Betrayal - Kimberly | Betrayal Weekly

Episode Date: October 23, 2025

Her ex-husband seemed to have eyes and ears everywhere.   If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal Team, email us at [e-mail] and follow us on Instagram at @betrayalpod  To access our newsletter and additional content and to connect with the Betrayal community, join our Substack at betrayal.substack.com.     See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Johnny Knoxville here. Check out Crimeless, Hillbilly Heist, my new true crime podcast from Smartless Media, campside media, and big money players. It's the true story of the almost perfect crime and the Nimrods who almost pulled it off. It was kind of like the perfect storm in a sewer.

That was dumb. Do not follow my example. Listen to Crimless, Hillbilly Heist, on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. The murder of an 18-year-old girl in Graves County, Kentucky, went unsolved for years, until a local housewife, a journalist, and a handful of girls came forward with a story. America, y'all better wake the hell up. Bad things happens to good people and small Towns.

Listen to Graves County on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And to binge the entire season, add free, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Cheryl McCollum, host of the podcast

Zone 7. Zone 7 ain't a place. It's a way of life. Now, this ain't just any old podcast, honey. We're going to be talking to family members of victims, detectives, prosecutors, and some nationally recognized experts that I have called on over the years to help me work these difficult cases. I've worked hundreds of cold cases you've heard of and thousands you haven't. We started this podcast to teach the importance of teamwork and solving these crazy crimes. Come join us in learning from

detectives, prosecutors, authors, canine handlers, forensic experts, and most importantly, victims' family members. Come be a part of My Zone 7 while building yours. Listen to Zone 7 with Cheryl McCollum on the IHeart Radio app or wherever you get your podcast. On a cold January day in 1995, 18-year-old Krista Pike killed 19-year-old Colleen Slemer

in the woods of Knoxville, Tennessee. Since her conviction, Krista has been sitting on death row. How does someone prove that they deserve to live? We are starting the recording now. Please state your first and last name. Krista Pike. Listen to Unrestorable Season 2, Proof of Life,

on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, Betrayal fans. I have exciting news. to share. Season three of betrayal is now a docu-series on Hulu. It's the gripping story of Stacey Tyler and the doctor who betrayed them. See the voices you've come to know in betrayal under his eye, streaming now on Hulu. Before we start this episode, I want to let you know that this episode discusses suicide and its effects. Please take care while listening.

He was just constantly chasing, chasing the next thing. No car he bought was fast enough. No house we bought was big enough. The more money and more success that he had that almost turned him into this monster. I'm Andrea Gunning and this is Betrayal, a show about the people we trust the most and the deceptions that change.

change everything. Today we are telling Kimberly's story. She grew up in rural Pennsylvania where her parents owned their own hair salon. They didn't have a lot of money, but they were determined to show Kimberly the world. My parents would save up money and take us to New York

and go see Phantom of the Opera and Le Miserables. So we backpacked through Europe and we went to like every single national park in the United States. Kimberly's parents taught her that no dream was too big. I wanted to be a teacher. I wanted to be a journalist. I wanted to write a book. I wanted to be a veterinarian. And I remember my father used to say, I don't ever worry about you. I just know that you're going to always succeed and always land on your feet because you just have that determination. Nobody and her family had gone to college, but Kimberly decided she wanted to be the first.

So she enrolled in a small liberal arts school for women. I was prepared academically, but I was not prepared to be moved into this group of very affluent young women. Many of them come from boarding schools, and they brought their own horses to campus. I would go to classes, and some of my classmates would be wearing pearls. That was her first exposure to the world of wealth and connections. Kimberly realized that if she wanted to make it as far as her classmates, she'd have to make her own way. She graduated with an English degree and she got hired at a publishing house

in Washington, D.C. I loved my job in publishing. I was always getting to read and read all these manuscripts and see everybody's articles. It was the 90s. D.C. was an exciting place for Kimberly to explore.

A few months after she moved to the city, my friend was throwing a Halloween party and I was actually dressed up as Carmen Miranda. I had a fruit basket on my head and a parrot. There was a guy across the room who kept making eye contact with her. He was cute, and he came over, and he was like, I like your fruit basket. And it was just endearing. It was quite the icebreaker.

His name was Tim. He was blonde, blue eyes, just something. about him, I just was like, oh, he's really, really cute. They started chatting. He'd also just graduated college and moved to D.C. He was an only child from a small rural town in Georgia. They had mutual friends. Kimberly's roommate knew Tim.

My roommate was like, he's a great guy. Everyone knows him. He's really wonderful. He asked for my number, and I gave it to him. He called me shortly after that and said, I would like to see him. said, I would like to see you again. Would you have any interest in going on a date? She said yes.

