Speaker 1: Hi, it's Andrea Gunning. Last week, we shared Andrea Dunlop's story.
Speaker 1: On this week's episode, Andrea and I sit down for
Speaker 1: a conversation about true crime podcasting.
Speaker 2: We get into what this work means for.
Speaker 1: Us and how we approach these stories.
Speaker 2: We hope you enjoy it.
Speaker 1: Andrea, thank you so much for joining me. I'm a
Speaker 1: listener and also a huge fan of Nobody Should Believe Me,
Speaker 1: which is your show, and you know, we just shared
Speaker 1: your story on Betrayal Weekly, and I'm just so glad
Speaker 1: our two shows are collaborating because I think that Munchausen
Speaker 1: by Proxy, which is what you cover in your show,
Speaker 1: shares a lot.
Speaker 2: In common with Betrayal.
Speaker 1: Earlier, we were joking that this conversation is kind of
Speaker 1: like the Andrea Andrea True Crime Summit, but that's really
Speaker 1: what it feels like. So I'm hoping we can really
Speaker 1: compare notes about what it's like working in this space.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'd love to start off with just your background.
Speaker 3: How did you get into being a true crime podcaster?
Speaker 1: You know, I often joke that I am a recovering
Speaker 1: TV executive, and so I hail from the TV space,
Speaker 1: but I work for a company called Glass Entertainment Group,
Speaker 1: and we specialize in reality TV and documentaries. And for
Speaker 1: about seven and a half eight years, I was overseeing
Speaker 1: our business department, so I was the executive in charge
Speaker 1: of production, So I did all the boring things in TV,
Speaker 1: which is like the budget, the financing, like.
Speaker 2: All the hard stuff.
Speaker 1: And my colleague Ben and I were constantly working through
Speaker 1: legal deals with our development department, and we were seeing
Speaker 1: great stories getting passed by TV executives and networks. When
Speaker 1: one story that came across our desk, we were working
Speaker 1: with Kim Goldman, who is the sister of Ron Goldman
Speaker 1: who was murdered by OJ Simpson, and we were trying
Speaker 1: to sell something in TV with her, but a lot
Speaker 1: of TV networks weren't interested in the project unless OJ
Speaker 1: was involved, or OJ was attached, or we could guarantee
Speaker 1: an interview with OJ. And this was back when OJ
Speaker 1: was still living I think he had just gotten out
Speaker 1: of prison and was living in Vegas at the time.
Speaker 2: But my colleagues and I really.
Speaker 1: Believe that there was a story here even without OJ's voice,
Speaker 1: So we decided to make it a podcast, and instead
Speaker 1: of telling the OJ Simpson story, we told the story
Speaker 1: of people who lived it, and so that's how we
Speaker 1: got started in the podcast space.
Speaker 3: That's a great answer. I mean I really see like
Speaker 3: that imprint for the work you've done after for that,
Speaker 3: you know, and also that just really plugs into what
Speaker 3: I think is interesting about true crime stories, which is
Speaker 3: the sort of long tail of them and the way
Speaker 3: that they impact the people who are pulled into them.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So one of the things you're known for is your
Speaker 3: work on Betrayal and now Betrayal Weekly. How did you
Speaker 3: come to that story that was the first season of Betrayal.
Speaker 1: It's all kind of related. So Jen Fason is the
Speaker 1: subject of season one in her marriage and how the
Speaker 1: marriage unraveled. But she works in television. She's in a
Speaker 1: television executive producer, so we kind of are in the
Speaker 1: same universe. And Jen had heard confronting oj Simpson and
Speaker 1: reached out to her agent, and her agent reached out
Speaker 1: to me and my colleague Ben for an initial conversation.
Speaker 1: But the universe has an interesting way of working because
Speaker 1: at this time, I was getting out of a relationship,
Speaker 1: I had moved out of my boyfriend's house. I had
Speaker 1: discovered a lot of deception, not to the magnitude that
Speaker 1: Jen had, and I was kind of recovering from understanding
Speaker 1: like why was I in this relationship?
Speaker 2: Why was I ignoring a lot of signs?
Speaker 1: Was I ignoring it or was it like, you know,
Speaker 1: all of these questions that were coming to the surface.
Speaker 2: So it was like I was meeting Jen at the
Speaker 2: perfect time.
