Betrayal Weekly - Andrea Dunlop in Conversation | Betrayal Weekly — BONUS

Episode Date: March 27, 2025

In this special crossover episode, author and podcast host Andrea Dunlop sits down with Andrea Gunning for a deep dive into the true crime genre. It’s an unflinching conversation about the responsibility of telling real people’s stories, the limits of media, and what it’s like reporting on a story that hits close to home.   Check out There and Gone: South Street, Andrea Gunning’s investigation into the 20-year disappearance of Richard Petrone and Danielle Imbo.  You can find Andrea Dunlop’s podcast, Nobody Should Believe Me, on all platforms. Her first nonfiction book, The Mother Next Door, is available now.   If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal Team, email us at [e-mail] and follow us on Instagram at @betrayalpod See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human. When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist, they take matters into their own hands. I vowed I will be his last target. He is not going to get away with this. He's going to get what he deserves. We always say that trust your girlfriends.

Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you. you get your podcast. What's up, everyone? I'm Ago Wodam. My next guest, it's Will Ferrell. Woo, woo, woo, woo, woo.

My dad gave me the best advice ever. He goes, just give it a shot. But if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat. Just hang in there. It would not be...

Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Listen to Thanks, Dad, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. In 2023, Bachelor star Clayton Eckerd was accused of fathering twins. But the pregnancy appeared to be a hoax. You doctored this particular test twice, Ms. Owens, correct? I doctored the test ones. It took an army of internet detectives to uncover a disturbing pattern.

Two more men who'd been through the same thing. Greg Gillespie and Michael Mancini. My mind was blown. I'm Stephanie Young. This is Love Trapped. Laura, Scottsdale Police. As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences. Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

On the Serving Pancakes podcast, conversations about volleyball go beyond the court. Today we have a little best friend compatibility test. Okay. How long have we been best friends? This is the day we met. As the League One volleyball season heads, towards its final stretch, there's no better time to tune in. You'll hear unfiltered analysis, behind-the-scenes stories and conversations with leaders making an impact across the sport.

Whether you're following the final push of love season or just love the game, serving pancakes brings you closer to the action and the people shaping the future of volleyball. Open your free IHeart Radio app, search serving pancakes, and listen now. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports. Hi, it's Andrea Gunning. Last week, we shared Andrea Dunlop's story. On this week's episode, Andrea and I sit down for a conversation about true crime podcasting. We get into what this work means for us and how we approach these stories. We hope you enjoy it. Andrea, thank you so much for joining me. I'm a listener and also a huge fan of nobody should

believe me, which is your show. And, you know, we just shared your story on Betrayal Weekly. And I'm just so glad our two shows are collaborating because I think that Manchella, by proxy, which is what you cover in your show, shares a lot in common with betrayal. Earlier, we were joking that this conversation is kind of like the Andrea Andrea True Crime Summit, but that's really what it feels like. So I'm hoping we can really compare notes about what it's like working in this space. Yeah, I'd love to start off with just your background. How did you get into being a true crime podcaster?

You know, I often joke that I'm a recovering TV executive. And so I come, I hail from the TV space, but I work for a company called Glass Entertainment Group and we specialize in reality TV and documentaries. And for about seven and a half, eight years, I was overseeing our business department. So I was the executive in charge of production. So I did all the boring things in TV, which is like the budget, the financing, like all the hard stuff. And my colleague, Ben and I were constantly working through legal deals with our development department. And we were seeing great stories getting passed by TV executives and networks. And one story that came across our desk, we were working with Kim Goldman, who is the sister of Ron Goldman, who was murdered by O.J. Simpson.

And we were trying to sell something in TV with her. but a lot of TV networks weren't interested in the project unless OJ was involved or OJ was attached or we could guarantee an interview with OJ. And this was back when OJ was still living. I think he had just gotten out of prison and was living in Vegas at the time. But my colleagues and I really believe that there was a story here even without OJ's voice. So we decided to make it a podcast and instead of telling the OJ Simpson story, we told the story of people who lived it. And so that's how we got started in the podcast space. That's a great answer.

I mean, I really see like that imprint for the work you've done after that, you know. And also that just really plugs into what I think is interesting about true crime stories, which is the sort of long tail of them and the way that they impact the people who are pulled into them. Yeah. So one of the things you're known for is. is your work on betrayal and now betrayal weekly. How did you come to that story that was the first season of betrayal?