He had two tickets to a black tie event for the opening of the Russian embassy. The Russian embassy was just fantastic. I was like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. You know, free drinks and free food and everyone's beautiful and dressed up in gowns and tuxedos. I remember everything being kind of dark but lit up in like water crystal. And they had shots of vodka, like tables and tables of tables of vodka. I had this handsome young man in front of me and I was really impressed. It was such a

far cry from where I had come from. It was a whirlwind night. She and Tim tried new things like caviar and expensive alcohol. You could tell he was like me. He also felt a little out of his comfort zone. We fit in, but we didn't. And I think that was something that really drew us to each other. Tim was in D.C. to make a name for himself. And like Kimberly, he'd gotten there on his own merits. Tim worked for a senator, and he specialized in technology and agriculture. He also had to drive the senator regularly, so he was his personal chauffeur and had

breakfast with him, things like that. They began exploring D.C. together, and the Black Tie events continued. For their next date, Tim took Kimberly to a party at the National Post Office. This is amazing building. It's huge and it has this marble entry. And you just walk in and they had live bands and all this wonderful food. And you'd be hobnobbing with congressmen. I remember meeting Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She had just been confirmed.

And they were holding a private meet and greet with her. Tim loved how ambitious Kimberly was. He was her biggest cheerleader. I never felt that he was intimidated by that or my drive for success. He was just so proud of me, and he would always say, I'm really proud of you. You're doing so great. That admiration was mutual. Kimberly and Tim always wanted to be around each other.

Their black tie dates turned to dinners and long conversations. They met each other's friends and families. Our relationship got serious pretty quickly, and we dated for two and a half years. After a year together, Tim made his intentions really clear. He told me that I was the woman for him, and he knew right off the bat that we were just made for each other, and that I was the love of his life, and he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me.

He said, I really want to take you to this great restaurant. It's the Inn of Little Washington. It's right outside of D.C. And at that point, I was like, I think he's going to propose. It was just such a beautiful dinner. But the whole dinner went by and he didn't propose. I was like, well, maybe I just got it wrong. Maybe he just really wanted to go to this place.

And then he put his hand on his heart and he said, I don't feel good. I was like, oh, are you okay? Because we ate so much rich food and, like, we're drinking. And it's like, yeah, there's something that's like poking me in my chest. And I was like, do you mean to call a doctor? Like, what's going? Like, were you okay? And he's like, he pulled out a box.

And he opened it up. And he said, I want you to be my wife. Will you marry me? I was like, oh, because I thought he was like dying. And then he said, he proposed. And I just, I said, yes, yes. I'm glad you're okay, yes. I just remember going to sleep that night, just so happy and so excited.

I remember just feeling so over the moon and just excited to start my life with this man. She and Tim saved up and paid for their own wedding. We got married in 1998. His dad officiated the wedding. I know we had a really fun Louisiana, New Orleans band, and everybody was just having the best time and everyone was dressed up and dancing. As they settled into married life, they tried to save money wherever they could. D.C. is so expensive. We were trying to put every single cent we could into our future.

And because we worked so close together downtown, we would meet for lunch. And I would pack us a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. We would split a Diet Coke and eat an orange. And that's all we could really afford. Eventually, Kimberly got a new job in the tech industry, and she supported them financially while Tim started an MBA program. He went to graduate school full-time, so I worked full-time and paid the bills. Also put money aside to pay off his tuition. So I was supporting the two of us and working like a dog.

And I never just like sleeping with my Blackberry next to my pillow, and I'd hear it beep, and I'd be like, oh, what's it saying? You know, I just never slept. My nickname was the ball buster because I wasn't afraid of anybody. And here I am five foot two. Sitting across the room in a board meeting with CEO of these big companies, it taught me not to be afraid of anything. Tim's first job out of grad school was at a Fortune 500 company in the healthcare industry.

Now that they had two incomes again, they could feel. finally begin to save money for their future. That's when Tim got really strategic about their savings. He studied the stock market, like it was the most fascinating thing he had ever seen. He just was reading up on how to invest all the time. And he began day trading. And he was making a lot of money from this. And he didn't spend a lot of money.

and then the company that he was working for kept promoting him. So we were basically putting his entire salary in the bank and we were living off of my income. By the time they were 29, their financial situation had completely changed. The days of splitting peanut butter and jelly sandwiches were far behind them. I remember seeing half a million dollars in our bank account. And just that's a lot of money. I think that for him, that was like that.

the turning point. He saw how quickly he made so much money and how that was investing and how it compounded. It was just like the dream come true. And that's when I decided I'm ready to have children. Tim was ready to grow their family too. He was so excited. He was really sweet. He took care of me. Kimberly gave birth to their first child, a baby girl. First time mom, I was so happy and just that motherly glow. He tagged teamed with me. We worked out a system where I would breastfeed her at like eight o'clock and then go straight to sleep.

And I would sleep until about two or three. He would wake me up for her next feeding. And then I would go back to sleep again. And he would go to sleep. Tim made it clear. They were in this together. Soon they found their groove as parents. They had a second daughter and then a third.

