Speaker 1: He took the police report and he gave it to me,
Speaker 1: and he said, one day, when you're ready, you should
Speaker 1: read this. There's some stuff in here that I don't
Speaker 1: think you know. It's actually diabolical.
Speaker 2: I'm Andrea Gunning and this is Betrayal, a show about
Speaker 2: the people we trust the most and the deceptions that
Speaker 2: change everything. When Angeliqe Robletto was seventeen, she found out
Speaker 2: she was pregnant. She decided that this baby would be
Speaker 2: her second chance. She got clean from drugs and made
Speaker 2: a new friend, another pregnant teenager named Cassandra. But one day,
Speaker 2: a casual hangout with Cassandra took a sinister. Angelique had
Speaker 2: a gut feeling that something was wrong, but she didn't
Speaker 2: know what it was. After a fire started, Cassandra was
Speaker 2: taken away by paramedics, and Angelique was left to explain
Speaker 2: the situation to her parents and law enforcement. She suspected
Speaker 2: that Cassandra started the fire and that the proof was
Speaker 2: in her friend's bag.
Speaker 1: I take the diver bag and I keep explaining to them.
Speaker 1: She said she had this present for me, like the
Speaker 1: explanation is in this bag, and as I'm doing that,
Speaker 1: I put the bag on the counter. I breached my
Speaker 1: hand in the bag and I feel these two metal objects,
Speaker 1: and when I lift them and pull them out, they're
Speaker 1: two large butcher knines, and I dropped them on the
Speaker 1: counter and I just start screaming.
Speaker 2: She backed away from the bag, trembling. The cops stepped
Speaker 2: in and they come and pull out.
Speaker 1: More They found, like scissors, disinfectant, alcohol.
Speaker 2: The items painted a dark picture of what Cassandra might
Speaker 2: have been planning that night, and Angelique realized the gifts
Speaker 2: you'd been given weren't for her at all.
Speaker 1: Everything that she gave me was one of everything. To
Speaker 1: take my son, to make sure my son had a
Speaker 1: newborn diaper, to make sure my son had a baby onesie,
Speaker 1: a receiving blanket, to wrap him in a blanket so
Speaker 1: he didn't get cold, a carrier to carry my baby
Speaker 1: out with. She had one of everything to take my
Speaker 1: child and to leave that house.
Speaker 2: It all finally clicked for Angelique. Cassandra had been planning
Speaker 2: to stab her and run away with her baby.
Speaker 1: I just remember sitting on the couch staring at a wall,
Speaker 1: and I just kept repeating the same thing over and
Speaker 1: over and over again. It was like a trance. I
Speaker 1: told you she was going to kill me. I told
Speaker 1: you she was going to kill me. I told you
Speaker 1: she was going to kill me. My mom said that
Speaker 1: I sat there for hours.
Speaker 2: The rest of that night was a blur. She was
Speaker 2: in shock. She remembers the cops taping off the scene.
Speaker 1: They had blocked both of my streets off so that
Speaker 1: nobody can get in, nobody can get out.
Speaker 2: What had been a potential arson was now in the
Speaker 2: attempt of murder investigation. Later that night, a police investigator
Speaker 2: came to speak with Angelique.
Speaker 1: When the detective comes in, me and her very much
Speaker 1: know each other because of my past. I've got arrested
Speaker 1: by her at least once. It's a small town that
Speaker 1: she knew me by name, Hi Angelique.
Speaker 2: You know, she was surprised by how the cops spoke
Speaker 2: to her.
Speaker 1: They were laughing, they were joking, Oh, are you sure
Speaker 1: this didn't happen, And she says, you guys are smoking
Speaker 1: marijuana in your room. You know it's no shocker because
Speaker 1: Angelique has done things in the past, but it wasn't
Speaker 1: a joking situation.
Speaker 2: They hadn't been smoking weed. Angelique knew what happened. She
Speaker 2: just couldn't prove it to the cops.
