speaker 2: I wasn't paying attention. Again, what I wanted her to
Speaker 2: believe was that I wasn't looking at these emails. I
Speaker 2: had way better things to do. She had no power
Speaker 2: over me, and eventually she would just give up.
Speaker 1: All right, let's move on to another one. Here's another email.
Speaker 1: This one's dated July fifth, So this is a a
Speaker 1: month after she told you she was pregnant, but she
Speaker 1: had already hinted to you that she might be pregnant
Speaker 1: with twins. This is the email I had an idea,
Speaker 1: what do you think about hanging out tonight and seeing
Speaker 1: if this is something you want to try out for
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks before me make a decision about
Speaker 1: what to do. If either of us decide that we
Speaker 1: don't want to explore something more serious, then at least
Speaker 1: we will know and we will both have clarity, with
Speaker 1: you not responding about the possibility of twins or me
Speaker 1: giving you the chance to make a different decision about
Speaker 1: the abortion pills. Because of that new prospect, things feel unresolved,
Speaker 1: and my anxiety is through the roof. I'm sure yours
Speaker 1: is as well, with my stress levels being where they
Speaker 1: are at now. If the baby or babies are born
Speaker 1: with any issues, I would blame you for not trying
Speaker 1: to help me reduce those by supporting me as you
Speaker 1: said you would. If you just pursued something romantic for
Speaker 1: a night, you have no idea how much it would
Speaker 1: help me emotionally, And I definitely would not blame you
Speaker 1: for any problems the child or children would have. This
Speaker 1: was still pretty early on when I believe you still
Speaker 1: thought that there might be that point zero one percent
Speaker 1: chance that she could actually be pregnant. So how did
Speaker 1: this email make you feel? And were you concerned for
Speaker 1: her mental health at the time?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so of course I was concerned for her mental
Speaker 2: health reading these messages, but I had my guard up
Speaker 2: and I was like, there's no way that I can
Speaker 2: explore intimacy. It has to be off the table. I
Speaker 2: can date her, quote unquote for a week and give
Speaker 2: her attention, and at the end of it, I was
Speaker 2: going to say, oh, you know, I just don't think
Speaker 2: it's going to work between us, but we gave it
Speaker 2: a fair go. All right, I guess this is the
Speaker 2: end of it, right, Like, that's essentially where I was
Speaker 2: going to head with it. But she obviously was like, no,
Speaker 2: we have to be intimate if we do do this,
Speaker 2: and of course I wasn't willing to go there.
Speaker 1: Okay, so I'm going to jump into another document that
Speaker 1: I found in the LO file. This one is from
Speaker 1: August thirteenth, so this was just a few days after
Speaker 1: that dating contract that you received. Do you remember getting
Speaker 1: another contract? Like docus meant after the dating contract?
Speaker 2: So many emails came in that maybe she did sandwich
Speaker 2: another contract in there, but I don't recall off the
Speaker 2: top of my head.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, I'm going to read it to you. It
Speaker 1: appears to be sent through DocuSign and the title of
Speaker 1: the document is Agreement between Laura Owens and Clayton Eckered.
Speaker 1: It begins we Laura Owens and Clayton eckerd agreed to
Speaker 1: meet up tonight August thirteenth, twenty twenty three for the
Speaker 1: court mandated good faith consultation. And I'll pause here for
Speaker 1: a second. She's mentioning a good faith consultation because this
Speaker 1: document came through two weeks after she filed in court
Speaker 1: to establish paternity. So a good faith consultation is basically
Speaker 1: like a formal requirement for opposing parties to attempt to
Speaker 1: resolve a dispute that was brought to court, and you
Speaker 1: kind of handle it sincerely, honestly, it's like a good
Speaker 1: faith attempt to resolving it before you seek further intervention
Speaker 1: from the court. Okay, So back to the document. In addition,
Speaker 1: Laura Owens will alert the court to the fact that
Speaker 1: there is no longer a need to take action against
Speaker 1: Clayton Eckered for his refusal to participate in the good
Speaker 1: faith consultation. Laura Owens agrees to take and pay for
Speaker 1: both her and Clayton Eckered to take the prenatal paternity
Speaker 1: test at Revgen to be taken at the earliest possible date,
Speaker 1: and promises not to cancel. Clayton eckerd agrees to unblock
Speaker 1: Laura Owens and not block her again. Now Laura signed
Speaker 1: this document, but I don't see a signature from you
Speaker 1: on that document.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because it just wasn't a fair trade off. I mean,
Speaker 2: I was willing to negotiate with her. I was working
Speaker 2: at every moment to try to find that little common
Speaker 2: ground where she would say, yeah, this could work. But
Speaker 2: as far as this contract went, I'm like, you're not
Speaker 2: going to do what you say you're going to do anyways,
Speaker 2: And no, I don't want to unblock you because it
Speaker 2: doesn't accomplish anything. You're just going to send me another
Speaker 2: barrage of emails and text.
Speaker 1: This was another theme I noticed in a lot of
Speaker 1: these emails is that she really wanted you to unblock
Speaker 1: her phone number. Now she could still get in touch
Speaker 1: with you via email. It seemed even though you had
Speaker 1: her block, they were still kind of getting through. But
Speaker 1: why do you think that the unblocking of her phone
Speaker 1: number was such a priority for her?
Speaker 2: To me, it's completely stemming from a hert ego. I
Speaker 2: feel that she felt less than if she was blocked. Therefore,
Speaker 2: if I unblocked her, there wasn't as much hostility because
Speaker 2: it's like, Okay, now we have an open chain of communication,
Speaker 2: like two people that respect one another would have. I mean,
Speaker 2: who do you block? Typically you block people that are
Speaker 2: individuals that you don't want to talk to, people that
Speaker 2: you don't want to have access to your life, people
Speaker 2: that are extremely rude. I mean, you don't block just
Speaker 2: the average person, right, You're blocking people that you do
Speaker 2: not want to have any interactions with. So there's a
Speaker 2: negative connotation around being blocked, and I believe Laura just
Speaker 2: wanted to remove that.
Speaker 1: A lot of your correspondence with Laura happened almost three
Speaker 1: years ago. Now what has it been like for you
Speaker 1: going back, reading these messages and reliving this time of
Speaker 1: your life.
Speaker 2: It's been very agitating. Anger has been the main emotion
Speaker 2: that I feel a rise whenever I have to reopen
Speaker 2: this box that I've compartmentalized as much as possible because
Speaker 2: I still have a life to live beyond this matter.
Speaker 2: But Laura makes it really hard. I mean she's always
Speaker 2: reopening the box, and so for me, this is a
Speaker 2: still ongoing matter, and I am hoping to have a
Speaker 2: outcome where we can close this completely because it's tiring.
Speaker 2: I am so tired of talking about this, feeling this,
Speaker 2: dealing with this in my eyes, and what I would
Speaker 2: have thought would have occurred, was like this would have
Speaker 2: been done over the course of six months at Max
Speaker 2: and here we are on year three and we're still going.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening. If you want to see
Speaker 1: the emails we mentioned, you can read them for yourself
Speaker 1: at our Instagram at Glass Podcasts, and stay tuned for
Speaker 1: new episodes and bonus episodes on the Love Trapped feed.