Tim was climbing the ladder as a health care executive. 15 years into their marriage, he was making enough for Kimberly to quit her job and focus on parenting. He was making a ton of money at that point. He was a senior vice president. Tim often traveled for work. And while it put a strain on their relationship, Kimberly still felt connected to him.

Their romance was still there. We still were going on date nights, and we had this amazing babysitter. And so we would go out every other Saturday, sometimes even every Saturday, and do date night. So we were still very much getting along. Now that they had extra income, Tim wanted to spend it. He's like, we're buying a house in the mountains for vacation. It was a cabin in the mountains of Western North Carolina.

It was a magical place. And the kids, we bunked them all up. in one bunk room, and we would boat and paddleboard and canoe. We hiked every single trail and saw every single waterfall and went up there for Thanksgiving and had campfires, making s'mores and going fishing. It was so peaceful and so sweet. The Mountain House became a place where Kimberly and her kids really bonded. But as time went on, Kimberly felt a distance growing between her and her husband.

We stopped talking to each other at nighttime, like, bye, have a good night, you know, how are the kids today? We stopped doing that. And that's where I knew, like, we are growing so far apart. That's when the pandemic hit. We decided to go up to the mountains and spend it there because it was scary. We're like, well, we might as well go where there's nobody. And we can continue doing our quiet, isolated routine up there. It was a frightening time.

Like many people, Kimberly was worried. about how the pandemic would affect her daughters. I was definitely stressed, but I didn't want my kids to see that. I was like, we're going to be fine. But Tim, on the other hand, wasn't fine. Tim was manic. It was almost as though he was jailed. He was one of those individuals that did not handle the pandemic well.

He had been flying and traveling, and all of a sudden, everything stops. And he didn't know what to do with himself. And he became very angry. All of a sudden, little things started to set him off. And it just became this daily fight. This is the first time I'd ever seen him behave like this. I had never seen him so restless and so angry. He was never an angry person.

Like, we rarely thought, you know, we were always very calm the way we communicated. And all of a sudden, we saw this behavior and we were like, who is this person? I felt like he was just losing his mind. As the pandemic went on, Tim continued having angry outbursts, acting strange, and drinking excessively. He was pouring what I would call buckets of bourbon and buckets of vodka, and then would open up a bottle of wine. One night while they were watching a movie, Kimberly noticed that Tim was engrossed in his phone. He wasn't watching the movie, and I saw him scrolling through a website, and I saw lots of pictures of women. And I said, it looks like you're really interested in what you're looking at.

What are you looking at exactly? And he said, oh, I had this headhunter that keeps bugging me to take this other position. And I was like, okay, I said, well, it looks like there's a lot of women on your phone. I said, would you rather watch that and look at your phone than watch the movie we're watching? And he was like, no, I don't know what you're talking about. You don't understand. I'm working so hard. And he got really angry with me, but he put his phone down.

And that's when I started really paying attention to what was going on in my house. I was like, okay, start looking. In the new podcast, Hell in Heaven, two young Americans moved to the Costa Rican jungle to start over. But one will end up dead. The other tried for murder. Not once. People went wild.

Not twice. Stunned. But three times. John and Anne Bender are rich and attractive. And they're devoted to each other. They create a nature reserve and build a spectacular, circular home high on the top of a hill.

But little by little, their dream starts to crumble. And our couple retreat from reality. They lose it. They actually lose it. They sort of went nuts. Until one night, everything spins out of control. Listen to Hell in Heaven on the I-Heart radio app. Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All I know is what I've been told, and that's a half-truth is a whole lie.

For almost a decade, the murder of an 18-year-old girl from a small town in Graves County, Kentucky, went unsolved, until a local homemaker, a journalist, and a handful of girls, came forward with a story. telling you, we know Quincy killed her. We know. A story that law enforcement used to convict six people and that got the citizen investigator on national TV. Through sheer persistence and nerve, this Kentucky housewife helped give justice to Jessica Curran. My name is Maggie Freeling. I'm a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, producer, and I wouldn't be here if the truth were that easy to find. I did not know her and I did not kill her, or rape or burn or any of that other stuff that y'all said it.

They literally made me say that I took a match and struck and threw it on her. They made me say that I poured gas on her. From Lava for Good, this is Graves County, a show about just how far our legal system will go in order to find someone to blame. America, y'all better work the hell up. Bad things happens to good people in small towns. Listen to Graves County in the Bone Valley feed on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to binge the entire season ad-free, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.

I've worked hundreds of cold cases you've heard of, and thousands you haven't. We started this podcast to teach the importance of teamwork and solving these crazy crimes. Come join us in learning from detectives, prosecutors, authors, canine handlers, forensic experts, and most importantly, victims' family members. Listen to Zone 7 with Cheryl McCollum on the IHeart Radio app or wherever you get your podcast. at 19 elena sadda believed she had found her calling in the new season of sacred scandal we pulled back the curtain on a life built on devotion and deception a man of god marcial masiel looked elena in the eye and promised her a life of purpose within the legion of christ my name is elena sadda and this is my story is the story of how i learned to hide to cry to survive and eventually how I got out.