Speaker 1: They had me write it down and then that was
Speaker 1: it for the night. They just did their investigation and
Speaker 1: they left. So the next morning comes I call them
Speaker 1: and they don't have any news. They know that she
Speaker 1: left the hospital and she's not there anymore. They know
Speaker 1: that for sure, and I'm like, okay, well, what are
Speaker 1: you guys going to do? Well, we're trying to find her.
Speaker 2: She was afraid Cassandra might come back and follow through
Speaker 2: with the plan.
Speaker 1: This lady literally came to my house with butcher knife
Speaker 1: and tried to kill me.
Speaker 2: But the cops weren't necessarily convinced.
Speaker 1: Well, we can't prove that. We can't say that that's
Speaker 1: what happened. We don't know if that's what happened.
Speaker 2: She didn't feel like they were taking her seriously. And
Speaker 2: now Cassandra was out of the hospital roaming free, Angelique
Speaker 2: decided to take matters into her own hands.
Speaker 1: I think when people think of survivors and they think
Speaker 1: of people that are victims, they think that we go
Speaker 1: into this weird moment of poor me, or like I'm scared.
Speaker 1: It's not like that. It's quite the opposite. We go
Speaker 1: into this moment that we need to figure out what happened.
Speaker 1: I was ready to investigate. I was very much I
Speaker 1: watched way too much SVU. I know what to do.
Speaker 1: That's how I felt.
Speaker 2: She got to work online, so I.
Speaker 1: Started googling my little heart out and found things about her.
Speaker 1: I found this news article on her, and I found
Speaker 1: out that they stated that she was a danger to
Speaker 1: herself and society. So that was like a little clue.
Speaker 2: And then she found a surprising connection.
Speaker 1: Her cousin is somebody that I knew from middle school,
Speaker 1: and I called the cousin.
Speaker 2: Cassandra's cousin had a lot to say.
Speaker 1: Found out from the cousin. She said, my cousin's crazy.
Speaker 1: My cousin is very dangerous. That's when everything started to click.
Speaker 2: After the fire, Cassandra was brought to the hospital because
Speaker 2: she was having contractions. Angelique had a friend who worked
Speaker 2: at that hospital at the time, a friend who was
Speaker 2: willing to break the rules to help Angelique get some answers,
Speaker 2: and what her friend saw in Cassandra's medical record was
Speaker 2: a bombshell.
Speaker 1: She actually saw the test that she took at the
Speaker 1: hospital and they were able to confirm that she was
Speaker 1: not pregnant.
Speaker 2: Up until that moment, Angelique fully believed her friend was pregnant.
Speaker 2: In fact, that had been the basis of their entire relationship.
Speaker 2: But now she had confirmation that it was all a lie.
Speaker 2: She felt like this information was important to her case.
Speaker 1: I gave it to the cops and they were like, oh,
Speaker 1: how did you find those? And I'm like, are you serious?
Speaker 1: Right now? It felt like they were not taking my
Speaker 1: case seriously, and it was extremely frustrating.
Speaker 2: For the cops to move forward, Angelique would need to
Speaker 2: get Cassandra on the record contradicting her original statement to police, because.
Speaker 1: Her story was that we were in the room, we
Speaker 1: were smoking marijuana, we asked out my pipe and it
Speaker 1: set my closet on fire.
Speaker 2: So they asked Angelique to do a recorded phone call.
Speaker 1: My goal was to get her to admit that she
Speaker 1: was in the room alone before the fire started. So
Speaker 1: I had to call her and ask her, how are
Speaker 1: you doing? How did everything go at the hospital? I
Speaker 1: had to pretend like I had no idea what was happening,
Speaker 1: because she didn't know what was happening. She has no
Speaker 1: idea that I found the butcher knives. So she admits it. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember when I was in the room. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: were in there by yourself. Yeah, I was there by myself.
Speaker 1: And that was the goal to get her to say
Speaker 1: all of those words.
Speaker 2: Then Cassandra started to catch on.
Speaker 1: I could tell that she wasn't alone. There was somebody
Speaker 1: in that house with her, because we all heard a
Speaker 1: man say, hang up the phone and then click.
Speaker 2: Angelie got what she needed, but it was anti climactic.