It's all kind of related. So Jen Fason is the subject of season one in her marriage and how the marriage unraveled. But she works in television. She's in a television executive producer, so we kind of are in the same universe. And Jen had heard confronting O.J. Simpson and reached out to her agent,

and her agent reached out to me and my colleague, Ben, for an initial conversation. But the universe has an interesting way of working because at this time I was getting out of a relationship. I had moved out of my boyfriend's house. I had discovered a lot of deception, not to the magnitude that Jen had. And I was kind of recovering from understanding,

like, why was I in this relationship? why was I ignoring a lot of signs? Was I ignoring it or was it like, you know, all of these questions that were coming to the surface. So it was like I was meeting Jen at the perfect time. I couldn't relate to the magnitude of what Jen was going through, but I knew. Like as it was like, I don't even want to say as a woman. As a woman, but as a human being, I understood the pain when she pitched me her story. I understood her anger and her confusion. And I, I understood. I, I found like this emotional access. And I thought if we could maybe do something with that, people will relate and maybe heal. And so just that relatability and that timing of it just so happened to work out.

Yeah, that's amazing. And I think that that shows up in the quality of the season and just the emotional depth of it. And I'm really interested in what you said about this idea of not coming from a place of anger. This is a really complicated part of interviewing people about these stories, right? Because they have every right to be angry. You have every right to want to even go on a sort of revenge journey. But doing that on a podcast is not actually helpful. anyone, right? It's not helpful for the listener. It's not really ethical to sort of try and get someone in that energy, even if it can be compelling in its own right. And I have the same sort of thing when I talk to folks who are often dealing with really extreme betrayals.

And then on top of that, you know, the abuse to them or abuse to their children or children that they care about. And it's, I think, really important to make sure that someone is ready to have that conversation. It was important to me. I started off with telling my own story in the first two seasons of the show kind of bit by bit. And I sort of revisit pieces of it from time to time. But like, I had to wait, you know, a decade until I was ready to talk about it. I was like, it's such a vulnerable thing and it's such a vulnerable thing to put out there and then have people react to. there are so many points along this journey where getting on a mic would have been the absolute wrong choice for me.

Right. And I think there's also like the expectation setting because if you're talking about a case where it's either an unsolved case or it's a case where there wasn't a good outcome or it's a case where like the person you're talking to wants some action to be taken by authorities, that's not something that we can make happen. can't always guarantee. Right. And like, so I think that that's also like a really tricky part of it of making sure that I'm talking to you, like, yes, we're going to put all this out there. And I think people are going to care. I think people are going to get something out of it. They're going to

learn something important. They're going to relate with this experience. I hope you get a deep personal catharsis from sharing this. But like the cavalry is unlikely to mount up because unfortunately that's just not often how it works. And this may not end with answers. Yeah, and that was my worry producing there and gone, which came out this past summer in 2024. And I have to give Iheart a lot of credit because we pitched them this story and there wasn't an ending and we couldn't guarantee that we would find or solve this case. And so you're taking a lot of risk.

And then the partnerships that you make with distributors are also taking a lot of risk for what's the payoff? You know, what's the audience going to leave thinking? Are they going to walk away? feeling satisfied. And, you know, these are people. Like, we're studying and we're exploring stories of people and their loss and their trauma and their grief. And so we're not always going to get a payoff that makes sense to everybody. You know, I like telling stories that really show the complexity of the human experience. And I think there and gone is an example of that. Yeah,

Can you kind of give us an intro to the case and how you got interested in it? Sure. It's the story of Richard Petron and Danielle Imbo. 20 years ago, 2.30-somethings just literally vanished off of South Street in Philadelphia, which is basically like the Bourbon Street of Philadelphia, the busiest place for nightlife. They were seen leaving a bar and then never seen again. And then until this day, no one knows what happened. Was it an accident?

Was it murder for hire? And so I remember this because I was, I think, a senior in high school. And it was terrifying because one of the victims, his parents, have a bakery that I grew up going to. And both of their families look so much like mine in different ways. They do Sunday dinner. I come from an Italian family. We do Sunday dinner. You know, they gamble on Sunday over football bets.

Like, I'm wearing my Eagles jersey. Like, this feels like this could be my own. cousin this happened to. So it was very personal to me. And so it was just this loss that kind of reverberated throughout our entire community and continues because how do two people in their mid-30s just vanish, just literally into thin air? And when we were exploring doing the story, I thought the families would be very interested, but we would struggle with law enforcement. But then I soon realized that the FBI really needed our help because the FBI knows that the more coverage they can get of this case, more people will be able to, like, call in and feel like, let me just do my part. Let me, 20 years later, I'm just going to do it.

I'm just going to make the phone call. I'm going to say what I know and be done with it. and I live in this city. And there are parts of this city where this crime isn't a big question mark. There are parts of this city and neighborhoods in this city where people know exactly what happened or they feel like it's a fact. They communicate it like it's a fact. I know who did it. I know why it's done.

Isn't that crazy? Yeah. Like how a whole neighborhood in one city there's like this understood rumor of what happened to two random people that have no connection. And that was the neighborhood in which I lived. So to me, it was like, I just want to help these families. You know, we didn't solve the crime yet. But there was enough people that actually wrote into the FBI for them to reopen and assign new agents. So I feel like I did my job.

Hell yeah. I mean, that's amazing. And I think this is one of the most interesting parts of working in the true crime. sphere and why it's so important to like take this job seriously and be really responsible is because it does have real world impacts. And yeah, I mean, this question of law enforcement, it's like, so I, the case that I'm working on right now for our next season is one that I am hoping that some action will happen on. How realistic that is, who knows. But I do think that it is and can be a powerful tool to getting law enforcement involved.

And that can be the kind of thing where you get, you know, political will for a local prosecutor to actually file charges on something where they might not otherwise. Yeah. You can, you know, get people who are making those decisions at the police department to assign some extra muscle to it. You can, you know, flush out some new information from the community. Well, the first thing that just to interject, I think one of the biggest things that I feel like we both, you know, betrayal, trauma and deception. is one thing. Your show covers factitious disorder. And although they're very different,

there's so many commonalities between people who, you know, live through or have a relationship with Manchausen's and Manchalzans by proxy and people who experience deception and betrayal. The topics we cover on betrayal are extreme, but sadly, they're not uncommon. Yeah.

And in season three, we really focus on male sexual abuse. And we learn that one in six men have experienced this issue. But the really scary reality is it actually is probably more. But it just goes unreported because of the stigma around it. And I just feel like these are two taboo issues, you know, Munchausen syndrome by proxy. and to take that seriously and talk about it to help dismantle that stigma, it's such a large hurdle. Yeah, no, that's a really good point.

And we've definitely learned a lot from the progress that has been made around child sex abuse, which I think it still is underreported. I think most people accept that child sex abuse is real and not rare. Yeah. Certainly anybody that's informed on the topic knows that. But I think that did not always used to be that way, right? And it was seen as this like stranger danger type of aberration, you know, one in a million sort of thing that happened. And then our society grappling with it sort of went through some interesting hurdles along the way. A major one being the satanic panic where you have all these stories about, you know, daycare workers and underground, you know, the McMartin case and all these like underground tunnels, which my take on it is that the.

that was society grappling with something that we really, really didn't want to look at, which is child sex abuse, and that actually it was easier and more comforting to think that it was satanic daycare workers because that's a problem that you can ostensibly solve. But I think it's more comforting to think that there's some evil system that you can kind of shut down than it is to confront the reality, which is that this is, boy scout leaders, priests, coaches, dads, uncles who are doing this, right? It's most likely to be someone that that child knows. And it's not going to be someone who is an obvious creep all the time. And it's so similar with Munchausen. And that's where we get into kind of the hullabaloo that happened around the Maya Kowalski case with the film Take Care of Maya and a lot of the coverage that really followed in lockstep with that

where they presented it as a medical kidnapping case. medical kidnapping is our satanic panic, essentially. It's like, you know, this idea that doctors are just separating families, right? Like, doctors don't make those decisions. Doctors evaluate abuse. It's a legitimate subspecialty. There's just so much disinformation around that. And the Maya Kualski case was sort of the most high profile one. But I think that there is a similar dynamic going on there. And certainly with Munchausen by proxy, it's not a one in a million thing. I think the behavior is along a spectrum, but I think that think it's far more common and getting worse because of social media, because of which I would assume actually some of the behaviors that y'all talk about on betrayal in this sort of more male deception and cheating and that kind of thing, like talking to Spencer Heron case, like social media has given people unfettered and unlimited access to attention. And, you know, I think it was Dr. Romani says in the TV series, like, oh, that's the dangerous combination, right? Attention seeking plus lack of empathy. I mean, that is exactly how you