This season on Sacred Scandal hear the full story from the woman who lived it. Witness the journey from devout follower to determine survivor as Elena exposes the man behind the cloth and the system that protected him. Even the darkest secrets eventually find their way to the light.

Listen to Secret Scandal, the mini secrets of Marcial Masiel as part of the MyCultura podcast network on the IHeard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. While Kimberly and her family quarantined in their mountain house, she started noticing changes in her husband.

He was being secretive, even aggressive. One night, she thought she saw photos of women on her husband's phone, and it kind of looked like a dating site. He said it was something for work, but she wasn't convinced. So I went into his suitcases, and I started digging through his personal. personal effects, his toilet tree bag. I started going through his desk and going through his clothes. Didn't find anything. Went through his golf bag, nothing. She kept coming up empty. Kimberly started to think maybe everything was fine after all. Maybe she was just getting in her

own head. But then, her eyes landed on one final bag she had missed in her search, Tim's gym bag. And I put my hands in it, and I was feeling around, and I didn't feel anything. And then I noticed there was a zippered compartment on the side. And I opened it up, and there was a treasure trove of Viagra, condoms, lubes, sex toys, and they were not mine. I was like, oh, my God, what did I just see? What did I just find? Everything I had always feared, he was cheating on me. She couldn't confront Tim right away because she had to drive her daughters to their dentist appointments.

So she drove across town in a daze. And I'm sitting there in the dentist office, and then I start to cry. And the dental hygienist comes out, and she was like, I need to ask you questions about your children's teeth. And I remember just like, teeth? What are you talking about? I couldn't make sense of anything in my world at that point. and she kept like asking me questions like do your kids you know they need to have their x-rays done

I'm like fine take their x-rays and she was like well and they probably need a fluoride treatment I'm like get to them what are you asking finally she's like are you okay and I'm crying and I couldn't get the words out of my mouth my husband's cheating on me it just felt so impossible later that evening when they were back home Kimberly went into Tim's office where he was sitting at his desk. I said, I need to talk to you. I placed the box in front of him. And I said, I need you to explain this to me. And then I just went quiet. The blood just rushed out of his face. And he just whispered, let's take this into the bedroom so we have some privacy. We went in there and I sat on the bed and he started pacing.

I said, I need you to explain this. And he said, it's a mistake. I said, who is she? His wheels were turning. He didn't know what to say to me. At the time, what I didn't know was he was trying to find the right lies. He finally said her name was Anna. I said, where did you meet?

And he said, the Whole Foods down the street. I said, oh, I said, how old is she? And I was very calm, and so was he. But when he said she was 21, 22, I felt sick. Our oldest daughter was 18. That's not too far off in age. And I said, he was sex with her. And he was like, yes.

I was so angry because I'm like, here we are during the pandemic holing up wearing masks on our face like not communicating with anybody not seeing our friends and you're having sex with a cashier from Whole Foods somebody you don't even know

and he was like yes and I said you just betrayed me in every single sense and I need you to leave he checked into a hotel Kimberly was in shock I don't remember the rest of the day.

I just stared at my ceiling most of that night. After weeks in a hotel, Tim started trying to win her back, buying her expensive gifts, apologizing profusely, and promising that he'd change. And he's just like, I love you so much. I just love you. I want to help you with the kids and what can I do? I want to make up.

Kimberly agreed to let him move back in, and they tried to make it work. But she suspected that there was more he wasn't telling us. telling her. She wanted him to fully come clean. Whenever she would bring it up, he kept changing his story. So she decided to find the truth herself. There was one place she had it looked, his computer. And that's when I started investigating him. I started logging into his computers. And I learned that my Tim, who I thought was the stand-up, amazing executive, father of my children, was a sugar daddy. He had been paying young women to have sex with him.

It first started with him paying their bills. I'll give you money for rent. And then it went to him just paying them. The realization was sinking in. This was something she'd only seen on TV or in the movies, not something that happened in real life. But here she was. Finding out her husband was a sugar daddy. A sugar daddy that paid younger women for sex,

paid for their lifestyle, financially supported their ventures, and gave them romantic gifts in return for sexual favors. He was doing it all online. There are websites for this where men can find their shows. Sugar Baby. Tim was using them, and he was using their money, money that could have gone to their kids, their education, their home, and instead he was spending it on other women. Kimberly began looking at their bank statements. I saw all these sums of money going out. I estimated he spent

about $40,000 on sex workers in the course of a year and a half. He would take it out in $500 increments, sometimes a thousand. It depends on if he was having a threesome. He would meet up with them in a hotel close to where our daughters went to school, and he would spend a few hours with them, smoke some weed, and then pick our children up in carpool and bring them home. Tim had another life online, one where he was constantly looking for his next sexual experience or his next sugar baby. Sometimes they were one-off rendezvous, $500 in cash for a meetup. But other times, he continued the relationship and sent thousands of dollars to women, money for them to start businesses or pay their bills. As Kimberly looked

through the digital trail, she realized this was almost an obsession. It had consumed his life and so much of the family's money. I confronted him with all of this. And this time I had more than a box. He just started telling me. He's like, I have a hole that I can't fill. And he said, no matter what I do to try to fill that hole, I cannot seem to fill it. And he said, I've tried with work. I've tried with golf.

