Speaker 1: If Saskia's story sounds familiar to you, it might be
Speaker 1: because of another case that's been in the news.
Speaker 2: The mass rape trial which his Sun France, has ended
Speaker 2: with fifty one men all being found guilty for what
Speaker 2: they did to Gizelle Pellico.
Speaker 3: Our top story today is the mass rape trial that
Speaker 3: has horrified France.
Speaker 1: Gizelle Pelico's story was shared around the world. See for
Speaker 1: almost a decade, her husband drugged and raped her and
Speaker 1: invited dozens of other men to.
Speaker 4: Do the same.
Speaker 1: In those years, Giselle thought she was seriously ill. She
Speaker 1: thought she was blacking out because of a possible brain
Speaker 1: tumor or maybe early onset Alzheimer's. She'd been married to
Speaker 1: her husband for nearly fifty years. She never suspected he
Speaker 1: had anything to do with her symptoms. Like Saskia, she
Speaker 1: only learned the truth when she saw videos of herself
Speaker 1: being raped.
Speaker 2: I chose to have the trial hold in an open
Speaker 2: court and hopes the public trial will help change society.
Speaker 1: When Gazelle's story made headlines in December twenty twenty four,
Speaker 1: we were a few months into talking to Saskia.
Speaker 3: We forwarded her.
Speaker 1: An article about the case. It was the first time
Speaker 1: she'd ever heard a story like her own.
Speaker 4: It was empowering. I didn't know that there are other
Speaker 4: people out there like me.
Speaker 1: But Saskia and Giselle aren't a club of two. In
Speaker 1: the last two years, there have been more and more
Speaker 1: stories like this of people raping their partners and publishing
Speaker 1: images and videos of their crimes. For example, German authorities
Speaker 1: uncovered a group chat on the app Telegram where men
Speaker 1: were sharing intimate images of their partners. Some were even
Speaker 1: sharing live videos of sexual assaults. This wasn't a group
Speaker 1: chat of ten or even one hundred men. There were
Speaker 1: seventy thousand members. The same thing happened in Italy. Thirty
Speaker 1: two thousand men on Facebook were part of a group
Speaker 1: called Mia Mowgli My Wife, where they shared non consensual
Speaker 1: intimate images. It took three thousand complaints in six years
Speaker 1: for the group to get shut down. People are just
Speaker 1: waking up to this crime, and as awareness grows, other
Speaker 1: survivors like Saskia are coming out of the shadows.
Speaker 5: When you go home at the end of the day
Speaker 5: and you crawl into bed with the man that you love,
Speaker 5: that should be the safest place you'll ever be in
Speaker 5: the world. I found out that that was the most
Speaker 5: dangerous place that I had ever been, and that is
Speaker 5: a real mind fuck.
Speaker 1: I'm Andrea Gunning and this is Betrayal, Season five, episode seven,
Speaker 1: not alone. Really quick, before we get into the episode,
Speaker 1: I have a small favor to ask you. If you're
Speaker 1: enjoying listening to Betrayal, please take a second to hit
Speaker 1: the follow button on your podcast app and please rate
Speaker 1: and review. We read all the comments, and your voices
Speaker 1: help our show improve and evolve. I really mean it
Speaker 1: when I say thank you for listening and helping us grow. Also,
Speaker 1: if you went behind the scenes content or resources, follow
Speaker 1: at Betrayal Pod on Instagram or follow me at It's
Speaker 1: Andrea Gunning.
Speaker 6: All right, onto the show.
Speaker 1: We're not finished telling Saskia's story, but before we dive
Speaker 1: deeper into this season, we need to zoom out a
Speaker 1: bit because what happened to Saskia wasn't a one off.
Speaker 1: There are people all over the world committing these kinds
Speaker 1: of crimes, and there are more survivors who are just
Speaker 1: now climbing out of the dark. In the past few years,
Speaker 1: we've heard from other people like Saskia. They're women of
Speaker 1: different ages, and different backgrounds. Their stories unfolded years or
Speaker 1: even decades apart, and they each made different choices in
Speaker 1: the aftermath of what happened to them, but they've all
Speaker 1: endured something similar, an unthinkable crime at the hands of
Speaker 1: someone they loved. We want to share the stories of
Speaker 1: three women who wrote into us. Let's start with Ember.
Speaker 1: Growing up, Ember never imagined she'd be the victim of
Speaker 1: a crime like this.
Speaker 6: Everyone described me as like just a very strong individual.