Speaker 2: The police basically thanked her and sent her on her way,
Speaker 2: but almost immediately from.
Speaker 1: That moment, I had went into labor.
Speaker 2: She went straight to the hospital. Because Cassandra still hadn't
Speaker 2: been arrested. The hospital took precautions to keep Angelique safe.
Speaker 1: They have police outside my room. They had me down
Speaker 1: as Jane Doe. You have to have a code to
Speaker 1: get inside my room.
Speaker 2: She spent four days in labor.
Speaker 1: I probably should have had a sea section, but I
Speaker 1: think they were trying to be mindful of the whole
Speaker 1: situation that I had just gone through.
Speaker 2: After all, someone had wanted to steal her baby and
Speaker 2: brought a butcher knife to do it. So she was
Speaker 2: adamant about not having a sea section.
Speaker 1: As much as I wanted my son to be born.
Speaker 1: I felt like the only safe place was inside of me.
Speaker 1: But at the same time I was feeling like, okay,
Speaker 1: well inside of me isn't safe because someone just tried
Speaker 1: to kill me. So I was going through all of
Speaker 1: these emotions.
Speaker 2: The stress had led to high blood pressure, and now
Speaker 2: Angelique had pre eclampsia. It was a high risk birth.
Speaker 1: Finally, my water broke and it was just an intense birth,
Speaker 1: as heart rate had dropped at some point. It was honestly,
Speaker 1: it was scary.
Speaker 2: Finally her son was born. He was healthy and in
Speaker 2: her arms.
Speaker 1: I went through such a traumatic event that seeing him
Speaker 1: alive was just a blessing. I could not imagine him
Speaker 1: being with anybody else.
Speaker 2: She hoped that after he was born she'd find some relief.
Speaker 1: And finally, once everything is okay, I still can't sleep
Speaker 1: because a I'm freaking out on nurses, making them show
Speaker 1: me their badges too. I think I'm destined to die,
Speaker 1: and I just want to spend whatever moments I can
Speaker 1: with my son. And that's all I remember. Actually being
Speaker 1: in the hospital is I was worried about someone coming
Speaker 1: to steal him or me dying.
Speaker 2: While she was in the hospital, her family worked to
Speaker 2: renovate her bedroom to repaint it and make it livable again,
Speaker 2: but after she was discharged, she struggled to relax at home.
Speaker 1: Coming home is such a blur. I didn't go back
Speaker 1: in my room. I refused to go in my room,
Speaker 1: so I slept on the couch.
Speaker 2: Josh, her son's father, stepped up to help. He wanted
Speaker 2: to be a safe place for Angelique, so every night
Speaker 2: he stayed with her on the couch next to their
Speaker 2: new baby.
Speaker 1: He helped me feel safe when nobody else made me
Speaker 1: feel that way.
Speaker 2: But even with him by her side, she couldn't let
Speaker 2: her guard down.
Speaker 1: I just wasn't myself. There was nothing that was right
Speaker 1: or okay about me.
Speaker 2: When Josh or her family tried to talk to her
Speaker 2: about how she was doing, Angelique shut down.
Speaker 1: I pushed everybody away. Josh would say something and I
Speaker 1: would be like, I'm fine, but really up dying inside.
Speaker 2: She wanted Cassandra arrested, but the cops weren't sharing any
Speaker 2: information about the case.
Speaker 1: I felt like I was completely in the dark when
Speaker 1: it came to my investigation. Anytime I try to talk
Speaker 1: to somebody, nobody give me answers and It was just
Speaker 1: super discouraging because I had gotten out of the hospital
Speaker 1: and I expected to feel safe, and I didn't feel safe.
Speaker 1: I expected for her to be caught. She wasn't caught.
Speaker 2: She didn't even feel safe taking a walk around her neighborhood.
Speaker 1: I just never left my house. I stayed inside of
Speaker 1: my house and never left.
Speaker 2: One night, about a month after her son was born.
