Speaker 1: Topics featured in this episode may be disturbing to some listeners.
Speaker 1: Please take care while listening.
Speaker 2: It's a deep, dark secret, and fortunately oftentimes we're able
Speaker 2: to find content and actually talk with the suspect and
Speaker 2: get an admission.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was mere.
Speaker 1: I'm Andrea Gunning. This is Betrayal, Episode five, Beyond Wildest Imagination.
Speaker 1: We ended up staying in Utah for more than a week.
Speaker 1: I'm not complaining. It's a beautiful place to wake up
Speaker 1: and start work every day. Another woman from the Salt
Speaker 1: Lake City area had reached out to us and we
Speaker 1: wanted to meet her. Mandy had listened to Jennifer Faceon's
Speaker 1: story in season one.
Speaker 4: She wrote, the same time Jennifer was going through her trauma,
Speaker 4: I was going through mine. He was my.
Speaker 1: Fairy tale, the love of my life, and I was blindsided.
Speaker 1: To say the least, I lost everything. Hearing Jen's story
Speaker 1: helped me not feel so alone and gave me more strength.
Speaker 1: I can't say enough thank you. So we invited Mandy
Speaker 1: to our airbnb to meet Ashley. When you're in a
Speaker 1: small club that no one wants to belong to, it's
Speaker 1: comforting to meet someone else who's been through it.
Speaker 4: Here's Mandy speaking with Ashley.
Speaker 5: What was it about listening to her story that, Like,
Speaker 5: was it just the whole betrayal, Like just the fact
Speaker 5: that you just knew nothing about the person that you
Speaker 5: were supposed to know everything about.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think that's what drew me to it was
Speaker 6: that it was like that betrayal. But what really got
Speaker 6: me and what made me even write in was Spencer
Speaker 6: sounded like my husband.
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1: In season one of Betrayal, Jennifer Fason told the story
Speaker 1: of a fairy tale marriage to her college sweetheart, Spencer Heron.
Speaker 1: He appeared to be a picture perfect husband and caring
Speaker 1: high school teacher. When he was arrested, Jennifer was shocked
Speaker 1: to learn the reality was her husband had been sexually
Speaker 1: assaulting one of his students and conducting dozens of affairs
Speaker 1: during their marriage. His excuses and lack of accountability made
Speaker 1: Jennifer realize her husband was a complete stranger.
Speaker 6: And so then I felt like I connected even more
Speaker 6: with Jen What about you?
Speaker 4: The same, the exact same, the exact same.
Speaker 5: Really, Yeah, listening to Spencer talk, it's just it's infuriating,
Speaker 5: And I felt the exact same way.
Speaker 6: I feel like, too, there's going to be some shit
Speaker 6: ads that believe him because he is so believable. And
Speaker 6: then I felt like that was my husband for the
Speaker 6: last fourteen years.
Speaker 5: The things that he would say really since that things
Speaker 5: were happening, because there was things happening before that I
Speaker 5: didn't understand, and explanations that he would give me.
Speaker 4: I would be like, Okay, yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 5: Totally makes sense that we're losing the house and you
Speaker 5: did this and you didn't talk to me about it.
Speaker 1: Since Ashley and Mandy were both emboldened to share their
Speaker 1: own stories after Jen shared hers, we gave Jenna.
Speaker 7: Call I have you on speaker because you're with Ashley
Speaker 7: and Andy, and Mandy has a very similar story to Ashley,
Speaker 7: but they both as you know, Ashley wrote into the
Speaker 7: show and so did Mandy.
Speaker 4: It's how we found her.
Speaker 8: Oh wow, thanks you guys.
Speaker 5: Hi, it is so nice to talk to you.
Speaker 9: You guys too, And I'm really really sorry about what
Speaker 9: you have gone through.
Speaker 4: You're sweet.
Speaker 7: Jen.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we're sorry too, girl.
Speaker 6: I'm sorry that you went through it, but I'm grateful
Speaker 6: that you shared your story with us.
Speaker 10: Well.
Speaker 9: I was just you know, looking for anybody who had
Speaker 9: been in some sort of sitution situation that could relate.
Speaker 9: I mean, they're not all the same, but you do
Speaker 9: really feel alone out there and wonder, you know, does
Speaker 9: anyone else go through this.
Speaker 4: I'm so grateful for you sharing your hardship.
Speaker 8: Thank you. I wish I was there with you.
Speaker 4: Guys, I wish though too. We love you John.
Speaker 1: As bad as it was, Ashley had a little time,
Speaker 1: a few hours to process what her husband had done.
Speaker 4: Mandy had none at all.
Speaker 5: I met Michael through a mutual friend I worked with.