describe munchausen by proxy behaviors. And so I think there's every reason to believe that it's getting worse. And that is a scary world to live in. I hate to be the one to break this to you, but like the world is not what you thought. That mom of the sick child who's raising money on GoFundMe and seems like the most heroic mother you've ever met could be the scariest person you've ever And so I think that's why these conspiracy theories around medical kidnapping get traction because the reporting on it is very thin. Child abuse professionals do not make good money. Child abuse pediatrics is a highly trained and not well-paid subspecialty. They get trashed in the media. They get accused of snatching babies. I mean, it's not for the feign of heart. And also just like that work, like doing that frontline work of rushing to the hospital to see a child that's been. abused is obviously emotionally grueling work. There isn't any scenario where you could make it

make sense that doctors just want to do that. It's a nightmare for the hospitals. The hospitals can get sued. You know, it's like there's no motivation. But I think the reason those stories still take off in the media is that people's discomfort around the reality of this abuse is so, so deep. There's two golden rules that any man should live by. Rule one, never. mess with a country girl. You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes. And rule two, never mess with her friends either. We always say that trust your girlfriends.

I'm Anna Sinfield, and in this new season of the girlfriends... Oh my God, this is the same man. A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist. I felt like I got hit by a truck. I thought, how could this happen to me? The cops didn't seem to care. So they take matters into their own hands. I said, oh, hell no.

I vowed I will be his last target. He's going to get what he deserves. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What's up, everyone? I'm Ago Vodam.

My next guest, you know from Stepbrothers Anchorman, Saturday Night Live and the Big Money Players Network. It's Will Farrell. My dad gave me the best advice ever. I went and had lunch with him one day, and I was like, and dad, I think I want to really give this a shot. I don't know what that means, but I just know the groundlings. I'm working my way up through, and I know it's a place that come look for up and coming talent.

He said, if it was based solely on talent, I wouldn't worry about you, which is really sweet. Yeah. He goes, but there's so much luck involved. And he's like, just give it a shot. He goes, but if you ever reach a point where you're, banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat, just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot

in luck. Listen to Thanks Dad on the IHeart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. On the serving pancakes podcast, conversations about volleyball go beyond the court. Today we have a little Best friend compatibility test. Okay. How long have we been best friends for? This is the day we met. As the League 1 volleyball season heads towards its final stretch, there's no better time to tune in. We really are like yin and yang, vodka and tequila. You'll hear unfiltered analysis, behind-the-scenes stories and conversations with leaders

making an impact across the sport. Today we have Logan Ledneckie. I feel like our fan base in general is very connected. Just like a comforting feeling getting to play at home. Whether you're following the final push of love season or just love the game, serving Pancakes brings you closer to the action and the people shaping the future of volleyball. Jordan, Thompson, had that microphone out. God forbid we make mistakes or cuss at our coach. Like when talking or two times. Open your free IHeart Radio app. Search Serving Pancakes and listen now.

This has been serving pancakes and we'll catch you on the flip side. Okay. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports. In 2023, former bachelor star Clayton Eckerd found himself at the center of a paternity scandal. The family court hearings that followed revealed glaring inconsistencies in her story. This began a years-long court battle to prove the truth. You doctored this particular test twice in so much. I doctored the test ones. It took an army of internet detectives to crack the case.

I wanted people to be able to see what their tax dollars were being used for. sunlight's the greatest disinfected. They would uncover a disturbing pattern. Two more men who'd been through the same thing. Greg Alespian and Michael Marantini. My mind was blown. I'm Stephanie Young. This is Love Trap.

Laura, Scottsdale Police. As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences. Ladies and gentlemen, breaking news at Maricopa County as Laura Owens has been indicted on fraud charges. This isn't over until Justice. is served in Arizona. Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Something that we're constantly confronting in true crime is having to tell these hyperbolic versions of true crime stories. And in reality, the more relatable and important ones are the ones that are kind of in the every day. I remember when we were covering Ashley Linton's case in Riverton, Utah for betrayal season too, he reached out to ICAC, which is an internet crimes against children task force that every state has. And I remember one of the task force members asked, why are you covering this case? Like, I deal with, you know, perpetrators that are 10 times worse than Jason Linton.