Speaker 1: I fell asleep one night and I remember my mom
Speaker 1: coming into the room. It had to have been like midnight,
Speaker 1: and she woken me up and she said here, and
Speaker 1: she like hands me the phone, and I'm like, who
Speaker 1: is it.
Speaker 2: It was the lead detective on her case, and she
Speaker 2: was like, we got her. Cassandra had been arrested. After
Speaker 2: weeks of waiting. Angelique was losing faith that Cassandra would
Speaker 2: ever be held responsible, but then she got the call.
Speaker 2: Law enforcement was finally able to make an arrest. Cassandra
Speaker 2: was facing multiple charges.
Speaker 1: She is being charged with attempted first degree murder, which
Speaker 1: means that it was plotted. It was planned out, so
Speaker 1: tempted first grea murder, arson burglary. She said She's going
Speaker 1: to go away for a very very long time.
Speaker 2: Cassandra had made a full confession.
Speaker 1: And I started crying and I said she admitted it,
Speaker 1: and they said, yeah, she admitted it.
Speaker 2: She admitted that she'd planned to murder Angelique in order
Speaker 2: to steal her baby. Cassandra was now behind bars and
Speaker 2: she would stay there until there was a trial, and I.
Speaker 1: Just remember crying and being so happy. That was the
Speaker 1: first night that I actually slept.
Speaker 2: The news brought a lot of relief. Angelie could breathe
Speaker 2: a little easier, but the arrest didn't take away the trauma.
Speaker 1: As a mom, you imagine they're going to be this
Speaker 1: happy family. You're going to teach him how to say mama.
Speaker 1: You're going to teach them how to walk. You're going
Speaker 1: to teach him, you know, figure out if his first
Speaker 1: food is going to be peaches or carrots. All of
Speaker 1: these things are things that I thought about. I don't
Speaker 1: remember any of them. It's like it was all stolen
Speaker 1: from me.
Speaker 2: She recently saw a video that was taken when her
Speaker 2: son was one. He was learning how to walk for
Speaker 2: the first time.
Speaker 1: And I say it, Oh my gosh, it's his first steps.
Speaker 1: I can't I don't remember that video. I don't remember
Speaker 1: where that video was taken. What time, like I and
Speaker 1: I was standing right there talking in the video.
Speaker 2: In the wake of everything, she wasn't living.
Speaker 1: She was surviving my family, my friends. They distracted me.
Speaker 1: I can't tell you how because I don't remember, but
Speaker 1: I know that I survived.
Speaker 2: When everything went down and League had to fight for
Speaker 2: her case to be taken seriously by the cops. And
Speaker 2: after Cassandra was arrested, she didn't hear anything from law
Speaker 2: enforcement or prosecutors for twelve months.
Speaker 1: I just remember thinking, like, when is this going to happen?
Speaker 1: Like what's going to happen? Maybe I should just be
Speaker 1: thankful that she's in jail, But nobody has communicated anything
Speaker 1: with me.
Speaker 2: That was until she got a call from the District
Speaker 2: Attorney's office.
Speaker 1: They tell me, we're going to be completely honest with you.
Speaker 1: We don't think this should go to trial. And I
Speaker 1: was completely thrown back, like what do you mean this
Speaker 1: shouldn't go to trial? They said, well, through our investigation
Speaker 1: and through everything that we've done, the cops did not
Speaker 1: reader her Miranda rights at the time of the confession,
Speaker 1: and I was like, wait, what, Like, what do you
Speaker 1: mean that they didn't reader her Miranda rights?
Speaker 2: The full confession police got out of Cassandra wouldn't be
Speaker 2: admissible in court.
Speaker 1: If we go to trial, her whole confession is thrown
Speaker 1: out and can lose this case because it's not illegal
Speaker 1: to carry butcher knives around the city. Technically, it's not
Speaker 1: against the law, and we cannot pinpoint everything in here
Speaker 1: without her confession.
Speaker 2: But Angelique knew there was physical evidence from the fire.
Speaker 1: And I was like, well, what about her fingertips on
Speaker 1: the kiunt the candle, and they said yes, they said,
Speaker 1: we want to try to do a plea bargain.