Speaker 6: I myself thought, if you're strong, you're not going to
Speaker 6: fall prey to that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: At twenty one, Ember was confident, outspoken. She knew who
Speaker 1: she was, and her faith was a big part of that.
Speaker 1: She's Christian, and she drew clear boundaries in accordance with
Speaker 1: her beliefs.
Speaker 6: I really did not want to engage in intercourse until
Speaker 6: I was married, and I was honest about that with
Speaker 6: every guy I dated, like, this is what I believe
Speaker 6: and if you don't like it, there's the door.
Speaker 1: With her fiance, she found a guy who understood, a
Speaker 1: man who'd respect her values. His name was John.
Speaker 6: At this point, we had been together for about four
Speaker 6: years on and off.
Speaker 1: During those four years, there'd been ups and downs, periods
Speaker 1: where John's mental health suffered. But finally Ember saw him
Speaker 1: becoming the man she always knew he could be. He
Speaker 1: was stable and thoughtful, and he was getting more involved
Speaker 1: in the church.
Speaker 6: I thought that it was really from a place of
Speaker 6: him growing and healing and changing.
Speaker 1: Everyone around them saw the shift in John. Their friends
Speaker 1: and family were so excited about the engagement. Even their
Speaker 1: pastor gave his approval.
Speaker 6: It's like all relationships go through really hard times. You
Speaker 6: guys seem like you're really good together, and I think
Speaker 6: this would be completely okay, and we're like okay, and
Speaker 6: I'm sitting there going if there were red flags, this
Speaker 6: person would point this out, and nobody pulled a red
Speaker 6: flag out.
Speaker 1: Their engagement was the start of a new chapter, a
Speaker 1: beautiful life together. Then a month into their engagement, Ember
Speaker 1: got sick. It started one night at John's house. She
Speaker 1: remembers sitting down to study, but after that.
Speaker 6: I don't recall anything happened other than I somehow made
Speaker 6: it home.
Speaker 1: It was like her memory just jumped. One second she
Speaker 1: was at John's, the next she was home. She explained
Speaker 1: it away, she must have had a long day dozed off,
Speaker 1: But nights like this kept happening.
Speaker 6: There were so many occasions where I would fall asleep
Speaker 6: studying and he would wake me up and be like,
Speaker 6: oh my gosh, you fell asleep again. You need to
Speaker 6: hurry up and get home, and I would be so
Speaker 6: out of it. I wouldn't know what was happening, and
Speaker 6: I just somehow make my way home.
Speaker 1: Over time, Ember started experiencing other symptoms like chronic pain
Speaker 1: without any clear cause.
Speaker 6: It was a pain that was indescribable. I couldn't sit,
Speaker 6: I couldn't stand. I just couldn't find any comfortable position,
Speaker 6: and I couldn't remember anything that had happened.
Speaker 1: And that wasn't all.
Speaker 6: I'm breaking out hives all over my body, having migraines
Speaker 6: I've never had before.
Speaker 1: Through it all, John was there for Ember.
Speaker 6: I remember him coming over to like comfort me. He
Speaker 6: just sat with me and like rubbed my back and
Speaker 6: was like, I'm so sorry you're not feeling well.
Speaker 1: He supported her as she searched for a diagnosis and
Speaker 1: went to doctor after doctor. No one could figure out
Speaker 1: what was going on.
Speaker 6: They were just like, oh, you're probably really stressed out.
Speaker 6: I was, you know, in the throes of school and
Speaker 6: working full time. And getting married and all that stuff.
Speaker 6: I was still able to function, but internally I was
Speaker 6: falling apart.
Speaker 1: Things went on like this for a year, with Ember
Speaker 1: at a total loss, just like Saskia. She wanted a solution,
Speaker 1: some answer that would tie all her symptoms together, and
Speaker 1: then one day an answer began to emerge. During this time,
Speaker 1: Ember was taking class is to become a massage therapist.
Speaker 1: On this particular day, her instructor was talking about the
Speaker 1: so as muscle.
Speaker 6: The so as muscle is a highly protective muscle that
Speaker 6: a lot of people don't even know exists. It attaches
Speaker 6: on the front of our spine, and if we are
Speaker 6: in fight or flight, it is engaged instantaneously.
Speaker 1: The instructor asked Ember to come up to the front
Speaker 1: so she could have someone to demonstrate on. This happened
Speaker 1: all the time in class, and Ember didn't think anything
Speaker 1: of it.
Speaker 6: I'm laying on the massage therapy table, all of the
Speaker 6: other students are watching, and she goes to address my
Speaker 6: so as muscle, and I immediately dissociate. I don't remember
Speaker 6: anything that happened on the table. I don't remember anything
Speaker 6: that my body did that I said. All I remember
Speaker 6: is at the end, her saying Okay, that was interesting.