Why this one? And my response was, I don't want the hyperbolic version. see Sam case. You know, I want to meet people in a very average everyday story because that's actually what's happening. And so I feel like that's the same for a lot of these mothers

who are, if they're on the news, it's like this monster of a mother that did this. And it's like, you know, we have to hear about the extremes instead of leaning into the reality of what's happening. Yeah. I mean, I became a media outlet because I was so fed up with the way that media was covering this case, right? And it's been

interesting over the last few years as I've kind of jumped first, I guess. I've noticed that awareness is increasing, especially because of the Gypsy Rose Blanchard case, which was so high profile. I do think that there's more of a conversation happening than there was five years ago. But, you know, there was like so much reticence to talking about it. Like I remember when my novel came out and like I had written like an essay for it and that got killed at the last minute. And there was just like a lot of like, no, no, no, know, if there's not a conviction, you can't talk about it. And I was like, if we're not talking about the cases where there aren't convictions, then we're not talking about the problem. Right. Like when you get into the extremes, it allows people to put it at arm's length. That person is a

monster. That person is a psychopath that, like, I would see coming and this would never happen to me. And that's not reality. And I think that was why for me it was so important to talk about my own experience because the other thing that we do with perpetrators of crimes, especially if it's something where it just feels so, like, deeply, deeply, deeply wrong. We often say, oh, well, that person must have had a horrible child, but that person must have been abused as a child. There must be some, like, dots I can connect. And I think that that's part of the, let me tell myself a story about this that makes me feel safe, right? Where, like, as long as XYZ doesn't happen in my family, we won't end up with one of these perpetrators in our family.

And that's just not the case, right? I mean, my sister did not by anybody else's, you know, nobody else witnessed anything traumatic happening to her. You know, we're not raised an abusive household. Like, it's not something where, oh, there's some straight line that you can draw. And I think that's really uncomfortable for people. I think people really want to believe that something awful has to happen to a person to make them like this.

And I don't think that's true. I think it is that combination. of lack of empathy and need for attention that really can supercharge these behaviors. Totally. I think one of the things that I also felt was really relatable. And the circumstances are so different. But just knowing your sister's story and having to go in front of the judge in family court, like you're dealing with family court and court.

criminal court are two separate things. And the issues that I've seen a lot of the women that I deal with on betrayal, having to navigate the criminal side, and once that's over, and, you know, the father of their children are released, then they're dealing with family court, either in their divorce or child support or dealing with visitation. It is a whole other ball of wax where parents have a ton of rights, rightfully so, but they're in situations where kids are at risk. It's a really scary system because they are two separate entities. Yeah, and I think that that's something that the vagaries of that, like, really is lost on people that have not had to interact with these systems. And I think people here, and a lot of this again, when I'm talking about,

like, you know, my kicks and bogs work for NBC and his whole Do No Harm series. Like, a lot of this is I think intentionally created a confusion where it'll be like courts said doctors disagree. Like courts said, you know, this and that, right? And you're like, okay, which court, under what circumstances, like give me more information, right? Yep. And everything goes to the family court first because those are less, you know, those investigations take less time than the criminal investigation. So we end up in a lot of situations where the family court gives the children back during an active criminal investigation. which just, I think, sounds insane, but that happens all the time.

Likewise, you know, there's this thing of like, well, doctors at this hospital said this, but other doctors disagree. Without ever mentioning that those other doctors are people who were hired as expert witnesses by the parent defending themselves, right? Important information. And, like, I think people don't realize that the courts don't take the steps that you would think in the face of a criminal conviction to, like, limit that person's access to their own children. Like, for instance, you know, we just had a case that we were talking about the show, the Jessica Jones case in Texas, where she got a 60-year prison sentence and the courts did not terminate her parental rights. And so now the dad has to pay to do that. So just the onus that ends up on a protective parent in any child abuse situation, I think people have no idea what that looks like or just people don't realize how easy it is actually to get access. to children again. Yeah, in the case of Stacey Rutherford and Tyler from season three of betrayal, I think the courts got it right.

So for people that don't know, Stacey was married to a man named Justin, and he was a doctor in Reading, Pennsylvania. She had two children in a previous marriage and then met Justin, and they got married, they had two kids of their own, and he was, by all accounts, a great husband, an incredible doctor, beloved by his community. Turns out that he was abusing Stacy's son from her first marriage, his stepson, since he was 11. And Tyler didn't disclose until he was, I want to say, 17. So a long time.

Yeah. And, you know, Justin also tried to hire a. hitman while he was in prison to murder Tyler so that he wouldn't testify in court, which is what we cover in season three of betrayal. And what the judge did is not only did he get, he'll be basically in jail for the rest of his life. I don't want to misquote what a sentencing was. But he isn't allowed to speak to his biological children or have any contact with a family until he's

done his probation, basically for the rest of his life. And so I remember talking to Stacey and Tyler and them feeling like really complicated emotions because they deeply love Justin. Like the person that they knew as a human being, like Tyler loved his stepdad. But then there was the monster, the abuser. They were two different people to him. And that was that was. That was. He was a was a scenario where the court really contemplated a lifetime of abuse and grooming and narcissistic behavior and just got it and knocked it out of the park. And I was like, heck yeah. Like this is a Pennsylvania. Like I was really proud. So yeah, like sometimes we talk about things getting wrong. Like that was a scenario where I think the courts got it right. And it's, you know, it's so complicated. And I think

it kind of goes back to this question of once you have ideas. identified a person as this type of abuser where it has so much in common, my tells my proxy, with child sex abuse, where it is, you know, an extremely compulsive behavior. It's one of those things where, again, I think like, and I think we can more easily recognize it in child sex abuse cases where it's like, okay, if you cross that line with a child, you're not a safe adult, period. Like, if you're capable of doing that, like, you know, whether or not you should be thrown in jail for the rest of your life or we should do something else with you is sort of a separate question, but like, you are not a, that's why we put people on registries. That's why we say

they can't go near schools. Like, we have no such attitude towards much as my proxy perpetrators. Yeah. There is this idea that it is like some mental illness that people are sort of, quote, suffering from. And much like child sex abuse, there is an underlying psychiatric disorder, a fact is just sort of imposed on another. It's very similar to pedophilic disorder, which is also in the DSM, also very challenging to treat. Also very, you know, unlikely that a perpetrator will take enough accountability to be treated for it. And it doesn't reduce someone's culpability. And it's like a very complicated thing that happens when like children always want their parents. That's such a biological drive for kids. That's a survival mechanism. Even if their parent is

not capable of loving them or being safe with them, like they will always kind of have this longing. So you can have a situation where someone is separated from their parent and then they really, really, really idealize that parent and don't then protect themselves. I mean, it's really complicated. And then for survivors that have fully processed the abuse, so are not going that direction of saying this didn't happen to me, right? A fully understand fully processed the abuse. I mean, we saw Joe in our four season really struggling with this with their mom of like, they totally recognize what their mom did to them and they understand a lot about the dynamics and they still love that person. And I mean, I would say most of the survivors I know are either low contact or no contact, but it's really

complicated to navigate that relationship. There's two golden rules that any man should live by. Rule one, never mess with a country girl. You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes. And rule two, never mess with her friends either. We always say that trust your girlfriends. I'm Anna Sinfield. And in this new season of The Girlfriends,

Oh my God, this is the same man. A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist. I felt like I got hit by a truck. I thought, how could this happen to me? The cops didn't seem to care. So they take matters into their own hands. I said, oh, hell no. I vowed. I will be his last target.

He's going to get what he deserves. Listen to the Girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. What's up, everyone? I'm Ego Vodam. My next guest, you know from Step Brothers Anchorman, Saturday Night Live, and the Big Money Players Network.

It's Will Ferrell. Woo, woo, woo, woo, woo. My dad gave me the best advice ever. I went and had lunch with them one day, and I was like, and dad, I think I want to really give this a shot. I don't know what that means, but I just know the groundlings. I'm working my way up through, and I know it's a place they come. come look for up and coming talent. He said, if it was based solely on talent, I wouldn't worry about you, which is really sweet.

Yeah. He goes, but there's so much luck involved. And he's like, just give it a shot. He goes, but if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat. Just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be...

Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Listen to Thanks, Dad, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On the serving pancakes podcast, conversations about volleyball go beyond the court. Today we have a little best friend compatibility test. Okay. How long have we been best friends for? Since the day we met. As the League One volleyball season heads towards its final stretch, there's no better time to tune in.

We really are like yin and yang, vodka and tequila. You'll hear unfiltered analysis behind the scenes. stories and conversations with leaders making an impact across the sport. Today we have Logan Lednecky. I feel like our fan base in general is very connected. Just like a comforting feeling getting to play at home. Whether you're following the final push of love season or just love the game, serving pancakes brings you closer to the action and the people shaping the future of volleyball.

Jordan Thompson had that microphone out. God forbid we make mistakes or cuss at our coach. Like when time or two times. Open your free Iheart radio app. Search serving pancakes and listen now. This has been serving pancakes and we'll catch you on the flip side. Okay. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports.

In 2023, former bachelor star Clayton Eckerd found himself at the center of a paternity scandal. The family court hearings that followed revealed glaring inconsistencies in her story. This began a years-long court battle to prove the truth. You doctored this particular test. twice in so much. I doctored the test ones. It took an army of internet detectives to crack the case. I wanted people to be able to see what their tax dollars were being used for. Sunlight's the greatest disinfected. They would uncover a disturbing pattern. Two more men who'd been through the same thing. Grega lesbian, Michael Naranjini. My mind was blown. I'm Stephanie Young. This is

Love Trap. Laura, Scottsdale Police. As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences. Ladies and gentlemen, breaking news at Americopa County as Laura Owens has been indicted on fraud charges. This isn't over until justice is served in Arizona. Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We're working on a case for season four of betrayal about this woman, that of Colorado Springs. She was with her husband for 20 years.

She lived like a typical American life. She thought that she was just basically living like the suburban dream. And I won't give all the details because we air in May. But things unravel and the family is torn apart. And she has to look back on 20 years and basically readjust her sense of reality because he shares things, discloses things. that completely alters core memories in her life, where she's living and thinks one thing is happening,

where there's another almost like parallel universe where he's operating, and she has to hold both realities at the same time. She often says perception is my reality, and that really is true. And I remember because I had listened to your first season so long ago, I was like, let me listen to this again, like, you know, Hope's family and then your family.

I was thinking about you guys and like you having to look back. Like once things became clearer to you or things were coming into focus, how are you looking back on that time and how painful was it to try to merge what you thought you were experiencing and then the reality that you now learn? It's just it feels like those memories start to hold on to you in a way that you're like, I don't even know what to do. Yeah. I mean, it's a really profound part of the experience.

And I think when people, you know, people like to throw the word gaslighting as like, you know, it's sort of this like pop psychology term. But I think like when you really have gone through like gaslighting to my mind is like someone is systematically making you doubt your perception of reality. And, you know, it's extremely disorienting and it's sort of its own whole thing to recover from. And certainly for me, you know, given that my sister is in my whole life growing up and is in my earliest memories and it was a huge part of my childhood. I mean, very close in age. She's my only sibling. It really breaks your

brain for a while. Right. And now you're estranged. You guys haven't talked in over a decade. Yeah. This is now 14 years that this has been in my life. And I've really gone through different stages of processing it. And then it was like very clear that like this, okay, this is permanent. And then I sort of started to think about it as a death. I started to think about it as there was a person that I grew up with, that I loved, that I had these experiences with, and she died. I came to a new understanding of it, which is that that person that I thought I knew was probably never there and that it was always a mask. and that the parts of her that I experienced as being loving and being connected were just a person like mimicking those behaviors.

And that was a really painful revelation. It was much easier to think of her as a person that I loved and was there and died. But I think it was a really necessary one. So then there's the question of like, what do you do with all those memories? and the way that I frame it, and when I see other people struggling with this, what I hope people can come to eventually is a place that I think I finally arrived at

after a lot of work, which is my experiences were still real. Like, I loved my sister. I had fun with her growing up. I had a happy child with her. You know, those memories are my memories. And at the end of the day, it was real. It was real for me.

So I get to keep them. Yeah. Like I'm a twin. And so, you know, my relationship with my sister, next to having my own children, that's the most important relationship in my life always will be. Like, I entered the world with her. I did every fundamental first with her.

I could imagine losing my sister or not being able to share in critical moments. it's a profound loss, that relationship with a sister. It is. And I think like, I'm sure that you get so many emails and messages from people listening to the betrayal shows that, like, relate with that experience and see themselves in that. And I think there can be such, there's healing and making that content. There's healing and listening to it. Listening to the betrayal shows has helped me. Yeah. Again, it's the complexity of the human experience. That's kind of like our driving force

at Glass Podcast and what we do with betrayal, you guys have that in your DNA too. Like, I've heard it. And it's been evident in every season that you guys have done. Well, I really appreciate that. It means a lot coming from you. And I similarly really respect what you guys do over there at Glass. And I think, you know, I know how much this can mean to people as listeners. And navigating the pitfalls of how exploitative true crime can be is a huge job. Yeah. I know y'all take it seriously because I know you're behind the scenes process and I hope that we together can set a new standard in this industry because I think it really needs to happen. Yeah, I was giving I heart credit. I got to give Hulu and ABC so much credit.

I mean, this is like a big platform and some of these stories are really hard to tell. And at a time where people are like afraid to go there, I'm like really impressed. I mean, season three is tough. but they saw a landscape. I mean, this past year, the Menendez brothers were all over the place. I was thinking about that when you were saying you guys are tackling this. I was like, this is a really good time because we did like a little thing on our Patreon about that case because I was like, oh, this just feels so germane to like especially talking about, you know, because obviously the Gypsy Rose Blanchard case. There's a lot of parallels there, right, where you have someone who's an abuse victim who commits a crime and like, how do you talk about that?

How do you think about that? And I think just the we were talking about how the discomfort around male sexual abuse in particular weighed so heavily on that court case. Absolutely. And for them to see that people are actually open to hearing about that and discussing that and just really sitting with that and taking Tyler and Stacey's story and pursuing that for the Hulu documentary is. really exciting because it's only going to help dismantle the stigma around this issue. And I'm really proud to work with partners like that. I truly am. Yeah, that's, that's incredible. I'm so, I'm glad that they're supporting it something that is very special about podcasting. Like, podcasting feels like a medium where you can take a lot of risks. Yeah. Someone has to go first.

So I think, like, having a proof of concept with the podcast, like that certainly helps TV folks make good decisions of like, okay, there's an audience for this. So maybe it is worth taking a little bit more of a risk. It's a safer landing. Yeah, exactly, exactly. It's all it all works together. So your book that just came out, this is your first, like intro to nonfiction, right? Or do I have that wrong? No, this, yep. This is my first nonfiction book, the other four are novels. And it's very funny because people are always like with the book or with the show. They're like, oh my God, I love your show. I mean, not because like, you know, I know it's like, Like, they're trying to tell me, like, oh, not because I love child abuse. I'm like, no, I know.

I understand what you're saying. And it's like, right. Of course, like, I want people to be engaged with the storytelling. I want them to connect to that. They're not going to care about it unless they are connecting to the story and unless they are staying engaged with the story. Right. And, like, obviously we take it really seriously. Obviously, we do the utmost to tell things ethically.

But, like, you also have to have a good story. Yeah, for sure. Well, this was amazing. We just got like straight in the deep end, which I love. I could talk to you for hours. Andrea, thank you so much for coming on our show and sharing your story with us. Thanks for listening. Next week, we're sharing the first episode in Andrea's latest season of Nobody Should Believe Me.

It's about Sophie Hartman, a mother who adopted two girls from Zambia. But the story takes a tragic turn when one of her daughters becomes terribly. ill. So stay tuned, and we'll be back next week with that episode. If you would like to reach out to the betrayal team or want to tell us your betrayal story, email us at Betrayalpod at gmail.com. That's Betrayal P-O-D at Gmail.com. We're grateful for your support. One way to show support is by subscribing to our show on Apple Podcasts. And don't forget to rate and review betrayal. Five-star reviews go a long way. A big thank you to all of our listeners.

Betrayal is a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group and partnership with IHeart podcasts. The show is executive produced by Nancy Glass and Jennifer Fasin. Hosted and produced by me, Andrea Gunning. Written and produced by Monique Laborde. Also produced by Ben Federman. Associate producers are Kristen Mulcuri and Caitlin Golden. Our IHeart team is Ali Perry and Jessica Kreincheck. Audio editing and mixing by Matt Delvecchio.

Additional editing support from Tanner Rockies. Robbins. Betrayals theme composed by Oliver Baines, music library provided by Mib Music. And for more podcasts from IHeart, visit the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist, they take matters into their own hands. I vowed, I will be his last target. He is not going to get away with this. He's going to get what he deserves. We always say that trust your girlfriends. Listen to the girlfriends.

Trust me, babe. On the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. I got you. What's up, everyone? I'm Ego Wode. My next guest, it's Will Ferrell. My dad gave me the best advice ever. He goes, just give it a shot.

But if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore. It's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat. Just hang in there. Yeah. It would not be. Right. It wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Yeah. Listen to Thanks Dad on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In 2023, Bachelor star Clayton Eckerd was accused of fathering twins. But the pregnancy appeared to be a hoax. You doctor, this particular test twice Ms. Owens, correct? I doctored the test once.

It took an army of internet detectives to uncover a disturbing pattern. Two more men who'd been through the same thing. Greg Gillespie and Michael Marantini. My mind was blown. I'm Stephanie Young. This is Love Trapped. Laura, Scottsdale Police. As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences.

Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On the Serving Pancakes podcast, conversations about volleyball go beyond the court. Today we have a little best friend compatibility test. Okay. How long have we been best friends? This is the day we met. As the League One volleyball season heads towards its final stretch, there's no better time to tune in. You'll hear unfiltered analysis, behind-the-scenes stories, and conversations with leaders making an impact across the sport.

Whether you're following the final push of love season or just love the game, serving pancakes brings you closer to the action and the people shaping the future of volleyball. Open your free Iheart radio app. Search serving pancakes and listen now. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart women's sports. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.