Speaker 2: The DA's office informed Angelique of Cassandra's defense strategy. She
Speaker 2: was going to plead insanity.
Speaker 1: The picture that they painted for me was that she
Speaker 1: was there to take my child because she was mentally
Speaker 1: ill and believed that my baby was her baby, that
Speaker 1: she was pregnant and this was her child.
Speaker 2: And in that moment, Angelique almost felt bad for her.
Speaker 2: The prosecutor said that Angelique could.
Speaker 1: Decide do you think she should go to prison or
Speaker 1: do you think she should go to like a mental hospital,
Speaker 1: And I asked if they can give me some time
Speaker 1: to think.
Speaker 2: About it up, she slept on it and realized that
Speaker 2: without the confession. The prosecution's hands were tied.
Speaker 1: I didn't feel good about this whole thing, but I
Speaker 1: really trusted, like they're the professionals. This is their job,
Speaker 1: Like who am I to tell them what's right and
Speaker 1: what's wrong.
Speaker 2: The state offered eight years in a psychiatric hospital.
Speaker 1: And so that was our plea bargain.
Speaker 2: At the sentencing hearing, Angelique was able to read a
Speaker 2: victim impact statement.
Speaker 1: I wrote this long letter to her. I said, I
Speaker 1: don't want to live my life hating you. I don't
Speaker 1: want to have hate in my heart. I don't think
Speaker 1: I can live my life that way, and so I'm
Speaker 1: going to tell you that I forgive you because they're
Speaker 1: mentally ill. I ended it that way just from my
Speaker 1: conscience for me. A judge told her, Cassandra, is there
Speaker 1: anything that you would like to say to this woman?
Speaker 1: She stood up, put her hands together. She looked at
Speaker 1: me and said, no, your honor, and sat back down.
Speaker 1: No remorse. That felt like a slap in the face.
Speaker 1: That felt like I want take back everything that I
Speaker 1: said to you. That was the last interaction I had
Speaker 1: with her.
Speaker 2: Almost immediately it became a media circus.
Speaker 1: Everybody was outside my door, I had every single news station.
Speaker 1: I had people calling me. I had Andrewson Cooper calling me.
Speaker 1: I don't even know how they got my number.
Speaker 2: Everyone wanted to run with the story. Angelique became reduced
Speaker 2: to a headline. It felt like something was being taken
Speaker 2: from her and not on her terms.
Speaker 1: If I could take back some of the shows that
Speaker 1: I did, like doing the Doctor Phil show, I would
Speaker 1: have not done that. Absolutely. He used me for my
Speaker 1: trauma to get views.
Speaker 2: A few years after sentencing, a local journalist came over
Speaker 2: to interview Angelique the story and he was the first
Speaker 2: one to ask her.
Speaker 1: Have you ever read the police report? And I was
Speaker 1: like no. At the end of our interview, he took
Speaker 1: the police report and he gave it to me and
Speaker 1: he said, there's some stuff in here that I don't think.
Speaker 1: You know, you should read this.
Speaker 2: But at the time Angelique wasn't ready to hear it.
Speaker 1: So I know I did. I shredded it. I shredded
Speaker 1: it all. I shredded everything. That is what trauma does.
Speaker 2: It wasn't until eight years later, when Cassandra was released
Speaker 2: from the psychiatric hospital, that Angelique finally revisited the case.
Speaker 1: And that intrigued me to open everything back up because
Speaker 1: I felt like I was in a better state of mind.
Speaker 1: I was older. I feel like I'm ready to start digging.
Speaker 1: So I went deep. I went deep down this rabbit hole.
Speaker 1: I went to the police station. I pulled all the
Speaker 1: police reports, I pulled the tapes, I pulled anything that
Speaker 1: they would give me, and I sat in my car
Speaker 1: for hours listening to these CDs, listening to me like
Speaker 1: Me Talk, listening to all, listening to everything. It took
Speaker 1: like four to five hours.
Speaker 2: She started with Cassandra's taped confession and on it she
Speaker 2: learned Cassandra's story what Cassandra was really doing the night
Speaker 2: the fire started.