Speaker 6: I get up from the table and she's like, hey,
Speaker 6: do you have a minute? Can you come outside? And
Speaker 6: I said okay, sure. She's like, do you know what
Speaker 6: just happened in there? And I was like, no, you
Speaker 6: were working on my so as. She's like, you were
Speaker 6: somewhere else. You were not present. And I really have
Speaker 6: a strong sense that I need to tell you that
Speaker 6: something's probably really wrong if you is responding in this
Speaker 6: way and causing you to go somewhere.
Speaker 1: Else, somewhere else. Lying on the massage table, her mind
Speaker 1: and body split off into separate directions, just like it
Speaker 1: did on those nights studying with John. Things were happening
Speaker 1: around her, but she couldn't remember them. Looking back, Ember
Speaker 1: now has an explanation for what was going on.
Speaker 6: I was dissociating for my trauma.
Speaker 1: The association occurs when the mind separates from the body
Speaker 1: as a way of protecting itself from harm. The brain
Speaker 1: mutes physical sensations, thoughts, and memories, such that many people
Speaker 1: coming out of dissociative episodes feel like they've just woken
Speaker 1: up from a dream, but the body stores memories of
Speaker 1: trauma even if the brain tries to push them out.
Speaker 1: That day, on the massage table, Ember's body demonstrated that
Speaker 1: something was wrong.
Speaker 6: It was kind of the beginning of my body and
Speaker 6: brain thing we need to be in this together instead
Speaker 6: of separating. In fact, it was shortly thereafter that I
Speaker 6: actually woke up mid attack.
Speaker 1: The night started the way so many others had. She
Speaker 1: was hanging out at John's house when her mind went dark.
Speaker 1: But on this night, in the midst of her dissociation,
Speaker 1: she woke up and her brain and body snapped back together.
Speaker 1: When she came to, there was someone on top of her.
Speaker 1: Her eyes focused and suddenly she could see it was John.
Speaker 6: I freaked out and I was like, what is happening.
Speaker 6: She's like nothing, nothing, nothing happened, And I'm like, there's
Speaker 6: evidence that something happened.
Speaker 1: His pants were pulled down, so were hers. And remember
Speaker 1: Ember didn't want to have sex until marriage. Immediately Ember
Speaker 1: could tell John had taken that choice away from her.
Speaker 1: In the moment, she was still groggy.
Speaker 6: I'm still not fully there, but I'm conscious enough to
Speaker 6: know something is really really wrong. But I lost it.
Speaker 1: In a daze. She threw on her clothes and ran
Speaker 1: out the door, went home, she called people she could trust,
Speaker 1: and one of those people notified the church. The next day,
Speaker 1: a pastor called John and Ember in for a meeting.
Speaker 6: And we sit down at the pastor and he's like,
Speaker 6: what's going on? All I can do is look down
Speaker 6: at my shoes. All I remember is the floor.
Speaker 1: She was quiet, but to her surprise, John spoke up
Speaker 1: and he told the pastor everything. John came right out
Speaker 1: and confessed.
Speaker 6: He was drugging me and raping me. The pastor goes,
Speaker 6: how often has this happened? He goes, this has happened
Speaker 6: probably once a week, almost the whole time we've been engaged.
Speaker 6: That is now almost an entire year. It was so
Speaker 6: much worse than anything I had ever imagined. And I'm
Speaker 6: just completely just numb, just numb.
Speaker 1: John and their pastor kept talking, but Ember tuned them out.
Speaker 1: All of her senses blurred together into one loud hum. Finally,
Speaker 1: their pastor asked John to leave the room so he
Speaker 1: could speak to Ember alone.
Speaker 6: So he leaves the room and pastor looks at me
Speaker 6: and he's like, you need to get out of this relationship.
Speaker 6: This is not safe, this is not good, this is
Speaker 6: not going to stop.
Speaker 1: But as shocked as Ember was, she wasn't ready to
Speaker 1: hear that yet. After all, she loved John and leaving
Speaker 1: him would mean calling off their wedding.
Speaker 6: Were like three months before our wedding at this point
Speaker 6: in time, and breaking that off now means I have
Speaker 6: to tell everyone what has happened. That to me was
Speaker 6: almost as devastating as realizing what had happened now everybody's
Speaker 6: gonna know. This intense desire to hide in that amount
Speaker 6: of pain was just insurmountable.
