Speaker 1: There were no red flags. I could have seen the
Speaker 1: Eric on paper. He seemed like the perfect therapist. I
Speaker 1: shared things with them I have never said out loud,
Speaker 1: and I am looking at a photo of his face
Speaker 1: being charged with the exact same things that atrumpotize me.
Speaker 2: I'm Andrea Gunning and this is Betrayal, a show about
Speaker 2: the people we trust the most and the deceptions that
Speaker 2: change everything. This is Chelsea's story. Chelsea has a high
Speaker 2: profile career, so for this episode all the names have
Speaker 2: been change to protect her anonymity.
Speaker 1: I really hope that one day I will be in
Speaker 1: a place where I can present myself publicly and say, look,
Speaker 1: this is me, this is my real name, this is
Speaker 1: where I'm really from.
Speaker 2: Chelsea's been through more abuse than anyone should have to experience.
Speaker 2: As a child, she was trafficked by her parents. She
Speaker 2: says that her experience wasn't like the movies where she
Speaker 2: was kidnapped and held against her will. Instead, her mother
Speaker 2: brought her to adults homes who groomed and sexually abused her.
Speaker 2: At the time, her mom worked for a man who
Speaker 2: was later charged with multiple counts of child sexual abuse.
Speaker 2: Chelsea knew she needed to get away from home for good.
Speaker 1: Education was my escape from home. I got scholarships, I
Speaker 1: was an amazing student. I went to every opportunity I
Speaker 1: could find for any sort of on the home program,
Speaker 1: whether that was camps, whether that was college courses over
Speaker 1: the summer. I used education as my way out.
Speaker 2: She got a scholarship to college and stopped talking to
Speaker 2: her parents. The further away she got from home, the
Speaker 2: angrier she became about the abuse she experienced as a child.
Speaker 1: And then there are all those feelings of betrayal of like,
Speaker 1: what were all of these adults doing? Was there no
Speaker 1: responsible adult in my life?
Speaker 2: In order to survive, Chelsea focused on building her own
Speaker 2: life and outside of home. She not only survived, she excelled.
Speaker 2: She got an advanced degree and began a highly competitive,
Speaker 2: successful career, and she threw herself into work. She says
Speaker 2: that on the outside it looked like she had it
Speaker 2: all together, but on the inside it was a different story.
Speaker 1: I was a scared little child walking around in like
Speaker 1: an optimist prime suit. I think anyone meeting me on
Speaker 1: the outside just thought, Wow, that person has it all together,
Speaker 1: Like that person is invincible and deestructible. Meanwhile, I was
Speaker 1: just dying on the inside.
Speaker 2: She got married after college, but quickly realized she needed
Speaker 2: to work on herself and her trauma before she could
Speaker 2: invest in a successful marriage.
Speaker 1: My ex husband and I were very amicably splitting up,
Speaker 1: and also during that time, I was starting to confront
Speaker 1: some of these things that had happened to me when
Speaker 1: I was younger that were negatively impacting the way I
Speaker 1: was able to show up in relationships.
Speaker 2: She started working with a therapist online processing the abuses
Speaker 2: from her childhood, and around the same time, she reconnected
Speaker 2: with an old friend who were going to call James.
Speaker 1: James began reaching out. He had also gone through a breakup,
Speaker 1: and we were kind of just processing this of us
Speaker 1: both having this rebirth of rediscovering ourselves after a long
Speaker 1: term relationship.
Speaker 2: She and James started talking every day. After a few months,
Speaker 2: she realized that.
Speaker 1: There was something there we wanted to explore. It just
Speaker 1: felt like he was this person who was there the
Speaker 1: entire time, right under my nose.
Speaker 2: James really saw her and met her where she was emotionally.
Speaker 1: One of the things that really drew me to him
Speaker 1: was just how focused he was on my emotions. It
Speaker 1: felt really wonderful, and it felt really safe and really attentive,
Speaker 1: and he just had such an incredible way of viewing
Speaker 1: the world and was also just very cultured in a
Speaker 1: way that I hadn't experienced.
Speaker 2: He gave her access to a world Chelsea idealized, a
Speaker 2: community of artists who expanded her worldview.
Speaker 1: James had this whole artistic side to him, like he
Speaker 1: was a visual artist. His medium was kind of like
Speaker 1: social commentary photography, but not your typical photography, like a
Speaker 1: lot of like distortions of images, and I just really
Speaker 1: appreciated him as an artist.
Speaker 2: James came from a wealthy family and he had inherited
Speaker 2: a large real estate portfolio. It met, his schedule was flexible,
Speaker 2: and he had a lot of disposable income. So for
Speaker 2: their third.
Speaker 1: Date, I remember him standing there and just saying, this
Speaker 1: might sound crazy, but are you doing anything for Thanksgiving?
Speaker 1: I was like, no, I'm not. I'm estranged from most
Speaker 1: of my family, so holidays are always kind of a
Speaker 1: weird time. And He's like, I'm kind of doing a
Speaker 1: solo thing in New York City. Would you want to
Speaker 1: fly out with me? And I was like, why not,
Speaker 1: Let's do this. Our third date was this week long
Speaker 1: trip in New York City. Well, he planned everything and
Speaker 1: it was Luber Steakhouse and amazing seats at some jazz
Speaker 1: venue and going and seeing a Broadway production. I've only
Speaker 1: been to New York once before. It was really amazing.
Speaker 1: It was just showing me New York and it was
Speaker 1: pretty incredible.
Speaker 2: After their week long third date, they became a couple.
Speaker 2: They lived a few hours apart, so on the weekends
Speaker 2: they'd go to each other's cities, where James planned elaborate outings.
Speaker 1: James was really into arts and culture, so we would
Speaker 1: go to museums and see different musicians or plays and
Speaker 1: it was really fun. Everything just happened so fast. It
Speaker 1: felt like out of a fairy tale.
Speaker 2: These dates quickly progressed into a relationship, and Chelsea says
Speaker 2: that above all, being with him felt so easy, so.
Speaker 1: Right, and that was something we would always say together.
Speaker 1: This just seemed so easy.
Speaker 2: One of Chelsea's friends was married to James's best friend,
Speaker 2: so right away they had a community together. But that
Speaker 2: also meant Chelsea's friend had seen James in prior relationships.
Speaker 1: She did warn me early on that he had a
Speaker 1: history of She described it as being selfish.
Speaker 2: Early on, Chelsea saw a little bit of that, but
Speaker 2: she didn't necessarily see it as selfish. It was more overbearing.
Speaker 1: He was very concerned about my sexual history, frequently asking
Speaker 1: questions about the identity of my prior partners, the number
Speaker 1: of prior partners I'd had.
Speaker 2: He would ask to go through her phone. She hated
Speaker 2: that and it gave her pause about the relationship, so
Speaker 2: she addressed it with him directly. His reply made her
Speaker 2: feel better.
Speaker 1: He said that he started therapy and became very open
Speaker 1: about his efforts to try to address his insecurities. He
Speaker 1: started telling me about the therapist he started seeing, and
Speaker 1: it meant a lot for me to hear this level
Speaker 1: of accountability from someone. So I was willing to continue
Speaker 1: to try to explore something with James.
Speaker 2: Because they both believed in therapy, they started couples counseling together.
Speaker 2: It was only three months into the relationship, but they
Speaker 2: both wanted to improve their communication and connection.
Speaker 1: I was at this place in my life where I
Speaker 1: was very vulnerable but also energized to do the work
Speaker 1: to heal myself, and to have James reflect that back
Speaker 1: to me was really significant. I was dealing with a
Speaker 1: lot of personal sexual dysfunction as a result of digging
Speaker 1: into my own trauma history, and he was very open
Speaker 1: to hearing about my boundaries. It was very open to
Speaker 1: try to make our sexual connection a safe place. He
Speaker 1: had his own sexual dysfunctions, so that was something that
Speaker 1: we were able to talk about openly. And this was
Speaker 1: the first relationship I had been in where I was
Speaker 1: aware of those things for myself and I was communicating
Speaker 1: with them, and he was very receptive to that, and
Speaker 1: that made me feel very safe.
Speaker 2: They were communicating better than ever. They were still long distance,
Speaker 2: but James began staying at our place more often.
Speaker 1: So James had a key to my house pretty early.
Speaker 1: I worked really long and crazy hours, so I wanted
Speaker 1: him to have a key so that he could just
Speaker 1: let himself in and out. And had a dog at
Speaker 1: the time, and he and the dog had really bonded
Speaker 1: and it was nice to have him around.
Speaker 2: When the pandemic started in twenty twenty, their lives officially merged.
Speaker 1: Neither one of us wanted to be alone through that,
Speaker 1: and suddenly, five months into dating, James and I went
Speaker 1: from living a few hours away to we were living
Speaker 1: together and me working within twenty feet of him at
Speaker 1: all times.
Speaker 2: Now quarantining together with Chelsea working from home, James's controlling
Speaker 2: behavior returned as the couple grew closer. James couldn't hide
Speaker 2: his jealous side. He became more controlling about who she
Speaker 2: was talking to and why.
Speaker 1: I work in a fairly male dominated industry, so most
Speaker 1: of my colleagues and my team were men, and James
Speaker 1: was constantly fixated on who I was talking to. He
Speaker 1: would always ask, what's their story? What does that mean?
Speaker 1: They say, are they married? It's like, well, I think so,
Speaker 1: but what does it matter? They work for me.
Speaker 2: He became almost paranoid, and Chelsea wasn't having.
Speaker 1: It, and I was getting more confident in standing up
Speaker 1: for my own boundaries around my communication with other people,
Speaker 1: and frankly, I was just getting sick and tired a
Speaker 1: feeling constantly monitored by this person.
Speaker 2: One day, they got into a heated argument about his behavior.
Speaker 2: He insisted on going through her phone. She refused and
Speaker 2: locked herself in the bedroom. That's when things escalated even further.
Speaker 1: James, from the other side of the door, told me
Speaker 1: that if I did not come out and speak to him,
Speaker 1: and if I did not give him full access to
Speaker 1: my phone. He was going to distribute private images of
Speaker 1: me to my coworkers.
Speaker 2: They were photos from early on in their relationship, photos
Speaker 2: James said he would delete.
Speaker 1: I spoke to him from the door and was like,
Speaker 1: you said you deleted those, and he said, well, I didn't.
Speaker 1: I lied to you about that. He went on to
Speaker 1: say they meant a lot to me, You're just so beautifull,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to keep them. And I was livid
Speaker 1: that he had violated that trust. I was sick of it.
Speaker 1: The fact that he had just told me that he
Speaker 1: had images that he didn't have consent to was enough.
Speaker 1: I wanted his phone, so I stepped outside that door.
Speaker 1: I grabbed his phone. I went back inside my bedroom
Speaker 1: and I locked the door and I went into it,
Speaker 1: went back through our messages, found the images and deleted them.
Speaker 1: And on an iPhone, it's not enough to delete them.
Speaker 1: You then have to go to the deleted folder and
Speaker 1: delete them from there. So when I was going to
Speaker 1: the deleted folder, right below the deleted items, there's a
Speaker 1: folder called the hidden folder, and I'm seeing all sorts
Speaker 1: of things in this folder. I don't really know how
Speaker 1: to grasp what I'm seeing, and I can feel myself
Speaker 1: start to leave my own body, and I can feel
Speaker 1: myself started to just float away because what I am seeing,
Speaker 1: I just cannot comprehend. And while holding his phone in
Speaker 1: my left hand, I take my phone in my right
Speaker 1: and I just start recording.
Speaker 2: Chelsea thought she and her boyfriend James were on the
Speaker 2: right track, going to individual and couple's therapy, working towards
Speaker 2: a healthy relationship, but during the pandemic, James's controlling behavior
Speaker 2: took a dark turn when he threatened to release nude
Speaker 2: pictures of Chelsea to her colleagues, picture as he said
Speaker 2: he got rid of. When she went into his phone
Speaker 2: to delete the photos herself, she discovered another folder on
Speaker 2: his photo app, the hidden folder, which exists on every iPhone.
Speaker 2: By the way, it's right next to the deleted folder.
Speaker 1: The first thing I noticed was a series of photographs
Speaker 1: of my condom where it looked like he was documenting
Speaker 1: or spying on me. That kind of triggered this, oh shit,
Speaker 1: what the fuck am I looking at feeling? It looked
Speaker 1: like he had maybe gone through rooms, placed objects in
Speaker 1: certain places to see if they were moved between when
Speaker 1: he was leaving or coming back and forth, and they
Speaker 1: had date stamps on them, so that was really strange.
Speaker 2: She kept scrolling through the folder, which had hundreds of
Speaker 2: images in it.
Speaker 1: There were whole collections of nude photos of different women.
Speaker 2: She recognized some of these women. There were photos of
Speaker 2: his best friend's wife, the one that was Chelsea's friend,
Speaker 2: the one that had warned her about James's selfish tendency.
Speaker 1: I'm like, God, that looks like her, But why would
Speaker 1: he have naked photos of his best friend's wife? Why
Speaker 1: would he have these?
Speaker 2: Right away? She called her.
Speaker 1: I was like, I remember you had a tattoo on
Speaker 1: your ankle. Which ankle is it on? And she told
Speaker 1: me and I was like, yes, photos of you. And
Speaker 1: she was just like that's not possible. I have never, never, never,
Speaker 1: And I was like, no, I don't think you sent
Speaker 1: these to him. I don't think you sent them.
Speaker 2: Chelsea sent her friend the photos and she confirmed that, yes,
Speaker 2: they were photos her husband had taken of her, but
Speaker 2: she didn't know he shared them with anyone, much less James.
Speaker 1: And you could just hear like the breath come out
Speaker 1: of her, and she says, I'm going to talk.
Speaker 2: To my husband before she hung up.
Speaker 1: She asked her friend, like, there's all sorts of other
Speaker 1: women in here. Do you know any of these women?
Speaker 1: And she did, a lot of these were the wives
Speaker 1: of James's friends. It appeared that James and his male
Speaker 1: friend group were exchanging these intimate photos with each other.
Speaker 2: As Chelsea kept looking through James's hidden folder, she found
Speaker 2: something even more disturbing.
Speaker 1: The other category of images that he had on this
Speaker 1: phone were dozens of photos of children, young children, two
Speaker 1: four six years old children. They were like little girls
Speaker 1: in bathing suits. And I don't know if he was
Speaker 1: taking these at some public park. I don't know if
Speaker 1: he was taking these off of social media sites, if
Speaker 1: some well meeting parent was posting something.
Speaker 2: Her mind was racing who were these girls? And then
Speaker 2: she found one particular photo, the photo, the one she'd
Speaker 2: never be able to unsee.
Speaker 1: The moment I looked at that photo, I knew something
Speaker 1: was fucking row, something was absolutely wrong.
Speaker 2: Chelsea disclosed what she saw in detail. It's too disturbing
Speaker 2: to share here, but what she discovered, she clearly believed
Speaker 2: was see sam or child sexual abuse material with a
Speaker 2: girl's face cropped out.
Speaker 1: Everything in me just told me, especially in the context
Speaker 1: of where this was kept with all of the other images.
Speaker 1: I was like, this is one hundred percent something he
Speaker 1: is sexually interested in, and I did not know how
Speaker 1: to handle it.
Speaker 2: She was having an out of body experience looking at
Speaker 2: these photos, but at the same time she was still
Speaker 2: in her apartment with James on the other side of
Speaker 2: the door, screaming for his phone back.
Speaker 1: I'm just like, I can't do that. You threatened me,
Speaker 1: can't do that, and he can tell my voice he
Speaker 1: can tell. And I opened the door and I tell
Speaker 1: him you need to leave. I've seen something. I've seen something.
Speaker 2: Scared of him and unsure of what to do next,
Speaker 2: she gave him back the phone. She didn't tell him
Speaker 2: that she recorded anything. So he's left in a rage
Speaker 2: and Chelsea quickly locked the door behind him.
Speaker 1: But then he spends the entire drive back, calling over
Speaker 1: and over and over again and yelling and raging and
Speaker 1: saying I'm going to turn you into the police. You
Speaker 1: took something from my phone. What you just did is illegal.
Speaker 1: You better delete everything. And I was just like, look,
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about this. I'm not talking about it.
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about it. And finally I just turned
Speaker 1: like a little and I tried to sleep.
Speaker 2: When she woke up, her first thought was that picture,
Speaker 2: the one with the child's face cropped out.
Speaker 1: My mind went in a million directions as to why
Speaker 1: he would have this, but I couldn't identify who the
Speaker 1: kid was. Did someone take this photo and then he
Speaker 1: just somehow found it or did he take it?
Speaker 2: Day after day, the photo was all she could think about.
Speaker 2: She talked with an attorney and described the image, but
Speaker 2: he confirmed one of her fears that the image might
Speaker 2: not meet the standards needed for an arrest. It was
Speaker 2: right on the edge. A month after the discovery, James
Speaker 2: agreed to a joint counseling session. They hadn't seen each
Speaker 2: other or talked since their fight. Chelsea wanted the support
Speaker 2: of a mandated reporter, and she wanted to confront him
Speaker 2: there in a neutral environment to see if he'd confess
Speaker 2: to more. On top of all that, she was also
Speaker 2: trying to understand something that was just incomprehensible.
Speaker 1: This is part of my trauma too. My go to
Speaker 1: coping mechanism is denial and rationalization, and I think I
Speaker 1: wanted a reason for this not to be what I
Speaker 1: thought it was.
Speaker 2: It might sound naive, but part of her still couldn't
Speaker 2: believe this was real. She started by asking James about
Speaker 2: the photos of his friend's wives, and.
Speaker 1: I said, why do you have these? Do you have
Speaker 1: permission to have these? Did she know and consent to
Speaker 1: you having these photos? He looked at me and he said,
Speaker 1: I don't need her consent. It's his property. He took
Speaker 1: that photo. It's his property to share with me. And
Speaker 1: I wanted to puke hearing.
Speaker 2: That it was clear that he had thought about this
Speaker 2: extensively and that he knew how to operate just under
Speaker 2: the radar. Finally, at the end of their session, she
Speaker 2: asked about the photos of children, and that one photo
Speaker 2: in particular.
Speaker 1: And so, in the presence of the couple's counselor, I
Speaker 1: pulled out my phone and I showed him that image,
Speaker 1: and I said, what the fuck is this? When I
Speaker 1: handed the phone to him with the child image, the
Speaker 1: tension in that room was just it was wild. You
Speaker 1: saw him immediately start to shake. His hands started shaking.
Speaker 1: He immediately said that is not a crime, There is
Speaker 1: no penetration, that is not illegal. He just kept repeating that.
Speaker 1: He instantly just went into she stole things off of
Speaker 1: my phone. I'm going to prosecute her for that. And
Speaker 1: at that point he just said, I'm going to have
Speaker 1: to go talk to my attorney about your theft of
Speaker 1: information from my phone, and he left, just got out
Speaker 1: and left.
Speaker 2: She sat there stunned. Chelsea and the therapist sat in silence.
Speaker 2: They waited for James's car to leave the parking lot.
Speaker 2: Why did he even bother to come that day? Chelsea
Speaker 2: has a theory.
Speaker 1: Looking back, I think he was trying to figure out
Speaker 1: what I knew, because he knew I found something and
Speaker 1: he didn't know what I knew, And I think he
Speaker 1: was doing this to try to protect himself.
Speaker 2: Her relationship with James was over, but it was only
Speaker 2: the beginning of a horrible dilemma for Chelsea. She grappled
Speaker 2: with reporting him to the police, but she was worried
Speaker 2: that she didn't have enough evidence.
Speaker 1: I felt like what I had wasn't going to be enough.
Speaker 1: This is right on the cusp, and if I report James,
Speaker 1: what is going to happen to me?
Speaker 2: Chelsea was afraid of James's wealthy, well connected family. She
Speaker 2: was also thinking of the legal threats he made and
Speaker 2: the threats about releasing photos of her. But more than that,
Speaker 2: she was afraid to report and have nothing happen at all.
Speaker 2: It took her back to the way she felt as
Speaker 2: a child.
Speaker 1: When I saw these images on James's phone, it took
Speaker 1: me back to being those children, And it was so
Speaker 1: hard not to think about what those children might have
Speaker 1: been experiencing if they were being abused. And I can
Speaker 1: report this person to the police, but is anything going
Speaker 1: to happen? And can I emotionally handle that? Can I
Speaker 1: emotionally handle having nothing happen as a result of it,
Speaker 1: because unfortunately, that was the childhood thing that was playing out.
Speaker 2: I understand where Chelsea is coming from. If you've listened
Speaker 2: to season two of Betrayal, you heard Ashley Litton's story
Speaker 2: of how her husband had over one thousand images of
Speaker 2: Sea Sam in his hidden folder, but he served less
Speaker 2: than a year. These cases are wildly under prosecuted and
Speaker 2: with only one image as evidence. Chelsea's concerns were valid,
Speaker 2: or rather realistic, but that didn't change her feeling moral
Speaker 2: obligation to the girl in the photo and victims like her.
Speaker 1: My biggest priority at that point was protecting this particular
Speaker 1: little girl.
Speaker 2: She knew if she was going to report James, she
Speaker 2: needed professional support to get there.
Speaker 1: I knew I was going to need a lot of therapy,
Speaker 1: and that's how I about Eric.
Speaker 2: Eric was a therapist who checked all the boxes and
Speaker 2: then some. In fact, he'd been a prosecutor on sex
Speaker 2: crimes before he went into counseling.
Speaker 1: There were no red flags I could have seen there
Speaker 1: on paper, he seemed like the perfect therapist.
Speaker 2: But she would soon find out he wasn't. Chelsey began
Speaker 2: working with a therapist for going to call Eric, and
Speaker 2: quickly Eric became a big part of her life. She
Speaker 2: started seeing him three times a week.
Speaker 1: I felt like I was coming into that scenario with
Speaker 1: my guts pulled out. It was just like what do
Speaker 1: I do with all this?
Speaker 2: She was working up to being able to report her
Speaker 2: ex James, and she needed a safe place like Eric's
Speaker 2: office to process her trauma, starting with her childhood abuse.
Speaker 1: Working with Eric, he was able to help me accept
Speaker 1: some of these bigger terms that I was uncomfortable.
Speaker 2: With, terms like trafficking and incest, Like is this.
Speaker 1: The right term? I started seeing Eric to have that
Speaker 1: space to unpack the sexual abuse trauma and was just
Speaker 1: very early stages of unpacking that.
Speaker 2: At this end time she was haunted by the images
Speaker 2: she'd seen on James's phone. It became all consuming.
Speaker 1: I couldn't close my eyes at night and not see
Speaker 1: these children. I just kept fixating on who is this child?
Speaker 2: Because Eric had been a prosecutor, she trusted his perspective,
Speaker 2: and Eric wasn't so sure she should report James. In fact,
Speaker 2: he worried she was taking on too much personal responsibility.
Speaker 1: And one thing Eric would tell me all the time was, Chelsea,
Speaker 1: you can't solve this. You are not batman. You can't
Speaker 1: figure this out.
Speaker 2: Since they broke up, James deleted all of his social media.
Speaker 2: She heard through the grapevine he was saying he'd been hacked,
Speaker 2: but Chelsea suspected it could be related to what she
Speaker 2: saw on his phone. She worried that while she waited
Speaker 2: to report him, he could be deleting or destroying evidence,
Speaker 2: and Eric helped her understand the pathology of people like James.
Speaker 1: Eric would talk to me about these types of individuals,
Speaker 1: these types of predators. He would talk about their behaviors.
Speaker 1: His exact quote was, every once in a while they
Speaker 1: freak out and purge, but they eventually go back to
Speaker 1: doing it.
Speaker 2: After two months of working with Eric, Chelsea felt ready
Speaker 2: to report James. She began to see it as the
Speaker 2: only way out.
Speaker 1: I thought that maybe if I could face these things now,
Speaker 1: maybe that would make the nightmares if the kids stop.
Speaker 2: But Eric dug in he still wasn't sure reporting was
Speaker 2: the right decision for Chelsea.
Speaker 1: When I started saying that I really felt like I
Speaker 1: needed to turn James in, Eric was encouraging me not to.
Speaker 1: Said I needed to let go of the relationship.
Speaker 2: Eric felt like Chelsea wasn't properly grieving and moving on
Speaker 2: from her relationship with James, and that by fixating on
Speaker 2: these photos she was trying to stay connected to him. Somehow,
Speaker 2: one night it just hit her she knew who the
Speaker 2: girl in the photo could be.
Speaker 1: This image that's been haunting me. There's no face, but
Speaker 1: the ages are the right ages.
Speaker 2: James did have a friend with two young daughters. Chelsea
Speaker 2: hadn't put those pieces together before, so she did some
Speaker 2: internet slew.
Speaker 1: Thing my tard faced was on. I went on these parents'
Speaker 1: Facebook profile and couldn't read what I saw. I was like,
Speaker 1: that's it, It's got to be this kid. The ages
Speaker 1: of the right age. That cabinet tree looks the same
Speaker 1: as like in these photos that are showing up. I'm
Speaker 1: full on Facebook detective at this point, this could be
Speaker 1: that same house, same wall color, same cabinets as this
Speaker 1: has got to be.
Speaker 2: It James had access to these kids. If this was
Speaker 2: the girl in the photo, reporting him felt more urgent
Speaker 2: than ever. Despite Eric's advice, Chelsea had made up her
Speaker 2: mind and called my lawyer.
Speaker 1: I'm like, i gotta report this, and the help set
Speaker 1: up a meeting with a detective in the town that
Speaker 1: James lived who was the head of the Internet Crimes
Speaker 1: Against Children's task Force, and we set up a meeting
Speaker 1: for that following Monday.
Speaker 2: After she set the meeting, she went to her regular
Speaker 2: therapy appointment with Eric, and she felt empowered.
Speaker 1: I remember sitting there with Eric saying, things are going
Speaker 1: to change. I'm going to identify. I'm going to know
Speaker 1: the next time I'm in a room with a person
Speaker 1: like this, I'm going to know, I'm going to know it.
Speaker 1: I'm going to know everything about this person. I'm going
Speaker 1: to be able to pick them out of a room.
Speaker 1: And I remember Eric was really uncomfortable.
Speaker 2: Eric ended her session early that day, Chelsea planned to
Speaker 2: prepare for the meeting with police in her next therapy session.
Speaker 1: And I remember going to his office and I was hyped,
Speaker 1: like I had my narrative partially written. I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm going to do this.
Speaker 2: But on the day of that therapy session.
Speaker 1: Eric wasn't there. He was never late. I usually when
Speaker 1: I pulled in, I would park next to his car.
Speaker 1: The car wasn't there. Ten minutes go by. I'm looking
Speaker 1: at the receptionists. They're like, this is really weird. We
Speaker 1: can't get a hold of him. And she's calling. She said,
Speaker 1: the phone's going straight to voicemail. I don't understand what's happening.
Speaker 1: They said, We're gonna get another clinician, just please wait.
Speaker 2: This was her last session before she finally went to
Speaker 2: the police. She really needed guidance. So another therapist from
Speaker 2: the practice agreed to see Chelsea that day and I was.
Speaker 1: Like, something is wrong. Eric is never late. Our last
Speaker 1: session was kind of weird. I felt like maybe I
Speaker 1: made him uncomfortable. And I could tell by the way
Speaker 1: she was responding to me too. She was like, something's
Speaker 1: not right either. I could sense it, and I started
Speaker 1: telling her what happened. I was like, this is what
Speaker 1: I've been dealing with. Eric was telling me not to
Speaker 1: do it, like I needed to like grieve this relationship,
Speaker 1: that doing this was just going to like let it
Speaker 1: perpetuate on. I wasn't gonna need a closure. She's like, no,
Speaker 1: you're doing the right thing. You're doing the right thing.
Speaker 2: After that session, she finally reported James.
Speaker 1: That Monday morning, I got up, I met with the
Speaker 1: detective and we had a three hour recorded interview. I
Speaker 1: showed him everything, told them the same story that I'm
Speaker 1: telling you now. He was so validating and he said
Speaker 1: he told me, he's like, this isn't contraband, but it
Speaker 1: is absolutely wrong, and you were doing absolutely the right
Speaker 1: thing by reporting it. But I want to manage your expectations.
Speaker 1: There are things I can try to do, but this
Speaker 1: by itself isn't enough. And I was like, I know,
Speaker 1: that's why it's taken me so long to get here.
Speaker 2: At the end of their meeting, the detective assured her
Speaker 2: that they do everything they could. She left the station relieved.
Speaker 2: It had been a difficult and draining day, but the
Speaker 2: day was far from over.
Speaker 1: So I got my car went back home to to
Speaker 1: where I lived. I've been in my house for less
Speaker 1: than fifteen minutes. I've literally locked in the door, gone
Speaker 1: to the bathroom, opened to Lacroix.
Speaker 2: And then she saw an email come in from her
Speaker 2: therapist's office and.
Speaker 1: It says, I'm receiving this letter because I'm a client
Speaker 1: of Erics, and that they were notified that he was
Speaker 1: arrested and that he was immediately terminated, and they were
Speaker 1: reaching out to me to facilitate continued care. One of
Speaker 1: the last things it says is any questions related to
Speaker 1: the status of Eric maybe directed towards and they provide
Speaker 1: a detective's name in the phone number, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, I already knew everything in my body
Speaker 1: knew what had happened.
Speaker 2: She went to the court records website and typed in
Speaker 2: Eric's name.
Speaker 1: I see possession of telephonography. I am looking at this
Speaker 1: mugshot of this person, and this is a person I
Speaker 1: have just said the last several months with the most
Speaker 1: and the most intimate and trusting of a relationship. I
Speaker 1: shared things with this person I have never said out
Speaker 1: loud before. And I am looking at a photo of
Speaker 1: his face being charged with the exact same things that
Speaker 1: a trumpotize.
Speaker 2: Me.
Speaker 1: Just sat there staring at the screen, just feeling like
Speaker 1: I wanted to tear my skin off, thinking about every
Speaker 1: detail I told this person and then thinking that they
Speaker 1: were sexually aroused by these things.
Speaker 2: Then she pulled up the police report and what she
Speaker 2: read there was a nightmare.
Speaker 1: They seized all of his electronic equipment. They found thousands
Speaker 1: of videos and the descriptions are horrific.
Speaker 2: She replayed all the things he'd said in sessions with her, then.
Speaker 1: Thinking about all of those things he told me about
Speaker 1: how a predator would behave. I'm like he was telling
Speaker 1: me about his own behavior, and I arted vomiting.
Speaker 2: The person she'd turned to in this situation would be
Speaker 2: a therapist.
Speaker 1: I didn't know what to do next. There were so
Speaker 1: many layers of things I had to process. I could
Speaker 1: not have told this story to a worse person.
Speaker 2: For the first time in her life, she took a
Speaker 2: leave of absence from work.
Speaker 1: When Eric got arrested. I just hit an emotional rock
Speaker 1: bottom and I realized my coping mechanisms don't work anymore.
Speaker 1: I can't outperform this.
Speaker 2: During this time, mental health was her main priority. She
Speaker 2: started group therapy, which proved to be healing.
Speaker 1: I needed a room of people to say that's fucked up,
Speaker 1: that shouldn't happen. I needed to see that outrage from
Speaker 1: someone and what we called it in my program this
Speaker 1: reality checking. You need the validation oh like, wow, this
Speaker 1: feels really wrong with just be wrong to you and
Speaker 1: people are like, yeah, that would be really wrong.
Speaker 2: While she was working on stabilizing herself, she got an
Speaker 2: update from the police about her report on James. They
Speaker 2: didn't have enough to arrest him, but the police had
Speaker 2: done a knock and.
Speaker 1: Talk when they told him that someone observed a concerning
Speaker 1: image of a child on his phone. He said it
Speaker 1: didn't come from my phone, and if it did, it
Speaker 1: wasn't illegal. And then this is the really telling thing.
Speaker 1: He asked the police officer if they're prosecuting me for
Speaker 1: taking stuff off of his phone.
Speaker 2: As far as Chelsea knows, that's the only outcome of
Speaker 2: her report.
Speaker 1: So to this day, this guy will stand out there
Speaker 1: and scream that he was in this relationship with this
Speaker 1: crazy woman who's trying to ruin his life, and you
Speaker 1: know that I was the bad guy.
Speaker 2: As for Eric, he pled guilty to distributing child sexual
Speaker 2: abuse material and was sentenced to twelve years in federal present.
Speaker 2: That same year, Chelsea decided to move across the country
Speaker 2: and start over.
Speaker 1: It ended up taking about four years before I was
Speaker 1: able to confidently say that these things happened, and not
Speaker 1: doubt myself, not blame myself, not think that this is
Speaker 1: my fault, to my responsibility. And today I'm really proud
Speaker 1: to say I have created the life I've always dreamed of,
Speaker 1: and I'm glad that every day now going forward is
Speaker 1: better than any day that I've had before this happened.
Speaker 1: So there's a rebirth in it.
Speaker 2: We end all of our weekly episodes with the same question,
Speaker 2: why did you choose to tell your story?
Speaker 1: The reason I reached out is I was just so
Speaker 1: inspired by the stories that we shared. I was so
Speaker 1: inspired listening to other survivors and the ability to retell
Speaker 1: this story and release it is so significant, and I
Speaker 1: hope that someone else hearing this feels empowered to do
Speaker 1: the same. These kinds of things only exist in a
Speaker 1: world of silence, in denial, and I hope by breaking
Speaker 1: my silence it allows someone else to feel empowered to
Speaker 1: break through own whether they got a conviction, whether the
Speaker 1: police took it seriously, whether their abuser acknowledged it, whether
Speaker 1: their family believed it. It doesn't make it your fault.
Speaker 1: It happened and it was never your fault.
Speaker 2: On the next episode of Betrayal, and this is the
Speaker 2: first time I was seeing him in four years, and
Speaker 2: I remember it being like I am in big trouble.
Speaker 2: If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal
Speaker 2: team or want to tell us your Betrayal story, email
Speaker 2: us at betrayalpod at gmail dot com. That's Betrayal Pod
Speaker 2: at gmail dot com. We're grateful for your support. One
Speaker 2: way to show support is by subscribing to our show
Speaker 2: on Apple Podcasts, and don't forget to rate and review Betrayal.
Speaker 2: Five star reviews go a long way. A big thank
Speaker 2: you to all of our listeners. Betrayal is a production
Speaker 2: of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group and
Speaker 2: partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is executive produced by
Speaker 2: Nancy Glass and Jennifer Fason, hosted and produced by me
Speaker 2: Andrea Gunning, written and produced by Monique Leboard, also produced
Speaker 2: by Ben Fetterman. Associate producers are Kristin Mercury and Caitlin Golden.
Speaker 2: Our iHeart team is Ali Perry and Jessica Krincheck. Audio
Speaker 2: editing and mixing by Matt del Vecchio, additional editing support
Speaker 2: from Nico Aruka and Tanner Robbins. Rails theme composed by
Speaker 2: Oliver Bain's music library provided by Mybe Music and For
Speaker 2: more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 2: or wherever you get your podcasts