Speaker 1: The fire was never meant to happen. It was an accident.
Speaker 2: Her plan was to kill Angelique with a butcher knife
Speaker 2: and steal her baby. That's what she was preparing to
Speaker 2: do when she sat Angelique on her bed in the
Speaker 2: dark and counted to three.
Speaker 1: She said that she felt a moment of weakness when
Speaker 1: she was going to stab me. When she had me
Speaker 1: bent over, she had her hand on my shoulder, she
Speaker 1: had the knife physically to my back, and she was
Speaker 1: ready to push the knife inside of me.
Speaker 2: But then Cassandra got cold feet.
Speaker 1: When she started counting. She started to feel guilt, and
Speaker 1: she says, I started to second guess it if I
Speaker 1: could actually do it.
Speaker 2: When Angelique stood up, the initial plan fell apart, so
Speaker 2: Cassandra moved on to Plan B.
Speaker 1: She said the fire was supposed to be a distraction,
Speaker 1: and she was hoping that I would be overcome with
Speaker 1: smoke and I would pass out, and then she'd be
Speaker 1: able to perform the C section with me being passed
Speaker 1: out on the ground.
Speaker 2: Cassandra thought it would be easier to kill Angelique if
Speaker 2: she were unconscious. The whole thing was like a horror movie.
Speaker 1: It's actually diabolical. It's almost unbelievable though, that an eighteen
Speaker 1: year old can come up with this.
Speaker 2: It turns out the plan wasn't entirely hers, or at
Speaker 2: least that's what Cassandra stated in her confession.
Speaker 1: At the very end before they cut the tape, she
Speaker 1: talks about how she was a part of a.
Speaker 2: Gang, and in this gang, Cassandra confessed that she worked
Speaker 2: for one man in particular.
Speaker 1: She was his like his possession basically, and she had
Speaker 1: to do what he told her to do, and it
Speaker 1: was all his plan. And she was just doing what
Speaker 1: he asked.
Speaker 2: Cassandra claimed that she was part of a gang operation
Speaker 2: and her boss had a plan to sell Angelique's baby.
Speaker 1: She says he has done this before, that they sold
Speaker 1: babies in Mexico, and that they were going to get
Speaker 1: a certain cut. She talked about how much they would
Speaker 1: get for the baby, and that they were going to
Speaker 1: stay and live in Mexico.
Speaker 2: This was all news to Angelique. These tapes suggested an
Speaker 2: alternate motivation for why Cassandra did what she did, and
Speaker 2: it didn't match up with what Angelique heard from prosecutors
Speaker 2: back when they offered a plea deal. At the time,
Speaker 2: her understanding was that Cassandra was mentally ill and thought
Speaker 2: the baby was hers.
Speaker 1: But in the confession, not once did I ever hear
Speaker 1: her say that she wanted the baby for herself.
Speaker 2: And there was something else in Cassandra's confession another thing
Speaker 2: Angelique heard that didn't square with what the prosecutors told her.
Speaker 1: I heard them reader her miranda writes.
Speaker 2: Prosecutors had told Angelique that Cassandra's confession wasn't admissible in
Speaker 2: court because no one had read Cassandra her miranda rights.
Speaker 2: While reviewing the case file. Years later, Angelique discovered that
Speaker 2: wasn't true. They had read her her Miranda rights.
Speaker 1: I even had it circled where it says they read
Speaker 1: her rights and then it goes on to her telling
Speaker 1: her confession.
Speaker 2: This supposed procedural error was the reason why Angelique was
Speaker 2: okay with the plea deal. So why did the prosecutors
Speaker 2: tell her this story? Well, Angelique has a theory.
Speaker 1: I think that we were used as a plea bargain
Speaker 1: to help catch bigger fish. I don't think anybody will
Speaker 1: ever be able to confirm that for me, But if
Speaker 1: she had more information to help them catch bigger people,
Speaker 1: they don't have to necessarily tell me all the information
Speaker 1: on what they're working on.
Speaker 2: If Cassandra was telling the truth, maybe she could help
Speaker 2: law enforcement catch higher ups in her gang. Angelique got
Speaker 2: back to all the phone calls. Cassandra had taken the
Speaker 2: ones in Spanish, and she'd taken a call in the
Speaker 2: middle of the attempted murder. Angelique had believed she was
Speaker 2: talking with Edwin, her husband. So was Edwin the mastermind,
Speaker 2: the gang leader? The cops met with Edwin and they
Speaker 2: were very surprised to hear he.
Speaker 1: States, Yeah, she's someone I dated. No, we haven't talked
Speaker 1: in years, and we're not together. So this guy Edwin,
Speaker 1: who she told all of us was her husband, was
Speaker 1: not actually her husband.
Speaker 2: Edwin was a real guy that Cassandra had dated, that
Speaker 2: he hadn't talked to her in years. So who was
Speaker 2: actually on the other end of the phone? In her confession,
Speaker 2: Cassandra does name someone besides Edwin, but the cops couldn't
Speaker 2: find a record of this other guy, and that's where
Speaker 2: the police file ends. For Angelique, it felt like they
Speaker 2: gave up. She's had to make peace with the fact
Speaker 2: that she might never know who Cassandra was working with,
Speaker 2: she might never get the full story.
Speaker 1: I think about it a lot. I contemplate all the
Speaker 1: time if I want to know the truth, and I
Speaker 1: always go back and forth with yes, no, yes, no.
Speaker 1: The thing is, it's not going to do anything except
Speaker 1: for maybe piss me off. So I just stopped looking
Speaker 1: for answers.
Speaker 2: She's come to accept that the police report may just
Speaker 2: be another version of the story, and can she even
Speaker 2: trust Cassandra's taped confession. After all, Cassandra was clearly unwell
Speaker 2: by the time Angelique heard the tapes. Cassandra had served
Speaker 2: her entire sentence. Angelique felt like reopening the case against
Speaker 2: Cassandra would be a dead end.
Speaker 1: I found out way too late. We're talking about nine
Speaker 1: years now. I can't go back and bring them all this.
Speaker 1: I just thought every person there was doing their job
Speaker 1: for me. I thought this was a big case. I
Speaker 1: thought this was abnormal. I've never heard of fetal abduction.
Speaker 1: Like I just figured that everyone was in my best
Speaker 1: interest for her.
Speaker 2: Reopening the case would only bring back bad memories. The
Speaker 2: damage was already done.
Speaker 1: She stole my first few years between me and my son,
Speaker 1: and I'm never going to get those back. There's no
Speaker 1: money in the world that could pay for that. She
Speaker 1: stole that away from me.
Speaker 2: Her healing process wasn't linear.
Speaker 1: There were moments in my life where I remember being like,
Speaker 1: I'm healed, I feel so much better. I'm going to
Speaker 1: be just fine, and then like five weeks to go
Speaker 1: by and I would be like, I'm so triggered right now.
Speaker 1: And it's just been a cycle. It's been a vicious cycle,
Speaker 1: and that's what healing is. It's been almost fourteen years
Speaker 1: since my trauma, and I feel like I just had
Speaker 1: an epiphany just a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 2: She recently drove past the house where the crime happened
Speaker 2: for the first time in years, and instead of feeling
Speaker 2: overwhelmed and triggered, she felt a powerful calm.
Speaker 1: I realized, it's just a house. That's all it is.
Speaker 1: It's just a house that something bad happened to me in.
Speaker 1: But I'm here, I'm alive, I'm okay, and I have
Speaker 1: my son. You can't push or rush healing.
Speaker 2: Josh, her son's father, has been a constant in her
Speaker 2: life and in her healing.
Speaker 1: If you were to ask me where my safe place is,
Speaker 1: it's with him. I am scared of everything. It can
Speaker 1: be as simple as I don't want to get into
Speaker 1: a lake because I'm scared of their drown I'm scared
Speaker 1: of life because something traumatic happened to me when I
Speaker 1: had no idea that it could happen. So because of that,
Speaker 1: my husband has been there to push me into different
Speaker 1: directions that I don't think I could have done without him.
Speaker 2: They dated throughout their first few years as parents.
Speaker 1: And come twenty twenty, we decided why not. So we
Speaker 1: actually got engaged in twenty twenty and we got married.
Speaker 2: She and Josh had two more children together.
Speaker 1: We live a happy life altogether. We're a very big
Speaker 1: sport family. We do football, softball, soccer, rine quads, go hiking,
Speaker 1: go to the lake.
Speaker 2: The sun she nearly lost is now thirteen.
Speaker 1: When I look at my son, I just think about
Speaker 1: how lucky we are and how blessed we are, because
Speaker 1: not everybody gets this happy ending. I always tell him,
Speaker 1: you were absolutely meant to be here. I don't know
Speaker 1: what life has to offer you, but I just know
Speaker 1: you were meant for greatness.
Speaker 2: Angelique's also become an advocate for preventing fetal abduction.
Speaker 1: When I was seventeen years old, I didn't know that
Speaker 1: this was even a crime that could happen. I didn't
Speaker 1: know that because it was never talked about.
Speaker 2: Feudal abduction is incredibly rare. There have been less than
Speaker 2: twenty documented cases in the US in the last decade,
Speaker 2: and of those cases, very few of the victims survived.
Speaker 1: My motivation is not just to get my story out
Speaker 1: so that other mothers can understand that this is something
Speaker 1: that happens. I feel like it's an opportunity for me
Speaker 1: to be a voice for not myself and my son,
Speaker 1: but also for the mothers that are not here that
Speaker 1: didn't get to survive this crime.
Speaker 2: She's also done something astounding. She wanted to help others
Speaker 2: grow their own families, so she became a surrogate.
Speaker 1: Carrying a baby who wasn't mine and allowing that baby
Speaker 1: to leave my body and go to somebody else was
Speaker 1: a huge step for me and absolutely healed me in
Speaker 1: ways that I didn't know that I needed to be
Speaker 1: healed in.
Speaker 2: We end all of our weekly episodes with the same question,
Speaker 2: why are you telling your story?
Speaker 1: You think about how that one second that it took
Speaker 1: for me to turn around is literally what saved my life.
Speaker 1: I would not be here if I did not listen
Speaker 1: to that gut feeling. It's okay to be naive. It's natural,
Speaker 1: it's who we are. We're only human. Just listen to yourself,
Speaker 1: trust yourself a little bit more, sit there and start
Speaker 1: to learn what that intuition feeling is and listen to it.
Speaker 1: Maybe it'll help save somebody's life.
Speaker 2: On the next episode of Betrayal.
Speaker 3: I get a phone call and it was is this
Speaker 3: Dawn Harris and Astidy as it is? And they said,
Speaker 3: this is so and so with the Dallas FBI office.
Speaker 1: We'd like for you to come in.
Speaker 2: If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal
Speaker 2: team or want to tell us your Betrayal story, email
Speaker 2: us at Betrayalpod at gmail dot com. That's Betrayal Pod
Speaker 2: at gmail dot com. We're grateful for your support. One
Speaker 2: way to show support is by subscribing to our show
Speaker 2: on Apple Podcasts and don't forget to rate and review Betrayal.
Speaker 2: Five star views go a long way. A big thank
Speaker 2: you to all of our listeners. Betrayal is a production
Speaker 2: of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group, in
Speaker 2: partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is executive produced by
Speaker 2: Nancy Glass and Jennifer Fason, hosted and produced by me
Speaker 2: Andrea Gunning, written and produced by Monique Leboard, also produced
Speaker 2: by Ben Fetterman. Associate producers are Kristin Mercury and Caitlin Golden.
Speaker 2: Our iHeart team is Ali Perry and Jessica Kriinchech. Audio
Speaker 2: editing and mixing by Matt del Vecchio, additional editing support
Speaker 2: from Tanner Robbins. Betrayal's theme composed by Oliver Baines. Music
Speaker 2: library provided by Mob Music and for more podcasts from iHeart,
Speaker 2: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
Speaker 2: your podcasts.