Speaker 1: Ember couldn't allow herself to face the reality of her situation.
Speaker 1: She was still holding out hope that maybe if John
Speaker 1: got treatment, it would all be okay. They could forget
Speaker 1: about this and move ahead with the wedding. So John
Speaker 1: started going to therapy, and so did she.
Speaker 6: I was seeing a therapist that specialized in sexual abuse,
Speaker 6: and he was seeing a therapist that specialized in sexual addiction.
Speaker 1: But therapy gave her different answers and the ones she
Speaker 1: was seeking. Ember and John's therapists worked at the same location.
Speaker 1: One day, while waiting for her session, John's therapist came
Speaker 1: through the waiting room.
Speaker 6: He walked past me, and then he stopped and he
Speaker 6: came back that you could see his wheels turning. He's like,
Speaker 6: I'm not supposed to say this, but I feel like
Speaker 6: you need to know. We've run through a series of
Speaker 6: diagnostic tests on your fiance. He's not a safe person.
Speaker 6: He's officially diagnosed as a sociopath, and you should get
Speaker 6: as far away from him as possible.
Speaker 1: Ember was waiting for her therapy session when she was
Speaker 1: approached by John's therapist. He told her that John was
Speaker 1: a diagnosed sociopath and she needed to protect herself. The
Speaker 1: therapist had to have felt strongly because he was taking
Speaker 1: a huge professional risk. Telling Ember threatened his license, he
Speaker 1: violated client confidentiality.
Speaker 6: But it was a godsend because honestly, if I hadn't
Speaker 6: heard those words, I think I probably would have assumed
Speaker 6: that everything was going to be okay for a lot longer.
Speaker 6: I really thought that I was doing the good Christian
Speaker 6: thing by staying with him, that sacrificing myself so that
Speaker 6: he could experience love. And that was the point where
Speaker 6: I was like, I can't marry this man.
Speaker 1: We'll hear more from Ember at the end of the episode,
Speaker 1: but now we want to introduce you to another survivor, Natalie.
Speaker 1: At twenty three, she started dating a guy we'll call Stephen.
Speaker 1: When she was with him, I felt like I was
Speaker 1: a queen.
Speaker 7: He would make me feel beautiful and smart, and he
Speaker 7: would type up these really nice poems or just say
Speaker 7: how he looks forward to spending time together and getting
Speaker 7: married and having a family.
Speaker 1: Their relationship was a long time coming. He was her
Speaker 1: best friend's older brother, and in every way their lives
Speaker 1: just seemed to fit together. They played on the same
Speaker 1: softball team, they had a lot of the same friend friends,
Speaker 1: and when they talked, the conversation flowed.
Speaker 7: It was very natural and it was just easy. I
Speaker 7: felt like we had a really strong foundation.
Speaker 1: Eventually they got engaged then married, but when Natalie got pregnant,
Speaker 1: that was when Stephen really became her rock. She was
Speaker 1: nervous about being a mom. In the months leading up
Speaker 1: to the birth.
Speaker 8: I would rearrange the nursery.
Speaker 7: I don't know how many times I rearranged it, and
Speaker 7: I'd like vacuum it every day.
Speaker 1: Stephen grounded and supported her.
Speaker 6: We had a lot of.
Speaker 7: Late nights setting things up, and I would feel bad
Speaker 7: because he would have to work in the morning. But
Speaker 7: he was all about it, all about helping and getting
Speaker 7: everything ready and being very hands on.
Speaker 1: When their son arrived, Stephen really stepped up. He made
Speaker 1: everything feel manageable.
Speaker 7: He would get up with him, he would feed him
Speaker 7: in the middle of the night, even when he had
Speaker 7: to work the next morning.
Speaker 8: He would be wanting.
Speaker 7: To help with my son and changing his diaper or
Speaker 7: just being with him to give me an hour of
Speaker 7: time for myself.
Speaker 1: Stephen was a dream dad. They were in this together
Speaker 1: and for a while they lived a great life as
Speaker 1: a family. Then came one night when their son was five,
Speaker 1: Natalie was helping him get ready for bed. He had
Speaker 1: his own tablet where he could play games and watch TV.
Speaker 1: All the family's devices were linked in a cloud.
Speaker 7: And I had his tablet because I was going to
Speaker 7: put it on the counter to charge it.
Speaker 1: She was plugging it in when she saw something on
Speaker 1: the home screen.
Speaker 7: There was like a little window that had a man
Speaker 7: and you could see a penis on the screen. I'm like, oh,
Speaker 7: my gosh, like horrified that my son could see that,
Speaker 7: And I'm like, I hope he didn't click on this,
Speaker 7: like what I didn't notice that before her.
