Betrayal Weekly - Donielle, Part 1 | Betrayal Weekly

Episode Date: September 12, 2024

Donielle’s idyllic midwestern life descends into chaos when the FBI raid her house, searching for her husband and two of their family friends.   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 I-heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. What's up, everyone? I'm Ago Vodam. 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. 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. 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. your girlfriends.

Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. 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. Ellen's, correct? I doctored the test once. It took an army of internet detectives to uncover a disturbing pattern. Two more men who'd been through the same thing.

Greg Gillespie and Michael 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. How could this have happened in City Hall? Somebody tell me that. A shocking public murder. This was one of the most dramatic events that really ever happened in New York City politics. I scream, get down, get down, those are shots.

A tragedy that's now forgotten and a mystery 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. One of my children saw his dad dressed all in black, and he said that it seemed like his dad was mad at him because he yelled at him to go back to bed. And the night before that, he had actually told my oldest child to rack a sledgehammer that we had that had a really bright yellow handle in black electric tape and find a black raincoat for him to wear.

And she was like, okay, Dad. I'm Andrea Gunning, and this is betrayal, a show about the people we trust the most and the deceptions that change everything. One night in 2017, Danielle Oliver Chauvey was awoken. by the FBI and state police. They were pointing guns at her, demanding to know where her husband was. That night, she learned the man she had spent 20 years with

was hiding some very big secrets. This is Danielle's first time telling her story. She's been reluctant to share what she went through because, as you'll hear in part two, her husband has other victims. She wants to be respectful of their experience and suffering. But this episode isn't about her husband's crimes. It's about the 20-year marriage Danielle built with him,

the ways he deceived and violated her, and the shocking betrayal that ended it all. It's also the story of being totally in the dark about your partner's double life. I used to watch lifetime shows, and I used to be that person saying, oh, she had to know something. So I totally understand why people say things like that.

But until you are actually walking in those shoes and living with a person who can be completely double-faced, living a completely separate life, all I know is the life that he had with me and our kids. That's all I saw. He was able to do everything else completely separate. Danielle grew up in a happy, tight-knit family in California. Family is very important. me. We were just over at my parents, all of my siblings, and we all just get along really well. There's hardly ever any arguments within our family. And when there is, it's resolved within the

day. Growing up, Danielle's parents were her role models. They had a respectful and happy marriage. It was an environment that nurtured her easygoing and trusting nature. I had a really good childhood. And so I didn't grow up with a lot of strife or bad things happening in my childhood where that trust was broken down. She was raised with a strong sense of faith. That's still one of her core values. I know some religions can be like really strict. You can do this.

You can't do this. I wouldn't even say that mine is a religion. It's a relationship with Christ. Danielle's one of those rare people who loved high school. She was popular and she had a long time high school boyfriend named Billy. When we were teenagers, everybody, thought for sure that we were just going to be together forever. You know, we were the thing.

Right before their senior year of high school, Billy proposed to her, and she said yes. But then... I actually had to move to Hawaii because my dad was working for the military, and we moved there. She ended up spending her senior year in Hawaii. Then she got accepted to college in Illinois. She was ready to start a new life there,

without her high school boyfriend. Giving up her first love was hard, but she wanted to prioritize her independence. Danielle thrived in college. She loved her major, which was art, and she also loved going to Bible study on campus. That's where she met Chad. He was raising his hand and answering the questions right away, and he was answering the way I would have answered those questions, right in line with the way I believed. So I was attracted to that. Immediately, she knew Chad was special. The first time I met him, I said to my parents when I got back that I was going to marry him.

So it was pretty much love at first sight. She felt comfortable around Chad. It was easy, like they'd known each other for years. We actually met at my parents' house and watched a couple movies, and I made a mizania, and he changed my oil in my car. That was their first date. From the start, Danielle was serious about Chad. When I'm dating someone that I'm dating someone.

I'm deciding whether or not this person is the person I want to marry. So I was looking for specific things that I wanted in a husband when I was dating him. And Chad checked all the boxes. There was lots of things. He grew up in a Christian home. He had a good relationship with his parents. He was business-minded, like he was able to support me. Everything about him felt right.