Speaker 5: We started talking on Facebook one day and that's how
Speaker 5: we started dating. And he was the absolute love of
Speaker 5: my life. He was the sweetest guy ever. We started
Speaker 5: dating exclusively at the end of twenty twelve, and then
Speaker 5: we got married in twenty fourteen.
Speaker 4: It's great. Our marriage was great. I loved it.
Speaker 1: Mandy had shared with me that Michael and his father
Speaker 1: were in business together but had a falling out in
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen. It was an acrimonious split that left Michael
Speaker 1: feeling angry and underappreciated.
Speaker 5: His dad took away the whole business, like went behind
Speaker 5: his back. It was a really low blow and that
Speaker 5: really affected Mike. That when I got pregnant with Sophie.
Speaker 5: He was like, we'll be fine, I'll find another job.
Speaker 5: He was always into like programming and stuff like that,
Speaker 5: so he decided that he wanted to do three D
Speaker 5: design stuff.
Speaker 4: He was down in that basement all the freaking time.
Speaker 1: Mike spent so much time alone in the basement that
Speaker 1: Mandy thought something nefarious was going on.
Speaker 4: Maybe he was having an online affair. When he would leave.
Speaker 5: I would go and look at the computer and at
Speaker 5: the history, and there would be like a regular porn site,
Speaker 5: and I was like, whatever, I don't care about that.
Speaker 5: But it wasn't like excessive, you know.
Speaker 1: When their daughter, Sophie was born, Michael re engaged with
Speaker 1: the family for a while, then checked out again.
Speaker 4: He just wasn't there. He was just never there.
Speaker 5: Even my mom was like, something's going on with him.
Speaker 5: He's being so weird, and I'm like, I know, I
Speaker 5: don't know what it is. Every time I bring it
Speaker 5: up or try to talk to me, gaslights me. I
Speaker 5: don't know what to do. Then all this other stuff
Speaker 5: was happening, like one one of the cars got repossessed,
Speaker 5: and then he short sold the house, and then he
Speaker 5: couldn't afford to pay the payments of the short cell,
Speaker 5: so we had to go move in with his mom.
Speaker 4: It was just like all boom boom, boom boom.
Speaker 1: They lost everything in rapid succession. Mandy didn't have close
Speaker 1: family support. It was scary.
Speaker 4: She wrote it out.
Speaker 1: For a while, and eventually Michael found a job at
Speaker 1: a serial factory. Mandy made extra money working at a
Speaker 1: local paper company. Michael's mother watched Sophie while they were
Speaker 1: at work.
Speaker 5: It was seeming like life was kind of getting a
Speaker 5: little bit more normal again. He seemed to be pulling
Speaker 5: himself out even more. He was actually going and doing
Speaker 5: things with us, and so I was really hopeful.
Speaker 1: During that period of optimism, Mandy was confronted with a
Speaker 1: shocking dose of reality.
Speaker 5: I worked four to midnight. I had just gotten to
Speaker 5: work and my phone rang. I was like, well, I'm
Speaker 5: not work.
Speaker 4: I can't answer the phone, you know. So I ignored it,
Speaker 4: and then they called.
Speaker 5: Right back, and then they called right back again, and
Speaker 5: then they called right back again, and I was like, okay,
Speaker 5: obviously this is an emergency, you know. So I go
Speaker 5: announswer my phone and it's this guy and he says
Speaker 5: that he's a detective and that they're at my mother
Speaker 5: in law's house.
Speaker 1: Who incidentally, one week before the detective repeatedly called Mandy
Speaker 1: at work. Two police officers were canvassing her neighborhood.
Speaker 5: One day, we were about ready to take Sophie to
Speaker 5: the park and this random older Toyota Corolla car pulls
Speaker 5: up with these two people in it.
Speaker 4: They get out and I mean they parked like right
Speaker 4: in front of his mom's house and they see us
Speaker 4: and they're like hi.
Speaker 5: They're super friendly and they're like how are you guys,
Speaker 5: and really good and they're like.
Speaker 8: Do you live here? And we're like, oh, yeah, we
Speaker 8: live here.
Speaker 5: And they're like, oh well, we're just with the police
Speaker 5: department and we're looking for this guy and they show
Speaker 5: a picture of this like hispanic guy. I'm all, no,
Speaker 5: I haven't seen anybody. And he's like, so, who all
Speaker 5: lives here? And we all introduce ourselves and then he's
Speaker 5: like your husband's here and I'm like yeah.
Speaker 4: He's like look, can you go get them?
Speaker 5: And I was like sure, And so they introduced themselves
Speaker 5: and ask him the same question, show him the picture
Speaker 5: and he's like, no, I haven't seen anything, and.
Speaker 4: They're like, okay, thanks.
Speaker 1: Now a detective said he needed to come and pick
Speaker 1: her up at work.