Speaker 1: Husband was at work. Natalie messaged him right away Stephen
Speaker 1: put her at ease. He thought it must be spam.
Speaker 1: Once her son went to sleep, Natalie went back to
Speaker 1: the tablet to reset it to factory settings.
Speaker 7: I was looking in the cloud where the photos and
Speaker 7: images are because I didn't want to delete all of that,
Speaker 7: and then that's when I saw photos and videos, dozens
Speaker 7: of these clips and images.
Speaker 1: It was all graphic sexual material.
Speaker 7: I was like, I got to get this stuff off
Speaker 7: of here. But then as I'm looking through, I noticed
Speaker 7: my bedroom.
Speaker 1: She froze and she zoomed in on the photo.
Speaker 7: You can see his hands, his wedding ring, and then
Speaker 7: I realized that I am in these images. I'm just
Speaker 7: like horrified because I'm not awake. Some of them, I'm
Speaker 7: like barely conscious, and I'm like, how do I not
Speaker 7: know what's happening to me. There's no way that he's
Speaker 7: doing these things.
Speaker 8: To me, and I have no idea what's happening.
Speaker 7: I would have woken up.
Speaker 1: She kept clicking through more photos and videos, and then
Speaker 1: the images led her to fetish websites. She could see
Speaker 1: that one of the videos was posted for anyone to see.
Speaker 7: The title of the video that he had posted was
Speaker 7: something like creeping around without her knowing, and I was nauseous.
Speaker 8: I was so embarrassed, and I was I just like
Speaker 8: shut down.
Speaker 1: Really, the most upsetting part of it all.
Speaker 8: I was pregnant with my daughter when I found this.
Speaker 7: One of the things I remember thinking was, oh, my god,
Speaker 7: was I an active participant in making my daughter? And
Speaker 7: just remember thinking like, oh my god, okay, this many
Speaker 7: weeks a long and counting back like, oh my god, okay.
Speaker 7: And I remember the weekend and I remember like, oh,
Speaker 7: thank God, like okay, yes, I remember this was when
Speaker 7: it happened.
Speaker 1: When Stephen came home, she confronted him.
Speaker 7: I remember us sitting in the back room of the
Speaker 7: house and I just gave him the tablet and I
Speaker 7: had the images pulled up and I'm like, what is this?
Speaker 7: And you just kind of looked at it and was like,
Speaker 7: I have a problem. He was asking me like, let's
Speaker 7: go to count sling. Can we do counseling? And I'm thinking,
Speaker 7: I think you need counseling. From the day that I
Speaker 7: confronted him, I never slept in the same bed as him.
Speaker 1: But leaving altogether didn't feel like an option.
Speaker 7: I remember shutting down and thinking like, what am I
Speaker 7: supposed to do, like I work two days a week.
Speaker 7: He's a hands on dad. He's supporting us. I need
Speaker 7: his help. What am I going to do?
Speaker 6: So she stayed.
Speaker 1: She picked up as many shifts at work as she could,
Speaker 1: and when Steven would come home at the end of
Speaker 1: his workday, she'd find an excuse to go out.
Speaker 7: I wouldn't want to be home when he was home.
Speaker 1: As the months passed, Natalie began to uncover the full
Speaker 1: extent of Steven's abuse.
Speaker 7: I found in his bedside table, underneath some files, he
Speaker 7: had a bottle of Tailen LPM and they were all
Speaker 7: broken up and they were in pieces, and then there
Speaker 7: was some other powder stuff in the bottle too, And
Speaker 7: I'm like, that is probably what he was using and
Speaker 7: putting it in my drinks because I was not just asleep,
Speaker 7: I was literally unconscious.
Speaker 1: It shattered her sense of safety in her own body
Speaker 1: and in her own home.
Speaker 7: I didn't even want to drink anything that was opened
Speaker 7: in the house because I was afraid that he would
Speaker 7: put something in it.
Speaker 1: In the aftermath of her discovery, her friends and family
Speaker 1: could tell something had changed in her, but she kept
Speaker 1: the truth to herself.
Speaker 7: People would ask me now, are you okay or you
Speaker 7: know you're quiet. Oh I'm just tired, Oh I didn't
Speaker 7: sleep well last night, or oh I'm just nervous about
Speaker 7: the baby coming. It was so embarrassing to me. It
Speaker 7: was like I was trying to avoid really thinking about that.
Speaker 7: It was just like this deep secret that I had.