He was pursuing a degree in finance. He had dreams of starting his own business. business, and like her, he also wanted a big family. But most of all, she just loved being around him. I had fun with him. You know, we would laugh about lots of things. I was just attracted to the way I felt around him. While they were dating, he went above and beyond to woo her. Something about Chad, you have to know, he likes to do everything big. It always has to be the best and the grandest and the most showy. It's not who she is. But Chad says, she deserved the best.

And it was flattering. After about two years of dating, he made a particularly grand gesture. He bought her an expensive dress, rented a limousine, and took them to a dinner theater. And during that intermission, he excused himself.

I thought he was going to use the restroom. But he actually, it turns out, had set up beforehand with the theater that he would go on stage and ask me to marry him from the stage. And then he got down on his knee and, yeah, it was quite the show. She said yes. He brought her out of her comfort zone, and it felt like a fairy tale.

I was 100%. This was the one I'm going to spend the rest of my life with. Chad was involved in every step of the wedding planning, which Danielle loved. And he also wanted to go to pre-marriage counseling to discuss their expectations. We discussed who would be the breadwinner in the home, you know, what would be. be the different roles of both husband and wife as far as who did what in the household. It was thoroughly discussed how our marriage would go before we got married. I mean, as far as you can, right?

We did know that I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom, so that was talked about. Danielle had been managing her own money in her early 20s, and although she was good at it, it was a relief to be marrying someone who had expertise in finance. It made her feel safe. And so they agreed that while she would manage the household, Chad would manage the money. And I had full trust in Chad to be able to do that too because of his business degree. He was really good at money. Since he went to school for it, I didn't have any, you know, worries about him taking over the finances for the family.

She was happy with this arrangement. She's a do-it-yourself kind of person. It's an attitude that's well suited to raising kids and running the household. My dishwasher broke down several years ago, and I wasn't about to pay somebody because I'm going to figure out how to fix it. I laid all the flooring in the house that I'm in right now. I didn't know how to do that, but I looked it up. Just went on YouTube and figured it out. So I'm that type of person.

After they got married, the couple decided to move to Chad's hometown in Illinois. To call it a small town is an understatement. The entire population could fit in one high school football stadium. Well, the town we live in, Erie is only 1900. It's small. Small but perfectly suited to the life that they were building, a life that centered around family and community. Plus, Chad had grown up there, so he knew nearly everyone in town.

And everyone seemed to adore him. In fact, he'd been the high school valedictorian. Once they moved back to Erie, the couple also joined Chad's church. the church he grew up in. We were really involved with that church, and his parents went to that church too, and we led a Sunday school together the couple. Their life was falling into place,

a happy marriage, a strong foundation based on shared values, a community that supported them, and a church they felt welcomed by. And Chad was making progress in his career. He began the certification process to become a financial advisor. He wanted to start his own firm.

He did it all online. Like, went through classes online and got his certificate online and all that. She was proud of him. And for the time being, she kept working too. I also worked for the post office for a little bit. But that was not part of our marriage plan. I didn't want to be a working mom. I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom.

Pretty much as soon as we got married, we started trying. But conceiving their first baby didn't have to be a work. as quickly as Danielle hoped. The months turned into a year. And during that year, Chad made a shocking confession. He came home from work and sat me down and said, I need to tell you something really important. And it's just said, I had an encounter with a guy in the bathroom.

And I think we need to go see somebody and talk to like a counselor about it. And so I was just like, what is going on? It just blindsided me like what just happened. She asked him point blank if he was gay. He said no, he wasn't. She wanted more details about what actually happened, who it was with and what they did. But he never really gave a straight answer.

It was just we need to go talk to somebody, like a counselor about it. 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 2, 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. Everyone, I'm Ego Vodom. My next guest, you know from Stepbrothers Anchorman, Saturday Night Live and the Big Money Players Network. It's Will Ferrell. Woo, woo, whoo, woo.