Speaker 4: I was like, oh my god. And so I'm like
Speaker 4: did I do something? Like I'm all like freaking out,
Speaker 4: like what did I have like this unpaid ticket? And
Speaker 4: they need to come to my.
Speaker 5: House like I was all these thoughts were and they like,
Speaker 5: just give us where you're at and we're gonna come
Speaker 5: right now. I saw FBI on their vests and stuff,
Speaker 5: and I was, Okay, this isn't anything that I could
Speaker 5: have done, Like I know, I haven't you know what
Speaker 5: I mean, Like that's crazy. He's like, Mandy, I'm not
Speaker 5: gonna sugarcoat anything. I'm just gonna tell you we're serving
Speaker 5: the search warm because your husband's been looking at downloading
Speaker 5: childhorn on the dark web for the past two years.
Speaker 5: I just started screaming. I remember, just dropped him my
Speaker 5: knees and started screaming.
Speaker 1: Nothing made sense, and yet it suddenly all made sense.
Speaker 1: The long hours in the basement, his complete withdrawal from
Speaker 1: the family.
Speaker 11: Was hard to hear that. It was so embarrassed. I
Speaker 11: was so ashamed. I was so frustrated. I felt so stupid.
Speaker 5: I mean, life was already not like it was before,
Speaker 5: but everything changed from there.
Speaker 4: I still struggle with it.
Speaker 12: I gave him all of me. I gave him everything.
Speaker 12: I never trusted another man like that, and then to
Speaker 12: do that, to do that like that is to me.
Speaker 4: The worst thing you could do. Those are children. I
Speaker 4: can't even trust you with our child.
Speaker 1: Her house resembled a scene out of Law and Order,
Speaker 1: except it was her real life and Olivia Benson wasn't
Speaker 1: making an appearance.
Speaker 4: As soon as we pulled down his street.
Speaker 5: The big huge Rvy, it's like bigger than an Arvy,
Speaker 5: just blocking the whole driveway.
Speaker 4: They're pulling out computers.
Speaker 1: The two police officers who were there the week prior,
Speaker 1: supposedly looking for a drug dealer.
Speaker 5: That guy was just a big guy. They just were
Speaker 5: coming there to make sure Michael was there so they
Speaker 5: didn't have to send in all these people and him
Speaker 5: not be there.
Speaker 4: Former Utah US attorney John Hubert mister.
Speaker 13: Gibbs, who was part of an international ring is stretch
Speaker 13: from Korea through the United States and beyond using bitcoin
Speaker 13: and anonymizing efforts to hide what they were doing on
Speaker 13: the dark web and through hard work, detective work, cyber
Speaker 13: sleuthing they were able to find mister Gibbs and an
Speaker 13: effect a search worn on his home in Utah and
Speaker 13: confirmed that he was part of this conspiracy.
Speaker 1: This website was one of the largest and most vile
Speaker 1: child sexual assault websites in the world. Among those arrested
Speaker 1: was a US Border Patrol agent, former Homeland Security agent,
Speaker 1: and assistant high school principal.
Speaker 5: They looked to everything, every nook and connie of that house,
Speaker 5: and I had to just stand there and watch him
Speaker 5: do it. The detective was asking me all sorts of
Speaker 5: questions too, while I'm standing there.
Speaker 4: Was he downstairs? There a lot?
Speaker 5: Did he hide out a lot from you? Is there
Speaker 5: any other computers? Any other devices? They took every device
Speaker 5: except my phone. They didn't even ask to see my
Speaker 5: phone or anything. They took everything else.
Speaker 1: Michael's arrest shattered Mandy. She simply could not bear it.
Speaker 1: Their small family that she loved so much went up
Speaker 1: in flames. Mandy and her daughter continue to live with
Speaker 1: Michael's mother, but Mandy struggled.
Speaker 4: The first month. I couldn't even eat because I was
Speaker 4: just sick.
Speaker 5: I was sick that that man could have done those things.
Speaker 12: I just completely lost myself. I don't even want to
Speaker 12: make excuses. I'm so ashamed of the way that I
Speaker 12: handled it. I could have been stronger.
Speaker 4: She turned to an old dependency to ease the pain.
Speaker 4: I was just so angry.
Speaker 5: I wanted to be angry for a really long time,
Speaker 5: and alcohol just fueled that anger.
Speaker 4: I feel like it was good to go through that
Speaker 4: because I.
Speaker 5: Don't want to carry that anger around anymore. That's exhausting.
Speaker 5: I went to treatment. I was in treatment for a whole.
Speaker 1: Year while Mandy's got help for substance abuse. Michael's case
Speaker 1: moved forward. Eventually he was granted release on unsecured bond,
Speaker 1: no bail. His release meant he would move back to
Speaker 1: his mother's house, and that Mandy and her daughter needed
Speaker 1: to find somewhere else to live. A close friend, the
Speaker 1: father of Mandy's other daughter, offered them a place to stay,
Speaker 1: and they've become much closer through this awful experience.
Speaker 4: I was on Sophie's birthday.
Speaker 5: Actually it's like one in the morning, and he was
Speaker 5: trying to get me to like let him see Sophie,
Speaker 5: and I was like absolutely not, like no, and all
Speaker 5: of a sudden, Michael just walks in the back door
Speaker 5: he's totally pasted, and he's like.
Speaker 8: You need to talk to me right now, blah blah blah.
Speaker 5: So his roommate picks up the phone calls the police.
Speaker 5: He had shoved me too because I talk to him,
Speaker 5: and so at that point at least come and they
Speaker 5: took him back to Joe. He still got released again
Speaker 5: after that, but that was on house arrest.
Speaker 4: Michael tried to convince Mandy that the content he downloaded
Speaker 4: wasn't that bad. He never tells me the truth.
Speaker 5: It's always it wasn't even that much, or it was
Speaker 5: I didn't even look at it.
Speaker 4: It wasn't even stuff that I looked at. What else.
Speaker 5: They weren't like little kid little kids. It's like, you know,
Speaker 5: like younger girls. It was only a couple things in there.
Speaker 5: A lot of the other stuff was like adult stuff.
Speaker 10: You know.
Speaker 5: It was because I was taking so much adderall and
Speaker 5: that made me just like really compulsive and want to
Speaker 5: download all this stuff.
Speaker 13: Mister Gibbs had one hundred videos of some of the
Speaker 13: most deviant conduct that you could imagine and hopefully never
Speaker 13: have to imagine. Egregious, disgusting, violent videos of young earls
Speaker 13: who were bound and raped, in front of the camera,
Speaker 13: and you have one hundred videos and thirty images of
Speaker 13: that type of conduct.
Speaker 4: I tried so long to understand and to reason. I
Speaker 4: have to tell you.
Speaker 1: When I sat at John Huber's office, I saw the
Speaker 1: description of the images that Mandy's husband was looking at.
Speaker 1: They were in the sentencing memorandum. I got through too.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Up until this point, I was existing
Speaker 1: in ignorance that I just couldn't conceive this awful reality.
Speaker 1: We've been focusing so much on the families and their trauma,
Speaker 1: but now the violence was right in front of me.
Speaker 4: I couldn't help a cry.
Speaker 1: It really is as bad as John said. Other revelations
Speaker 1: in the document offered insight into Michael's defense of his behavior.
Speaker 1: During his evaluation, he claimed that his abuse of Adderall
Speaker 1: had caused weird sexual behaviors and a weird impulse to
Speaker 1: forward and collect. And this is a direct quote from
Speaker 1: the sentencing memorandum. Whatever drove the defendant's highly devian acts,
Speaker 1: one thing is clear. The Adderall didn't make him do it.
Speaker 1: After all, the defendants stopped taking Adderall eight months before
Speaker 1: law enforcement appeared at his doorstep seized his personal cell
Speaker 1: phone and found many sickening videos and images plainly kept
Speaker 1: by him. There were a few other details worth noting
Speaker 1: in the report. The evaluator requested treatment for meth addiction.
Speaker 1: The finding was that there was a paraphilic disorder, but
Speaker 1: it was not pedophilia but fetishistic disorder. And the last
Speaker 1: and most disturbing, some of the victims in his video
Speaker 1: collection were the same age as his toddler daughter.
Speaker 5: I didn't want to know the details of it. A
Speaker 5: totally other nightmare that I don't want to live.
Speaker 1: You know, Michael's sentence was meaningful, forty eight months in
Speaker 1: federal prison.
Speaker 4: Still you could say he caught a break.
Speaker 1: The government wanted sixty months, and it could have gone
Speaker 1: as high as eighty four. When Mandy last heard from him,
Speaker 1: he was in a halfway house, preparing to re enter society.
Speaker 1: We've been talking a lot about justice and how perpetrators
Speaker 1: of c SAM were prosecuted and sentenced.
Speaker 4: I wanted to take a step back.
Speaker 1: And meet some of the people on the ground who
Speaker 1: chase down the leads generated by the National Center for
Speaker 1: Missing and Exploited Children. The people who go on those raids,
Speaker 1: a lot of them are part of the Internet Crimes
Speaker 1: Against Children Task Force or i CAAQ. For sure, there's
Speaker 1: at least one in every state. IICAC members include federal, state,
Speaker 1: and local law enforcement. Detective Rue from the Riverton Police Department,
Speaker 1: he's a part of IKAK. The task force investigates and
Speaker 1: develops responses to Internet crimes against children. These individuals are
Speaker 1: unsung heroes. Their purpose for existing is to keep kids safe,
Speaker 1: and as we learn, it's often at great personal cost.
