Betrayal Weekly - Behind the Scenes Q&A | Betrayal Weekly — BONUS

Episode Date: March 13, 2025

Producer Monique LaBorde comes on mic to bring Andrea some of our most common listener questions. We go behind the scenes to talk about the production process and give you a sneak peek into what’s coming up next on Betrayal. 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 Wodom. 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 IHeartRadio 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 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. Hey guys, it's Andre Gunning, and this is our first bonus episode after finishing our season of weekly stories. This year, our team has been working hard behind the scenes to put every weekly episode

together. And The Wee, I'm referencing, is my amazing production team. Our producer, Monique Laborde, our associate producer, Caitlin Golden, and our audio engineers, Matt Delvecchio, and Tanner Robbins. For this special bonus episode, I'm joined by my producer to answer some of your listener questions. Hey, Mo. Hi, Dre. So fun to come out from behind the scenes. Oh, my God. I'm glad to be here and I am excited to dive into some listener questions that we have been receiving all season on Betrayal Weekly. I love it. I'm so excited to jump in. I actually want to start with a question for you. Yeah, go for it. You know, this has been a evolving journey just from the format and how we're approaching our interviews. So I just wanted to ask, what has it been like? Yeah, you know,

I've been a podcast producer for eight years and I've worked on all kinds of. of shows. I've produced chat shows, pop culture, news, narrative. But this show has been a complete standout in my work experience. I mean, from the day that I came onto this team, you all have built this framework of doing something really unconventional and trying to, I think, develop a trauma-informed storytelling model, this collaborative kind of storytelling that we're doing where we're working with these survivors, we're giving them a lot of autonomy in the storytelling process. So getting to join that and getting to connect with the people that tell their stories, these people who've been through something really traumatic and are wanting to share their

experiences has been incredibly rewarding for me. I think it's an uncommon experience in the audio industry to see a show work so closely with the storytellers and to collaborate with them in the way that we do. I want to ask you about what it has been like for you to work on the weekly series because you worked on three seasons. You were really ammeshed in those stories. Yeah. And then this is a totally new format for you. So I want to talk a little bit about what your experience has been like in hosting the weekly series. Yeah. So it's completely different workflow for seasons one through three. So Jen's story, Ashley's story, Stacey and Tyler's story, I'm in these individuals' homes. I'm in their towns. I'm with them. Like I just came back from

a few weeks ago from Colorado Springs preparing for season four. And I was with her and her kids and her family and her best friends over the course of two weeks. And you just create this bond and this connection and you really understand these individuals' lives. And I don't get that opportunity on the weekly series. We don't have the opportunity of like eight to ten episodes for us to really take our time. we are really boiling down hours and hours of interview into a linear timeline. And we want to get it right. This is one or two episodes where we have to like really do it in a concise and thoughtful way.

And it's just been a really interesting experience, like making sure that we honor everything that's important to the individual. Another thing that has been so special about betrayal and working on betrayal is the community that's developing. I mean, from the people who write into us into our people. our Gmail to the people who share their stories on the podcast. They're like a part of making this with us. And as you know, some of our storytellers choose to receive listener mail and connect with people directly who want to share their story and connect with them, you know, over the phone. So it feels like there is a real community around this show. And we're actively seeing it. Like we're seeing individuals who have participated that are getting together in real time that

lived across the country from one another that really only know one other person that may have experienced a betrayal like them. Like, that is so special and cool. And we've only been able to really experience that because of the weekly series, which is diverse stories in a short amount of time, you know? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, let's get on to some listener questions. I want to start with like a rapid fire round of questions we've gotten a lot of. Okay. So first off, the question is, why do you mostly mostly... feature stories from women. Why are there so few men on betrayal weekly?

This is one we talk about a lot. It is. We want to represent individuals who experience betrayal, like all different walks of life, right? Because it's not specific to any gender, race, religion. I don't think that men are being deceived or betrayed less. I just think that there's a stigma around that vulnerability and, like, sharing that may relate more to how men process that trauma and are willing to share that trauma.