Speaker 1: I couldn't relate to the magnitude of what Jen was
Speaker 1: going through, but I knew, like as it was like
Speaker 1: I don't even want to say as a woman, as
Speaker 1: a woman, but as a human being, I understood the
Speaker 1: pain when she pitched me her story, I understood her
Speaker 1: anger and her confusion, and I felt like this emotional
Speaker 1: access and I thought, if we could maybe do something
Speaker 1: with that, people will relate and maybe heal. And so
Speaker 1: just that relatability and that timing of it just so
Speaker 1: happened to work out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's amazing, And I think that that shows up
Speaker 3: in the quality of the season and just the emotional
Speaker 3: depth of it. And I'm really interested in what you
Speaker 3: said about this idea of not coming from a place
Speaker 3: of anger. This is a really complicated part of interviewing
Speaker 3: people about these stories, right because they have every right
Speaker 3: to be angry. You have every right to want to
Speaker 3: even go on a sort of revenge journey, but doing
Speaker 3: that on a podcast is not actually helpful to anyone, right,
Speaker 3: It's not helpful for the listener. It's not really ethical
Speaker 3: to sort of try and get someone in that energy,
Speaker 3: even if it can be compelling.
Speaker 2: In its own right.
Speaker 3: And I have the same sort of thing when I
Speaker 3: talk to folks who are often dealing with really extreme
Speaker 3: betrayals and then on top of that, you know, the
Speaker 3: abuse to them or abuse to their children or children
Speaker 3: that they care about, and it's I think, really important
Speaker 3: to make sure that someone is ready to have that conversation.
Speaker 3: It was important to me, you know. I started off
Speaker 3: with telling my own story in the first two seasons
Speaker 3: of the show kind of bit by bit, and I
Speaker 3: sort of revisited pieces of it from time to time,
Speaker 3: but like I had to wait, you know, a decade
Speaker 3: until I was ready to talk about it. I was like,
Speaker 3: it's such a vulnerable thing, and it's such a vulnerable
Speaker 3: thing to put out there and then have people react to.
Speaker 3: There are so many points along this journey where getting
Speaker 3: on a mic would have been the absolute wrong choice
Speaker 3: for me, right, and I think there's also like the
Speaker 3: expectation setting, because if you're talking about a case where
Speaker 3: it's either an unsolved case, or it's a case where
Speaker 3: there wasn't a good outcome, or it's a case where
Speaker 3: like the person you're talking to wants some action to
Speaker 3: be taken by authorities, that's not something that we can
Speaker 3: make happen.
Speaker 2: Can't always guarantee, right.
Speaker 3: And like so I think that that's also like a
Speaker 3: really tricky part of it of making sure that who
Speaker 3: I'm talking to you, like, Yes, we're gonna put all
Speaker 3: this out there, and I think people are going to care.
Speaker 3: I think people are going to get something out of it.
Speaker 3: They're going to learn something important, They're going to relate
Speaker 3: with this experience. I hope you get a deep personal
Speaker 3: Catharsis from sharing this. But like the cavalry is unlikely
Speaker 3: to mount up because unfortunately that's just not often how
Speaker 3: it works, And this may not end with the answers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that was my worry producing There and Gone,
Speaker 1: which came out this past summer in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: And I have to give iHeart a lot of credit
Speaker 1: because we pitched them this story and there wasn't an
Speaker 1: ending and we couldn't guarantee that we would find or
Speaker 1: solve this case. And so you're taking a lot of risk,
Speaker 1: and then the partnerships that you with distributors are also
Speaker 1: taking a lot of risk for what's the payoff? You know,
Speaker 1: what's the audience going to leave thinking? Are they going
Speaker 1: to walk away feeling satisfied? And you know, these are
Speaker 1: people like we're studying, and we're exploring stories of people
Speaker 1: and their loss and their trauma and their grief, and
Speaker 1: so we're not always going to get a payoff that
Speaker 1: makes sense to everybody. You know, I like telling stories
Speaker 1: that really show the complexity of the human experience, and
Speaker 1: I think they'rein Gone is an example of that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, can you can you kind of give us a
Speaker 3: give us an intro to the case and how you
Speaker 3: got interested in it.
Speaker 1: Sure, it's the story of Richard Patron and Danielle Imbo
Speaker 1: twenty years ago to thirty somethings just literally vanished off
Speaker 1: of South Street in Philadelphia, which is basically like the
Speaker 1: Bourbon Street of Philadelphia, the busiest place for nightlife. They
Speaker 1: were seen leaving a bar and then never seen again.
Speaker 1: And the until this day, no one knows what happened.
Speaker 1: Was in an accident? Was it murdered for hire? And
Speaker 1: so I remember this because I was, I think a
Speaker 1: senior in high school. And it was terrifying because one
Speaker 1: of the victims his parents have a bakery that I
Speaker 1: grew up going to, and both of their families look
Speaker 1: so much like mine in different ways. They do Sunday dinner.
Speaker 1: I come from an Italian family. We do Sunday dinner,
Speaker 1: you know, they gamble on Sunday or for football bets,
Speaker 1: like I'm wearing my Eagles jersey, like this feels like
Speaker 1: this could be my own cousin. This happened too, so
Speaker 1: it was very personal to me. And so it was
Speaker 1: just this loss that kind of reverberated throughout our entire
Speaker 1: community and continues because how do two people in their
Speaker 1: mid thirties just vanish, just literally into thin air. And
Speaker 1: when we were exploring doing the story, I thought the
Speaker 1: families would be very interested, but we would struggle with
Speaker 1: law enforcement.
Speaker 2: But then I soon realized that.
Speaker 1: The FBI really needed our help because the FBI knows
Speaker 1: that the more coverage it can get of this case,
Speaker 1: more people will be able to like call in and
Speaker 1: feel like, let me just do my part. Let me
Speaker 1: twenty years later. I'm just gonna do it. I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna make the phone call. I'm going to say what
Speaker 1: I know and be done with it. And I live
Speaker 1: in this city, and there are parts of this city
Speaker 1: where this crime isn't a big question mark. There are
Speaker 1: parts of the city, the neighborhoods in this city where
Speaker 1: people know exactly what happened or they feel like it's
Speaker 1: a fact. They communicate it like it's affect.
Speaker 2: I know who did it, I know why it's done.
Speaker 2: Isn't that crazy?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Like, how a whole neighborhood in one city there's like
Speaker 1: this understood rumor of what happened to two random people
Speaker 1: that have no connection. How was the neighborhood in which
Speaker 1: I lived?
Speaker 2: So to me, it was.
Speaker 1: Like, I just want to help these families. You know,
Speaker 1: we didn't solve the crime yet, but there was enough
Speaker 1: people that actually wrote into the FBI for them to
Speaker 1: reopen in assign new agents. So I feel like I
Speaker 1: did my job.
Speaker 3: Hell yeah, I mean that's amazing. And I think this
Speaker 3: is one of the most interesting parts of working in
Speaker 3: the true crime sphere and why it's so important to
Speaker 3: like take this job seriously and be really responsible. Is
Speaker 3: because it does have real world impacts. And yeah, I
Speaker 3: mean this question of law enforcement's like, so the case
Speaker 3: that I'm working on right now for our next season
Speaker 3: is one that I am hoping that some action will
Speaker 3: happen on. How realistic that is, who knows, but I
Speaker 3: do think that it is and can be a powerful
Speaker 3: tool to getting law enforcement involved. And that can be
Speaker 3: the kind of thing where you get, you know, political
Speaker 3: will for a local prosecutor to actually file charges on
Speaker 3: something where they might not otherwise. You can you know,
Speaker 3: get people who are making those decisions at the police
Speaker 3: department to assign some extra muscle to it. You can
Speaker 3: you know, flush out some new information from the community.
Speaker 1: Well, the first thing that just to interject, I think
Speaker 1: one of the biggest things that I feel like we
Speaker 1: both you know, betrayal, trauma and deception is one thing
Speaker 1: your show covers factitious disorder, and although they're very different,
Speaker 1: there's so many commonalities between people who you know, live
Speaker 1: through or have a relationship with Munchausen's and Munchausen's by proxy,
Speaker 1: and people who experience deception and betrayal. The topics we
Speaker 1: cover on betrayal are extreme, but sadly they're not uncommon. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And in season three we really focus on and male
Speaker 1: sexual abuse and we learn that one in six men
Speaker 1: have experienced this issue. But the really scary reality is
Speaker 1: it actually is probably more, but it just goes unreported
Speaker 1: because of the stigma around it. And I just feel
Speaker 1: like these are two taboo issues, you know, Munchausen syndrome
Speaker 1: by proxy, and to take that seriously and talk about
Speaker 1: it to help dismantle that stigma, it's such a large hurdle. Yeah.
Speaker 3: No, that's a really good point. And we've definitely learned
Speaker 3: a lot from the progress that has been made around
Speaker 3: child sex abuse, which I think it still is underreported.
Speaker 3: I think most people except that child sex abuse is
Speaker 3: real and not rare. Yeah, certainly anybody that's informed on
Speaker 3: the topic knows that, But I think that did not
Speaker 3: always used to be that way, right, And it was
Speaker 3: seen as this like stranger danger type of aberration, you know,
Speaker 3: one in a million sort of thing that happened, and
Speaker 3: then our society grappling with it sort of went through
Speaker 3: some interesting hurdles along the way, a major one being
Speaker 3: the Satanic panic, where you have all these stories about
Speaker 3: you know, daycare workers and underground you know, the McMartin
Speaker 3: case and all these like underground tunnels, which my take
Speaker 3: on it is that that was society grappling with something
Speaker 3: that we really really didn't want to look at, which
Speaker 3: is child sex abuse, and that actually it was easier
Speaker 3: and more comforting to think that it was satanic daycare workers,
Speaker 3: because that's a problem that you can ostensibly solve. But
Speaker 3: I think it's more comforting to think that there's some
Speaker 3: evil system that you can kind of shut down than
Speaker 3: it is to confront the reality, which is that this
Speaker 3: is boy scout leaders, priests, coaches, dads, uncles who are
Speaker 3: doing this right. So it's most likely to be someone
Speaker 3: that that child knows, and it's not going to be
Speaker 3: someone who is an obvious creep all the time. And
Speaker 3: it's so similar with Munchausen. And that's where we get
Speaker 3: into kind of the hullabaloo that happened around the Maya
Speaker 3: Kwalski case with the film Take Care of Maya and
Speaker 3: a lot of the coverage that really followed in lockstep
Speaker 3: with that, where they presented it as a medical kidnapping case.