Speaker 1: While in Utah, I wanted to visit with them.
Speaker 2: I'm Alan White, I'm the Utah Internet Crims Against Children
Speaker 2: task Force Commander for the State of Utah. It's out
Speaker 2: of control. Just back at the commander's meeting. All task
Speaker 2: forces are receiving so many cyber tip referrals from the
Speaker 2: National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, processing twenty six
Speaker 2: million cyber tips annually. In Utah, we're on track to
Speaker 2: see four thousand of those tips.
Speaker 1: The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children is a
Speaker 1: private nonprofit that receives most of the tips about child
Speaker 1: sexual abuse material. Some tips come from individuals, but most
Speaker 1: come from social media companies. The Center then contacts local
Speaker 1: law enforcement or the state's ICAC team who follow up
Speaker 1: on those tips.
Speaker 2: The case agents determine is that going to be a
Speaker 2: knock and talk or do we do a full search
Speaker 2: warrant and take a tactical team up to the door
Speaker 2: and serve a search warrant. In some cases it's more educational.
Speaker 2: It may indicate that it's more of a teenager, and
Speaker 2: we'll try to focus that interaction more on education. We
Speaker 2: were out doing a knock and talk a couple of
Speaker 2: weeks ago and it ended up being.
Speaker 14: A six year old little girl with a YouTube account and.
Speaker 2: There was a legal content on it.
Speaker 4: Google had flagged the account and shut it down.
Speaker 1: This six year old girl was taking images of herself
Speaker 1: and posting them online, and they were concerning enough to
Speaker 1: trip whatever algorithm is in place a flag seesam. Her
Speaker 1: parents had no idea what their daughter was doing.
Speaker 2: They have a phone, they have a camera, they have
Speaker 2: a video recorder, they have email. It's a small computer,
Speaker 2: and we're giving these smart devices to our children with
Speaker 2: unfettered access, and they can manipulate those devices a lot
Speaker 2: better than.
Speaker 15: Some of the adults.
Speaker 1: That case was an exception, but an opportunity to educate
Speaker 1: her parents. Most of the tips Ikak receives are of
Speaker 1: people deliberately creating or downloading child sexual abuse imagery. Alan
Speaker 1: has seventeen years in the field and he's seeing the
Speaker 1: damage CCM offenders cause.
Speaker 2: I started this work back in two thousand and six,
Speaker 2: and I've had different thoughts throughout the years, but as.
Speaker 14: Prevalent as it is, and the amount of manipulation these
Speaker 14: suspects due to their families, I've had suspects say in
Speaker 14: an interview, I wondered when you were going to show
Speaker 14: up their families and the ones they love the most.
Speaker 14: They're collateral victims and it destroys these families and we
Speaker 14: get to witness the beginning.
Speaker 15: Of that destruction when we make contact with these people.
Speaker 4: This type of work takes a toll.
Speaker 2: Watching the video to write a description, and that's the
Speaker 2: absolute worst.
Speaker 15: Part of the job.
Speaker 3: It's emotional, it's not easy.
Speaker 2: The day to day is so I'm thinking of images
Speaker 2: and videos in my mind that I've experienced, and it's
Speaker 2: beyond your wildest imagination. What motivates me saving kids, the
Speaker 2: children we rescue is enough motivation that I'm still in
Speaker 2: the game. I want to be on the team that
Speaker 2: continues to protect children.
Speaker 1: There have been days when Alan literally left, walked out
Speaker 1: and said, I'll be back tomorrow, but I can't do
Speaker 1: any more today. You tell State Attorney General Sean Reyes
Speaker 1: acknowledged how tough it gets for his officers.
Speaker 16: When I came in, we instituted mandatory therapy and support
Speaker 16: so they could access, you know, mental behavioral health specialists
Speaker 16: who specialize also in kind of battlefield trauma. When you're
Speaker 16: dealing with the kind of stuff that my agents have
Speaker 16: to see, especially in the dark Web, that's like the
Speaker 16: seventh ring of Dante's Hell, like it's the worst of
Speaker 16: the worst, the worst. You actually have to prove how
Speaker 16: evil you are by posting or showing and demonstrating certain
Speaker 16: acts that are so heinous and despicable that I don't
Speaker 16: even try to think about them when I go home.
Speaker 2: The women and men that do this work, they're every
Speaker 2: day superheroes.
Speaker 15: They really are.
Speaker 4: Alan introduced us to some of them around the office.
Speaker 2: This is the ICAC team back here, but we're doing it.
Speaker 2: We're starting with a tour and then I'll disappoint them.
Speaker 2: So we're starting with the high point.
Speaker 4: We'll report back.
Speaker 2: We have five full time agents. One agent that's a
Speaker 2: forensic examiner. This is our Hawaiian museum. If you want
Speaker 2: to take a peek in here. This is a kolu hi.
Speaker 1: I met Akolu de la Santos. His office was a
Speaker 1: little slice of Hawaiian heaven. Instead of a door, I walked.
Speaker 4: Through hanging beads into groovy music. Wow, a lot of
Speaker 4: come on in.
Speaker 15: Just take gander. Warm fire right.
Speaker 4: There, a fire burned on the wall.
Speaker 1: It was on a TV monitor, but still it gave
Speaker 1: the space great atmosphere.
Speaker 15: Just the representing my culture and my family and stuff.
Speaker 15: I'm from your fiftieth state. That's pretty much it.
Speaker 4: That's not all of it. He is creating Functuay for
Speaker 4: his mind.
Speaker 15: I like it like this just because, you know, the
Speaker 15: stuff that we deal with just every day. We have
Speaker 15: to escape every once in a while, and I like
Speaker 15: to put up stuff that makes me feel comfortable.
Speaker 1: Culu is a big guy, six foot five, and he
Speaker 1: looks like a professional bodybuilder, but he only cares about
Speaker 1: one thing.
Speaker 15: I have four kids, three grandkids, and my motivation just
Speaker 15: for being here is them. I want to step in
Speaker 15: and be that guy to you know, when the predator
Speaker 15: opens the door and they're expecting a thirteen year old girl.
Speaker 15: It's a three hundred pounds Polynesian guy that they're looking at.
Speaker 1: Even the biggest and the strongest among them concern Alan.
Speaker 1: He keeps tabs on everyone, making sure that they are
Speaker 1: coping mental wellness.
Speaker 15: That's my biggest fear.
Speaker 3: That's what keeps me up at night.
Speaker 2: I get emotional talking about it. But yeah, throughout the day,
Speaker 2: throughout their work, we try to keep one foot in
Speaker 2: reality regardless of what we're doing. Yea, this is Sade.
Speaker 2: He's one of the supervisors. I command it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, to meet you guys, it's me.
Speaker 10: Yah, sorry, I'm she works out.
Speaker 15: That's that's my form of therapy. It works for me.
Speaker 10: I do it every morning before I come in morning.
Speaker 1: Sete did the forensic work on Jason Litton's electronics.
Speaker 10: Yeah, we assisted with forensics, running the phone in the
Speaker 10: computers and yeah, that's that's what I did in that case.
Speaker 15: I remember that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was a bad guy.
Speaker 4: But he also goes out into the field.
Speaker 1: He talked about what can happen when they gather a
Speaker 1: family together and inform them that someone in the house
Speaker 1: has been downloading illegal content.
Speaker 10: Which is just about almost always figure out just by
Speaker 10: standing there. It's the person who doesn't want to make
Speaker 10: eye contact with you.
Speaker 2: Or sinking in the sofa slowly.
Speaker 8: Is it a mixture of mom, dad.
Speaker 2: Or alls often males. There's been three emails that I
Speaker 2: can think of off the top of my head.
Speaker 15: It's rares.
Speaker 3: It's a female.
Speaker 4: Can you tell us your name for the record?
Speaker 15: Yeah, that's an outlie comments building.
Speaker 1: I was like, this topic has a lot of darkness.
Speaker 1: It's shrouded in pain. But meeting the people at IKAC
Speaker 1: was like letting the light in. There are people who
Speaker 1: really care about their community and are making it safer
Speaker 1: in whatever way they can. I've been keeping up with
Speaker 1: the status of Michael Gibbs prison sentence. I was floored
Speaker 1: to find out that he was out early. So I
Speaker 1: was wondering how Mandy was navigating his re entry and
Speaker 1: boundaries with their daughter.
Speaker 10: How are you?
Speaker 17: I am so good good?
Speaker 5: Yeah, from like when I last saw you, I'm doing
Speaker 5: a lot better.
Speaker 18: What's going on with your acts?
Speaker 5: He is out and he is staying with his mom.
Speaker 5: He also has a new girlfriend who has three children. Wow,
Speaker 5: that's a that's a lot, right, that's a lot. Yeah,
Speaker 5: So the interactions we have are usually between like his
Speaker 5: mom post grandma, and it's weird and super uncomfortable.
Speaker 18: What's happening with custody.
Speaker 5: I have full custody of her. He has no desire
Speaker 5: to have full custody of her. He doesn't want to
Speaker 5: be a full time dad, nor does he think that
Speaker 5: I'm a bad mom. So he got to see Sophie
Speaker 5: and now basically he's off my back.
Speaker 4: Michael asked Mandy for visitation as soon as she had.
Speaker 5: Gotten out of prison and was in the halfway house.
Speaker 5: He was making it sound like as soon as he
Speaker 5: was out of the halfway house, he's done, Like I
Speaker 5: served my.