I've tried with buying the house in the mountains and hiking and doing all these things. Nothing fills that hole. And he takes his fist and start. beating himself as hard as he can in the face, repeatedly, like punching himself in the eye and in the forehead. He kept saying, I'm so fucked up. I'm so fucked up. I don't even know who I am. I'm so fucked up. And I remember just screaming. I was like, oh my God, like, I had never seen him violent. I had never seen him behave like this. And I grabbed his arm and I was like, stop. I was like screaming. I was like, stop, stop. And he was bleeding. And I was like, what are you doing?

He's like, I don't know who. Something's wrong with me. In that conversation, Tim told Kimberly that he wanted to end his life. She was worried about his safety and encouraged him to get professional support. So I kept saying, I really feel like you need to get treatment. And Tim refused. He said, I can't take off a month because of work. Refused.

At that point, I was like, I need to get out of this marriage. Any hope Kimberly had for repairing their relationship was gone. And I said, I want a divorce. He kind of went from this like super caring, love bombing husband to business executive. This was going to be a transaction. Just like the transactions he had with the young girls, it was just transactional.

So I was as well. And he said, I'll give you, and he gave me a number. You can have the kids. You can have the house. I will take care of you. I will take care of them. I will take care of all of their school bills.

I need you to walk away. And I just looked at them and I said, that number's really low. North Carolina is a 50-50 equitable state. I knew what we are worth. I had already pulled all the financials. Kimberly wanted half of everything they owned together. That was fair. But the minute she said it, his whole demeanor changed.

He was like, well, but it's my money. You haven't even worked. And I remember just being so dumbfounded. I was like, what do you mean? I put you through business school. I worked until our second child was born. I was making more than you. The large part of why we have what we have is because we were able to invest in properties and invest in stocks.

And he's like, I was the one who did that. And I said, well, that's not the way the courts are going to see it. And he's like, fine. I just want you to know if you continue down this path, I will take every single cent I have and every single cent you have, and I will spend it burning you to the ground. In the new podcast, Hell in Heaven, two young Americans moved to the Costa Rican jungle to start over. But one will end up dead. The other tried for murder. Not once. People went wild.

Not twice. Stunned. But three times. John and Anne Bender are rich and attractive, and they're devoted to each other. They create a nature reserve and build a spectacular, circular home, high on the top of a hill. But little by little, their dream starts to crumble, and our couple retreat from reality. They lose it. They actually lose it. They sort of went nuts. Until one night, everything spins out of control.

Listen to Hell in Heaven on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All I know is what I've been told, and that's a half-truth is a whole lie. For almost a decade, the murder of an 18-year-old girl from a small town in Graves County, Kentucky, went unsolved, until a local homemaker, a journalist, and a handful of girls came forward with a story. I'm telling you, we know Quincy Kilder, we know. A story that law enforcement used to convict six people, and that got the citizen investigator on national TV. Through sheer persistence and nerve, this Kentucky housewife helped give justice to Jessica Curran. My name is Maggie Freeling.

I'm a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, producer, And I wouldn't be here if the truth were that easy to find. I did not know her and I did not kill her, or rape or burn or any of that other stuff that y'all said. They literally made me say that I took a match and struck and threw it on her. They made me say that I poured gas on her. From Lava for Good, this is Graves County, a show about just how far our legal system will go in order to find someone to blame. America, y'all better work the hell up. Bad things happens to good people in small towns.

Listen to Graves County in the Bone Valley feed on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to binge the entire season ad free, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Cheryl McCollum, host of the podcast Zone 7. Zone 7 ain't a place. It's a way of life. I've worked hundreds of cold cases you've heard of, and thousands you haven't. We started this podcast to teach the importance of teamwork and solving these crazy crimes. Come join us in learning from detectives, prosecutors, authors, canine handlers, forensic experts,

and most importantly, victims' family members. Listen to Zone 7 with Cheryl McCollum on the IHeart Radio app or wherever you get your podcast. This is a tape recorded statement. The person being interviewed is Krista Gail Pike. This is in regards to the death of a Colleen slimmer. She started going off on me, and I hit her.

I just hit her and hit her and hit her. On a cold January day in 1995, 18-year-old Krista Pike killed 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in the woods of Knoxville, Tennessee. Since her conviction, Krista has been sitting on death row. The state has asked for an execution date for Krista. We let people languish in prison for decades, raising questions about who we consider fundamentally unrestorable. How does someone prove that they deserve to live? We are starting the recording now. Please state your first and last name.

