Betrayal - EP 19 - Nancy
Episode Date: November 21, 2024One Christmas, Nancy finds herself wondering if her 15-year marriage was all a charade. If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal Team, email us at betrayalpod@gmail.com. See omnystudio.com/li...stener for privacy information.
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Sometimes where a crime took place leads you to answer why the crime happened in the first place.
Hi, I'm Sloane Glass, host of the new True Crime podcast, American Homicide.
In this series, we'll examine some of the country's most infamous and mysterious murders,
and learn how the location of the crime becomes a character in the story.
location of the crime becomes a character in the story. Listen to American Homicide on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. to the flag, this is mine, I own this. It's surprisingly easy. 55 gallons of water, 500 pounds of concrete.
Or maybe not.
No country willingly gives up their territory.
Oh my God.
What is that?
Bullets.
Listen to Escape from Zakistan.
That's Escape from Z-A-Q-istan
on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hey, Beau. Hey, Matt.
Can you believe we have a whole bunch of wicked episodes coming up?
Oh, I can't wait to share all of these amazing episodes with the readers,
k-d's, publicists, and finalists.
That's right. We're talking all things behind bringing this iconic musical to the big screen.
And of course, we're taking you inside the world of this epic movie with all the exclusive
details you won't hear anywhere else.
It's Wicked in a way you've never heard before.
Don't miss it and be sure to go watch Wicked in theaters starting November 22nd.
Listen to Lost Culturistus on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your
podcasts.
This is a freaking lifetime movie.
The next step, he deserves an Oscar.
He really deserves an Oscar.
I'm like, am I losing my mind?
I couldn't believe it was happening to me. I'm Andrea Gunning, and this is Betrayal, a show about the people we trust the most,
and the deceptions that change everything.
Nancy grew up in Boston in the 70s.
She was the youngest of three girls.
From birth, she was deemed a medical miracle.
When I was born, they told my mother that I'm going to die in three days because I have
a pinhole in my heart and a twisted valve.
She's like, I don't think so.
She took me home.
They told her, well, she's gonna have to have open
heart surgery by the time she's five. Didn't. Well, she's gonna have to have at least by 18
or she's gonna die. Didn't. I'm 55. I've never had open heart surgery. Because of her heart condition,
her mother kept a close eye on her. Her activities were restricted. She wasn't even allowed to go to gym class in school.
Family and teachers babied her,
mostly because she was so small.
I'm only 4'11", and when I was five years old, I think,
I actually have a picture.
I look like I'm two.
So everybody treated me like I was a baby all the time.
As a kid, Nancy went to the cardiologist every week
for her heart condition.
She wasn't scared about it, but she knew her mom was.
I even remember being over at her friend's house.
We'd be playing with their children
and they'd be in the kitchen talking, drinking or whatever.
And I would hear her crying and telling her friend,
I'm so afraid that she's just gonna die on me one day.
I never told her I heard that, never.
She surpassed medical expectations and grew up to be healthy, but doctors told her she
wouldn't be able to have kids of her own.
The entire experience made Nancy and her mom really close.
I didn't hang out with friends on a Saturday night.
I hang out with my mother because she's just my best friend.
Everybody loved her because she was just down to earth.
Early on in her life, Nancy saw that her father
was treated differently than her mother.
Back in the day, my mother and my father
used to get pulled over a lot.
And the cops would ask my mother,
is he hurting you because she's white?
Her father was black, and other kids teased Nancy
about having interracial parents. It's like what's wrong with your mother?
There's nothing wrong with my mother. What are you talking about?
My mother never paid attention to it. She said if you pay attention
That's given them more energy to do what they're doing
to do what they're doing.
When Nancy was a teenager, she met a boy in her neighborhood named Devon.
He was always trying to catch her eye.
So I'm like, who is this person?
And it was extremely handsome.
One day, Devon brought her a present.
So he heard that I love soft-star vanilla ice cream with colored timbies. From that day on, we were together.
She and Devon became high school sweethearts.