You know, we find a lot of the stories from our own listeners, like our audience, who write in and our primary demographic is women. And so a lot of that's coming from the people and our community. So there's a little bit of that going on. I'm interested to hear what hypothesis you have. You know, what's interesting is that sometimes we get women writing in being like, I know a man who was betrayed, but it's not the man writing into us. Men do write into us, and we have featured a few stories from men on the weekly series,

and some of those we had to go looking for, like Ramon Sosa, we had to intentionally find him because we didn't want to create a lineup of exclusively women. Yeah. But at the same time, there is something going on that's bigger than just our podcast and the selection for our podcast, which is I think that maybe there's more shame. Men have more shame about saying I was deceived. That might not be as common or as practiced for men. This is just like my armchair perspective.

But shame is a huge deal when it comes to betrayal. Like how did I not know? How did I not see it coming? I should have known better. I should have this. I should have that. And I didn't. And I put myself into harm's away.

And there's a lot of shame. And the reckoning that comes with that. And so I think you're dead on. Not everyone comes forward. And we'll always have a safe space for men to share their story here. Yeah. Our next question is, do we vet people? Or a similar question, how do we fact-check these stories?

Oh, my gosh. We have to go through such a rigorous legal process because there's a lot of legal vetting in terms of pulling legal support, what's in the public domain, divorce paperwork, personal records. it gets filtered through our attorney a few times. But before we get to that, you have initial conversations at the very beginning. Mm-hmm. So you want to talk about that? Yeah. So when we get a story that comes in through the inbox and we reach out to the person to talk for what we call a pre-interview, which is just, you know, not recorded, hearing a little bit about their story.

One of the first things we ask is for documentation. And it's not that we don't believe them. In fact, a trauma-informed approach to this work is that we're approaching everyone with belief. However, we do put all these stories through a rigorous legal process in order for them to air. We ask our guests for documentation like divorce records, criminal records, and throughout the process, we're checking those things against the story that they're telling us. Mm-hmm. Another part of the vetting process, which is just as big that we talk about internally is, is this person ready to tell this story at this time?

Yeah, that's huge. Mm-hmm. And generally, we like to work with people who are a few years out from their betrayal experience, so they've had a little bit more time to process it. And so when I'm first reaching out to someone who's written us an email and they want to share their story, you know, in that initial call, we asked them about their support system if they've told this story to other people. And I don't mean in a formal sense, like writing a book, but I mean like, do people in your life, your kids, your friends, do they know this has happened to you? Which is not necessarily, you know, mutually exclusive of telling your story on this show.

But I think it's a sign that this person is comfortable in this story and having the story associated with who they are. Right. Also, when we're working on an episode, we are running initial like broadstroke background information to the extent that we can. Just to make sure that we can kind of corroborate certain things in people's story, just like time and place, just make sure things are matching. Yeah. We have a pretty conservative in-house legal team that wants to bet everything and make sure that anything that's a potentially defamatory claim has documentation behind it. And so that is a burden on us to make sure we get. that documentation in order to run the episodes. Yep. And something else that this brings up is we hear from a lot of people who want to write books

or want to tell their story publicly and they don't have the documentation. Or let's say they were so mad they burned it all, something like that, they threw it away. You know, if someone's listening right now and if you're in a situation where you're feeling taken advantage of or you're feeling like something's going really wrong, definitely from where I am right now producing these stories and getting them legally vetting. I can say it's super important to keep those receipts and keep those pieces of paper, those emails, those interactions, those financial statements, that kind of stuff can allow you to be able to legally tell your story in the future. It can't be overstated how important it is. Or as Heather Gay once said,

receipts, proof, timeline, screenshots, everything. Yes, exactly. Yeah, maybe this is a good opportunity to talk more about our production process. Yeah. I mean, a lot of times in working with people who have experienced any kind of trauma, there is a way, a trauma-informed way you're supposed to approach what they've experienced. The sort of three principles are, I believe you, it's not your fault, what happened, and you're not alone in this feeling. So anytime we're interacting with the storytellers, we're basically trying to take those three principles and adapt them into a media framework. So a setting like an interview or in the finished product of the podcast. That's all because we want to give the storytellers who are the lifeblood of this show autonomy and respect throughout