Speaker 1: When her daughter was born, she continued to stay silent.
Speaker 1: Her priority was giving her kids a good life, and
Speaker 1: for a long time she thought that meant smiling through
Speaker 1: the pain. But eventually she realized she couldn't keep living
Speaker 1: in that house. She had to leave.
Speaker 7: I remember starting to pay things off that were in
Speaker 7: my name, and I was starting to try to save
Speaker 7: a little bit of money, like my own money, because
Speaker 7: he was in charge of our finances. It took me
Speaker 7: well over a year just kind of living in the
Speaker 7: same house with him and being paranoid and then being
Speaker 7: just angry and then being bitter.
Speaker 1: Three years after her discovery, she finally saved enough money
Speaker 1: to move out. The new house wasn't much, but it
Speaker 1: was hers.
Speaker 6: She was free.
Speaker 7: My realtor unlocked the door, and you know, we had
Speaker 7: walked in and she's like, here it is, here's your keys,
Speaker 7: this is your house. I was like, oh my gosh, you
Speaker 7: know this is great. And then after she left, I
Speaker 7: sat in there on the floor and I cried, and
Speaker 7: I was excited and scared.
Speaker 8: I'm just really proud and thinking like, Okay, this is
Speaker 8: going to be really hard.
Speaker 7: But I told myself that day, I'm going to do it.
Speaker 7: This is mine, this is something that he's not going
Speaker 7: to take from me. I'm going to do it by myself,
Speaker 7: me and my kids, and I'm going to be the
Speaker 7: best man that I can be. This is the first
Speaker 7: day of the rest of my life.
Speaker 1: There's one more woman to introduce you to, or maybe
Speaker 1: reintroduce you to, because we've told her story before on
Speaker 1: the first two episodes of Betrayal Weekly. She was the
Speaker 1: woman who got us thinking about this kind of two
Speaker 1: years ago when she discovered what her husband did to her.
Speaker 3: I couldn't think. I couldn't function.
Speaker 9: I mean the kids had to like sit me down
Speaker 9: at the table and force me to eat, and I
Speaker 9: just laid in bed and cried.
Speaker 3: I didn't just lose my husband.
Speaker 9: I lost my job, I lost my home, I lost
Speaker 9: my community, I lost trust, I lost safety. I really
Speaker 9: had to start over from square one.
Speaker 1: Stephanie was married for twenty three years, but then she
Speaker 1: discovered something horrifying on her husband's laptop.
Speaker 9: He had a Flicker account that was filled with nude
Speaker 9: photos of me, hundreds of pictures. He explained that he
Speaker 9: puts the picture up in a chat room, and twenty
Speaker 9: five people at a time can be in the chatroom.
Speaker 9: But people go and so as they come in and out,
Speaker 9: these other men are explaining how they would rape me.
Speaker 1: We asked Stephanie, what is it that only people who've
Speaker 1: experienced this crime can understand?
Speaker 5: Every woman has that fear, that awareness that there could
Speaker 5: be a stranger that could jump out and assault me,
Speaker 5: rape me.
Speaker 1: But for her and for women who've been through what
Speaker 1: she's been through, it's this other thing.
Speaker 5: It's that when you go home at the end of
Speaker 5: the day and you crawl into bed with the man
Speaker 5: that you love, that should be the safest place you'll
Speaker 5: ever be in the world. I found out that that
Speaker 5: was the most dangerous place that I had ever been.
Speaker 1: And that is your real mind. Fuck Ember. Natalie, Stephanie,
Speaker 1: and Saskia four women who wrote into our show with
Speaker 1: strikingly similar stories. All of these women survived drug facilitated
Speaker 1: sexual assault. For three of them, non consensual photos and
Speaker 1: videos were shared with strangers online. All of these women
Speaker 1: spent months, even years in the dark, not knowing what
Speaker 1: their partners were doing to them, and they all thought
Speaker 1: they were the only one.
Speaker 4: Nobody that I knew had been through anything similar. So
Speaker 4: even though I had all these people around, I still
Speaker 4: felt so alone and like a freak.
Speaker 7: The shame was really unbearable, Like who am I going
Speaker 7: to tell this to?
Speaker 6: It is such an isolating experience to feel like nobody
Speaker 6: else can relate to what I've been through.
Speaker 1: So we decided to bring these for women together to
Speaker 1: connect with somebody else who says, I get it, I
Speaker 1: see you, it's a gift. After speaking to these four survivors,
Speaker 1: we knew we wanted to gather a group together because
Speaker 1: we're at an inflection point. Like us, the public is
Speaker 1: just waking up to this crime, opening their eyes to
Speaker 1: the fact that intimate partners can do things like this
Speaker 1: and share them on the internet. To get more victims
Speaker 1: to come forward and to expose how pervasive this crime is,
Speaker 1: we need to talk about it. So we set aside
Speaker 1: a sadder and we gathered Ember Natalie Stephanie and Saskia
Speaker 1: on a video call. First off, I just want to
Speaker 1: say I am so grateful that you guys made time
Speaker 1: today to make sure this was a safe experience for
Speaker 1: everyone involved. We also invited a facilitator.
Speaker 6: Hi.
Speaker 10: Everyone, My name is Megan Cutter, and I am the
Speaker 10: Chief of Victim Services at RAIN.
Speaker 1: RAIN the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National.
Speaker 10: Network, which is the nation's largest anti sexual violence organization,
Speaker 10: and we operate the National Sexual Assault Hotline.
Speaker 1: RAIN has been consulting with us throughout this season.
Speaker 10: And I'm really honored and grateful to facilitate this conversation today.
Speaker 1: For the rest of this episode, we'll be playing you
Speaker 1: excerpts from our group discussion, and as a note, we'll
Speaker 1: be sharing more excerpts in a bonus episode.
Speaker 10: I thought we could kick off the conversation talking about
Speaker 10: this idea of community. What has it been like trying
Speaker 10: to find community or support groups after what happened to you?
Speaker 1: Saskia jumped in first.
Speaker 4: I hadn't heard about any of this before it happened
Speaker 4: to me, and when I did try to reach out
Speaker 4: for help, I felt like, because it was such a
Speaker 4: unique experience, nobody really wanted to touch it with a ten
Speaker 4: foot poll. One of my favorite parts of all this
Speaker 4: is meeting other people who can relate to having these
Speaker 4: acts done by someone who is dear to you.
Speaker 9: It's like, Wow, you did this to the person you're
Speaker 9: supposed to love most in the world.
Speaker 1: That's Stephanie, the woman who told her story on Betrayal Weekly.
Speaker 3: I had no bad feelings about my husband.
Speaker 9: I trusted him one hundred percent, and so what that
Speaker 9: told me is that my gut for who was good
Speaker 9: and who was bad was busted.
Speaker 6: I felt a lot like you did, Stephanie, of like,
Speaker 6: clearly my ability to judge is broken.
Speaker 1: That's Ember, the woman you heard at the top, because
Speaker 1: fiance was assaulting her.
Speaker 6: And I had always prided myself on being a good
Speaker 6: judge of character and being able to read people. So
Speaker 6: that was like a hit to my sense of safety.
Speaker 9: Honestly, it has been a real journey for me to
Speaker 9: get to the point of realizing that it's not my gut.
Speaker 3: That's broken, it's him that's broken.
Speaker 1: Natalie brought up something we hear about in so many
Speaker 1: of these stories.
Speaker 8: You know, just talking with my perpetrator, I know that
Speaker 8: he sort of normalized that well I'm not the only one.
Speaker 7: There's more than just this site, or there's a lot
Speaker 7: of people doing it like it's normal.
Speaker 9: My husband actually said to me, you know, otherwise, just participate.
Speaker 3: In this and like it really well, not me.
Speaker 6: It's almost like, because you don't want to participate, this
Speaker 6: is happening to you. I wouldn't have to do this
Speaker 6: if you were just a willing participant.
Speaker 9: And also that idea, like Natalie said, they're trying to
Speaker 9: normalize their behavior and make us feel like we're the
Speaker 9: one that's wrong.
Speaker 4: I completely get why people don't come forward because we've
Speaker 4: been so traumatized already and it's so re traumatizing to
Speaker 4: have to then put your life on display going through
Speaker 4: the criminal proceedings. I had no idea how shamed I
Speaker 4: would be in the process or how difficult it would be.
Speaker 3: So Askia, you are so brave. I did look.
Speaker 9: Into trying to press charges against my husband, but it
Speaker 9: didn't have what it takes to sit there and to
Speaker 9: be shamed and have every decision in my life looked at.
Speaker 6: One hundred percent. I think that's one of the hardest
Speaker 6: parts that I still carry a lot of shame about,
Speaker 6: is that I didn't have what it took to batter
Speaker 6: back against the justice system. I was being drugged and raped,
Speaker 6: and at one point I woke up an attack, and
Speaker 6: I remember going to law enforcement about two days later
Speaker 6: when I finally had my head about me, and I
Speaker 6: tell them what I knew, and they're like, well, if
Speaker 6: it's been two days, the drugs are out of your system,
Speaker 6: and it's really a he said, she said situation. You
Speaker 6: guys are in a relationship, like we can't prove anything,
Speaker 6: there's nothing we can do about it.