Speaker 4: Time for a mother. It's an agonizing situation.
Speaker 5: It's something that I battle with all of the time.
Speaker 5: Do I keep her from seeing him because of what
Speaker 5: he did? All these questions like what is right? And
Speaker 5: I wish that somebody could just tell me, Mandy, like
Speaker 5: this is what you need to do, and this is
Speaker 5: what's right, and this is what's safe, and this is
Speaker 5: what's good. But nobody tells me that, Like there's nobody
Speaker 5: that's going to sit down and tell me that I feel.
Speaker 5: So I just do what I think is right and
Speaker 5: what I feel like is safe for so and what's
Speaker 5: safe for me?
Speaker 18: That's me angry that you guys don't have something to measure,
Speaker 18: do you know what I mean?
Speaker 5: I know, I wish there was a manual. I wish
Speaker 5: I could read and like make sense of like how
Speaker 5: I don't know. I don't know. And the only way
Speaker 5: that I can treat it is like a child when
Speaker 5: he's around my child, he needs to be supervised like
Speaker 5: a child. That's just that, and I feel safe when
Speaker 5: that's happening. I mean, I trust his family entirely, you know,
Speaker 5: I just don't trust him, and then that also makes
Speaker 5: me like start questioning other things, and if I think
Speaker 5: too much about it, then I'm like in full blown
Speaker 5: panic attack. So I try to just be like, Okay,
Speaker 5: there's so many adults there. We're fine. It's fine. She's
Speaker 5: she's safe, she's happy. I know she's safe. That he
Speaker 5: doesn't get to have sleepovers with her, and he won't
Speaker 5: and he doesn't try.
Speaker 18: Have you seen any change in his behavior.
Speaker 5: He's doing great, obviously. He has a new girlfriend in
Speaker 5: New life, and I get to meet her, which is awesome.
Speaker 5: I'm super excited to meet her, and conversations with her.
Speaker 18: Sounds like their kas on how did that actually make
Speaker 18: you feel?
Speaker 5: I'm horrified for her. I've asked him point blank many times,
Speaker 5: like does she know, like she has three girls? Does
Speaker 5: she know? And he says that she does.
Speaker 18: Isn't he on the secondfender list?
Speaker 17: Now?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 17: Yeah?
Speaker 5: So I don't know. I don't know if she knows.
Speaker 5: It's not coming from a source of jealousy or anger
Speaker 5: or like upset. I'm not trying to harm or hinder
Speaker 5: him from having his life, but that the same time,
Speaker 5: I'm feeling this obligation of some sort and like, how
Speaker 5: much of it is my place?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 5: Because she's charming as fuck?
Speaker 18: Are you just taking it day by day?
Speaker 5: Or oh girl, that's like literally all I can ever do.
Speaker 18: If you could say one thing to the Mandy that
Speaker 18: just found out this news at were what would you
Speaker 18: say to her?
Speaker 17: I would just hug her for a really long time.
Speaker 17: I would just tell her that I was going to
Speaker 17: be okay, that no matter what, it was going to
Speaker 17: be okay, because that's all she just needed to hug.
Speaker 17: Just yeah, Because there's nothing you can do about any
Speaker 17: you can't change any of it, and there's going to
Speaker 17: be so many hard days, so many, so many. I
Speaker 17: didn't think that I was going to be able to
Speaker 17: get through, but.
Speaker 18: I hear you are.
Speaker 17: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Just about when we've wrapped up this episode, heard from Mandy.
Speaker 1: She had an update about visitation with her daughter.
Speaker 5: Last time we had talked, you had asked me if
Speaker 5: I had heard from the probation officers, and up to
Speaker 5: that point I had not heard anything. So it was
Speaker 5: maybe a week after we had talked last I got
Speaker 5: a message from Mike and he was like, hey, when
Speaker 5: Sophie was here last time she had hung out with
Speaker 5: Mike's mom. They had went back to the house and
Speaker 5: Mike was there with her and Fran was there, which
Speaker 5: was you know, like, as long as there's another adult,
Speaker 5: I felt fine with that.
Speaker 1: Fran is her daughter's grandmother and Mike's mother. Mandy wants
Speaker 1: her daughter to spend time with Fran and trust her
Speaker 1: to supervise visits with Michael.
Speaker 5: But I guess his probation officer had showed up during
Speaker 5: that point to like do a check it or job.
Speaker 5: So she called me and she's like, he can't even
Speaker 5: be around Sophia until his therapist approves it. So I
Speaker 5: was just super fresh because I'm like, I'm trying to
Speaker 5: do everything right and like safe, and I don't know
Speaker 5: if he knew and isn't telling me. I feel like
Speaker 5: he's not being honest. After I got off the phone
Speaker 5: with her, I called him right back and I was like,
Speaker 5: you have to know. This is part of your probation
Speaker 5: and stuff. You have to know these things.