the whole process. A little bit about what this looks like in practice is that in the pre-interview, we explain what the process is going to look like. We talk to them about the options of keeping it anonymous or using their name, which is every storyteller's choice. Of course, if you use your name, your burden of documentation to provide is higher. When we're on their pre-interview, I encourage everyone to talk with their family and friends as they're deciding if they want to tell this story. And we let them know in that first call that we're going to request documentation as part of the legal review. And then once they consider all of that, if they want to participate and we think that their story is the right for the show, then we move on with an interview. I tell everyone basically,

you're in control of what you say, starting from here, if I ever ask you anything that you don't want to answer, you don't have to answer it. In fact, what I want most is for them to close their laptop that day, feeling like they are proud of how they represented themselves and not feeling like they disclose anything that they're going to stay awake at night worrying about. Sometimes we do the interview in two sittings, especially if someone is feeling really emotional. We might break and come back another day. In terms of if someone's ready to tell their story, I don't think of crying as something that is a bad sign. I'm a crier.

I cry almost every day. I am too, so it's fine. You are? I cried earlier today. Good. Great. So it doesn't mean that the person isn't ready to tell their story. I really trust them when they tell me, I want to do this.

And of course, most of our stories come from people who wrote into us, and we are never pushing anyone into telling a story. Or are not in the business of convincing people to tell these stories. After I do the interviews, then Dre, you come in and we work together with our associate producer, Caitlin Golden, to shape the stories. So do you want to take it from here and talk a little bit about what happens once we start shaping the stories? Yes. So you do the hours long interviews. And then you have a really good understanding from meeting with the storytellers and having the pre-interview of like what's important to them to share and the journey that you want to go on. And so you present me and our associate producer, Caitlin, like a ton of material for us to work with.

And we talk about each bite that you've taken out of the interview and how do we introduce it? Like, how do we write into it? How do we write out of it? And we put it in a linear fashion. And then we just write around it. Mm-hmm. And then once we have the finished product, this is something I really love about Betrayal Weekly that many, many shows do not do. We send the episode to the guest before it's released.

Yeah. And we want them to do a fact-checking pass, but we also want them to do a red flag pass. If something came out in the interview that would really make them feel extremely uncomfortable, would make a material impact in their daily life if it were to go out and they don't want it to run. We respect people's feedback on that and we work with them to change it before it goes out. Like I'm thinking of the example of Stephanie. Episode one. Right.

Who was the storyteller in our first two episodes. She had read out loud some of the captions her husband or ex-husband wrote online under photos of her. And when she heard it back out loud in her own voice, she said, I don't want that out there. Yeah. And so we revised it so that you read it in your narration and she was okay with that. It wasn't that she didn't, she didn't want it to be known. It's that hearing her own voice say it was so uncomfortable for her. And that was a small fix.

It was easy for us to do. Yeah, you never can really anticipate how certain things occur to the storyteller when they hear it back. We're operating from a place of these are individuals that have gone through a traumatic event. And their foundation of trust and reality have been either distorted or destroyed and they're rebuilding. And so it's really important for us to operate in a safe place of trust in transparency and sharing that is a huge part of it. Yeah. And this is something that I don't see in other podcasts. I've never worked on a show that has allowed the storyteller to hear the episode before it goes out. I think there's this idea that if you do that, then the person's not going to like it. They're going to have a bunch of changes. And I have to say in the 32 episodes we made, that maybe only happened once or twice.

and then we worked through it. Right. And so it actually was more rewarding than it was difficult because at the end of the day, I can know the day that it goes out that the person whose story this is is happy with the story. Right. It's actually pretty easy to give people a chance to review the content and just at the very least to familiarize themselves with it before it goes out and other people start reaching out to them on strangers on the Internet hear it because it sounds so different.

When the episodes all produced, then what the raw interview sounded like. Yeah. Let's take a quick break. And then when we come back, I have a few more of our most commonly asked listener questions. 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 IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

wherever you get your podcast. What's up, everyone? I'm Ego Wadden. My next guest, you know from Step Brothers Anchorman, Saturday Night Live, and the Big Money Players Network. It's Will Ferrell. 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 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. 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, 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 someone, correct? I doctored the test won.

