Betrayal Weekly - Angela | Betrayal Weekly

Episode Date: August 21, 2025

Two best friends, a cause worth fighting for, and the knife in the back no one expected.  If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal Team, email us at [e-mail] and follow us on Instagram at @betrayalpod  To access our newsletter and additional content and to connect with the Betrayal community, join our Substack at betrayal.substack.com. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Hey, I'm Dr. Maya Shunker, a cognitive scientist and hosts of the podcast, a slight change of plans, a show about who we are and who we become when life makes other plans. I wish that I hadn't resisted for so long the need to change. We have to be willing to live with a kind of uncertainty that none of us likes. You can have opinions. You can have like a strong stance.

And then there's your body having its own program. Listen to a slight change of plans on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi listeners, I'm Anna Sinfield, host of The Girlfriends, Trust Me, Babe. I'm excited to share The Girlfriends Trust Me Babe story with you. And I want to let you know that you can get access to all episodes of season one, two, three, and four of The Girlfriends. and every single episode of The Girlfriends Trust Me Babe, 100% ad-free with an I-Heart True Crime Plus subscription. Available exclusively on Apple Podcasts.

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In July 2003, Councilman James E. Davis, an ambitious rising star in Brooklyn politics, was murdered inside New York City Hall, shot to death in front of more than 200 people. The killer? His political opponent, a man named Neil Askew. The full story of this shocking public murder

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and subscribe today. It's Financial Literacy Month, and the podcast, Eating While Broke, is bringing real conversations about money, growth, and building your future. This month, hear from top streamer, Zoe Spencer, and venture capitalist Lakeisha Landrum-Pierre,

as they share their journeys from starting out to leveling up. There's an economic component to communities thriving. If there's not enough money and entrepreneurship happening in communities, they failed. Listen to Eating While Broke

from the Black Effect podcast Network on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Hi everyone. Before we get into this episode, I want to let you know that the first part discusses details of cancer symptoms and treatment. Please listen with care. She's ruined so many lives. She's just broken so many hearts.

It's just left me wondering, did she ever have any love for any of us? and that hurts like hell. I'm Andrea Gunning and this is betrayal, a show about the people we trust the most and the deceptions that change everything. It was a tale of Peter Rabbit. And I can see you've drawn a picture of me Peter Rabbit. That is Adler.

That's Angela McVicker. She's a grandmother in small town Scotland. The day we interviewed her, Angela was babysitting her four-year-old granddaughter. Listen, Nana's going to ask if you will be quiet for a little while longer. Okay. Okay. Be very, very good.

And you'll make me very, very happy. Okay? Right, on you go. Angela has lived her whole life in the Scottish countryside. What makes Scotland, I think, are the people? If a stranger walks into a bar, they don't leave that bar until everybody knows who they are and why they're there. She came from a close-knit family of all girls. When she was growing up in the 70s,

I did actually want to be a midwife, but then I fell pregnant and had my first daughter, Joanna, when I was 17. So that kind of put a hold on anything. And at that point, I was thrown into growing up very quickly. Joanna was named for Angela's father, John. And just like her mom, she would be one of four girls. Which was hard going, being a young mum and having four children. There was rarely a quiet moment.

We always had a busy house. With four girls, there were always bringing friends home. Out of all of her girls, Joanna was the most driven. You never had to tell her to study. She would come home and go straight to her room, do her homework. And she was a talented Highland dancer, which is a traditional Gaelic folk dance. On weekends, Joanna competed in dance contests across the country. But something changed when Joanna was 16.

Joanna started to get really tired, and I put it down to her studying so hard for her exams. And then she started getting little lumps and bruises. She would come and say, Mom, look at this. And then one time in particular, she couldn't get her shoe on. And she said, look at my foot. And on the bridge of her foot, there was a lump. And it looked like an egg. It was really quite a significant lump.

Angela wasn't the type to call the doctor over every scrape or sniffle. But this time, she was genuinely alarmed. When the first doctor dismissed it as a bug bite, she found another doctor. And then another. I knew in the back of my mind it wasn't right, there was something going on. One day, Joanna came home from school with a large dark purple bruise. It covered her whole lower leg. And it hadn't been there in the morning, but she left.

And at that point, leukemia hit me between the eyes. I knew that bruising was a symptom. So we went to the hospital the following day and they said, well, we need to do a bone marrow aspirate but they told me that it was just to confirm what they already knew and I just kept having to leave her room I kept having to make up excuses because I could feel myself getting panicked and upset

and I didn't want her to feel that or see it. It was a day that changed their lives forever. At 16, Joanna was diagnosed with cancer. Just by looking through a microscope they could tell that she had chronic myeloid leukemia. Today, there are a variety of treatments for chronic myloid leukemia. But 30 years ago, there were very limited options. Joanna's doctors were scrambling to find answers. The doctors would say, I don't know how she's functioning. I don't know how she can walk. A nurse had seen Angela pacing the hallways all day.