We were a class couple.
Of course we were.
We were together all the time.
It was like nothing could come between us.
Their plan was to be together forever, and to this day, Nancy still wishes they could
have been.
But tragedy derailed their future.
I had heard that there was this extremely bad car accident, and I was in a school that
sat up on a hill.
So you could see like the police cars and the ambulances, all that.
That looks like a really bad accident up there.
Everybody knew but me.
Nobody wanted to tell me
because they were afraid to tell me.
He was in that car accident.
He was a passenger in the collision
and they needed the jaws of life
to pull him out of the car.
When I found out, the person who told me said he was in a car accident and he died.
I passed out, woke up in the nurse's office, and I'm like, I didn't just hear what she said.
The nurse said he was in a car accident, but he's not dead.
He was in a coma for three days.
I went every day, waited in a room, every day, waited in a room, talked to him.
She was by his side when he woke up from the coma.
But when he woke up, it was a different person.
You know, they ask things like, when's your birthday?
What's your name?
Who's the president?
Things like that.
He said his name was Robert something
and he was born in 1921.
Devon was never the same.
After that, he started smoking cigarettes.
Never smoked. He was like completely against it.
He started drinking, swearing,
and he was like mean sometimes.
And I'm like, who is this person?
I'm just like, okay, it's gonna get better.
It's gonna get better.
It never got better.
After his traumatic brain injury,
it wasn't the same relationship.
It was a lot for a 17 year old to manage emotionally.
I felt like he died in that.
To me, he died in that accident.
Nancy made the tough decision to leave Devon
and focus on herself.
She started her own life in Boston,
working in the office of a stock brokerage.
By her early 20s, she was living on her own and fully supporting herself.
I had a beautiful condo. My house was fully furnished.
Every day on her lunch break, Nancy chatted with a guy who worked outside her building.
I worked in the financial district.
There was always construction going on at the Liberty Mutual building.
And you know, the construction guys would do the cat call
and the girls walked by, but there was this one guy.
He was just, when he's having lunch,
I'm going to lunch, he's having his lunch.
His name was Marvin,
and Marvin became a fixture in her daily life.
A friendly face that she felt comfortable with.
in her daily life, a friendly face that she felt comfortable with. And then he invited me to this club that he belonged to.
It was like a dance club.
It was like a Caribbean cultural club.
He was Jamaican, and Nancy's dad was from Cuba.
So she was interested in Boston's Caribbean community.
And I was like, all right, me and my friends will come for me this weekend.
I was like, all right.
That weekend, as promised, she and her friends stopped by.
It was a lively scene with music and dancing.
So when I went into the club, I was expecting to see Marvin,
you know, let him know that I did come for his invitation.
And I never saw him that night at all.
But she hardly noticed, because she got distracted
by a guy her age named Seth.
He asked me to dance.
I danced.
To me, it's just a dance.
I went to sit back down with my friends
that continued hanging out.
And he asked me to dance again.
All right, I'm gonna dance again. Seth wasn't exactly her type.
Well, being 4'11", it is awkward
because everybody's gonna be tall.
Yeah, he's 6'3".
Nancy and her friends decided to leave the party
before it got too late.
By that time the night was ending
and he comes running out the car.
I'm like, oh.
Seth wanted Nancy's number.
It was the 90s.
So he had to go to his car to get pen and paper.
Nancy found it endearing.
She thought she was meeting up with a friend from work,
and instead ended up meeting this nice guy.
It felt like fate.
The next day, Seth called.
I'll never forget it. It was a Sunday.
It was two o'clock in the afternoon and he called.
He said he was working. He was a butchie.
He was like, oh, I want to come see you after I got off work.
I said, all right.
He was like, where do you live? I said you after I got off work. I said, all right. He's like, where do you live?
I said, I live on River Street.
He goes, really?
I work on River Street.
I'm like, wow.
He worked just a few blocks down from her apartment,
so they agreed to meet up for lunch.
Seth recently moved to Boston from Jamaica.
So he told me about living in Jamaica
and that he was here on a visa. She loved his Jamaican accent. moved to Boston from Jamaica. So he told me about, you know, living in Jamaica
and that he was here on a visa.
She loved his Jamaican accent,
especially the way he said her name.
She also liked his easygoing personality.
So she said yes to a second date.
That's where he really impressed her.
He cooked for me.
He actually cooked it at his house
and brought it to my house. That was like, so is Jamaican food? He was a red snapper. Delicious,
absolutely delicious. He was an excellent cook.
She hadn't had a serious boyfriend since DeVon in high school, and Seth reminded her a bit of him.
He went out of his way to make her feel special,
just like Devon had.
I always tell people, you sweep me off my feet.
I'll say the biggest attraction was
he was pleasant and calm and respectful.
He'd treat me like a lady.
He was good to me and everything just seemed like it clicked.
After they'd been dating for a few months, Seth took Nancy to meet his uncle.
He was one of a few people in Seth's family who also immigrated to Boston.
When Nancy walked through the door, she was shocked.
And I was like, I know him.
It was Marvin, Nancy's lunch break buddy.
And I was like, you do the construction
at Liberty Mutual, right?
He's like, yeah, yeah, I see you
when you're going to lunch sometimes.
Yeah, I said, wow, what a small world.
Years later, Nancy would find out
it wasn't much of a coincidence at all.
That summer, she and Seth took their first vacation together.
We went to New Hampshire, Hampton Beach.
I went every year with friends or whenever.
And I stayed at Bayview Hotel every year, right across from the beach.
And I know that's where I can see my child.
I know that for a fact.
Nancy had lived her whole life believing
she'd never have kids.
She told Seth she couldn't get pregnant.
When she found out that she was expecting,
it felt like another medical miracle.
Her first call was to her mom.
She was like, yeah, you'll have to get married now.
I said, right now?
Right now.
It seemed old fashioned,
but she trusted her mom to guide her in the right direction.
We went to City Hall to register for the marriage certificate.
I'm four months pregnant,
and the lady gives you the paper,
it's split in the middle,
your information is here,
and his information is here.
And I was like, oh, I have your birthday wrong.
He's like, no, that's right.
I said, no, it's not.
He's like, it is.
Well, you can't be 26 with this date of birth.
He was 19.
He lied about his age. He was in 26, like he said. He was 19.
Nancy was 23 at the time.
Seth gave her a simple explanation.
He had to make up that age for me to be interested.
Because he told me he was 19, I would definitely not date him, he said. explanation. was at the bottom floor in the building where there is an echo because there is a big square with balconies.
And I screamed out, what?
And it echoes all over the place.
All you saw was people coming over and looking down.
Seth insisted that it wasn't a big deal.
He didn't comprehend that it was wrong.
Like telling a child that it's wrong to play in the dirt and they look at you like, why
not?
Like that.
You know, like, what's the problem?
I'm like, you know what, what do I do at this point?
I got a marriage certificate in one hand and a baby in the belly.
She decided she was going to let it go.
She couldn't change his age, so she signed the papers.
I think I was more in love with my baby than any situation.
I wanted her to have a married mom and dad, and I wanted everything for her.
So that was in my head.
A few weeks later, Nancy and Seth had a small wedding. The couple set their sights on parenthood.
They got an adorable apartment on the top floor
of a converted Boston mansion,
complete with a castle-like turret.
It was like a cute little quaint honeymoon
beginning of life apart.
Nancy wanted the sex of the baby to be a surprise.
When she came out, it was a girl.
He actually had a frown on his face.
I said, I don't care if it was a frog.
All that I went through, you better be happy.
Seth's disappointment quickly faded.
They both fell in love with their daughter.
I was just in awe of her every day.
She was a wonderful, wonderful little girl.
Those first few years of their daughter's life were magical.
He was an excellent father.
He always took care of my daughter.
Always.
Like, he diverted her.
Not to have amperas.
Diverted.
Like, washing material diapers.
He made her baby food.
He's the one that got up in the middle of the night.
I didn't change poopy diapers because he did that.
All of it.
He was also excellent to Nancy.
He did all the cooking, he did all the cleaning.
I could tell him, oh, I'm so tired
and I'm coming home from work.
He'd have a bath ready for me,
he'd have a glass of wine for me.
He always cooked dinner.
And this wasn't a phase for him.
Year after year, Seth showed up for their family
and their marriage.
She and Seth were a team.
We worked together in the house without effort, not like, okay, you're going to do this and
I'm going to, we just did it.
Like even my mother used to say, you guys just do things effortlessly.
Years into their marriage, they were still very much in love.
The romance was still there, as far as I'm concerned.
That didn't change at all.
Even a neighbor commented on how physically close they seemed.
She was like, every time I see you guys, you're so close.
She was like, he's more than lawn and you're right next to him.
I'm like picking weeds.
But we were, we were always close together like that,
always.
At the time, Nancy worked at a bank.
I had a computer to take home
just in case it was inclement weather.
Nancy was the only one in their house
who used the computer.
And I had told them, this is just my work computer. Only I can go on.
All right, everybody knew that.
I'll do it.
One day I went on the computer and a dating website popped up.
It was called adultfinder.com.
I'll never forget it now.
The username was there, but the password wasn't there.
The username was Peter Parker.
Whenever a homicide happens, two questions immediately come to mind. Who did this and why?
And sometimes the answer to those questions can be found in the where.
Where the crime happened.
I'm journalist Sloane Glass, and I host the new podcast American Homicide. Each
week we'll explore some of this country's most infamous and mysterious
murders and you'll learn how the location of the crime became a
character in the story. On American Homicide we'll go coast to coast and
visit places like the wide-open New Mexico desert,
the swampy Louisiana bayou, and the frozen Alaska wilderness. And we'll learn
how each region of the country holds deadly secrets. So join me, Sloane Glass,
on the new True Crime Podcast, American Homicide. Listen to American Homicide on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, Publishers,
and Finalists.
That's right.
We're talking all things behind bringing this iconic musical to the big screen.
And of course, we're taking you inside the world of this epic movie with all the exclusive
details you won't hear anywhere else.
It's Wicked in a way you've never heard before.
Don't miss it, and be sure to go watch Wicked in theaters starting November 22nd.
Listen to Las Culturas on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your
podcasts.
Hey guys, I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series, The Running
Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those
runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about.
It's a chance to sit down with my guests
and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys,
and the thoughts that arise once we've
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You know that rush of endorphins you
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So if you love
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the heart of it all. It's lighthearted, pretty crazy, and very fun. Listen to Post Run High
on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Five years into their marriage, Nancy found a strange dating website on her work computer
with a username she didn't recognize.
I'm like, Peter Parker.
So I'm like, somebody got my computer and put their name on it. I'm thinking Peter Parker, so I'm like somebody got my computer and put their name on it.
I'm thinking Peter Parker's a person.
And I'm like, Seth, what is, did you see that?
He was like, oh, those things are like pop-ups.
And I'm like, oh my God, let me call my company and let them know I did not go on that website.
And they took it at space value.
They didn't dig into it or nothing like that.
And Nancy didn't dig into it or nothing like that.
And Nancy didn't either.
Besides, her focus was on their daughter,
who had just started school.
I went to every after-school program and every play,
and I was always by myself because he was working.
He'd taken a demanding job at the metro rail.
He often worked overtime hours to make extra money. He'd taken a demanding job at the metro rail.
He often worked overtime hours to make extra money.
They were only in their 30s, but they were already planning for an early retirement.
And we always talked about retiring in Jamaica.
I have a house there.
Up in the hills where it's falling, had a house that's beautiful up there.
The air and everything is different.
We had a book and everything that we wrote in what we want, what we're going to do.
A book where they wrote down their dreams for the future. In order to make those dreams
happen, Nancy and Seth worked long hours. The only day they both had off was Sunday.
That day was reserved for family.
