Betrayal Weekly - From the Depths of Hell All the Way to Heaven | BONUS | Ashley's Story

Episode Date: December 20, 2023

The Betrayal team checks in with Erin for an update on her family, her therapy practice, and how she is doing after a recent big life change.   If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal Team, email us at [e-mail].   To report a case of child sexual exploitation, call The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's CyberTipline at 1-800-THE-LOST  If you or someone you know is worried about their sexual thoughts and feelings towards children, reach out to stopitnow.org  In the UK reach out to stopitnow.org.uk 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. I'm Andrea Gunning, and this is Betrayal Bonus Episode 4. Update on Aaron. Before the bonus starts, I want to tell you that more stories of betrayal. will be coming in 2024. So we want to hear your stories. And although we've talked about marriages and parent relationships, we are open to any betrayal that has changed your life in a meaningful way.

If you're open and want to share your story of betrayal, email me at Betrayalpod at gmail.com. That's Betrayal P-O-D at Gmail.com. And of course, if you want to write in and just share privately, this email account can continue to be a safe space for you too. Okay, so on so an important thing, important update on Erin, one of the women you got to know last season. We received so many wonderful emails expressing support and concern about her. Let me give you a quick recap of her story.

Erin is a family therapist. She was married to Joel and they lived with her two kids in Texas. Joel was an explosive specialist for the military. Erin knew her husband was struggling. Her marriage was in trouble. And after a fight, Aaron's intuition kicked in. I decided to look at his computer and I went into his recently deleted files. And that's where there was just a plethora of pictures. Like Little Miss Country USA, all different ages, all different looks. It was so many people he had collected. I clicked on one and it was this little girl who I'd never seen before, don't recognize it all.

standing naked on a beach. She had a look on her face like, this is not me being cute and playing on the beach. No, it was inappropriate. So I actually took a picture of her from the face up because I just needed to prove to myself that I wasn't crazy. And then I took a picture of the names of the files. And then I shut it all down and I put it all back.

What Aaron found was the tip of the iceberg. She took her two small young children and fled. She drove to the airport and flew back to her hometown in California, seeking solace and family support. Her mother was deceased and her two brothers and father did not offer the safe haven she was seeking. After almost three years, her husband was prosecuted. He pled guilty to 25 felony charges of child pornography. He was sentenced to eight years and he only did three. One piece of Erin's story that really affected our listeners was how difficult it was to start over.

She lost her livelihood and her husband's income. At one point, Erin applied for welfare. Then there was her family. Although there were many family members who helped and supported her, her nuclear family did not seem to find Joel's crimes as troubling and serious as she did. We heard from so many of you. Mothers, a former prosecutor, other victims all rooting for Aaron, and even listeners who wanted to send her financial support.

Erin read all of it. I was blown away. I've not felt that kind of support since my mom was alive. And that was like the whole nation counteracting what I had grown up believing with kind of a low self-esteem and second-guessing my every move. And so I really think that motivated me to go, you know what, I'm really doing my best here. And so it was really miraculous. And I can't tell you how healing this podcast was for me.

One thing that really gets me is when people wrote to me and they said, I wish I had a mom like you. My mom was great. My mom was amazing. and she had cancer for 26 years and she never dropped a ball. I mean, she was really, really fantastic. And I always wished that everyone had a mother like her. It's an honor to her also that I'm making good choices

and that I'm looking out for my kids and that I keep them number one. Once Aaron's ex-husband Joel was released from prison in Texas, he moved in with his parents. It was only about a mile from where Erin and her children were living. When he got out, I got the restraining order and he got awarded visitation with the kids in a supervised facility. Erin managed to avoid those visits while other parental litigation was still pending. Then the lawyer called me and said he just got arrested again. And when we looked it up online, it did mention possession of child pornography.

And I still don't know the details of all of that. But it sounds as though he may have had his first parole check the first time in a year. And they found some things on his phone like social media, which we've learned is a common way that people share CSAM material. 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 podcast. What's up, everyone? I'm Ego Wode. My next guest, you know from Step Brothers Anchorman, Saturday Night Live, and the Big Money Players Network.

It's Will Ferrell. Woo, woo, woo, woo. 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. He goes, but if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat. Just hang in there. Yeah.

It would not be. Right. It wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Listen to Thanks, Dad, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your 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 incontrad. Consistencies 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.

Greg Alesspian and Michael Marantini. My mind was blown. I'm Stephanie Young. This is Love Trap. Laura, Scottsdale Police. As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences. Ladies and gentlemen, breaking news at Maricopa County as Laura Owens has been indicted on fraud charges. This isn't over until justice is served in Arizona.

Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Joel Lovell Callahan was arraigned on September 27th. 2006, 2023, in the Superior Court of Fresno and assigned a public defender. He denied the public defender so that he could hire a private criminal law attorney. He has a private family law attorney, which has bought him quite a bit of time out in the free world. Erin has kept moving forward and stayed focused on building a healthy life with her two kids. She's a licensed therapist in California. My private practice is what I would consider very successful.

I'm very comfortable and able to give my children the life that I want without needing child support for relying on that. Erin moved her family a few hours away to a beach community for a fresh start. That is just like going from the depths of hell all the way to heaven. I've already seen so much healing happening in myself, which I think trickles down to them as well. they love where we live. They said it's like being on vacation every day. We have a lot more fresh-grown local produce here. So another part of our healing was having better nutrition.

So we're working on diets. We're working on mental health. We like to go to the park a lot. We feel safer. Erin lived in fear for a long time. At one point, she felt she needed to be armed. A year ago, I was walking around. with a gunstrap to my person.

You know, I had my concealed carry weapons permit, and I didn't even want to leave to go to the office without that. And out here also, like, we live in a very safe area that I feel like we can sleep with the windows open and hear the ocean outside. Her son has become a top runner in his school. Her daughter just won an award for writing. They're thriving.

Still heartbreak sneaks up every once in a while, especially around the holidays. Thanksgiving just passed by. My brother hosted Joel and his family for Thanksgiving, whereas we were in a town with no familiar faces, and, you know, no one familiar to celebrate that with. And that's just like you just continue to keep stabbing me in the heart. Erin does not want Joel to have rights to the kids at all.

Her fight in court is for him to be removed as a parent. I'm prepared to fire on all cylinders, but I hope for my sanity. that I don't have to keep proving why he shouldn't have visitations more than he's trying to prove why he should. I genuinely think I'm probably still doing more to help Joel than anybody else is. You know, how much of a privilege is it to say, I've got our kids, I will take great care of them while you take the time to figure your life out or clean your life up or whatever

you've got to do. I can't make our kids not love him. I can't make them disown him or anything like that. And so if they want to have a relationship with him when they get older or they have questions about their health or whatever, that is still on the table. And so all I'm trying to do is keep them out of that equation so that they're not affected and give them a nice, comfortable life

so that they don't have to endure everything that he's putting them through. I'm trying to give him and my children both the space that they need to get healthy. And myself as well. I mean, I've been severely damaged with trust and trauma through a lot of this. And so we need to be able to untether in order to show up for one another. How do you measure recovery for someone who consumes CSAM? Do services provided in prison cure the addiction? It's something we talked about during the series, and there isn't a clear answer.

His whole case was precipitating on the fact that they thought he was reformed, and clearly he's not reformed. And I think it's a lot of people who don't work in mental health that don't know what is required to treat addiction or treat this type of abusive behavior. Maybe they do think church is enough. Maybe they do think that court consequences are enough. But I know through direct experience,

having worked with people with similar attributes, that that is not enough. You need a lot more accountability, a lot more hand-holding out of that. Because, you know, he didn't become addicted to things in a day. He's not going to recover in a day. So I just wish that there was more mental health woven into that equation so that they could look at it from that perspective. But I am not convinced and his re-offence just supported what my feeling was this whole time.

It was really good to find out how Aaron has been doing since betrayal season two first dropped. We'll be back soon with an update on Ashley Lytton. You can always reach out to our team at BetrayalPod at Gmail.com. That's Betrayal P-O-D at Gmail.com. Thank you for listening. Betrayal is a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group and partnership with I-Hart Podcasts.

The show was executive produced by Nancy Glass and Jennifer Fasin, hosted and produced by me, Andrea Gunning, written and produced by Carrie Hartman, also produced by Ben Federman, Associate producer, Kristen Malkyrie. Our I-Hart team is Ali Perry, and Jessica Crinecheck,

audio editing and mixing by Matt Dalvecchio, Trails theme composed by Oliver Baines, music library provided by Mide 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 deserve. 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 podcast.

What's up, everyone? I'm Ego Vodom. 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 podcast. In 2023, Bachelor star Clayton Eckerd was accused of fathering twins.

But the pregnancy appeared to be a hoax. You doctored this particular test twice, Ms. Owens, correct? I doctored the test 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. This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human.