She pulled her aside and gave her some stern advice. Angela was going to have to be her daughter's advocate. She wasn't giving me tea in sympathy. She was giving me sound advice and she was being a bit of a badass with me and just telling me without saying the words, pull yourself together, you're going to have to do this. So Angela tried to channel her fear into action.

She was willing to go anywhere in the world, do anything necessary to get Joanna treatment. Next, she found a specialist. He then told us that she had to have a boy marrow transplant to survive. In order to have a successful bone marrow transplant, Joanna would need a perfect match. It's rare. But they found a possible match on the National Register.

It wasn't perfect, but it was close, and it was their only shot. But the procedure is dangerous. So what they do is they kill off all your bone marrow. So you had to go into isolation. You're in a room where everybody has to be scrubbed up, and it's very limited to how many people are in the room because an infection could kill you, because you don't have any white cells to fight infection.

And then the cells from a donor just looks like a bag of blood and it's hung up on a stand and you receive it through intravenous. And the stem cells that go through your veins find their way to your bone marrow and they nest in your bone marrow and start to multiply and give you, a new immune system.

Should your body accept it? But Joanna's didn't. It wasn't a close enough match. And her body attacked the new cells. When that happened, she was left with no immune system and no donor. Before the transplant, Joanna didn't fully grasp how serious her diagnosis was.

There was a few times we thought we were going to lose her during the transplant. transplant. She was just so ill. After the transplant failed, Joanna's doctors were blunt. So at that point, they said if she's going to survive beyond five years,

we need to find a perfect match. That's when Angela turned to the Anthony Nolan Register, one of the first bone marrow registries in the world. It had been founded by another mother, all so desperate to save her child. And the charity happened to be based in the UK.

So Angela scheduled a meeting with a woman there. And she said, well, this weekend we have got a fundraising event going on in Glasgow. Would you and Joanna like to go along? And I said yes, because we have to do something. We can't sit back and just expect everybody else to build this register for us. So they packed their bags for Glasgow. Of course, Joanna said she had nothing to wear, which was a lot of the loony. That weekend, they hoped to meet people who could help Joanna.

And that's where I met Lindsay McCallum. Lindsay worked for the Anthony Nolan Trust, and she would be Angela and Joanna's ambassador, guiding them through the process of growing the registry and trying to find Joanna's match. When we arrived at the hotel, she greeted us so warmly and kind of. and she was very caring and inviting. That night at the fundraiser there was an auction and there was people up speaking

and while Lindsay was speaking on the stage Joanna actually got up off her chair and walked up onto the stage and took the mic and told people that she needed to find the bone marrow match or she was going to die. I saw her

blossom on that stage. She didn't cry. She just told people that she wanted to live and thanked them for being there and for helping her. In that moment, something shifted.

Joanna was no longer just a patient. She wanted to be an advocate and an idea was born. The Anthony Nolan Trust would partner with Joanna to launch a media campaign. They would use her story to raise awareness and get new people to donate bone marrow. Every new donor could potentially be Joanna's match.

They got the campaign off the ground with Lindsay's help, and the public immediately took notice. When we started Joanna's campaign, the media just ate up. They just loved her. She loved the camera. The camera loved her. her. Yeah, she made friends with lots of different Scottish celebrities and they just loved

her zest for life. Joanna's story struck a chord. Her personality, her humor, her sheer will to live. It was irresistible. Plus, the campaign gave Joanna a larger purpose. It's so ridiculous, but she had a blast. She just wanted to live. That was a message. I just want to live. Even though the transplant hadn't been successful, Joanna was well enough to take her exams and get into college. There, she discovered her love of journalism.

She used to say, when I'm better, I'm going to start a newspaper, and it's going to be called Good News only. It's going to just be a newspaper full of good news that people will want to read and not be drawn into doom and good. gloom. Wouldn't that be a wonderful world? As the campaign continued to grow, so did Angela's involvement. I started to work for the Anthony Nolan Trust. I was a donor recruitment manager. I then started running clinics where people could come along and put their name down to be on the register. And everybody was coming to join the register, coming in their thousands.

It was intense work, and Angela says it couldn't have been accomplished without Lindsay's help. The woman they'd met at the fundraiser was becoming an integral part of their lives. Lindsay went above and beyond on Joanna's campaign, and she meant business. She was ex-military. I had been in the Navy, and so she had that kind of great organizational skills. And she was charming. She attracted people. She was a good fundraiser.

Because we were running a campaign together, the relationship became pretty intense. Lindsay and Angela became fast friends. You know, the relationship grew organically. She would phone me during our work hours and then that would expand it. And we wouldn't just talk. We just kicked off. We just kicked off really well and laughed at the same thing. We talked about the same things.

We both had families that were very similar, very close, loving families. They had a lot in common, and Lindsay made her feel less alone. Lindsay didn't have a child with cancer or a personal stake in growing the donor registry, but she was passionate about the work and the people she was helping. She just had an aura and we both had a common goal in increasing the register and helping people and she cared about Joanna.

As the year went on, Lindsay became a part of their family. Our families quickly became intertwined. I absolutely adored her mother and our sisters. Lindsay and Angela started calling each other first thing in the morning every morning. We were both early birds. Either she would text me or I would text her saying,

Are you awake yet? And I don't know what we even spoke about. You know when you have a relationship and you can be in the phone for an hour and then you have to phone back in an hour's time? Oh, I forgot to tell you. I could speak to her five times a day. That was the kind of relationship. we had.

You didn't get one without the other. It was like cheese and pickle. The two women founded an annual ball together as a fundraiser for the registry. By that point, Lindsay felt like a sister. It's hard to describe just how intense a friendship it was. I feel it was always because we had

that goal to save Joanna's life. Joanna herself was determined. to live. And she was open to trying anything. She spoke to doctors about complementary therapies. Should you have reflexology? Should you have massage? And 30 years ago, doctor scoffed and rolled her eyes and said, yeah, you could try that if you like. But Joanna was ahead of her time. She believed in Western medicine. And she also believed in the power of rest, food and joy. While they kept waiting for the perfect match, Joanna decided the best treatment

would be living her life to the fullest. She was gotsy. She would do things like skydive. She went scuba diving. She'd been living with cancer for almost 10 years. When she was 24, she planned to backpack around the world. Her doctors cleared her to go so long as she had blood work done every few weeks.

and Joanna took the chance. She went all over. She was in Thailand, all these kind of places, Fiji. I mean, bear in mind Joanna, it was tiny, tiny, little thin thing. Our backpack was almost as big as her. It was huge. And while she was in Australia, I got a phone call to say she had been admitted.

She started feeling short of breath and it turned out she had a collapsed lung. Her lungs are deteriorating. Eventually they managed to get her on a flight and get her back to Scotland and then we discovered that she actually needed a heart and lung transplant. Everyone knew what it meant.

This was the beginning of the end. And she never ever got that heart and long transplant. Joanna died at home with her mom and sisters by her side. She was 27. It was just all so unfair. Everything's unfair though, isn't it? You know, with a disease, it's never fair. But she just so desperately wanted to live.

Angela immediately threw herself into planning a celebration of life Joanna. I remember saying to somebody, this is the last thing I get to do for my child. The service would be joyful and vibrant, just like Joanna. We asked everybody not to wear black, to wear very colourful clothing. From a tiny little girl, Joanna loved rainbows. As a toddler, she would scream when she saw a rainbow. She was fascinated. And when she was very ill and she knew she was dying, she said to me, when we can no longer be together,

I will send you a sign and we can meet in the middle of rainbow. As they planned the service, Lindsay was there to help, just like always. Lindsay actually asked if she could read her eulogy. I was like, oh my. goodness, could you do that? And she was like, I really, yeah, I could, I want to. And I was like, oh, that's beautiful. Even in this dark time, Angela felt like she was surrounded by love,

that she was supported by good and caring people. I thought Lindsay McCallum was one of these people. And she wasn't. You can have opinions, you can have like a strong stance. And then there's your body having its own program. I'm Dr. Maya Shunker, a cognitive scientist and hosts of the podcast, a slight change of plans, a show about who we are and who we become when life makes other plans. We share stories and scientific insights to help us all better navigate these periods of turbulence and transformation.

There is one finding that is consistent, and that is that our resilience rests on our relationships. I wish that I hadn't resisted for so long the need to change. We have to be willing to live with a kind of uncertainty that none of us likes. Listen to a slight change of plans on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On a recent episode of the podcast, Money and Wealth with John Hobriant, I sit down with Tiffany the budgetista Aliche to talk about what it really takes to take control of your money. What would that look like in a lot? our families if everyone was able to pass on wealth to the people when they're no longer here. We break down budgeting, financial discipline, and how to build real wealth, starting with the

mindset shifts. Too many of us were never, ever taught. Financial education is not always about, like, I'm going to get rich. That's great. It's about creating an atmosphere for you to be able to take care of yourself and leave a strong financial legacy for your family. If you've ever felt you didn't get the memo on money, this conversation is for you to hear more. Listen to Money and Wealth with John O'Brien from the Black Effect Network on the I'd Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Hi, everyone. I'm Cheryl Stray, author of Wild and Tiny Beautiful Things. I'm excited to share that I have a new podcast called Mind Over Mountain. In each episode, I interview athletes, adventurers, and a

adrenaline seekers to discuss the inner landscapes and life experiences that informed and inspired their extraordinary feats. I also bring a bit of advice into the mix so we too can better understand how to face our own seemingly insurmountable challenges. Do you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to pull out what you already have inside. We're coming into this world fighting for our lives. All I'm going to do is pull out what you already got inside. We're there to support and celebrate each other. And that's not like your story versus my story. You're going to walk up and over that dang mountain. You're not just going to put your mind over it.

Yep, yep, exactly. And if I can't walk up and over it, I'm going to go through it. Listen to Mind Over Mountain every Thursday on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Will Ferrell's Big Money Players and IHeart Podcast presents soccer moms. So I'm Leanne. This is my best friend, Janet. And we have been joined at the Hipsons High School. Absolutely.

Now a redacted amount of years later, we're still joined at. the hip, just a little bit bigger hips, wider. This is a podcast we're recording it as we tailgate our youth soccer games in the back of my Honda Odyssey with all the snacks and drink. Sidebar. Why did you get hard seltzer instead of beer? Well, they had a bogo. Well, then you got it.

Do you want a white collar something here? Just hit it. What are y'all doing? Microphones? Are you making a rap album? Oh, I would. How did you pull? I would buy it.

Cut through the defense like a hot knife through sponge cake. That sounds delicious. Oh, you're lucky I'm not a drug addict. You're lucky I'm not an alcoholic. You're lucky I'm not a killer. I love this team and I'm really trying to be a figure in their lives that they can rely on. Oh. Listen to soccer moms on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

After Joanna passed away, Angela leaned on her family and friends, especially her best friend Lindsay. At this point, they'd been very. best friends for nearly a decade. Their daily morning calls became a lifeline for Angela. After Joanna passed, you know, Lindsay would be the first person I would speak to in the morning. And she would message me and say,

a yop, or if I was awake, I would make a yop and we would chat. She would just laugh with me about the funny things Joanna would get up to. and the funny things that she would say and it lifted my spirits and it was just she was always there.

She was so supportive. Never heard her cry right enough. Never cried. But I just thought that she was just composed. Their friendship went on like this for another seven years. During this time, Angela was reflecting a lot on Joanna and how she was always looking for holistic treatments. ways to make herself feel better and find joy.

She thought about how Joanna used to say, There should be a place that people go and they can just sample all these things and find out what you can do to bring more joy, more peace, more relaxation, less stress. One day, when Lindsay and Angela were on the phone, they came up with an idea together, a charity that would provide exactly that.

Seven years after Joanna passed away, Lindsay and I decided in her memory to launch Rainbow Valley to help other people. Rainbow Valley. A nod to Joanna's vibrancy and her love of rainbows. They would offer a two-day residential program

for people with cancer. The course would include, coaching on mindfulness, diet, and emotional well-being. Remo Valley is not a life-saving charity. Remo Valley is a life-changing charity. And it doesn't matter how long you have to live. It's what can you do to take back control of a diagnosis of cancer? and live a more joyous life.

Luckily, Lindsay knew how to start a charity and she was eager to help. She had 17, 18 years' experience as a fundraiser for a big organisation. So she was obviously well respected within the sector. And I felt she had the expertise. Joanna gave us the vision. Joanna gave us our mission.

Why was the storyteller? And Lindsay was the expertise behind pulling it together. They applied for charitable status and found experts to lead their courses. And then in a twist of fate, Lindsay was laid off from her job at the Anthony Nolan Trust. So she became Rainbow Valley's first official employee. It made sense that Lindsay you know, after we made redundant,

worked for Rainbow Valley and we pulled a board together, a board of trustees, and we took advice from Lindsay. We took her lead because she was the one with 20 years' experience. I was so grateful that we were able to do something like this together in Joanna's memory. I thought it was all meant to be. Under Lindsay's leadership, the charity really came together.

In 2012, Rainbow Valley officially began running courses. She was the head of the charity. She was involved in the D-to-D running of everything. I trusted her implicitly. Implicitly. A few years into managing the charity together, the friends faced their first real conflict. Angela had started to question some of Lindsay's choices.

I felt she was spending money on something that wasn't necessary. And it was a bit of a waste of resources. And I spoke to Lindsay about this. And I remember saying to her, this is extremely difficult for me. because you're my best friend and I adore you. But this is a business conversation and I don't feel this is the way we should be running.