Speaker 7: I didn't report either, and I try to remind myself
Speaker 7: about that being the best decision at the time that
Speaker 7: I made.
Speaker 8: And I just was feeling guilty for not even thinking
Speaker 8: about being able to file restraining order because I was
Speaker 8: financially dependent on him as well.
Speaker 6: And then that's another part where people like diminish what's
Speaker 6: happened to you because it's like, oh, well, did you
Speaker 6: press charges? And if your answer is no, automatically you
Speaker 6: lose credibility. If you really did that to you, you
Speaker 6: would have pressed charges, is essentially what people believe.
Speaker 4: There's no sure thing, So even if you had file charges,
Speaker 4: I mean, I think if you look at the statistics
Speaker 4: of people who do report, how few people that the
Speaker 4: perpetrator actually is convicted.
Speaker 1: Our facilitator from Rain, Megan Cutter, jumped in to share
Speaker 1: a statistic.
Speaker 11: Ninety eight percent of perpetrators walk free, and for every
Speaker 11: one thousand sexual assaults, fifty reports lead to arrests, twenty
Speaker 11: eight cases lead to felony convictions, and only twenty five
Speaker 11: perpetrators are sentenced to some form of incarceration.
Speaker 1: These numbers shocked us. We knew that few perpetrators ever
Speaker 1: faced justice, but we had no idea it was this view.
Speaker 1: On the next episode of Betrayal, we dig into one
Speaker 1: reason why.
Speaker 8: I said that is not allowed.
Speaker 1: That is illegal. It's a crime.
Speaker 4: He can't do that.
Speaker 8: Come to find out they're married. Come to find out
Speaker 8: here we are.
Speaker 4: In twenty nineteen, twenty twenty, twenty twenty one, twenty twenty two,
Speaker 4: twenty three, he probably was allowed.
Speaker 11: To do that.
Speaker 1: Resources on sexual violence visit RAIN dot org slash betrayal.
Speaker 1: That's our ai n N dot org slash betrayal. You
Speaker 1: can also get free confidential twenty four seven support through
Speaker 1: Rain's National Sexual Assault Hotline. Just text hope to six
Speaker 1: four sixty seven three or call one eight hundred sixty
Speaker 1: five six. Hope you are not alone. If you would
Speaker 1: like to reach out to the Betrayal team or want
Speaker 1: to tell us your story, email us at Betrayalpod at
Speaker 1: gmail dot com. That is, Betrayal Pod at gmail dot com,
Speaker 1: or follow us on Instagram at betrayal Pod. To access
Speaker 1: additional content and to connect with the Betrayal community, join
Speaker 1: our substack at Betrayal dot substack dot com. We're grateful
Speaker 1: for your support. One way to show support is by
Speaker 1: subscribing to our show on Apple Podcasts. Don't forget to
Speaker 1: rate and review Betrayal. Five star reviews go a long way.
Speaker 1: A big thank you to all of our listeners. Betrayal
Speaker 1: is the production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass
Speaker 1: Entertainment Group, in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is
Speaker 1: executive produced by Nancy Glass and Jennifer Fason, hosted and
Speaker 1: produced by me Andrea Gunning, written and produced by Caitlin Golden,
Speaker 1: with additional production by Olivia Hewitt. Our supervising producer is
Speaker 1: Carrie Hartman. Our story editor is Monique le Board, also
Speaker 1: produced by Ben Fetterman. Our associate producer is Leah Jablo.
Speaker 1: Production management by Kristin Melcurrie, additional support by Curry Richmond.
Speaker 1: Our iHeart team is Ali Perry and Jessica Crincheck. Audio
Speaker 1: editing by Tanner Robbins, with additional editing and mixing by
Speaker 1: Matt Delvecchio. Special thanks to Saskia, her friends and family,
Speaker 1: and special thanks to Will Pearson and Carrie Lieberman. The
Speaker 1: roundtable discussion was led with the help of RAIN, the Rape,
Speaker 1: Abuse and Incest National netw work. Thank you to our
Speaker 1: facilitator Megan Cutter and to Angelina Marcano for her support.
Speaker 1: Additional thanks to Jennifer Simmons Kaliba. The trial's theme is
Speaker 1: composed by Oliver Bains. Music library provided by Mob Music
Speaker 1: and For more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.