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. Gregalespian 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 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. A silver 40 caliber handgun was recovered at the scene.

From IHeart podcasts and Best Case Studios. This is Worshack, murder at City Hall. How could this have happened in City Hall? Somebody tell me that. July 2003, Councilman James E. Davis arrives at New York City Hall with a guest. Both men are carrying concealed weapons. And in less than 30 minutes, both of them will be dead. Everybody in the chamber is ducked.

A shocking public murder. I scream, get down, get down. Those are shots. Those are shots. Get down. A charismatic politician. You know, he just bent the rules all the time. I still have a weapon.

and I could shoot you. And an outsider with a secret. He alleged he was a victim of flatdown. That may or may not have been political. That may have been about sex. Listen to Rorschach, murder at City Hall on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, we're back. And I have a few more of the most commonly asked questions we get.

And then a little later on, we are going to get to questions about specific episodes. Okay. All right, Dre. Another frequently asked question we have is how do you decide which episodes are two parts and which are only one part? This is such a good question. For the two-parters, a lot of them are like, oh, wow, this has a lot of twists and turns. There's a lot going on that we don't feel like we can pack in an under 50 minutes. So let's just approach it like two parts and gives us more freedom. Yeah, a lot of times it's dictated by how much good tape we have. Like with a Hannah, a lot of good tape. And it's hard to pare that down. But let's talk about Hannah.

Sure, yeah. Because sometimes I think it's just as much as like the twist and the turns of the story of like, you know, understanding someone's background, how they met the person that ultimately betrayed them, the betrayal. And then it's ending and its aftermath. Sometimes there's like these incredible, beautiful scenes. Like she talks about being on the train from D.C. to Philly. And I particularly love the fact that this guy was getting off in Philadelphia. And she was like crying and she was hysterical. and this person was like,

I'm sure there's somebody that loves you and cares about you. And she goes, people are just the best. And it was this moment of like, you know, sometimes if we're cutting a lot of stuff, you're missing moments where you get to just sit with the human experience. I just love that.

Yeah. And sometimes you just don't want to sacrifice it. And that's why I. And I think that's a big part of what our audience likes about this show is that we're not just focusing on the true crime and then this happened and that happened and the body buried in the basement and the you know but i think a big part of the betrayal listenership they're here because they're getting something out of these real people's stories all right the last question that we have gotten a lot of in fact probably the most common question

we get in our inbox in our reviews do you know what it's going to be uh ads yes Why are there so many ads on your podcast? I don't know what to say, guys. I mean, this is how we fund the show. And there's like a formula that we have with IHeart in terms of like ad markers of when, you know, if your episode's X amount of time long, like 40 minutes long, there's ad breaks and they sell the ad space. And we're forever grateful because it keeps us in business. So that's why we have ads. Funds the show.

Yes. And the show is free. That's the tradeoff with ads. The show is that the show is free. But if you love the show and you don't want to hear ads, you can subscribe to IHeart True Crime Plus. Sorry, I have to do a plug. Good job, Mo. You're doing my job for me.

Thank you. I love podcasts. I listen constantly to podcasts. And with IHard True Crime Plus, you also get dozens of other great true crime shows. It's $3.99 a month. Yeah. And so if you want an ad free, experience. That's not just betrayal. It's a ton of shows. You know, if that means something to you

to help support creators, support producers, that's the way to go. Yeah. If you're already a subscriber, thank you. It really makes a difference. 100%. So much gratitude for that. Okay. I want to move on to questions about specific episodes. Okay. And I'm going to do a little recap of each episode because I know It's been a few months since listeners have heard some of these stories. So our first question is about the Torah episode. Torah was episode number eight. She was a history professor. She met a student named Aaron in her class.