And Lindsay didn't take it well. It was the first time I had ever seen, I don't want to overexaggerate and say aggression, but it was like she was angry. I saw it as not a fallout, but we disagreed on something, which we hadn't done before. But it was more than a disagreement. It was a turning point. After that conversation, Lindsay became cold.

And she came to Angela with some feedback of her own. She started telling me that people didn't like me and that I was causing upset on the course. I was upsetting the staff and I was upsetting the attendees and I was creating a negative atmosphere. And of course, I loved her and I didn't want to upset her. I didn't want to upset anybody on the course. But she had me convinced that I was creating this negative, atmosphere.

Angela was taken aback, but she trusted Lindsay's judgment. She didn't want to be a problem or get in the way of their mission. And she told me that I shouldn't come to the courses anymore. But I wasn't being useful. So I kind of step back from that. She wanted to do what was best for the charity,

but Ancella was hurt. And to make matters worse, their friendship was changing. During that time, our relationship really deteriorated. And I was very confused, you know, because Lindsay would turn quite nasty at times. And it just wasn't like her. You know, I would try to speak to her and say,

what's wrong? And she would say nothing, nothing. So she had me feeling I was imagining it. Lindsay stopped calling in the mornings. I would then be phoning on, she would ignore my calls. And then when I would say to her, I've phoned you, she would say, well, I never get a missed call from you that. Then one night, Angela opened her door to find all three of her daughters

standing in front of her. The girls all came to my house one evening and said, you really need to get help. You're not happy. Angela knew Lindsay had something to do with this, and her daughters confirmed it. Lindsay had approached them and raised her concerns. She was saying to them things like,

your mum really needs help. I know she's had a lot of trauma in her life, but she really needs help and that I was going off my nut. And I was like, absolutely not. Now Lindsay was interfering in her relationship with her daughters. It started to feel like it was orchestrated. But to what end?

Angela couldn't figure it out. And on top of that, I felt she was pushing me out, telling me that I was interfering in the day-to-day running of the charity and that she ran the charity. But one day, Angela stopped by a Rainbow Valley course that Lindsay was running. She stood in the back and kept to herself. Lindsay was giving the introduction to the group.

Typically, they shared Joanna's story at the start of every course. But this time, Lindsay skipped over it. I remember going to a day course. And normally when we have our intro slides, we talk about what Rainbow Valley is, the inspiration. And we have a picture of Joanna up. when we talk about this is where it started. This was a dream of Joanna's.

But this time, she didn't mention Joanna on the course. I said to her after it, there's a reason why we stopped talking about Joanna? And she said, because I don't really think it's relevant. Angela was at a loss for words. She didn't recognize Lindsay or where she was taking Rainbow Valley. And then in 2022, January, she said to me, there's a problem. Lindsay said, COVID had taken a toll on the charity's bottom line.

And she said, we've managed to bob along because we got some grants to run the online courses. But now we're through all that. It's not viable. We don't have enough money. the charity's going to close. She announced this at a board meeting and they all kind of looked at the figures and were like, we're in trouble here.

It was bleak. Lindsay explained that the best option was to wind down the charity at the end of the year. I said, wait a wee moment. We cannot make this decision and walk out of the room. saying that's that we're folding. Give us three weeks.

Let's reconvene in three weeks. And if we all go away and speak to everybody and anybody and see if we can find a company, a trust fund, somebody that will save us, somebody that will give us a big donation. Angela started working the phones. Within a week, someone found a donor willing to help get Rainbow Valley back on track. I was so relieved and so excited. I met Lindsay before the board meeting

and I thought she would have been elated. But she was like, oh, that's great. Instead of celebrating, Lindsay announced that she would be stepping down from the charity for good. She said, I'm leaving Rainbow Vivalry. Valley. I don't want to do fundraising anymore. I'm good to resign. On her last day, the staff took her out to lunge and bought her flowers. She and Angela said a cordial goodbye. Angela felt like it was a new chapter for the charity. The only thing left to do was close the accounts Lindsay used. Years ago, she set up a separate bank account for their annual gala. Angela knew about the account,

but she wasn't involved in managing it. I had mentioned this other account that was for the ball, which Lindsay had advised that we set up as a friend's account. I knew that she had done this when she was with the Anthony Nolan Trust previously. So I just thought, well, that's how it's done. The bank account Lindsay set up was called the Friends of Rainbow Valley. And the treasurer said, Oh, that account, is it closed?

And I was like, well, I don't know. And she said, well, it needs closed or the name changed. So Angela went to the bank and got hard copies of the account statements to take back to the office and reconcile. Angela's adult daughter, Kendall, was working for Rainbow Valley at the time, helping close out the books for the end of the year. I took it back to the office, put it down in the table, and I said to Kendall, let's go through this.

and Kendall continued looking through it. And she said, Mum, come back and look at this. Why's all this getting paid out to Lindsay? Why? Why is all these payments going out to Lindsay? Angela went to look, and she saw dozens of transfers,

small transfers, a few hundred dollars each. But the closer they looked, they realized it quickly totaled a huge, some of money. And it was all made out to one person. Lindsay McCallum. You can have opinions. You can have like a strong stance. And then there's your body having its own program. I'm Dr. Maya Shunker, a cognitive scientist and hosts of the podcast, a slight change of plans, a show about who we are and who we become when life makes other plans. We share stories and scientific insights to help us all better navigate these periods of turbulence and transformation.

There is one finding that is consistent, and that is that our resilience rests on our relationships. I wish that I hadn't resisted for so long the need to change. We have to be willing to live with a kind of uncertainty that none of us likes. Listen to a slight change of plans on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. On a recent episode of the podcast, Money and Wealth with John Ho'Brien, I sit down with Tiffany the budgetista Aliche to talk about what it really takes to take control of your money. What would that look like in our families if everyone was able to pass on wealth to the people when they're no longer here? We break down budgeting, financial discipline, and how to build

real wealth, starting with the mindset shifts. Too many of us were never, ever taught. Financial education is not always about, like, I'm going to get rich. That's great. It's about creating an atmosphere for you to be able to take care of yourself and leave a strong financial legacy for your family. If you've ever felt you didn't get the memo on money, this conversation is for you to hear more. Listen to Money and Wealth with John O'Brien from the Black Effect Network

on the I'd Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever. you get your podcast. Hey, earners, what's up? Look, money is something we all deal with, but financial literacy is what helps turn income into real wealth. On each episode of the podcast, Earn Your Leisure, we break down the conversations you need to understand money, investing, and entrepreneurship.

From stocks and real estate to credit, business, and generational wealth, we translate complex financial topics into real conversations everyone can understand. Because the truth is, most people will never taught how money really works. But once you understand the system, you can start to build within it. That means ownership, smarter investing, and creating opportunities not just for yourself, but for the next generation. If you want to learn how to build wealth, understand the markets, and think like an owner. Earn Your Leisure is the podcast for you.

Listen to Earn Your Leisure on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Hi, everyone. I'm Cheryl Stray, author of Wild and Tiny Beautiful Things. I'm excited to share that I have a new podcast called Mind Over Mountain. In each episode, I interview athletes, adventures, and adrenaline seekers to discuss the inner landscapes and life experiences that informed and inspired their extraordinary feats. I also bring a bit of advice into the mix, so we too can better understand how to face our own seemingly insurmountable challenges.

Do you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to pull out what you already have inside. We're coming into this world, fighting for our lives. All I'm going to do is pull out what you already got inside. We're there to support and celebrate each other. And that's not like your story versus my story. You're going to walk up and over that dang mountain. You're not just going to put your mind over it.

Yep, yep, exactly. And if I can't walk up and over it, I'm going to go through it. Listen to Mind Over Mountain every Thursday on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. As Angela and her daughter, Kendall, were going through the end of year finances for Rainbow Valley, They found something alarming. Dozens of payments to Lindsay from a bank account that only she used. And she said, why's all this getting paid out to Lindsay?

And I said, it'll be expenses. And she said, no, look at the dates. Why would she have expenses? March, April, May, June. It's every month. And sometimes it's twice a day. I was really confused. And Kendall just looked at me.

And I was like, no. She's been horrible to me, but she's not a thief. I know that her family are very wealthy. She's very comfortable. And she's not a thief. No, not a chance. It's true that Lindsay's husband came from a wealthy family, and she'd been collecting a salary from Rainbow Valley.

She didn't need money. Angela felt like there had to be another explanation, so she reached out to Lindsay to clear it up. I had sent in a message saying I'm confused why all these payments are going out to you and are the expenses and the amounts don't add up

she says it was expenses I was just paying things and dribs and drabs and I wanted to believe that and I came back into the office and I said to Kendall it's fine, it's just expenses and Kendall said bullshit

bullshit she says open your eyes and look at it properly she needed answers so she called Lindsay back and she was just coming up with you know lots of different excuses

and then she said well I should have told you this but a good few years ago Rainbow Valley was in financial trouble and I put a lump sum in to dig us out a hole and I should have told you about it and I said how much

how much did you put in and she said oh I can't remember but that was me trying to claw the money back and I said no I says that's not transparent you cannot do that bring in all your statements

bring in all your bank accounts and you and I will sit at this table and we will go through everything and we'll make everything transparent so that every penny is accounted for and she said I can't so Angela ended the call

she needed time to think and at that point you know I'm disgusted we packed up and we drove home and the whole way home my head was just spinning and I said to my daughter just let's keep this

low key just now because I need to work out what my next steps are. Before she could wrap her head around this Lindsay called again this time with a new tactic. She phoned and she said please Angela don't take this any further

and she said look I'll give you 20,000 pounds just go to the bank and close it and I said how long has this been going on And she said, oh, no, no, no, it was just that year. It was just that one year. That was it. That was it.