Krista Pike. Listen to Unrestorable Season 2, Proof of Life, on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Kimberly found out that her husband had spent a lot of their family savings being a sugar daddy to younger women. He was paying for things like their rent and their bills. He was also paying for sex with sex workers. When Kimberly urged him to get

help, he refused. So she was left with no other option but divorce. I didn't want alimony from him because I knew it would be a way for him to control me. And I kept saying to the attorneys, I'm like, I don't want alimony. I want a clean break. I need the cash settlement. I can dig in my heels until I hit the core of this planet. And I did. Three weeks later, I think I finally warmed down, and he agreed to a cash settlement. It was a 30-70 split. I knew at that minute I'm going to be free of this man. She got the money, but she wouldn't be free from Tim. His breakdown was just beginning. In fact, Kimberly noticed an uneasy feeling creeping in. One, she couldn't shake.

Sometimes I felt like I was being watched. And I felt like I was being followed. Tim moved into an apartment nearby. Kimberly wanted space from the whole situation. So she decided to splurge on a trip to the Caribbean for her 50th birthday. It would be her, her closest friends, and her three teenage daughters.

Finally, she could be far away from Tim and could let her guard down. But the first morning of the first morning of the trip, something strange happened. I'm on the beach. I'm having my coffee. It's just me. I'm enjoying the morning, enjoying the view. And there's no one around except for this man. I watch him turn. He pulls out a camera and starts taking pictures of me. It's one of those moments you're like, am I imagining this? I turn around. I'm thinking maybe he's taking pictures of the villa. You can't see the villa from the beach.

And I pretend to look down again, and here he is doing it a second time, taking more pictures. A man was on the beach taking pictures of her. She was sure of it. She just didn't know why. It was disturbing. But that wasn't the only upsetting thing that happened on their trip. Two days later, we get a basket delivered. And it's a gift basket.

And I thought, oh, well, maybe it's a friend sending me something. Because it is my birthday weekend and whatever. And there was a note in it. I think it said, enjoy your trip that I paid for with my hard work. I spent my 50th birthday in a bar. It was from Tim. It was a bag of cookies,

I think some chocolate-covered fruit and a bag of mixed nuts. And at this point, the kids are like, oh my God, he knows we're here. he's found us. I mean, they go into full panic mode. Something about this basket immediately raised alarm bells. One of their daughters had a severe nut allergy. Tim spent 18 years making sure everything his daughter ate was nut-free, making sure he packed the EpiPen.

Kimberly and her daughters looked at each other, eyes widened. My daughter looked at the nuts and she's like, is he trying to kill me? The vacation was meant to be relaxing, but it left the family more on edge than before. At this point, Kimberly was dating other people. When she got back from vacation, she had a date planned. We went out to this upscale restaurant. It was like 7 o'clock and a busy Saturday night, and I'm in a pretty dress and he's in a suit. And we order a cocktail and order an appetizer.

And before it even comes out, Tim comes charging towards our table from the bar. He's got a drink in his hand. and he was drunk and I remember just being so panicked because I hadn't seen him since we had separated and he got in our face and he's like

you're doing drugs and dealing drugs and I know who you are but he's like saying it loudly and people are like stopping what they're eating and like looking at our table and then the maid of G came over

and he left and he's like you okay and I'm like no no but I was so shaken and I remember going home. I'm like, how did he know we were there? Kimberly's head was spinning. Somehow, Tim knew exactly where she was at all times. A few weeks later, Kimberly was at the doctor's office.

Over the last year, her pap smears kept coming back abnormal. The doctors told her it was due to a past HPV infection, likely from the unprotected sex Tim was having with other women. I was sitting in the gynecologist office with a robe on, I heard my phone and I looked at it and it was a text from Tim and it said, just remember while you're there getting tested for your STDs with all your boyfriends, you can't use our health insurance money to pay for it. And I remember just like shaking. Like I could not even control my hands. I dropped my phone and I was like, he knows I'm here.

He physically knows I'm here. She thought maybe Tim had been following her. That was until she brought her car in to be serviced. It was just a routine service, and everything went fine. I was pulling away. And I noticed there was this device sitting in my console. I picked it up, and I'm like, what is this? I called the technician.

I'm like, hey, I think they left something in my car. He was like, oh, no, that's your tracking. device. I was like, what? He's like, yeah, that was your tracking device. Sorry, we forgot to put it back in. He put a tracking device inside my car. Tim was tracking Kimberly everywhere she went, but he knew much more than just her location, whenever they had to talk to each other about their daughters or divorce proceedings. He had been referencing conversations that I was having inside my house. One time he's like, yeah, I saw you playing volleyball with our daughter in the house. When I was there, you would never let that fly. And I was like, can you look through my windows? And I went actually outside

and looked into my house. I'm like, you can't see into my house unless you're in my backyard looking into my windows. He knew about a trip that I was planning. I was taking a cruise and he knew about it. He said, I hope you have fun on your trip. I'm like, how does he know all of these things. It felt like Tim had eyes and ears everywhere. There was no escaping. And Kimberly was struggling. I was definitely in trauma mode,

wondering when he was going to pop up again. And I turned into this paranoid mess. I was so jumpy all the time. He was so angry. I had this feeling he was going to come for me. I was always blocking and unlocking. the doors. I unlocked and locked my door so many times. I actually broke the doorknob. She lived in this paranoid state for a whole year. Then one weekend, when Kimberly was out of town,

she got a strange notification on her home security app. Somebody had gone in and changed my password to my home security system. And I'm like, oh my God. And I logged in and I saw that he had accessed my home security system, logged me out, logged him himself in, and made himself the master user so he could see into my home. And he could hear the conversations. Suddenly, puzzle pieces started clicking into place. It wasn't just paranoia that let Kimberly to believe. Tim could hear what she was saying inside her house. He had hacked into her home security system. From there, he would watch her in her home and listen to her private conversations.

The reason he was able to do that is when they changed over the account to my name, they failed to log out all the devices. And even though I had changed the password, he was able to access it through face ID. During the court hearings for Kimberly's protective order against him, he admitted to putting the tracking device on her car. Apparently, that was legal.

Then the line of questioning shifted to the home security system. My attorney's asking him, how many times did you look into Kimberly's house and watch her? And he was like, countless. And the judge popped her head up and she said, Sir, I need you to explain that. When you say countless, that means you can't count that high? Can you quantify that? He's like, dozens.

On this stand, Tim also admitted to hiring a private investigator to follow Kimberly 24-7. I mean, it's like $100 an hour. To do what? To watch me go to the grocery store and turn my lights on and off? It was just insanity. The judge did the right thing. She ruled in favor that I got the restraining order. Tim fought this on appeal, but ultimately, Kimberly prevailed.

It was a landmark case because before this, North Carolina, Carolina courts required proof of physical abuse or explicit violent threats to grant a protective order. Kimberly's case created a precedent in their home state. It was a big win. But Tim was still spiraling out of control. He threatened to have my two older children arrested. He was claiming that they were part of a Bitcoin scheme to blackmail him and that he had proof. and he sent this to my attorney. Like, this wasn't on the bingo card. Tim was spending obscene amounts of money.

It seemed like any semblance of control and order in his life was slipping away. Kimberly's oldest daughter had gone off to college, but she still had two of her daughters at home, and she was trying to hold everything together for them. A few weeks later, on November 23rd, I was out to dinner, and I get a text from one of his old girlfriends, something he dated.

And I'd always liked her. And she said, I need to talk to you. I was like, that's really weird. And I call her and I'm like, hey, you know, is everything okay? And she said, Kimberly, Tim's dead. And I was like, what? Tim had gone into the woods and taken his own life. She's like, I'm so sorry.

And I just was like calm. I was like, you know, I didn't even know what to say. And I threw up. I didn't cry. I felt sick. I felt shocked. And then I felt relief. And I hate that I felt that.

But it's human nature. He had abused and tortured me and made my life living hell. Kimberly had to find a way to tell her daughters. I took the girls into my bedroom. I said, let's sit down and talk about this. It's okay to be upset. It's okay to be shocked. It's okay to be angry.

The girls end up being named administrators to the estate. Obviously, they're young girls. They decided they couldn't do it. They named me and appointed me. So now here I am with my ex-husband managing his estate. In the weeks that followed, Kimberly went to Tim's old apartment to clean it out. When she stepped inside, she was shocked at the state he had been living in. She saw firsthand what he had been draining his accounts on.

It wasn't just private investigators and legal fees. He'd been buying all kinds of things. He was a hoarder to see, like, the state of his stuff, and it was expensive stuff. He had like a chicken coop for chickens he didn't have and pool equipment for a pool. didn't have and watches and flip-flops that were like from Target thrown in with a box of like a thousand dollar pair of Italian leather shoes. There was even a box of 50 vintage pencil sharpeners that cost $2,000. And a 1940s jukebox, he had an RV that he wrecked. He had motorcycles, a jet ski, two trailers. I mean, hundreds of thousands of dollars with the stuff.

One of the strangest and most alarming things he'd spent his money on was a trained German Shepherd. He had it imported overseas, and it was a trained killer guard dog. He spent close to $80,000 on the dog. He eventually bought a second guard dog. At first, Kimberly wanted to adopt the dogs herself. Then she had a conversation with the trainer who strongly advised her against interacting with the dogs.

If I were to ever come around, I think that they were trained to attack me. The trainer ended up taking the dogs. For Kimberly, the dogs became another what-if, another decision Tim made that left her speechless. For 20 years, she'd known Tim to be a dependable man. She adored him and respected him. She built a family with him. And then, seemingly out of the blue, he blew up their marriage, blew their savings, and turned against his own daughters.

Worst of all, he spent his final years stalking and terrorizing the family. Kimberly was trying to make sense of this as she sorted through Tim's belongings. That's how she learned that a few days before he took his own life, Tim had checked himself into a rehab facility. Tim had a lot of demons that he did not share with me. And one of the things that I learned, after he passed away, he had admitted himself into rehab.

He went to a place in Kentucky and willingly checked himself in and checked himself out a few days later. Kimberly called the rehab, hoping to learn more about his state of mind while he was there and any more information about those final days leading up to his death. I felt like I had this puzzle, but I didn't know what the picture was, and pieces were missing. So I called them, and I said, I'm assuming he was in here for substance abuse. And they're like, no, that's not what we do. And I was like, well, why was he in here? And they were like, he was in here for childhood sexual abuse.

I was just shocked. Kimberly knew that Tim had been a victim of childhood sexual abuse, but she had no idea how significant the trauma continued to be for him in adulthood. As she worked to put together a painful puzzle of loss, she also did everything she could to help her daughters through their grief. I still have his ashes here in my home, and I talked to my daughters about what they want to. to do, and we're going to take him up to the mountains, where we had so many happy times

and have a ceremony and service there and just remember the good times. I feel like that's going to be a final thing for us to, like, end this chapter. Kimberly is still in the process of finding her way back to herself. I have trouble finding joy like I used to. This did such a number on me for so long. Now I'm trying to find out who I am and what do I really like to do. Through everything, her relationship with her daughters remained strong. I think they see the strength that I've shown and the strength that's taken for them to overcome it.

As much as I hate that they went through it, I tell them all the time, you're going to use these skills that you've learned for the rest of your life. and you will help other women, and you will be a source of support for other people going through the same thing. We end every weekly episode with the same question. Why do you want to share your story? I think it's important for people to know

when they do hit that rock bottom moment, and again, I've hit it, I hit it hard. You can get through these horrible, horrible times. somebody can betray you and you might just want to be like I can't do this anymore I can't think of this anymore how am I going to how am I going to get myself out of this just keep putting one foot in front of the other and you're going to get to the other side of the dark forest and see the light if you just keep moving don't be embarrassed don't be ashamed don't be afraid to tell your story because the more times you talk about it,

the more you can make sense of it and process it. And that's been very helpful for me. On the next episode of Betrayal Weekly. This was my best friend. This was somebody who was in my house every single day. This is somebody who I told all my secrets to. She did this because she wanted to. She did this because she liked.

likes to manipulate. She did this because she likes the control. 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. Or follow us on Instagram at Betrayal Pod. You can also connect with me on Instagram at It's Andrea Gunning. To access our newsletter, view additional content, and connect with the Betrayal community, join our Substack at Betrayal.substack.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. This episode was written and produced by Olivia Hewitt and Monique Laborde, with additional production from Ben Federman. Casting support from Curry Richmond.

Our I-Heart team is Ali Perry and Jessica Kreincheck. Audio editing and mixing by Matt Dalvecchio. Additional audio editing by Tanner Robbins. Betrayals theme composed by Oliver Baines. provided by Myb Music. And for more podcasts from IHeart, visit the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hello, America's sweetheart Johnny Knoxville here. I want to tell you about my new true crime podcast, Crimeless, Hillbilly Heist, from Smartless Media, Campside Media, and Big Money Players. It's a wild test. about a gang of high-functioning nitwits who somehow pulled off America's third largest cash heist. Kind of like Robin Hood, except for the part where he steals from rich and gives to the poor. I'm not that generous.

It's a damn near inspiring true story for anyone out there who's ever shot for the moon, then just totally muffed up the landing. They stole $17 million and had not bought a ticket to help him escape. So we're saying like, oh God, what do we do? What do? What do you do? That was dumb. People do not follow my example. Listen to Crimeless, Hillbilly Heist on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

The murder of an 18-year-old girl in Graves County, Kentucky, went unsolved for years until a local housewife, a journalist, and a handful of girls, came forward. with a story. America, y'all better work the hell up. Bad things happens to good people in small towns. Listen to Graves County on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And to binge the entire season, ad free, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcast. I'm Cheryl McCollum, host of the podcast.

Zone 7. Zone 7 ain't a place. It's a way of life. Now, this ain't just any old podcast, honey. We're going to be talking to family members of victims, detectives, prosecutors, and some nationally recognized experts that I have called on over the years to help me work these difficult cases. I've worked hundreds of cold cases you've heard of and thousands you haven't. We started this podcast to teach the importance of teamwork and solving these crazy crimes. Come join us in learning from detectives, prosecutors, authors, canine handlers, forensic experts, and most importantly, victims' family members. Come be a part of my Zone 7 while building yours.

Listen to Zone 7 with Cheryl McCollum on the IHeart Radio app or wherever you get your podcast. On a cold January day in 1995, 18-year-old Krista Pike killed 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in the woods of Knoxville, Tennessee. Since her conviction, Krista has been sitting on death row. How does someone prove that they deserve to live? We are starting the recording now. Please state your first and last name. Krista Pike. Listen to Unrestorable Season 2, Proof of Life. On the Eye of heart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast.