Speaker 1: I'm Andrea Gunning and this is Betrayal Bonus Episode four
Speaker 1: update on Erin. Before the bonus starts, I want to
Speaker 1: tell you that more stories of betrayal will be coming
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty four. So we want to hear your stories.
Speaker 1: And although we've talked about marriages and parent relationships, we
Speaker 1: are open to any betrayal that has changed your life
Speaker 1: in a meaningful way. If you're open and want to
Speaker 1: share your story of betrayal, email me at Betrayal Pod
Speaker 1: at gmail dot com. That's Betrayal Pod at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: And of course, if you want to write in and
Speaker 1: just share privately, this email account can continue to be
Speaker 1: a safe space for you to okay. So on to
Speaker 1: an important update on Erin, one of the women you
Speaker 1: got to know last season. We receive so many wonderful
Speaker 1: emails expressing so poor and concern about her. Let me
Speaker 1: give you a quick recap of her story. Erin is
Speaker 1: a family therapist. She was married to Joel and they
Speaker 1: lived with their two kids in Texas. Joel was an
Speaker 1: explosive specialist for the military. Erin knew her husband was struggling,
Speaker 1: her marriage was in trouble, and after a fight Erin's
Speaker 1: intuition kicked in.
Speaker 2: I decided to look at his computer and I went
Speaker 2: into his recently deleted files, and that's where there was
Speaker 2: just a plethora of pictures like little Miss Country, USA,
Speaker 2: all different ages, all different looks. It was so many
Speaker 2: people he had collected. I clicked on one and it
Speaker 2: was this little girl who I'd never seen before, don't
Speaker 2: recognize at all, standing naked on a beach. She had
Speaker 2: a look on her face like, this is not me
Speaker 2: being cute and playing on the beach. No, it was inappropriate.
Speaker 2: So I actually took a picture of her from the
Speaker 2: face up because I just needed to prove to myself
Speaker 2: that I wasn't crazy. And then I took a picture
Speaker 2: of the names of the files, and then I shut
Speaker 2: it all down and I put it all back.
Speaker 1: What Aaron found was the tip of the iceberg. She
Speaker 1: took her two small young children and fled. She drove
Speaker 1: to the airport and flew back to her hometown in California,
Speaker 1: seeking solace and family support. Her mother was deceased, and
Speaker 1: her two brothers and father did not offer the safe
Speaker 1: haven she was seeking. After almost three years, her husband
Speaker 1: was prosecuted.
Speaker 2: He pled guilty to twenty five felony charges of child pornography.
Speaker 2: He was sentenced to eight years, and he only did three.
Speaker 1: One piece of Aaron's story that really affected our listeners
Speaker 1: was how difficult it was to start over. She lost
Speaker 1: her livelihood and her husband's income. At one point, Aarin
Speaker 1: applied for welfare. Then there was her family. Although there
Speaker 1: were many family members who helped and supported her, her
Speaker 1: nuclear family did not seem to find Joel's crimes as
Speaker 1: troubling and serious as she did. We heard from so
Speaker 1: many of you mothers, a former prosecutor, other victims, all
Speaker 1: rooting for Erin, and even listeners who wanted to send
Speaker 1: her financial support. Erin read all of it.
Speaker 2: I was blown away. I've not felt that kind of
Speaker 2: support since my mom was alive, and that was like
Speaker 2: the whole nation counteracting what I had grown up believing
Speaker 2: with kind of a low self esteem and second guessing
Speaker 2: my every move. And so I really think that motivated
Speaker 2: me to go, you know what, I'm really doing my
Speaker 2: best here, and so it was really miraculous and I
Speaker 2: can't tell you how heal this podcast was for me.
Speaker 2: One thing that really gets me is when people wrote
Speaker 2: to me. And they said, I wish I had a
Speaker 2: mom like you. My mom was great. My mom was amazing.
Speaker 2: She had cancer for twenty six years and she never
Speaker 2: dropped a ball. I mean, she was really, really fantastic,
Speaker 2: and I always wished that everyone had a mother like her.
Speaker 2: It's an honor to her also that I'm making good
Speaker 2: choices and that I'm looking out for my kids and
Speaker 2: that I keep them number one.
Speaker 1: Once Aaron's ex husband, Joel was released from present in Texas,
Speaker 1: he moved in with his parents. It was only about
Speaker 1: a mile from where Erin and her children were living.
Speaker 2: When he got out, I got the restraining order and
Speaker 2: he got awarded visitation with the kids in a supervised facility.
Speaker 1: Aaron managed to avoid those visits while other parental litigation
Speaker 1: was pending.
Speaker 2: Then the lawyer called me and said, he just got
Speaker 2: arrested again, and when we looked it up online, it
Speaker 2: did mention possession of child pornography. And I still don't
Speaker 2: know the details of all of that, but it sounds
Speaker 2: as though he may have had his first parole check
Speaker 2: the first time in a year, and they found some
Speaker 2: things on his phone like social media, which we've learned
Speaker 2: is a common way that people share Sea sam material.
Speaker 1: Joel Lavelle Callahan was arraigned on September twenty sixth, twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three, in the Superior Court of Fresno and assigned
Speaker 1: a public defender.
Speaker 2: He denied the public defender so that he could hire
Speaker 2: a private driven a law attorney, and he has a
Speaker 2: private family law attorney, which has bought him quite a
Speaker 2: bit of time out in the free world.
Speaker 1: Aaron has kept moving forward and stayed focused on building
Speaker 1: a healthy life with her two kids. She's a licensed
Speaker 1: therapist in California.
Speaker 2: My private practice is what I would consider very successful.
Speaker 2: I'm very comfortable and able to give my children the
Speaker 2: life that I want without needing child support for relying on.
Speaker 1: That, Aaron moved her family a few hours away to
Speaker 1: a beach community for a fresh start.
Speaker 2: That is just like going from the depths of hell
Speaker 2: all the way to heaven. I've already seen so much
Speaker 2: healing happening in myself, which I think trickles down to
Speaker 2: them as well. They love where we live, they said,
Speaker 2: it's like being on vacation every day. We have a
Speaker 2: lot more fresh grown, local produce here. So another part
Speaker 2: of our healing was having better nutrition. So we're working
Speaker 2: on diets, We're working on mental health. We like to
Speaker 2: go to the park a lot. We feel safer.
Speaker 1: Aaron lived in fear for a long time. At one
Speaker 1: point she felt she needed to be armed.
Speaker 2: A year ago, I was walking around with a gun
Speaker 2: strap to my person. You know, I had my concealed
Speaker 2: carried weapons permit, and I didn't even want to leave
Speaker 2: to go to the office without that. And out here
Speaker 2: also like we live in a very safe area that
Speaker 2: I feel like we can sleep with the windows open
Speaker 2: and hear the ocean outside.
Speaker 1: Her son has become a top runner in his school.
Speaker 1: Her daughter does won an award for writing. They're thriving. Still,
Speaker 1: heartbreak sneaks up every once in a while, especially around
Speaker 1: the holidays.
Speaker 2: Thanksgiving just passed by. My brother hosted Joel and his
Speaker 2: family for Thanksgiving, Whereas we were in a town with
Speaker 2: no familiar faces, and you know, no one familiar to
Speaker 2: celebrate that with. And that's just like you just continue
Speaker 2: to keep stabbing me in the heart.
Speaker 1: Arin does not want Joel to have right to the
Speaker 1: kids at all. Her fight in court is for him
Speaker 1: to be removed as a parent.
Speaker 2: I'm prepared to fire on all cylinders. But I hope
Speaker 2: for my sanity that I don't have to keep proving
Speaker 2: why he shouldn't have visitations more than he's trying to
Speaker 2: prove why he should. I genuinely think I'm probably still
Speaker 2: doing more to help Joel than anybody else is. You
Speaker 2: know how much of a privilege is it to say
Speaker 2: I've got our kids, I will take great care of
Speaker 2: them while you take the time to figure your life
Speaker 2: out or clean your life up, or whatever you've got
Speaker 2: to do. I can't make our kids not love him.
Speaker 2: I can't make them disown him or anything like that.
Speaker 2: And so if they want to have a relationship with
Speaker 2: him when they get older, or they have questions about
Speaker 2: their health or whatever, that is still on the table.
Speaker 2: And so all I'm trying to do is keep them
Speaker 2: out of that equation so that they're not affected and
Speaker 2: give them a nice, comfortable life so that they don't
Speaker 2: have to endure everything that he's putting them through. I'm
Speaker 2: trying to give him and my children both the space
Speaker 2: that they need to get healthy and myself as well.
Speaker 2: I mean, I've been severely damaged with trust and trauma
Speaker 2: through a lot of this, and so we need to
Speaker 2: be able to untether in order to show up for
Speaker 2: one another.
Speaker 1: How do you measure recovery for someone who consumes c
Speaker 1: SAM Do services provided in prison cure the addiction. It's
Speaker 1: something we talked about during the series, and there isn't
Speaker 1: a clear answer.
Speaker 2: His whole case was precipitating on the fact that they
Speaker 2: thought he was reformed, and clearly he's not reformed. And
Speaker 2: I think it's a lot of people who don't work
Speaker 2: in mental health that don't know what is required to
Speaker 2: treat addiction or treat this type of abusive behavior. Maybe
Speaker 2: they do think church is enough, Maybe they do think
Speaker 2: that court consequences are enough. But I know through direct experience,
Speaker 2: having worked with people with similar attributes, that that is
Speaker 2: not enough. You need a lot more accountability, a lot
Speaker 2: more hand holding out of that, because you know, he
Speaker 2: didn't become addicted to things in a day. He's not
Speaker 2: going to recover in a day. So I just wish
Speaker 2: that there was more mental health woven into that equation
Speaker 2: so that they could look at it from that perspective,
Speaker 2: because I am not convinced, and his reoffense just supported
Speaker 2: what my feeling was this whole time.
Speaker 1: It was really good to find out how our and
Speaker 1: has been doing since Betrayal Season two first dropped. We'll
Speaker 1: be back soon with an update on Ashley Linton. You
Speaker 1: can always reach out to our team at Betrayalpod at
Speaker 1: gmail dot com. That's Betrayal Pod at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening. Betrayal is a production of Glass Podcasts,
Speaker 1: a division and Glass Entertainment Group and partnership with iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 1: The show was executive produced by Nancy Glass and Jennifer Fason,
Speaker 1: hosted and produced by me Andrea Gunning, written and produced
Speaker 1: by Kerry Hartman, also produced by Ben Fetterman, Associate producer
Speaker 1: Kristin Melcurie. Our iHeart team is Ali Perry and Jessica Crincheck.
Speaker 1: Audio editing and mixing by Matt Alvecchio. A trail's theme
Speaker 1: composed by Oliver Bains. Music library provided by my Music
Speaker 1: and For more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.