Speaker 3: Medical kidnapping is our satanic panic. Essentially, it's like, you
Speaker 3: know this idea that doctors are just separating families, right, Like,
Speaker 3: doctors don't make those decisions. Doctors evaluate abuse. It's a
Speaker 3: legitimate subspecialty. There's just so much disinformation around that. And
Speaker 3: the Maya Kwalski case was sort of the most high
Speaker 3: profile one. But I think that there's a similar dynamic
Speaker 3: going on there, and certainly with Munchausen biproxy, it's not
Speaker 3: a one in a million thing. I think the behavior
Speaker 3: is a longest spectrum, but I think it's far more
Speaker 3: common and getting worse because of social media, because of
Speaker 3: which I would assume actually if some of the behaviors
Speaker 3: that I'll talk about on betrayal in this sort of
Speaker 3: more male deception and cheating and that kind of thing,
Speaker 3: like you're talking to Spencer Heir in case, like social
Speaker 3: media has given people unfettered and unlimited access to attention,
Speaker 3: and you know, I think it was doctor Romani says
Speaker 3: in the TV series like, Oh, that's the dangerous combination, right,
Speaker 3: attention seeking plus lack of empathy. I mean that is
Speaker 3: exactly how you describe Munchausen biproxy behaviors. And so I
Speaker 3: think there's every reason to believe that it's getting worse,
Speaker 3: and that is a scary world to live in. I
Speaker 3: hate to be the one to break this to you,
Speaker 3: but like the world is not what you thought. That
Speaker 3: mom of the sick child, who's raising money on GoFundMe
Speaker 3: and seems like the most heroic mother you've ever met,
Speaker 3: could be the scariest person you've ever met. And so
Speaker 3: I think that's why these conspiracy theories around medical kidnapping
Speaker 3: get traction because the reporting on it is very thin.
Speaker 3: Child abuse professionals do not make good money. Child abuse
Speaker 3: pediatrics is a highly trained and not well paid some specialty.
Speaker 3: They get trashed in the media, they get accused of
Speaker 3: snatching babies. I mean, it's not for the faint of heart.
Speaker 3: And also just like that work, like doing that frontline
Speaker 3: work of rushing to the hospital to see a child
Speaker 3: that's been abused is obviously emotionally grueling work. There isn't
Speaker 3: any scenario where you could make it make sense that
Speaker 3: doctors just want to do that. It's a nightmare for
Speaker 3: the hospitals. The hospitals can get sued, you know, it's
Speaker 3: like there's no motivation. But I think the reason those
Speaker 3: stories still take off in the media. Is that people's
Speaker 3: discomfort around the reality of this abuse is so so deep.
Speaker 1: Something that we're constantly confronting in true crime is having
Speaker 1: to tell these hyperbolic versions of true crime stories when
Speaker 1: in reality, the more relatable and important ones are the
Speaker 1: ones that are kind of in the every day I
Speaker 1: remember when we were covering Ashley Linton's case in Riverton,
Speaker 1: Utah for Betrayal season two, you reached out to IKAC,
Speaker 1: which is in Internet Crimes Against Children's task Force that
Speaker 1: every state has, and I remember one of the task
Speaker 1: force members asked, why are you covering this case like
Speaker 1: I deal with, you know, perpetrators that are ten times
Speaker 1: worse than Jason Linton. Why this one? And my response was,
Speaker 1: I don't want the hyperbolic version see Sam case. You know,
Speaker 1: I want to meet people in a very average, everyday
Speaker 1: story because that's actually what's happening. And so I feel
Speaker 1: like that's the same for a lot of these mothers
Speaker 1: who are if they're on the new it's like this
Speaker 1: monster of a mother that did this, and it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, we have to hear about the extremes instead
Speaker 1: of leaning into the reality of what's happening.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I became a media outlet because I
Speaker 3: was so fed up with the way that media was
Speaker 3: covering this case, right. And it's been interesting over the
Speaker 3: last few years, as I've kind of jumped first, I
Speaker 3: guess I've noticed that awareness is increasing, especially because of
Speaker 3: the Gypsy ros blanterd case, which was so high profile.