An adult student. He was a veteran. He told her that he had had his foot blown off in an explosion while he was serving in Afghanistan and that he wore a prosthetic. but his death began the process of her learning that the amputation was alive, that he actually had both of his feet. So a listener wrote into us and said, How could anyone live with a person and have a sexual relationship with them for three years

and never see their foot? I have a lot of opinions on this. Great. I mean, I don't judge Torah, but it's fair to just understand the mechanics of it. But one of the things that Torah shared in her episode is she had very specific boundaries around her intimacy and her physical intimacy. And she also shared that he was really embarrassed by this part of his body. He always wore a sock and he covered it up. And I think just, you know, we talk about this a lot, like perpetrators, they'll find the right person.

the people that are understanding and trusting, you know, it works because she honored his boundaries physically. You know, when you trust someone, when you're coming from a place of believing someone, it starts there. And he was embarrassed by it. And he wanted to cover it up. And she's already coming from a place of respecting intimate boundaries and physical boundaries because she has her own. I can see it. It didn't seem crazy to me. It didn't. Yeah. I mean, there are the practical elements. like he not only wore a sock, but he also wore a hard plastic brace underneath the sock. So when he walked, it sounded like a prosthetic. And I mean, he always used a different shower that he said was easier for him to get into.

So there are logistics of how he actually pulled off the deception. But then there's, I think, a deeper level, too, that's more important to understand than the logistics of how he covered this up. is that he said it was an injury from a traumatic experience, an explosion that, like, killed one of his friends in the war, which didn't happen. And there is a larger pattern about how these people who are manipulating others often work. There's this research psychologist, Dr. Jennifer Frye, who we talk a lot about. Yeah. And her work is foundational to understanding betrayal trauma. She coined the term betrayal trauma.

she also coined this acronym Darvo, D-A-R-V-O, which is a manipulation technique, and it stands for deny, attack, and reverse victim and offender. It's super powerful and effective. We see this tactic all the time in the world. But in a case like Torah, Aaron was claiming that he had this very sympathetic and very traumatic victim narrative of how he lost his foot. And so oftentimes people who are doing Darvo are basically flipping the script of who the victim is,

and their victim narrative is compelling and is powerful and emotional. Right. And it's the kind of thing that no sympathetic, reasonable person would say, I don't believe you that you had a injury in the war. Like, you don't want to push someone on that, and the victim narratives can be so effective.

I mean, we saw it also with Tammy McCrary in that episode where her husband was a fake doctor. He had said that he had two children. And the reason that Tammy could never talk to his parents is that his children and his parents all died in a car accident. Right. That's not the kind of story.

You are going to force someone you love to go into details about. You know, it's a very effective manipulation tool. Yeah. Okay. Our next question about a specific episode is about Danielle's story. Danielle, just as a reminder for listeners,

she was married to a man named Chad. They had a big family. Chad was a financial advisor. She did all the homeschooling and all the labor in the house, and he did basically the money-making. But over time, he's behaving strangely. Weird things are happening. And one night, when she wakes up in the middle of the night,

he's not there and the car is gone. But, you know, when she tries to press him on it, he just gets mad at her. And then years pass and nothing big happens. You know, things are a little weird and he's pulling away from her and sleeping oftentimes in his office in the basement. And then one night she wakes up to the FBI and the state police having raided her house because it turns out Chad has kidnapped two of their family friends, an elderly couple that they actually went to church with. and he had put them in a dungeon that he had built. He's not actually a financial advisor.

He was planning on having them go into a bank and wire him a check for multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars. And thankfully, the FBI was called in very quickly. And then they found the couple alive. So a listener wrote to us and said, Chad leaves his home regularly at night, even on vacation. But why? To go where? To do what? Is there no other info on this disturbing habit other than that it happened? I wish we had these answers.

I mean, Danielle's a mom of six that's homeschooling and managing all of those children every day and is just focused on keeping the family afloat and is like just trying to keep her head above water. I don't think she even knows the extent of what. he was doing. I genuinely, I don't get the sense that she knows the full extent. No, she doesn't. Like, she doesn't know where he actually was that night. And even if she were to ask him after the fact, you know, call him in jail, which she does not communicate with him. But like, even if she were to ask him, I don't think she believes she would get an oddest answer. Right. But, you know, I think this question of how did someone not know comes up a lot in our inbox. And, you know, and, you know,

in our reviews, and we often hear about these scenarios where something happens. Like, I wake up in the night and my partner's not here. And it's off. But they don't know how off it really is. And it's important to remember that in these episodes, we're hearing the whole story told it once. We're hearing all the red flags strung together in a row. It's true. But of course, this was happening, you know, there were years. Years, exactly. Years that were totally fine. And they took family vacations and nothing went wrong. I mean, Before we even started producing season one, my producer for the narrative, limited run series, Carrie Hartman and I were reading, talking to strangers by Malcolm Gladwell. We went to go see him speak at the University of Pennsylvania. And we were both really interested in this whole concept of default to truth, which is a concept that you're more likely to believe someone is telling you the truth than assuming that they're lying to you. And then especially when it comes to strangers, people are generally bad at detecting when someone's lying to you. And I think sometimes we often worry about how did you not know, then the reality of this person did a bad thing. There are bad people. People like Danielle's husband that are doing bad things.

And I think your assumption is my husband isn't capable of kidnapping two elderly people from our church and putting them in a dungeon. Like, we're not necessarily wired to do that line of thinking. Even if your husband is out late, it's like maybe worst case scenario, he's blowing off seam in the car and driving around. And you're not going to my husband's kidnapping somebody. Like, let's really talk about the reality here. It's just not just more often than not, you're rationalizing. And you're ringing in your historical information of the person that you think that they are. based on a lifetime of experience and just evidence,

and then you're making assumptions. And so it was important for us when we did this show, especially when we started Jen's season, to really explore this because these stories are born out of the scenarios where people didn't see it. People didn't see red flags. Yeah, I think default truth is really important, and I think people want to believe that they are good at detecting liars.

Because it makes... Makes you feel safe. Yes, makes you feel safe. That feeling of I would have known is a self-soothing feeling of it couldn't happen to me because I can tell. And I can tell when I hear this story, but we're producing this story. And if you're living it, it's a different experience. Right. It's scary. It's really scary. Yeah. All right. Moving on to another question we got about a specific episode. And it's the episode with Dr. Carrie, Carrie McVoy. She is a clinical psychologist. her husband of 25 years, Brad, dies of cancer, and she's devastated. She's experiencing this grief, trying to find a way to move on. She decides she wants to throw herself back into dating. She meets a guy online who we in the episode calls Caesar, and he is a Mexican-American dual citizen. He brings her into this world, essentially, of Mexican real estate development,

And she puts a lot of Brad's life insurance money into developing a real estate company with Caesar. They get married. All of these things happen. There are so many deceptions you have to go listen to both the parts to really get the full picture. But we got quite a lot of comments on this episode that there was one specific thing. Listeners were seeing that we did not say explicitly, but they wanted to point out. And I think you know what I'm. referring to? I know exactly what you're talking about. During Dr. Carrie McAvoy's episode,

there's a part in her story where she's getting really sick. She's really ill. And the listeners heard it, picked up on it, and noted something very specific. I don't even know if I can mention it here just for legal reasons. Right. So let me just play the section from the episode that we're referring to. And then she began noticing other symptoms. I have really severe diarrhea, real strange diarrhea that I'd never seen before. It's water. It's clear water. It frightens me because I've never seen this before. And I had white lines like you.

Hit your fingernails of the hammer. I was searching for what causes white lines across all the fingernails. They're called mese lines. And it only got worse. My toenails were falling off. And my urine was now dark like tea and frothing. And like we said earlier in the episode, we go through a rigorous legal process. And all we could report on was what she was experiencing, what her symptoms were.

But we couldn't necessarily name what the audience is basically flirting with because we didn't have any evidence to show. We didn't have medical records. Like to say that that happened is defamatory. And there are certain things like that, like we just cannot do. I mean, he was never arrested. And so for Dr. Carrie McAvoy's episode, you know, she thought that something was happening to her. Our audience thought that,

but we couldn't specifically name it for legal reasons. Yeah, exactly. That comes up in many of our episodes, almost a half of them. We have a situation where there's something we want to include, but for legal reasons. We can't. 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 Wodom. My next guest, you know from Step Brothers, 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 of luck. Yeah. Listen to thanks dad on the IHeart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. 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-ins, correct? I doctored the test once. 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. Gregalespian 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 Amaricopa 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 IHeartRour.

radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A silver 40-caliber handgun was recovered at the scene. From I-Heart podcasts and Best Case Studios. This is Worshack, murder at City Hall. How could this have happened in City Hall? Somebody tell me that. July 2003, Councilman James E. Davis arrives at New York City Hall with a guest. Both men are carrying concealed weapons.

And in less than 30 minutes, both of them will be dead. Everybody in the chambers ducts. A shocking public murder. I scream, get down, get down. Those are shots. Those are shots, get down. A charismatic politician.

You know, he just bent the rules all the time. I still have a weapon. And I could shoot you. And an outsider with a secret. He alleged he was a victim of flat down. That may or may not have been political. That may have been about sex. Listen to Rorschach, murder at City Hall,

on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, Drey, I have one more question that is about a specific episode. And this one is something that we heard from quite a few listeners. And I think there's a few things we need to say. So this comes from the Chelsea episode. The Chelsea episode, that was one of our most intense ones, really intense. Mm-hmm. She had been dating a guy named James.

and James was having issues with who she was talking to, even at work. And so it was seeming like the walls were kind of closing in, like he was really controlling every aspect of communication with people. And there was this moment where things really escalated. She took his phone. She saw things in a hidden folder very similar to Ashley from season two. And she saw what she would assume as illegal material on the phone that she felt like with CSAM, child sexual abuse material.

She found a photo, I don't really want to go into too much detail, but it was disturbing to her, and she couldn't get the picture out of her head, and she felt like there was something familiar to this photo, and she, like, woke up in the middle of the night, and she, like, I know who these children are. James had friends who had children, and it could be their daughters.

Yeah, she did a Facebook, deep dive, she was never 100% sure, but she was feeling like it probably was. And that's ultimately what led her to go to the police and report it. So let me share one of the questions that we got after the Chelsea episode. This is from a listener who said in episode 16 about Chelsea, she mentions discovering that she thought she knew who the girl in the picture was. Was the girl found and taken out of the home? So this is just one that's representative of, I want to say, 10 questions we got to the same effect, which is what happened to this little girl? Is she safe? Is she okay? I wish we had the answer to that. And I wish that it was yes, she saved.

There's so much we don't know about the photo, first and foremost. Yeah. This could be a photo he found on social media and cropped, you know, because they were wearing bathing suits. So we don't really know what we do know and what we discuss with Chelsea. is that when she ultimately went to law enforcement, she reported the photo and let them know this is who I think could be the family who has children. And she left it in their hands. And that was something that we didn't include in the show, which, looking back on it, we should have. You're definitely right that we should have included

that information that she did tell the police who she thought the child was. I mean, the day the episode came out, we were starting to get these questions in from listeners, and we frantically went back to the script, and we realized immediately, like, oh, my God, this one piece of tape didn't make the cut, and that would have clarified so much. And we had been so focused on Chelsea's experience and Chelsea's story that when we ended up recounting that moment when she finally goes to the police, here's the piece of tape that we did include in the episode. I met with the detectives, and we had a three-hour recorded interview. I showed him everything. Told him the same story that I'm telling you now.

He was so validating. And he said he told me, he's like, this isn't contraband, but it is absolutely wrong. And you were doing absolutely the right thing by reporting it. But I want to manage your expectations. There are things I can try to do, but this by itself isn't enough. And I was like, I know.

That's why it's taken me so long to get you. But then there was this one critical piece of information and tape that we should have put in the episode. It's in that same scene where she's reporting to the police officer, finally reporting James. And this is the piece of tape we should have included in this episode. But I told him, I'm like, this is who I think this child is. And he took all that down. And he said he would look into it. Yeah, that would have been, that would have helped a lot of people.

Yes. When hearing the episode. Definitely. Lesson learned column. Lesson learned column. And I know a lot of people who wrote in about this episode are just concerned and they want something more to be done. They want to make sure the girl is okay.

And so did Chelsea. You know, and some idea of her like going directly to James or going directly to those friend's house, like that is not a safe option. That is physically not a safe option for her. And I know that, you know, Chelsea was fearful of retaliation from James. He threatened her with legal action. He also threatened that he would release nude photos of her that she had consensually sent him and that he said he had deleted, but he had kept. He threatened to send those to her colleagues.

So she was feeling pretty scared of this person. Right. And so I think she felt safest letting law enforcement do what they needed to do. And she did the right thing by reporting it. She did everything she could have while also keeping herself safe. Yeah. All right. Those are all of the questions I have.

Oh, great. It's always so good to see and hear feedback from the listeners no matter what it looks like. Good, bad, the ugly. Like, we really do want to know. you know, especially if there are like gaps in a story where people were asking, we either have an answer or you just taught us something that we didn't think about. So we really appreciate it. Yeah. We love engaging with listeners. We love it when people send in questions and they send in commentary. One of my favorite emails we got this year was someone who wrote in with feedback and then I'm just going to read from, I think one of the most salient points, quote, one pain point from you in listening is when you focus on. on survivors who, quote, found love again. Danielle's story is case in point.

Then she goes on to say, it frustrates me when others tell me, I'll find love again, or I should date again. I want to heal and build my self-esteem. And I want to hear more stories about people who come back from this and build a business or go find an incredible and satisfying hobby, start traveling, or anything other than jump into another relationship and hope for the best with a new person. I hope you'll keep this in mind when making future. episodes. I've thought about that feedback from that listener every episode since. Me too. And we can't necessarily editorialize people's life path or where they are when we meet them. Yeah. But what I really

thought was fascinating is being careful about the language. Yes. And I think she was writing into us to bring our attention to language like, you know, so and so found love again. And it's like, well, What do you call that first relationship love? Using the right language is really important. So I'm very grateful for that person to write in. Yeah. All this to say in bringing up this email we got is that, you know, we're real people making this show. And we are grappling with these big questions every day.

And we love hearing from listeners who have, you know, thoughtful and constructive commentary about the way we present these stories. I think it makes the show better. 100%. So we're finished with these weekly. episodes for the next few months, we are going to be back in August with new weekly episodes. What is coming up next on the feed? Do you want to talk about it, Trey? I can't believe we've wrapped the weekly series. I think it's been really successful, and I absolutely love this show. We air season four of Betrayal, the Limited Run, on May 22nd.

It's about a woman and her family out of Colorado Springs. And we're going to hear that story over eight to ten weeks. And then shortly after that, we'll go back into the weekly series where it's a different story every week or every other week. But in between, so from now through May 22nd, we have a ton of really exciting bonus material that we've been working on. You've been working really hard on Mo. We have a great bonus episode with a woman named Dr. Kate Truitt. And she explains the neuroscience of storytelling and how storytelling can be healing after experiencing trauma. We have listener essays that people have submitted based on our prompt, which is resilience in the face of devastating betrayal.

And we have a woman named Andrea Dunlop, her story. It's kind of like a regular weekly episode, but a little bit shorter to kind of satiate our listeners. So I'm really excited to see what people think of the content that I'll be coming out in the next few weeks. Well, Dre, I'm going to scurry back behind the curtain. I'm so glad everyone got to meet you, though. You're the nuts and bolts of this. And so it's really great for the listeners to hear the people that make the show work. And you do great work, Mo.

So thank you. Thanks, Dre. I feel honored to get to work with a team that is this thoughtful and mission-driven. and talented and also to get to work with individuals who are trusting us with some of the worst experiences of their life and trusting us to tell those with respect and care, it's really an honor. Cool. All right. Bye. Bye. 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

write 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 Fasen, hosted and produced by me, Andrea Gunning. Written and produced by Monique Laborde. Also produced by Ben Federman. Associate producers are Kristen Malkuri and Caitlin Golden. Our I-Heart team is Ali Perry and Jessica Kreincheck. Audio editing and mixing by Matt Delvecchio.

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. 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 get your podcasts. What's up, I got you? everyone, I'm Ago Vodam. 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. 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 doctored this particular test twice, Ms. Sond's, 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, a lesbian, Michael Nassb. 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.