When she got older, like 10, 11, we would go to the mall.
I would go one way and they would go another
because they're going to the video game store
and I'm in Macy's or J.C. Bay or something.
And we had walkie talkies.
We had walkie talkies.
It was cute.
They had a lot of fun with her.
One Sunday, Nancy was looking forward to their family time.
But Seth took an overtime shift.
Well, I called him at work for something.
I can't remember what it was.
And he said he's not here.
I'm like, oh, did he go to the bathroom?
You know, no, today's his day off.
He's not doing overtime today. No. So when he got home at midnight, when He said he stayed late to talk to a coworker who was having a relationship problem.
He was like, we were talking a long time
because he was telling me that he cheated on his girlfriend
and she found out, and that's why we was talking.
He needed somebody to talk to.
I was like, wow, a woman always finds out
what you do when a dog comes to life, don't forget.
She knew she'd caught Seth in a lie.
He hadn't been at work that day at all, and he certainly hadn't been comforting a co-worker.
So where was he?
Instead of asking him directly, she decided to wait and see what else she could find out.
Plus, she wasn't ready to accuse him of anything.
Once you put it out there that you don't trust them,
your whole relationship changes.
It can really ruin, even like a friendship.
Say you and I, if we're friends and my pocketbook is missing,
I put it in the wrong place.
But now I'm like, did you take my pocketbook?
Our friendship is over.
It's over.
You just have to be careful with stuff like that, you know? So I was kind
of stuck until I could get something tangible.
And soon, she would get something tangible. Or maybe metaphysical. Nancy was in bed late
one night, and out of their bedroom window, she could see Seth standing outside their house.
And I saw a figure next to him and I was half asleep and half awake and I just went back to sleep
and I talked to him the next day and I said, were you okay last night? Did anything different happen?
He goes, yeah, I almost got into a car accident. We were the only two cars in the road I almost
got in a car accident. And I was like, cars in the road that almost got in a car accident.
And I was like, I figured something was wrong.
He said, why?
And I told him the story, how I saw the figure.
I said, that was your guardian angel that saved you.
After that, Seth was spooked.
He knew she'd seen something.
And Nancy knew that the figure next to him
was no guardian angel.
After that you can tell he was so nervous to do anything.
She wasn't about to start spying on him, so she waited.
I'm not checking your pockets and your cell phone records and finding out where you're
going or following you.
I'm not doing that.
I'm not checking on a man like that.
I don't have time doing that. I'm not checking on a man like that. I don't have time for that."
But she kept setting traps in their conversations just to see how he would react.
And I told him I kept having a recurring dream of him being with somebody else.
Christmas was coming up, and that year, Seth went all out.
Every year we always said we would buy each other just one gift, and we splurged everything
else on our daughter.
And we did that for the longest time.
Well this Christmas, I got, it was an iPod at the time, the skinny one, and he got it
engraved in back with a whole paragraph.
I love you, I love you to the day I die.
I'm like, oh, wow.
I got the Nikes with the pedometer that was inside the shoe.
I mean, he gave me so many, and it was expensive gifts.
And I'm like, why'd you buy me so much?
He's like, I just wanted to.
I'm like, okay.
As Christmas day went on,
she noticed that Seth was acting strange.
He was so quiet.
Like he's a quiet person anyway,
but I mean nothing.
After we did the gifts, we were going to my mother's house in Boston.
Not a word driving there,
not a word during dinner,
not a word coming back home.
I was like, what's wrong with you?
Are you sick? What's wrong?
He was like, nothing.
I was like, something's wrong.
What's the matter?
Nothing, okay.
We went to bed.
To look on my God if I said, I can't take it anymore.
Something is wrong.
What is wrong with you?
He jumps out of the bed and gets on his knees
like he's gonna pray and closes his eyes and said,
I got another woman pregnant.
There it was, the confession she'd been waiting for,
but it was much bigger than she could have imagined.
The revelation was so overwhelming, she passed out.
It was like somebody like, boom, right in my chest.