My dad gave me the best advice. ever. I went and had lunch with them one day and I was like and Dad I think I want to really give this a shot I don't know what that means but I just know the groundlings I'm working my way up through and I know it's a place 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 and 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 ones. It took an army of internet detectives to crack the case. I wanted people to be able to see what their tax dollars were being used for. Sunlight's the greatest disinfected. They would uncover a disturbing pattern. Two more men who'd been through the same thing. Greg Alesbian, 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. Hey, I'm Nora Jones.

and I love playing music with people so much that my podcast called Playing Along is back. I sit down with musicians from all musical styles to play songs together in an intimate setting. Every episode's a little different, but it all involves music and conversation with some of my favorite musicians. Over the past two seasons, I've had special guests like Dave Grohl, Leveh, Mavis Staples, Remy Wolf, Jeff Tweedy, really too many to name. And this season, I've sat down with Alessia Cara, Sarah McLaughlin, John Legend, and more. Check out my new episode with Josh Grobin. You related to the Phantom at that point. Yeah, I was definitely the Phantom in that.

That's so funny. Share each day with me each night, each morning. Say you love me. So come hang out with us in the studio and listen to playing along on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Danielle was shaken and confused about her heart. husband's confession to a one-time fling. But at the same time, Chad was doing everything he could to make it right. He confessed to it immediately. He wanted to get help. And most importantly, he was coming to her with sincere remorse. He was crying. I was crying. He was saying,

sorry. Chad wanted to get help quickly. And so the next day, they did. We actually went to the pastor and asked for advice about who we should see as a marriage counselor for us. We were given a name of a Christian counselor. They had multiple sessions with the counselor, some sessions together as a couple and some separately. During a one-on-one meeting, the counselor gave Danielle some advice.

He advised me, you should really think carefully about this marriage. You know, you actually have a right to end this marriage if he's being unfaithful to you. The counselor said he'd seen a situation like this before, and he wanted Danielle to know that divorce was an option. I understood that. I knew that that's something that is perfectly fine for me to file for a divorce, but I didn't want to. I wanted to make this marriage work. I didn't even want the word divorce to come up in our marriage. Like when I made a commitment in our marriage at the wedding ceremony, my promise was a promise.

I didn't take my vows lightly in sickness and in health, or richer for poorer. I was going to walk through it with him. I wanted to help him resolve whatever it was that he was going through because I loved him and I wanted our marriage to work. This one infidelity, it felt small and manageable, especially compared to the years they'd spent together, getting to know each other, studying the Bible together and building a life. She really trusted Chad. I felt like I could 100% trust him,

even though he had done whatever he had done. I believed him 100%. They got a workbook on overcoming infidelity and even did the homework together. And they decided to lean on their faith to help them rebuild their relationship. Church became an even bigger part of their lives. He was an elder in the church.

We jointly were leaders for kids' Christian camps. We were very involved in our faith. Their marriage began looking up, especially when a year later they welcomed their first baby, a baby girl. She was an amazing first child, super easy baby. Smiling all the time, happy, alert. It was a great, great first mom experience. Danielle was on top of the world. so filled with love for her first daughter and her young family.

It confirmed to her that she really did want to be a stay-at-home mom. She just felt whole. People that we would meet walking through a mall always stop and say, oh, you have the cutest baby. She's the cutest thing I've ever seen, and your family is so cute. The difficulties she and Chad faced in the first year of marriage started to feel like they were in the rear-view mirror. At that point, I felt totally in love with him and close to him.

I felt like I had the perfect life. That baby would be the first of six. I knew that you could get pregnant even when you were still nursing. And before you had your first cycle after pregnancy. I didn't think it was going to happen to me, but it did. Soon, Danielle's life became consumed by full-time child care. As their kids got older, she started homeschooling. schooling them. And she loved every minute of it.

I wouldn't have it any other way. I know a lot of people are like, wow, six kids, that's a lot. But, you know, each one of them is unique. It has their own personality. Each of them is just amazing. I love it. I absolutely love it. With a growing family came more financial demands. But luckily, Chad's business was taking off. They even had the ability to upgrade their house. He had been starting to look at this property that he really wanted. It was a huge house, way bigger than we needed. Enormous, huge living room, huge family room, huge dining room, huge, huge, huge master bedroom, you know, basement that looked like a bowling alley.