You know, it was okay. It's okay. There's nothing else. Angela didn't believe her. As far as I was concerned, she was trying to bribe me. This wasn't sloppy bookkeeping. It was theft. So then I phoned my daughter and I said,

we're going to the police. I had to go to the police. They wanted to get to. gather all the evidence they could, so they searched every page of their financial records. Starting with the year the charity was founded. And my two daughters went through it, highlighting everything, and kind of trying to get a tally. I could hardly chew my own fingernails. I was in such a state. The bank statements revealed, Lindsay had been stealing money from Rainbow Valley for years.

She had taken it bit by bit. 300 here, 200 there. And slowly, those little numbers started adding up. In the end, they discovered Lindsay stole 86,000 pounds. That's 116,000 U.S. dollars. The reason nobody had noticed was because Lindsay was soliciting donations, straight to the Friends of Rainbow Valley account. And she never reported those donations to the organization.

So of course, the donors thought their money was going to the charity. In reality, it was going to Lindsay's slush fund. Nobody else would know that thousand pounds ever existed. Because she would be the one that would be writing a letter of thanks. So she was so deceitful. And these are people, this is money from people that she would know. Lindsay had robbed their donors. She'd robbed cancer patients and their families.

She'd even tried to close Rainbow. Valley forever. It was like a jigsaw all coming together. It was making sense why she was treating me the way she was, why she had to get rid of me, why she wanted to leave Rainbow Valley,

why she was gaslighting me. She had hoped that the charity would fold and all the bank accounts would be closed and it would be all gone and she would have got away with it. Angela realized her best friend of 20 years wasn't the person she thought she was. When it all came to light, I was bereft. The person I thought she was for me had died.

She no longer existed. And that was extremely difficult and intense. Angela walked into the PlayStation with hundreds of papers in hand. And I have to say the detective was so good because I was just a wreck when he would come in. You know, I was just a blubbering wreck. And he was just very calm and kind and explained everything as he was going along.

And he warned me, he said, this will take about two years to get to court. And I was like, no way, how come that be? He was right. It took the police a year to investigate the case. A week after Angela confronted her, Lindsay paid 25,000 pounds into the Rainbow Valley account in an attempt to cover up what she'd done. She didn't know that Angela had already gone to the police.

So she thought she had got away with it. You know, time was passing and she was living her best life. Their son was getting married. They went away to Cyprus for this big laughish wedding. as if there was nothing wrong. For Angela, the year of the investigation was an emotional and unsettling time. Sometimes, she had to remind herself that this was really happening. I would get into a panic sometimes and think,

oh my God, have we got this wrong? And I would have to go back into the office and take out all the evidence and look at it. To remind me and say, no. It really happened. It really has happened. On October 30th, 2023, it got very real for Angela and for Lindsay. I remember the day she was arrested. I'll never forget it as long as I live. I remember it because I was driving home from my mother's and the detective phoned me and asked me to pull in. And he said, I've brought her in for questioning and I've charged her.

and he said he okay. And I said, yeah, but I was shaking. She thought she'd feel a sense of justice. But really, she just felt heartbreak. Bear in mind, I still loved her. Love is not like a light switch. You don't ever switch it off. I love the bones of her.

she was a fabulous friend she was there for me in some of my darkest darkest hours and then I was confused she stood and read a eulogy at Joanna's funeral how could you do that how could you do that but Angela's heartbreak turned to rage when the police uncovered new information it turned out Lindsay's fraud didn't start with

She had also stolen from the Anthony Nolan Trust, the place where Angela and Lindsay first met. And the police charged her with that fraud too. I think that was the point where I felt angry at then because I thought, you're a serial thief. And it's just left me wondering, did she ever have. any love for any of us. She worked for the Anthony Nolan Trust when I met her

and Joanna needed a bone marrow transplant and a question, did she see Joanna could raise a lot of money where we'd just a meal ticket for her? And that hurts like hell. Not because she did that to me but because she maybe did that with Joanna. It's an unanswerable

question, but they'd been friends for decades. Angela knew Lindsay and what really motivated her. Her husband's family are extremely wealthy and elderly. So he is in for a big, big, big inheritance. Personally, I just don't think it was coming quick enough to her. And her vanity and greed took over. On the day of Lindsay's sentencing hearing, The court opened and she had to walk past us and she stuck her head in the air, stuck her nose in the air and looked in the opposite direction.

You know, she was very close. I had to walk right past me. And I recognised her fully. I felt I didn't know her. Lindsay ended up pleading guilty to two fraud charges. She knew that you get a third off your sentence. So she got four. years reduced to three years for preting guilty.

Lindsay was sentenced to three years in prison in order to repay both charities. She did make that repayment, but she only served a quarter of her sentence. But justice looks different for Angela. She wanted honesty and remorse, but that never came. I'll never, ever, ever get over.

I'll never understand it. I would love to. to sit in a room with her and just say, please be honest. Tell me why and tell me what was going through your head. I would love to have a conversation with her, not for me to call her names or to call her out on anything, but just to try and unjumble my brain. I miss the person I thought she was.

I really do. Even though Lindsay's deception devastated Angela, she isn't willing to let it change her values. I refuse to live my life not trusting people. With what I've been through with Joanna, I know there are more good people in the world than there are bad. And that's what I hang on to. I've got seven beautiful grandchildren.

None of them met Joanna. But they all know her and they talk about it. When they see rainbows, if there's a reflection, comes into the house and it's bouncing off, they'll say, oh, Auntie Joe's here. Angela lost her best friend, but she didn't lose Rainbow Valley. And her decision to bring Lindsay's crime to light in some ways has been a positive. Today, Rainbow Valley has more interest and support than ever. And Angela dreams of building a permanent center for the charity. Joanna's legacy has become part of Angela's legacy too.

I want this to have longevity and be meaningful for people way after I've gone. I wanted to keep growing and flourishing and being there to help people through, you know, a very difficult period of their life. We end all of our weekly episodes with the same question. Why do you want to share your story? I'm telling this story mainly because you asked. But Rainbow Valley was Joanna's dream. Lindsay tried to turn it into a nightmare. And I wanted the world to know what she had done and who she really was.

But I also want people to realize that they can survive the worst time. of their life. And Joanna taught me to stand tall. Because that's what she did. If she could do it, I've got to. You know, when you have a rainbow, it's guarantee the sun will come out. Eventually.

On the next episode of Betrayal Weekly. Never, ever did I see that coming. Ever. I truly thought I was going to to help someone else. And then I'm the end question. What do you mean? I'm his wife.

This isn't a crime. We weren't a crime. 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 I-Hart team is Ali Perry and Jessica Kreincheck. Audio editing and mixing by Matt Dalvecchio. Additional editing support from Tanner 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. Hey, I'm Dr. Maya Shunker, a cognitive scientist and hosts of the podcast, a slight change of plans.

a show about who we are and who we become when life makes other plans. I wish that I hadn't resisted for so long the need to change. We have to be willing to live with a kind of uncertainty that none of us likes. You can have opinions. You can have like a strong stance. And then there's your body having its own program. Listen to a slight change of plans on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Hi listeners.

I'm Jamal Jordan, the host of Roershack, murder at City Hall podcast. In July 2003, Councilman James E. Davis, an ambitious rising star in Brooklyn politics, was murdered inside New York City Hall, shot to death in front of more than 200 people. The killer? His political opponent, a man named Neil Askew. The full story of this shocking public murder and the relationship between these two men has not yet been told. Until now. I want to let you know that you can get access to all episodes of Roershack Murder at City Hall 100% ad-free with an I-Heart true crime plus subscription, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts.

Plus, you'll get access to all episodes of Rochak murder at City Hall one week ahead of everyone else, available only to IHeart True Crime Plus subscribers. So don't wait. Head's Apple Podcasts, search for Iheart True Crime Plus, and subscribe today. Hi listeners, I'm Anna Sinfield, host of The Girlfriends Trust Me Babe. I'm excited to share the Girlfriends Trust Me Babe story with you. And I want to let you know that you can get access to all episodes of season one, two, three, and four of the Girlfriends. And every single episode of The Girlfriends Trust Me Babe, 100% ad free with an IHeart True Crime Plus subscription. available exclusively on Apple Podcasts.

Plus, you'll get access to all episodes of The Girlfriends Trust Me, Babe, one week ahead of everyone else. Available only to IHeart True Crime Plus subscribers. So don't wait, head to Apple Podcasts, search for IHart True Crime Plus, and subscribe today. This is Amy Rovock alongside T.J. Holmes from the Amy and T.J. podcast. And there is so much news, information, commentary coming at you all day and from all over the place. What's fact, what's fake, and sometimes what the F.

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