Speaker 18: It's insane to me that he doesn't know that he
Speaker 18: can't be around children.
Speaker 5: Well, that's the thing, isn't asking her? I was like,
Speaker 5: did he know this or is this something that you
Speaker 5: guys just decided And she was like, well, you know,
Speaker 5: there's just requirements like she would not give me. I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 5: I under that, and she was like, yeah, that works
Speaker 5: up with this therapist.
Speaker 18: So for a point of clarity, the probation officer told
Speaker 18: you that Mike can't even be around your daughter, not
Speaker 18: even supervised visits.
Speaker 5: No, no, not yet, not until you've reached this point
Speaker 5: with his therapist and not sure how often they meet.
Speaker 5: I know that that's part of his probation as well.
Speaker 5: But whenever she gets to the point where she feels
Speaker 5: that's copathetic, so I have to talk to her therap
Speaker 5: like that, I'd have to talk to them. I was
Speaker 5: just talking to the probation officer and she said she
Speaker 5: would keep me informed.
Speaker 1: You can understand Mandy's frustration. She's trying to protect her
Speaker 1: daughter and she can't trust her ex husband. It feels
Speaker 1: like another betrayal. And let's face it, spouses aren't viewed
Speaker 1: as victims by the law, but the weight of the
Speaker 1: world is on them to continue to protect their kids.
Speaker 1: I wanted to look into this for Mandy. What's the
Speaker 1: process to find out what your ex husband, a convicted
Speaker 1: FELA can and can't do. So our team did some
Speaker 1: research and talked with the people who work on probation
Speaker 1: supervision in Utah, and it took some time. If you're
Speaker 1: not a lawyer or aren't familiar with the court system,
Speaker 1: it's overwhelm and it's hard to know where you can
Speaker 1: access all this information.
Speaker 4: Here's what we learned.
Speaker 1: Anyone could obtain the parameters of an offender's release by
Speaker 1: requesting the sentencing document from the clerk of the court.
Speaker 1: The forums are online, but there is a charge for
Speaker 1: the copy. According to the US Court's Probation and pre
Speaker 1: Trial Services District of Utah, the defendant, Michael Gibbs is
Speaker 1: restricted from contact with individuals who are under eighteen years
Speaker 1: of age without adult supervision, and the probation office approves
Speaker 1: a supervisor. The treatment provider, that is, whoever is providing
Speaker 1: mental health treatment the therapy that Mandy referred to must
Speaker 1: also approve the choice.
Speaker 4: Of a supervisor.
Speaker 1: At the time of me taping this podcast, no one
Speaker 1: had been approved as a supervisor for Michael to have
Speaker 1: visitation with a minor child. On the next episode of
Speaker 1: a trial, I just bald and broke down and told her.
Speaker 1: She said, if you don't report this, I'm gonna report this,
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh fuck, it's go time.
Speaker 4: If you would like.
Speaker 1: To reach out to the Betrayal Team, email us at
Speaker 1: Betrayal Pod at gmail dot com. That's Betrayal Pod at
Speaker 1: gmail dot com.
Speaker 4: To report a.
Speaker 1: Case of child sexual exploitation, called the National Center for
Speaker 1: Missing and Exploited Children's cyber Tipline at one eight hundred
Speaker 1: the Lost.
Speaker 4: If you or someone you know is worried about.
Speaker 1: Their sexual thoughts and feelings towards children, reach out to
Speaker 1: Stop It Now dot org.
Speaker 4: In the United Kingdom, go to Stop it Now dot
Speaker 4: org dot UK. These organizations can help.
Speaker 1: Are grateful for your support, and one way to show
Speaker 1: support is by subscribing to our show on Apple Podcasts
Speaker 1: and don't forget to rate and review Betrayal. Five star
Speaker 1: reviews go a long way. A big thank you to
Speaker 1: all of our listeners. The Trail is a production of
Speaker 1: Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group and partnership
Speaker 1: with iHeart Podcasts. The show was executive produced by Nancy
Speaker 1: Glass and Jennifer Fason, hosted and produced by me Andrea Gunning,
Speaker 1: written and produced by Kerry Hartman, also produced by Ben Fetterman,
Speaker 1: Associate producer Kristin Melcurie. Our iHeart teams, Ali Perry and
Speaker 1: Jessica Kriintech. Special thanks to our talent Ashley Linton, Alan
Speaker 1: White and the Utah KAC task Force, and special thanks
Speaker 1: to Mandy Hale and production assistant Tessa Shields. Audio editing
Speaker 1: and mixing by Matt Alvecchio. Trail's theme composed by Oliver Bains.
Speaker 1: Music library provided by my Music and For more podcasts
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Speaker 1: you get your podcasts.