And so he started looking at it and dreaming about it and eventually decided that he was going to try to purchase it. Danielle didn't think it was the most practical choice, but the house made him happy. After they moved in, he tried to tell her. how to run the house, but she stood her ground. She trusted him to handle the finances. So when it came to the housework, he needed to trust her. He wanted me to do things a certain way, like do laundry on a certain day, do the dishes

on a certain day, or, you know, do dusting on a certain day. And I was like, no, I will do it when it needs to be done. When I see that it needs doing, I'll do it, you know. And there were a lot of things that. that needed dusting. Chad was a collector. It was a quirk that Danielle accepted. Precious Moments figurines,

and he was very much a Hallmark fan, so he had millions of Hallmark ornaments. Tons of DVDs. I mean, we had two huge walls full of DVDs. They loved watching movies as a family, and after the kids went to bed, the couple would watch their favorite TV shows. Dexter.

and Breaking Bad. Every summer, Danielle, Chad, and their six kids would take family road trips. Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, Mount Rushmore. We had all the tourist places in the United States. We had a lot of really fun times as family. On these trips, they'd stay in huge rental homes. Chad always wanted the best of the best for the family. And they were very nice.

nice, very nice rented houses. Some of them I was like, okay, guys, don't touch anything. You know, like expensive paintings on the walls and glass decorations. One summer, about 15 years into their marriage, the family was on one of their regular road trips. And on this trip, their rental home was in a remote area. I woke up around between the morning. I know it was the middle of the night. All the kids were asleep, and I got up to go to the bathroom or something, and turned over, and he was not in bed with me.

I looked around the house to see if he was just up somewhere. He was not there. I went out into the garage area. The car was gone. So I started being like, where did he go? There was no note as far as he left somewhere. He didn't leave a message on my phone. He was just gone.

It was the early 2000. So she didn't have a smartphone to look at his location. She started to worry that something terrible happened. So I started calling around to the hospital around the area. Is there any Chad Skipper admitted into this hospital? No, ma'am. Call the next hospital. Around 3 a.m., the phone rang.

It was Chad. And he said he was at Walmart. I was like, okay, why are you at Walmart? I just thought I would pick up some stuff. But, you know, you can kind of tell when somebody's calling from the middle of a store, you can hear the hum of everything. There was no shopping cart sounds, no, like, cashier beeping and stuff. There was none of that. It did not sound like he was in a shopping area.

I hung up the phone and just was like, how, what is happening? I don't understand. Says he's on Walmart, but it's hours away. That doesn't make any sense. And I just sat in confusion, shaking until he got home. When Chad got back, he tried to explain it away. He apologized. He said, I'm sorry.

I didn't tell you where I was going. Everything's fine. You're good. The kids are good. I'm back. We're safe. You blew it over. Whenever they got in a disagreement, this is what he'd tell her.

His favorite phrase was, don't make a mountain out of them. Oh, Hill. You know, you just get really emotional about things. It's okay. You know, calm down. Always made me feel like I was crazy. Abandoning the family in a rental house in the middle of the night with no good explanation, it just didn't sit right with her. So Danielle called her mom. She was like, oh, wow, yeah, that is really weird. I'm glad you're okay. I'm glad it all worked out, but that is really weird. Danielle was the full-time caretaker for six years. children under 15. She didn't have the energy to fight with her husband. I didn't confront him.

That's one of my personality quirks is I don't like confrontation. I would rather just not talk about it than have a huge argument about something, which is not healthy. I think it's much healthier to communicate and work it out. But at that point, I just didn't want to do with it. Plus, whenever she did question him, it always ended up coming back on her. On the rare occasions, when I would ask questions, I would be shut down and told I was crazy or that is totally not how it went. You have, you know, blown this out of proportion and you don't remember the actual facts that actually happened. This is how it actually happened. 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 Ego Vodom. My next guest, you know from Stepbrothers Anchorman, Saturday Night Live, and the Big Money Players Network. It's Will Ferrell.

Woo, woo, woo. 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 IHeartRadio 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 Maricopa County as Laura Owens has been indicted on fraud charges. This isn't over until justice has served in Arizona. Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Nora Jones, and I love playing music with people so much that my podcast called Playing Along is back. I sit down with musicians from all musical styles to play songs together in an intimate setting. Every episode's a little different, but it all involves music and conversation with some of my favorite musicians.

Over the past two seasons, I've had special guests like Dave Grohl, Lave, Mavis Staples, Remy Wolf, Jeff Tweedy, really too many to name. And this season, I've sat down with Alessia Cara, Sarah McLaughlin, John Legend, and more. Check out my new episode with Josh Grobin. You related to the Phantom at that point. Yeah, I was definitely the Phantom in that. That's so funny. Share each day with me each night, each morning.

Say you love me. So come hang out with us in the studio and listen to play. playing along on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When Danielle woke up on a family vacation to find her husband missing, he said he was picking up something for work at a Walmart in the middle of the night. She didn't quite buy the story. But she knew Chad was busier than ever, growing his financial advising firm. Around the same time, he decided to start making passive income by buying rental properties in town. It started with one small house, then two, then an apartment building in their hometown. He was so busy that he often

worked from home at nights. He renovated their basement to become his home office. He even put in a king-sized bed. I didn't understand why you would need a bed in your office, but he insisted on having it, and his reasons were that if he needed a nap, he could just hop into bed and take a quick nap and then get back to work. It bothered her, him staying on. up late like this and sleeping in his office. It also bothered her that he locked the door. He said it was a security measure because he had important financial documents in there. And in the back of my mind, I'm thinking, well, how do you work at night if you are a financial advisor? You can't meet with clients at night. So it was just very confusing to me. And I do remember

one time just crying my eyes out to him saying, I really want you to sleep with me. You know, At night, I just feel closer to you when we're sleeping together. I feel like we're more like roommates. He started coming to bed with her until she fell asleep. Then he would slip out and go back to work. She would only realize it when she woke up and found him gone. One night, I actually got up out of bed and was knocking on his basement door and I heard no answer. And so I actually got in the car and was driving around.

thinking maybe I would see his car somewhere I never did, but I got to that point where I was like starting to look to see if I could find anything. She never found any proof that her husband was cheating or having an affair. She didn't have the energy to start a fight with him. He insisted on sleeping in the basement. Eventually, she became resigned to the fact she couldn't change his mind. At that point in our marriage, I felt very distant from him. Like I felt like there was a wall up and we never would discuss anything.

If I ever wanted to talk about anything, it was always, I'm too tired, or can we talk about this tomorrow or let's talk about this weekend? But nothing ever got talked about. In this period where Chad was sleeping in the basement office and they were bickering, Danielle knew that their marriage needed to improve. So she sought help for herself. I actually went and saw a counselor a couple times. on my own because I felt like me having these issues with our marriage was kind of my fault. I felt like there was something wrong with me, not feeling close to him. But I wanted our marriage to be a really good marriage and I didn't feel that it was a good marriage.

She even suggested they try counseling again as a couple. But this time, Chad resisted. He refused to go to more than one or two sessions with me. He felt like it was useless or he didn't want to tell somebody else our problems. With each passing month, Chad spent more and more time out of the house, renovating the rental properties. In some nights, tenants would call with emergencies. There would be nights where he would say, oh, I got to go. There's a sewage leak.

I have to go really quick and fix the sewage leak. Despite their rocky few years, she still trusted him. She had to. You can't have a marriage without trust. It doesn't work. You know, if one of the partners say, I'm going to go do this outside the home, you have to trust that they're actually doing what they're saying they're doing. Like if I say, I'm going to go shopping, he has to trust that I'm actually shopping.

If he says I'm going to go to, you know, fix the sewage system in his apartments, I have to trust that he's actually doing that. Otherwise, there's no relationship. Plus, the rental properties added financial security to their lives. She believed that at the end of the day, he was working so hard in order to provide for the family. She often overheard him practicing conversations he needed to have for work. He had this weird quirk where if he was going to have a conversation with somebody,

he would write down the conversation that he was going to have and then memorize it. And then I would often see him like pacing. and doing word things with his hands and with his mouth. I think he was like rehearsing in his mind how the conversation would go and what he would say in response to their responses. There was one big meeting in particular Chad was preparing for.

It was with an older couple that went to their church, a couple that taught Sunday school. They had known Chad for nearly his whole life. And they were wealthy. Chad set up a meeting with them to pitch his financial advising services. He was trying to really hard to get them to be one of his clients.

In the end, they decided not to use him. He was dejected. He'd been counting on their business. After that meeting, Dining Go was planned. He started talking about selling his financial advising business. And instead, getting into the storage industry. There's a little plot of land that would be perfect for storage units. So he had said that, you know, we're going to buy this land over here.

and I'm going to start building storage units, and so we need to set up this LLC. He wanted Danielle to sign paperwork to help set up the business. If we have you as a president, then it's better for taxes because you're a woman. He asked her to go to the bank with him that day to get it set up. And there, out in public, she noticed that her husband looked dishevelled. He was not bathed. He didn't shave.

I was surprised that he went to the bank in the, in the state that he was in. I just thought, well, he must be so tired. He's trying to sell his financial business, and he's trying to get these storage units ready, and he's not getting much sleep, so he just must be really stressed out. Later that day, one of Danielle's kids came to her.

He said that last night, he'd seen something strange in the driveway of their house. One of my children said that he got up and saw his dad dressed all. in black, and he said that it seemed like Chad was mad at him because he yelled at him to go back to bed. This was alarming because another one of her kids had confessed something bizarre. The night before that, he had actually told my oldest child to wrap a sledgehammer that we had that had a really bright yellow handle in black electric tape and find a black raincoat for him.

And she was like, okay, dad. Immediately, she tried to get in touch with Chad, but he wasn't answering his phone. After they went to the bank, he'd left the house to work on a rental property. There were several rental places that he owned, that he was either renovating or was currently renting. I texted him asking if he could call me as soon as possible.

I was starting to feel like, okay, what's going on? I hope he's okay. I hope he's not in an accident. He called shortly after and explained that he had accidentally fallen asleep at the rental and that he was still feeling a little disoriented, but reassured me that he was fine. If it sounds like Danielle is reading off of a piece of paper, it's because she is. She's reading from a written statement documenting this day. Nothing is as it seems. Absolutely nothing. This is my living nightmare.

what I can remember that has happened in the last few days. At 4.22 p.m., I texted him asking if he was okay. No response. I texted again at 506 p.m. and his response was, yep, you? I told him I was just wondering what happened. And he texted, what do you mean? And then around 5.30, he called and said he was sorry he didn't see my text and that he must have been in the basement and hadn't gone it right away.

That night, Chad didn't come home for death. At the time, she assumed he'd fallen asleep at the rental property again, but she couldn't leave her six small children to go check on him. So around 11 p.m. after putting the kids to bed, she went to sleep herself. Next thing I heard was banging and breaking glass and then yelling, state police, state police, hands in the air. I came out in my bedroom with no glasses on, hands in the air, wondering if they were actually police because I can't see very fine. I can only see about a foot in front of me without it

being blurry. In my mind, I was thinking, well, either I'm being robbed and they're posing as state police or something's happening and I have no idea why there's state police in my house with a gun pointing at me. It was becoming very clear, very quickly. This was actually the state police and the FBI. There wasn't a mistake. They were looking. They were looking at looking for Chad, and they were incredibly serious. They asked if anyone else was in the house, and I said, yes, just me and the kids, assuming Chad was at the rental. My whole mouth got super dry.

I could not hardly even talk. I asked them if I could go back into the bedroom to get some water. I kept water by my bed, and they're like, no, you can't go anywhere. You have to stay right here. I wasn't even allowed to wake up my kids. They actually went and woke up all of my kids. They were asking if there was hiding places in the house, and it threw me for a loop because I'm like, I mean, my kids hide in little places when they play hide-s-seat. Then the police asked her about the elderly couple that went to their church.

The ones Chad wanted as clients. Why are you asking me questions about them? And where is my husband? On the next episode of Betrayal. He walled it off with cement blocks and sand. soundproofing. The only entry and exit to that room was through a steel trap door with a lock on the outside, in a closet, hidden under, I think it was a dresser or something. You would only know it was there if you knew it was there. 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-Heart team is Ali Perry and Jessica Kreincheck. Audio editing and mixing by Matt Delvecchio. Additional editing support from Nico Aruka. 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. What's up, everyone? I'm Ago Vodam. My next guest. It's Will Ferrell. 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. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck.

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