I finally came to and I just said,
well, I guess you just have to go.
He said, just like that.
I said, yeah, just like that.
He goes, you're not even gonna try to fight for me.
I said, how can I fight for something I already lost?
I said, you can come get your stuff later.
For now, you have to go like right now.
Because if you don't,
I really don't think you're worth going to jail for.
So I really think you should leave.
Right after he left, Nancy called her mom.
It was 3 AM, but of course, her mom still picked up.
She's like, I can't, I really can't believe this
because you would have never known me.
And she left in the death.
She said she deserves an Oscar.
He really deserves an Oscar.
The next morning, Seth was at their front door.
He needed to pack a bag.
And that's when I asked,
how long have you been seeing her?
He admitted to four years.
He goes, I know you knew.
I was like, how?
When you told me about that guardian angel,
I knew you knew then.
Nancy figured that the dating website
she'd seen years earlier was connected to this affair.
And I said, and who the hell is Peter Parker?
He said, it's Spider-Man, like I was supposed to know.
I was like, what?
He said, that's his real name.
I said, so what does that have to do with you?
Cause you're not a damn Spider-Man.
He said, it's my favorite character.
Okay, Spider-Man.
Seth had been weaving a web of lies
for their entire marriage.
And Nancy was just starting to unravel it.
She told him to expect divorce papers on Monday.
He's like, you're divorcing me?
I said, dude, you're not getting it.
I told you you gotta go.
Would you think I just wanted you to go spend the night somewhere and just come back home?
No. Done.
With that conversation, their marriage was over.
They'd been together for 15 years.
Nancy thought she'd heard the worst of it, but she'd soon realize his deception was
far bigger than an affair.
He eventually told me the whole story.
And I said, why me?
He said, as my uncle would say, why not you? Why not?
Whenever a homicide happens, two questions immediately come to mind. Who did this and why?
And sometimes the answer to those questions can be found in the where.
Where the crime happened.
I'm journalist Sloane Glass and I host the new podcast American Homicide.
Each week we'll explore some of this country's most infamous and mysterious murders.
And you'll learn how the location of the crime became a character in the story.
On American Homicide, we'll go coast to coast and visit places like the wide-open New Mexico
Desert, the swampy Louisiana Bayou, and the frozen Alaska wilderness.
And we'll learn how each region of the country holds deadly secrets.
So join me, Sloan Glass, on the new true crime podcast, American Homicide.
Listen to American Homicide on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Of course, we're taking you inside the world of this epic movie with all the exclusive details you won't hear anywhere else.
It's Wicked in a way you've never heard before.
Don't miss it and be sure to go watch Wicked in theaters starting November 22nd.
Listen to Los Culturistas on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your
podcasts.
Is your country falling apart?
Feeling tired, depressed, a little bit revolutionary?
Consider this, start your own country.
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I own this.
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Be part of a great colonial tradition.
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What could go wrong?
No country willingly gives up their territory.
I was making a rocket with the black powder, you know, with explosive warheads.
Oh my god.
What is that? Bullets.
Bullets.
We need help!
We still have the off-road portion to go.
Listen to Escape from Zakistan.
And we're losing daylight fast.
That's Escape from Z-A-Q-istan on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts.
Nancy's 15-year marriage was blown apart when her husband confessed to getting another woman
pregnant.
But that wasn't the whole story.
The real story started before Seth and Nancy even met.
Here's what Seth confessed.
He goes, well, I came to America with a visa.
I was only supposed to stay for six months.
I started a job and I decided I wanted to stay.
And he said, Marvin told him that you have to get your green card and to get that he would have to get married.
And I said, oh, okay.
He goes, well, it was you. I said, oh, okay. He goes, well, it was you.
I said, it was me, like I was chosen.
He said, yeah.
So our relationship was set up from the beginning
and I had no idea.
The night Nancy first met Seth at the Caribbean club,
that wasn't fate, It was orchestrated.
She'd been singled out by Seth's uncle Marvin,
you know, the guy from work,
and he invited Nancy there for a purpose.
His uncle had his eye on me and invited me to the club.
When I came to the club, he made sure his nephew was there,
made sure his nephew danced with me.
She felt lucky meeting Seth at the club,
but it turns out it was all planned for one goal.
He told me his uncle was like,
she looks like she has money.
He's the one that put us together
for this crappy green card.
When Nancy got pregnant,
she knew Seth was still on his visa.
He goes, I have to go back.
And I'm like, oh no, I didn't even have a baby.
So I said, we can't get married then, because I didn't know.
He goes, yeah, we can, but that changes everything.
I just have to go and make it right at the immigration office
with the certificate called a green card.
She was having a baby and was scared to lose Seth. So back then, Nancy had
jumped into action. I was like, okay, so what do we need to do? He's like, well, it's easier
and faster if we have a lawyer. And I said, okay, so I spent $10,000 of my own money
to get the lawyer. Nancy saw the green card as another piece of paperwork
they needed to get married.
She had no idea she was part of an elaborate scheme.
I definitely feel like I was singled out.
Fortunately for them, it worked out
and Seth got his green card.
Marvin was the mastermind of the whole thing.
And to add insult to injury, Seth had another reason why he chose Nancy.
He goes, well, you told me you couldn't have any children that
fit into the plan, that I wouldn't have to have any
connection with you.
I said, wow, you guys are evil.
That is evil.
This revelation made her feel as if her whole relationship was manufactured, that she'd
been used.
I was just a pawn in their little game.
Every day of their marriage, he welcomed her home with a glass of wine and a home-cooked meal.
Nobody had ever shown her love like this before.
If Nancy was just a means to an end, why did Seth bother staying with her for 15 years?
Well, Nancy asked him that directly. And I said, OK, well, we were married for 15 years.
So I don't understand.
He said, well, I know I'm going to hell because
I had to stay married to you a little bit longer because my girlfriend in Jamaica
wanted to come here and for me to be able to bring her here, I
had to show that I was economically fit to be able to bring her here."
Nancy had assumed the affair was from Seth's online dalliances as Peter Parker, but it
turns out he'd been with the other woman for their
entire marriage. He knew her in Jamaica. I don't know if it was since they were kids or all their
life. I'm not sure. But he brought her here from Jamaica. Seth finally confessed his double life
to Nancy because he was just in too deep.
It turns out the pregnancy he told Nancy about wasn't the first one.
He had a whole other family.
He told me that day because she was pregnant again.
So there were four.
She was pregnant with the fifth.
At that point, he couldn't take it anymore.
Do what he was doing financially
with me and our daughter. He said he had come to a point where it was just becoming too much.
All those years Seth claimed to be working overtime, he was actually going over to his
other house, to his other children. It shattered Nancy's reality.
to his other children. It shattered Nancy's reality.
I felt like I was living the life of the Truman Show.
And I still feel that way.
I don't know what was real or not.
I feel like I would've cried because I feel so stupid.
Everything was fake.
Who was I living with? Are the walls real? Am I going to push
them down? We're on a television program. What is this?
Their daughter was 14 at the time, and Nancy wanted to protect her from the reality of
her father's dishonesty. She tried to maintain a sense of stability for her and her daughter.
She moved to a new place while they figured out the divorce,
divided their assets, and split up shared lives.
I had moved to a smaller townhouse.
I was going back and forth to the home
that we owned together, Seth and I,
because I had to figure out what I
was bringing to my new home.
They were waiting to put the house on the market
until the divorce was final.
In the meantime, clearing out the old house
was a constant chore.
One day I went during the day,
and I went to open the door with my key,
but someone on the other side of the door opened it for me. Someone's in my house.
Scared the living crap out of me. I'm like, who are you? He's like, who are you? I'm like,
this is my house. Seth short sold their house without telling Nancy.
The person who'd opened the door was the new owner.
I was only on the deed and not the mortgage,
so I guess I didn't need to be there
for the sale of the home.
Since it was a short sale,
there wasn't even a profit to divide in their divorce,
even though she'd paid half the mortgage for a decade.
It felt like a slap in the face. She couldn't move out on her own terms. But to make matters worse, some of her most prized
possessions were still sold with the house, and she would never see them again.
My diaries and my ledgers that I've been writing in since I was 12, 13, up until that point.
I had like a memory box that I had my daughter's baby shoes in it.
It had hair bows of hers and things, little things that like memory stuff, ornaments that meant some, you know, babies first Christmas, things like that.
All of that was gone. And it was just devastating.
After they separated, Seth wasted no time stepping into his new life. After all, he'd
been building it for some time.
He has this whole other new family to go to, as if he didn't have to skip a beat, while
I'm scratching and scrounging
to try to move and find out where I can live best
for me and my daughter.
And it just didn't seem fair.
Nancy was left to pick up the pieces.
It all took an intense toll.
I don't remember three years of that after the divorce.
I was like in a fog. I don't know any years of that after the divorce. I was like in a fog.
I don't know any other way to explain it.
And I told my mother, I lost like two or three years of my life.
I didn't even know what happened in between that because I was just going.
Her daughter got her through those difficult years.
And she was always my priority. Always.
You kind of feel ashamed because I start thinking to myself, how stupid can I be?
Nancy is a survivor.
Even though I was considered ill with the twisted valve,
haunt murmur, I was born a warrior. It took years to recover emotionally
and feel like herself again.
And now 15 years post divorce,
she's proud of how far she's come.
And after time went on,
I can talk about this without crying,
without being upset,
like he doesn't deserve my tears.
That's not my fault.
I did survive and I feel stronger now than I did before.
The resilience in me, nobody can take that from me.
We end all of our episodes with the same question. Why do you want to tell your story?
It is my story and I want to tell it. Maybe somebody's in it right now and they're not thinking about it because this happens too much.
And it's somebody's life, you know.
I have a lot to give from that heartache
that can turn into a good thing. On the next episode of Betrayal.
I said to him on those last few days as I was holding his hand in the hospital, I was
just like, man, you've got to go up there.
You've got to talk to mom.
You've got to find the answers.
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
in partnership with iHeart Podcasts.
The show is executive produced by Nancy Glass
and Jennifer Faison.
Hosted and produced by me, Andrea Gunning.
Written and produced by Monique Laborde.
Also produced by Ben Fetterman.
Associate producers are Kristen Malkuri and Caitlin Golden. Our iHeart team is Ali Perry
and Jessica Kreincheck. Audio editing and mixing by Matt Dalvecchio. Additional editing support
from Tanner Robbins. Betrayal's theme composed by Oliver Baines. Music Library provided by MIBE Music. And for more
podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Sometimes where a crime took place leads you to answer why the crime happened in the first place. Hi, I'm Sloane Glass,
host of the new true crime podcast, American Homicide.
In this series, we'll examine some of the country's
most infamous and mysterious murders
and learn how the location of the crime
becomes a character in the story.
Listen to American Homicide on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your
podcasts.
Hey, Beau.
Hey, Matt.
Can you believe we have a whole bunch of wicked episodes coming up?
Oh, I can't wait to share all of these amazing episodes with the Readers, KDs, Publicists,
and Finalists.
That's right.
We're talking all things behind bringing this iconic musical to the big screen.
And of course, we're taking you inside the world of this epic movie with all the exclusive
details you won't hear anywhere else.
It's Wicked in a way you've never heard before.
Don't miss it.
And be sure to go watch Wicked in theaters starting November 22nd.
Listen to Las Culturistas on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your
podcasts.
Had enough of this country?
Ever dreamt about starting your own?
I planted the flag. This is mine. I own this.
It's surprisingly easy.
55 gallons of water, 500 pounds of concrete.
Or maybe not.
No country willingly gives up their territory.
Oh my god.
What is that?
Bullets.
Listen to Escape from Zakistan.
That's Escape from Z-A-Q-istan
on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.