Speaker 3: I do think that there's more of a conversation happening
Speaker 3: than there was five years ago. But you know, there
Speaker 3: was like so much reticence to talking about it. Like
Speaker 3: I remember when my novel came out, and like I
Speaker 3: had written like an essay for it and that got
Speaker 3: killed at the last minute, and there was just like
Speaker 3: a lot of like no, no, no, no no. If
Speaker 3: there's not a conviction, you can't talk about it. And
Speaker 3: I was like, if we're not talking about the cases
Speaker 3: where there aren't convictions, then we're not talking about the problem, right,
Speaker 3: Like when you get into the extremes and allow people
Speaker 3: to put it at arm's length, that person is a monster,
Speaker 3: that person is a psychopath, that like I would see
Speaker 3: coming and this would never happen to me, and that's
Speaker 3: not reality. And I think that was why for me
Speaker 3: it was so important to talk about my own experience
Speaker 3: because the other thing that we do with perpetrators of crimes,
Speaker 3: especially if it's something where it just feels so like deeply, deeply,
Speaker 3: deeply wrong, we often say, oh, well, that person must
Speaker 3: have had a horrible child, that person must have been
Speaker 3: abused as a child. There must be some like dots
Speaker 3: I can connect. And I think that that's part of
Speaker 3: the let me tell myself a story about this that
Speaker 3: makes me feel safe, right where, like, as long as
Speaker 3: XYZ doesn't happen in my family, we won't end up
Speaker 3: with one of these perpetrators in our family. And that's
Speaker 3: just not the case, right. I mean, my sister did
Speaker 3: not by anybody else's you know, nobody else witnessed anything
Speaker 3: dramatic happening to her. You were not raised an abusive household. Like,
Speaker 3: it's not something where oh there's some straight line that
Speaker 3: you can draw. And I think that's really uncomfortable for people.
Speaker 3: I think people really want to believe that something awful
Speaker 3: has to happen to a person to make them like this,
Speaker 3: and I don't think that's true. I think it is
Speaker 3: that combination of lack of empathy and need for attention
Speaker 3: that really can supercharge these behaviors totally.
Speaker 1: I think one of the things that I also felt
Speaker 1: was really relatable. And the circumstances are so different, but
Speaker 1: just knowing your sister's story and having to go in
Speaker 1: front of the judge in family court, like you're dealing
Speaker 1: with family court and criminal court are two separate things.
Speaker 1: And the issues that I've seen a lot of the
Speaker 1: women that I deal with on betrayal having to navigate
Speaker 1: the criminal side and once that's over and you know,
Speaker 1: the father of their children are released, then they're dealing
Speaker 1: with family court either in their divorce or child support
Speaker 1: or dealing with visitation. It is a whole other ball
Speaker 1: of wax where parents have a ton of rights rightfully so,
Speaker 1: but they're in situations.
Speaker 2: Where kids are at risk.
Speaker 1: It's a really scary system because they are two separate entities.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think that that's something that the vagaries
Speaker 3: of that like really is lost on people that have
Speaker 3: not had to interact with these systems. And I think
Speaker 3: people here and a lot of this again when I'm
Speaker 3: talking about like you know, my Kicks and Bogs work
Speaker 3: for NBC and his whole Duno harm series, like a
Speaker 3: lot of this is I think intentionally created a confusion
Speaker 3: where it'll be like courts said, doctors disagree, Like courts said,
Speaker 3: you know, uh, this and that right, and you're like, okay,
Speaker 3: which court under what circumstances like give me more information?
Speaker 3: Right yep, And everything goes to the family court first
Speaker 3: because those are less you know, those investigations take less
Speaker 3: time than the criminal investigation. So we end up in
Speaker 3: a lot of situations where the family court gives the
Speaker 3: children back during an active criminal investigation, which just I
Speaker 3: think sounds insane, but that happens all the time. Likewise,
Speaker 3: you know, there's this thing of like, well, doctors at
Speaker 3: this hospital said this, but other doctors disagree, without ever
Speaker 3: mentioning that those other doctors are people who were hired
Speaker 3: as expert witnesses by the parent defending themselves. Right, important information,
Speaker 3: And like, I think people don't realize that the courts
Speaker 3: don't take the steps that you would think in the
Speaker 3: face of a criminal conviction to like limit that person's
Speaker 3: access to their own children. Like for instance, you know,
Speaker 3: we just had a case that we were talking on
Speaker 3: the show at the Jessica Jones case in Texas where
Speaker 3: she got a sixty year prison sentence, and the courts
Speaker 3: did not perminate her parental rights and so now the
Speaker 3: dad has to pay to do that. So just the
Speaker 3: onus that ends up on a protective parent in any
Speaker 3: child abuse situation, I think people have no idea what
Speaker 3: that looks like, or just people don't realize how easy
Speaker 3: it is actually to get access to children. Again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, in the case of Stacy Rutherford and Tyler from
Speaker 1: season three of Betrayal, I think the courts got it right.
Speaker 1: So for people that don't know, Stacy was married to
Speaker 1: a man named Justin and he was a doctor in Rudding, Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1: She had two children in a previous marriage and then
Speaker 1: met Justin and they got married. They had two kids
Speaker 1: of their own, and he was by all accounts, a
Speaker 1: great husband, an incredible doctor, beloved by his community. Turns
Speaker 1: out that he was abusing Stacy's son from her first marriage,
Speaker 1: his step son since he was eleven and t Tyler
Speaker 1: didn't disclose until he was I want to say seventeen,
Speaker 1: so a long time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And you.
Speaker 1: Know, Justin also tried to hire a hitman while he
Speaker 1: was in prison to murder Tyler so that he wouldn't
Speaker 1: testify in court, which is what we cover in season
Speaker 1: three of Betrayal, And what the judge did is not
Speaker 1: only did he get he'll be basically in jail for
Speaker 1: the rest of his life. I don't want to miss
Speaker 1: quote what a sentencing was, but he isn't allowed to
Speaker 1: speak to his biological children or have any contact with
Speaker 1: the family until he's done his probation, basically for the
Speaker 1: rest of his life. And so I remember talking to
Speaker 1: Stacy and Tyler and then feeling like really complicated emotions
Speaker 1: because they deeply love justin like the person that they
Speaker 1: knew as a he being like Tyler loved his stepdad,
Speaker 1: but then there was the monster, the abuser.
Speaker 2: They were two different people to him. And that was a.
Speaker 1: Scenario where the court really contemplated a lifetime of abuse
Speaker 1: and grooming and narcissistic behavior and just got.
Speaker 2: It and knocked it out of the park.
Speaker 1: And I was like, heck, yeah, like this is a
Speaker 1: Pennsylvania Like I was really proud. So yeah, like sometimes
Speaker 1: we talk about things getting wrong, like that was a
Speaker 1: scenario where I think the court's got it right.
Speaker 3: And it's you know, it's so complicated, and I think
Speaker 3: it kind of goes back to this question of once
Speaker 3: you have identified a person as this type of abuser,
Speaker 3: where it has so much in common mantell'st my proxy
Speaker 3: with with child sex abuse, where it is, you know,
Speaker 3: an extremely compulsive behavior. It's one of those things where
Speaker 3: again I think like and I think we can more
Speaker 3: easily recognize it in child sex abuse cases where it's like, Okay,
Speaker 3: if you cross that line with a child, you're not
Speaker 3: a safe adult period. Like if you're capable of doing that,
Speaker 3: like you know whether or not you should be thrown
Speaker 3: in jail for the rest of your life or we
Speaker 3: should do something else with you. It's sort of a
Speaker 3: separate question. But like, you are not a print. That's
Speaker 3: why we put people on registries. That's why we say
Speaker 3: they can't go in your schools. Like we have no
Speaker 3: such attitude towards much as my proxy perpetrators. There is
Speaker 3: this idea that it is like some mental illness that
Speaker 3: people are sort of quote suffering from, and much like
Speaker 3: child sex abuse, there is an underlying psychiatric disorder. In fact,
Speaker 3: to disorder imposed on another. It's very similar to pedophilic disorder,
Speaker 3: which is also in the DSM, also very challenging to treat.
Speaker 3: Also very you know, unlikely that a perpetrator will take
Speaker 3: enough accountability to be treated for it, and it doesn't
Speaker 3: reduce someone's culpability. And it's like a very complicated thing
Speaker 3: that happens when like children always want their parents. That's
Speaker 3: such a biological drive for kids, that's a survival mechanism.
Speaker 3: Even if their parent is not capable of life them
Speaker 3: or being safe with them, like, they will always kind
Speaker 3: of have this longing. So you can have a situation
Speaker 3: where someone is separated from their parent and then they
Speaker 3: really really really idealize that parent and don't then protect themselves.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's really complicated. And then for survivors that
Speaker 3: have fully processed the abuse, so are not going that
Speaker 3: direction of saying this didn't happen to me, right fully
Speaker 3: understand fully process the abuse. I mean, we saw Joe
Speaker 3: in our four season really struggling with this with their mom.
Speaker 3: Of like they totally recognize what their mom did to them,
Speaker 3: and they understand a lot about the dynamics and they
Speaker 3: still love that person. And I mean, I would say
Speaker 3: most of the survivors I know are either low contact
Speaker 3: or no contact. But it's really complicated to navigate that relationship.
Speaker 1: We're working on a case for season four of the
Speaker 1: Trial at this woman out of Colorado's Springs. She was
Speaker 1: with her husband for twenty years. She lived like a
Speaker 1: typical American life. She thought that she was just basically
Speaker 1: living like the suburban dream. And I won't give all
Speaker 1: the details because we.
Speaker 2: Air in May.
Speaker 1: But things unravel and the family is torn apart, and
Speaker 1: she has to look back on twenty years and basically
Speaker 1: readjust her sense of reality because he shares things, discloses
Speaker 1: things that completely alters core memories in her life where
Speaker 1: she's living and thinks one thing is happening, where there's
Speaker 1: another almost like parallel universe where he's operating, and she
Speaker 1: has to hold both realities at the same time. She
Speaker 1: often says, perception is my reality, and that really is true.
Speaker 1: And I remember, because I had li into your first
Speaker 1: season so long ago. I was like, let me listen
Speaker 1: to this again, like you know, Hope's family and then
Speaker 1: your family. I was thinking about you guys, and like
Speaker 1: you having to look back, like once things became clearer
Speaker 1: to you or things were coming into focus, how are
Speaker 1: you looking back on that time? And how painful was
Speaker 1: it to try to merge what you thought you were
Speaker 1: experiencing and then the reality that you now learned. It's
Speaker 1: just it feels like those memories start to hold on
Speaker 1: to you in a way that you're like, I don't even.
Speaker 2: Know what to do.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it's a really profound part of the experience.
Speaker 3: And I think when people, you know, people like to
Speaker 3: throw the word gaslighting, I know, as like, you know,
Speaker 3: it's sort of this like pop psychology term, but I
Speaker 3: think like when you really have gone through like gaslating
Speaker 3: to my mind is like someone is systematically making you
Speaker 3: doubt your perception of reality, and you know, it's extremely
Speaker 3: disorb and it's sort of its own whole thing to
Speaker 3: recover from. And certainly for me, you know, given that
Speaker 3: my sister is in my whole life growing up and
Speaker 3: is in my earliest memories and it was a huge
Speaker 3: part of my childhood, I mean very close in age.
Speaker 3: She's my only sibling, it really breaks your brain for
Speaker 3: a while.
Speaker 2: Right, and now you're estranged.
Speaker 1: You guys haven't talked in over a decade.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is now fourteen years. This has been in
Speaker 3: my life and I've really gone through different stages of
Speaker 3: processing it. And it was like very clear that like this, okay,
Speaker 3: this is permanent. And then I sort of started to
Speaker 3: think about it as a death. I started to think
Speaker 3: about it as there was a person that I grew
Speaker 3: up with that I love, that I had these experiences with.
Speaker 2: And she died.
Speaker 3: I came to a new understanding of it, which is
Speaker 3: that that person that I thought I knew was probably
Speaker 3: never there and it was always a mask, and that
Speaker 3: the parts of her that I experienced as being loving
Speaker 3: and being connected were just a person like mimicking those behaviors.
Speaker 3: And that was a really painful revelation. It was much
Speaker 3: easier to think of her as a person that I
Speaker 3: loved and was there and died, but I think it
Speaker 3: was a really necessary one. So then there's the question
Speaker 3: of like what do you do with all those memories?
Speaker 3: And the way that I frame it, and when I
Speaker 3: see other people struggling with is what I hope people
Speaker 3: can come to eventually is a place that I think
Speaker 3: I finally arrived at after a lot of work.
Speaker 2: Which is.
Speaker 3: My experiences were still real. Like I loved my sister,
Speaker 3: I had fun with her growing up, I had a
Speaker 3: happy childhooded with her. You know, those memories are my
Speaker 3: memories and at the end of the day, it was real.
Speaker 3: It was real for me, So I get to keep them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like I'm a twin and so you know, my
Speaker 1: relationship with my sister, next to having my own children,
Speaker 1: that's the most important relationship in my life always will be.
Speaker 1: Like I entered the world with her, It did every
Speaker 1: fundamental first with her. I can imagine losing my sister
Speaker 1: or not being able to share in critical moments. It's
Speaker 1: a profound loss, that relationship with a sister.
Speaker 3: It is. And I think, like I'm sure that you
Speaker 3: get so many emails and messages from people listening to
Speaker 3: the Betrayal shows that like relate with that experience and
Speaker 3: see themselves in that, And I think there can be
Speaker 3: such there's healing and making that content, there's healing and
Speaker 3: listening to it. Listening to the betrayal shows has helped me.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Again, it's the complexity of the human experience. That's kind
Speaker 1: of like our driving force that Glass podcast and what
Speaker 1: we do with betrayal. You guys have that in your
Speaker 1: DNA too, Like I've heard it and it's been evident
Speaker 1: in every season that you guys be one.
Speaker 3: Well, I really appreciate that means a lot coming from you,
Speaker 3: and I similarly really respect what you guys do over
Speaker 3: there at Glass And I think, you know, I know
Speaker 3: how much this can mean to people as listeners, and
Speaker 3: navigating the pitfalls of how exploitative true crime can be
Speaker 3: is a huge job.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, y'all.
Speaker 3: Take it seriously because I know you're behind the scenes process.
Speaker 3: And I hope that we together can set a new
Speaker 3: standard in this industry because I think it really needs
Speaker 3: to happen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was giving iHeart credit. I kind of give
Speaker 1: Hulu an ABC so much credit. I mean, this is
Speaker 1: like a big platform and some of these stories are
Speaker 1: really hard to tell, and it's time where people like
Speaker 1: afraid to go there. I'm like really impressed. I mean
Speaker 1: season three is tough, but they saw a landscape. I
Speaker 1: mean this past year, the Menendez brothers were all over
Speaker 1: the place.
Speaker 3: I was thinking about that when you're saying you guys
Speaker 3: are tackling this, I was like, this is a really
Speaker 3: good time. Because we did like a little thing on
Speaker 3: our Patreon about that case because I was like, oh,
Speaker 3: this just feels so germane like, especially talking about you know,
Speaker 3: because obviously the Gypsy Rose Blantern case. There's a lot
Speaker 3: of parallels there, right where you have someone who's an
Speaker 3: abuse victim who commits a crime, and like, how do
Speaker 3: you talk about that? How do you think about that?
Speaker 3: And I think just the we were talking about how
Speaker 3: the discomfort around male sexual abuse in particular weighed so
Speaker 3: heavily on that court case.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, and for them to see that people are actually
Speaker 1: open to hearing about that and discussing that and just
Speaker 1: really sitting with that and taking Tyler and Stacy's story
Speaker 1: and pursuing that for the Hulu documentary is really exciting
Speaker 1: because it's only going to help dismantle the stigma around
Speaker 1: this issue. And I'm really proud to work with partners
Speaker 1: like that. I truly am. Yeah, that's that's incredible. I'm
Speaker 1: so I'm glad that they're supporting it. Something that is
Speaker 1: very special about podcasting, like podcasting feels.
Speaker 3: Like a medium where you can take a lot of risks. Yeah,
Speaker 3: someone has to go first, so I think like having
Speaker 3: a proof of concept with the podcast like that certainly
Speaker 3: helps TV folks make good decisions of like, Okay, there's
Speaker 3: an audience for this, so maybe it is worth taking
Speaker 3: a little bit more of a risk.
Speaker 2: It's a safer landing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly exactly, it's all it all works works together.
Speaker 1: So your book that just came out, this is your
Speaker 1: first like intro to nonfiction, right or do I have
Speaker 1: that wrong? No?
Speaker 3: This, yep, this is my first nonfiction book. The other
Speaker 3: four our novels. And it's very funny because people are
Speaker 3: always like with the book or with the show, they're like,
Speaker 3: oh my god, I love your show. I mean not
Speaker 3: because like you know, I know. It's like it's like
Speaker 3: they're trying to tell me like, oh, not because I
Speaker 3: love child abuse. I'm like, it's no, I know, I
Speaker 3: understand what you're saying. And it's like, right, of course,
Speaker 3: Like I want people to be engaged with the storytelling.
Speaker 3: I want them to connect to that. They're not going
Speaker 3: to care about it unless they are connecting to the story,
Speaker 3: and unless they are staying engaged with the story, right,
Speaker 3: And like, obviously we take it really seriously. Obviously we
Speaker 3: do the utmost to tell things ethically, but like you
Speaker 3: also have to have a good story, Yeah for sure.
Speaker 3: Well this was amazing. We just got like straight in
Speaker 3: the defend, which I love. I could talk to you
Speaker 3: for hours.
Speaker 1: Andrea, thank you so much for coming on our show
Speaker 1: and sharing your story with us.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1: Next week, we're sharing the first episode in Andrea's latest
Speaker 1: season of Nobody Should Believe Me. It's about Sophie Hartman,
Speaker 1: a mother who adopted two girls from Zambia, but the
Speaker 1: story takes a tragic turn when one of her daughters
Speaker 1: becomes terribly ill. So stay tuned and we'll be back
Speaker 1: next week with that episode. If you would like to
Speaker 1: reach out to the Betrayal team, I want to tell
Speaker 1: us your Betrayal story, email us at Betrayal.
Speaker 2: Pod at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: That's Betrayal pod at gmail dot com.
Speaker 2: We're grateful for your support.
Speaker 1: One way to show support is by subscribing to our
Speaker 1: show on Apple Podcasts, and don't forget to rate and
Speaker 1: review Betrayal.
Speaker 2: Five star reviews go a long way. A big thank
Speaker 2: you to all of our listeners.
Speaker 1: Betrayal is a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of
Speaker 1: Glass Entertainment Group and partnership.
Speaker 2: With iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 1: The show is executive produced by Nancy Glass and Jennifer Fason,
Speaker 1: hosted and produced by me Andrea Gunning, written and produced
Speaker 1: by Monique Leboard, also produced by Ben Fetterman. Associate producers
Speaker 1: are Kristin Melcuriy and Caitlin Golden. Our iHeart team is
Speaker 1: Ali Perry and Jessica Krinchech. Audio editing and mixing by
Speaker 1: Matt Delvecchio, Additional editing support from Tanner Robbins. Betrayal's theme
Speaker 1: composed by Oliver Bains. Music library provided by my Music
Speaker 1: and For more podcast from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts