Nobody Should Believe Me - The Andreas of Ethical True Crime with Andrea Gunning

Episode Date: March 27, 2025

This week, our Andrea is joined by Andrea Gunning, host of the podcast Betrayal and There and Gone: South Street. Gunning speaks on her transition from television to podcasting. They both discuss the ethical consideration of the real-world consequences of sharing true crime stories, as well as the emotional weight of telling these stories with care. Gunning and Dunlop reflect on the healing power of storytelling and the importance of humanizing these narratives. They also touch on the challenges faced by women in the podcasting industry.  *** Listen to Betrayal: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-betrayal-weekly-95632727/ Listen to There and Gone: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-there-and-gone-south-stre-185036762/ Order Andrea's new book The Mother Next Door: Medicine, Deception, and Munchausen by Proxy https://read.macmillan.com/lp/the-mother-next-door-9781250284273/ View our sponsors. Remember that using our codes helps advertisers know you’re listening and helps us keep making the show! https://www.nobodyshouldbelieveme.com/sponsors/ Follow Andrea on Instagram for behind-the-scenes photos: https://www.instagram.com/andreadunlop/ Buy Andrea's books: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Andrea-Dunlop/author/B005VFWJPI To support the show, go to http://Patreon.com/NobodyShouldBelieveMe or subscribe on Apple Podcasts (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/nobody-should-believe-me/id1615637188?ign-itscg=30200S&ign-itsct=larjmedia_podcasts) where you can get all episodes early and ad-free and access exclusive ethical true crime bonus content. For more information and resources on Munchausen by Proxy, please visit http://MunchausenSupport.com The American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children’s MBP Practice Guidelines can be downloaded here: https://apsac.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Munchausen-by-Proxy-Clinical-and-Case-Management-Guidance-.pdf Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

True Story Media Hello, it's Andrea. And today I have a wonderful crossover episode to share with you. This is my conversation with journalist and podcast host, Andrea Gunning of the Betrayal and Betrayal Weekly podcast, as well as a really phenomenal show that we shared a few weeks back, There and Gone South Street. So today we are talking all things true crime and how we handle this strange and wonderful career that both of us have found ourselves in. I recently was myself a guest on Betrayal Weekly and I cannot tell you how much I admire this team.

They bring so much integrity and care to their reporting and their work, and it's just always really heartening when you see the behind the scenes of a show that you love and the vibes are this immaculate. Not always the case, unfortunately. We are currently working hard on season six at the moment, which will be coming at you in June.

And in the meantime, we are bringing you a lot more case file stuff, including our coverage of the Raddy Children's case in San Diego, which we are working on now. If you followed our coverage of the Kowalski case, boy, oh boy, are you going to notice some similarities. As always, if you want to get in touch, you can send us an email or voice memo at hello at nobody should believe me dot com or leave us a comment on Spotify. And if you're listening on Apple, you know, we love those five star reviews, please. And thank you. And of course,

the best way to support the show, if you are able, is to join us on the subscriber feeds on Apple and Patreon, where you will get two extra episodes a month, ad free listening and the entire new season on the day it launches. So with that, here's my conversation with Andrea Gunning. Just a quick reminder that my new book, The Mother Next Door, Medicine, Deception, and Munchausen by Proxy is on sale right now wherever books are sold. The book was an Amazon editor's pick for nonfiction

and the Seattle Times called it a riveting deep dive into MVP. And if you are an audio book lover and you like hearing my voice, which I'm assuming you do since you're listening here, you should know that I narrate the audiobook as well. If you have already read the book, which I know so many of you have, thank you so much. Please let me know your thoughts and questions at helloandnobodyshouldbelieveme.com and we will bring my co-author, Detective Mike Weber, on for a little book Q&A and post-retirement tell-all special. Thanks for your support.

I'd love to start off with just your background. How did you get into being a true crime podcaster? You know, I often joke that I'm a recovering TV executive, and so I come, I hail from the TV space, but I work for a company called Glass Entertainment Group, and we specialize in reality TV and documentaries. And for about seven and a half, eight years, I was overseeing our business department. So I was the executive in charge of production. So I did all the boring things in TV, which is like the budget, the financing,

like all the hard stuff. And my colleague Ben and I were constantly working through legal deals with our development department. And we were seeing great stories getting passed by TV executives and networks. One story that came across our desk, we were working with Kim Goldman, who is the sister of Ron Goldman,

who was murdered by OJ Simpson. And we were trying to sell something in TV with her, but a lot of TV networks weren't interested in the project unless OJ was involved or OJ was attached, or we could guarantee an interview with OJ. And this was back when OJ was involved or OJ was attached or we could guarantee an interview with OJ. And this was back when OJ was still living. I think he had just gotten out of prison and was living in Vegas at the time.

But my colleagues and I really believe that there was a story here even without OJ's voice. So we decided to make it a podcast and instead of telling the OJ Simpson story, we told the story of people who lived it. And so that's how we got started in the podcast space. That's a great answer.

I mean, I really see like that imprint for the work you've done after that, you know, and also that just really plugs into what I think is interesting about true crime stories, which is the sort of long tale of them and the way that they impact the people who are pulled into them. Yeah. So one of the things you're known for is your work on betrayal and now Betrayal Weekly.

How did you come to that story that was the first season of Betrayal? It's all kind of related. So Jen Faison is the subject of season one in her marriage and how the marriage unraveled. But she works in television. She's a television executive producer, so we kind of are in the same universe. And Jen had heard Confronting O.J. Simpson and reached out to her agent,

and her agent reached out to me and my colleague Ben for an initial conversation. But the universe has an interesting way of working because at this time I was getting out of a relationship. I had moved out of my boyfriend's house. I had discovered a lot of deception, not to the magnitude that Jen had. And I was kind of recovering from understanding,

like, why was I in this relationship? Why was I ignoring a lot of signs? Was I ignoring it or was it like, you know, all of these questions that were coming to the surface. So it was like, I was meeting Jen at the perfect time. I couldn't relate to the magnitude of what Jen was going through. But I knew, like as it was like, I don't even want to say as a woman, as a woman, but as a human being, I understood the pain when she pitched me her story.

I understood her anger and her confusion. And I found like this emotional access. And I thought, if we could maybe do something with that... people will relate and maybe heal. And so, just that relatability and that timing of it just so happened to work out. SHANNON. Yeah, that's amazing. And I think that that shows up in the quality of the season

and just the emotional depth of it. And I'm really interested in what you said about this idea of not coming from a place of anger. This is a really complicated part of interviewing people about these stories, right? Because they have every right to be angry. You have every right to want to even go on a sort of revenge journey. But doing that on a podcast is not actually helpful to anyone, right? It's not helpful for the listener. It's not really ethical to sort of try and

get someone in that energy, even if it can be compelling in its own right. And I have the same sort of thing when I talk to folks who are often dealing with really extreme betrayals. And then on top of that, you know, the abuse to them or abuse to their children or children that they care about. And it's, I think, really important to make sure that someone is ready to have that conversation. It was important to me, you know, I started off with telling my own story in the first two seasons of the show, kind of bit by bit, and I sort of revisit pieces of it from time to time. But like, I had to wait, you know, a decade until I was ready to talk about it.

I was like, it's such a vulnerable thing and it's such a vulnerable thing to put out there and then have people react to. There are so many points along this journey where getting on a mic would have been the absolute wrong choice for me. Right. And I think there's also, like, the expectation setting,

because if you're talking about a case where it's either an unsolved case, or it's a case where there wasn't a good outcome, or it's a case where, like, the person you're talking to wants some action to be taken by authorities, that's not something that we can make happen. Can't always guarantee. Right. And like, so I think that that's also like a really tricky part of it of making

sure that why I'm talking to you like, yes, we're going to put all this out there. And I think people are going to care. I think people are going to get something out of it. They're going to learn something important. They're going to relate with this experience. I hope you get a deep personal catharsis from sharing this, but like the cavalry is unlikely to mount up because unfortunately that's just not often how it works. And this may not end with answers. Yeah, and that was my worry producing There and Gone, which came out this past summer in 2024. And I have to give iHeart a lot of credit because we pitched them this story

and there wasn't an ending and we couldn't guarantee that we would find or solve this case. And so you're taking a lot of risk and then the partnerships that you make with distributors are also taking a lot of risk for what's the payoff? You know, what's the audience gonna leave thinking? Are they gonna walk away feeling satisfied? for what's the payoff? What's the audience gonna leave thinking? Are they gonna walk away feeling satisfied?

And these are people, like we're studying and we're exploring stories of people and their loss and their trauma and their grief. And so we're not always gonna get a payoff that makes sense to everybody. I like telling stories that really show the complexity of the human experience. And I think There and Gone is an example of that.

Yeah, can you kind of give us an intro to the case and how you got interested in it? Sure. It's the story of Richard Patrone and Danielle Imbo. 20 years ago, two 30-somethings just literally vanished off of South Street in Philadelphia, which is basically like the Bourbon Street of Philadelphia, the busiest place for nightlife.

They were seen leaving a bar and then never seen again. And then until this day, no one knows what happened. Was it an accident? Was it murder for hire? And so I remember this because I was a, I think a senior in high school and it was terrifying because one of the victims, his parents have a bakery that I grew up going to. And both of their families look so much like mine in different ways. They do Sunday dinner. I come from an Italian family, we do Sunday dinner.

You know, they gamble on Sunday over football bets. Like I'm wearing my Eagles jersey. Like this feels like this could be my own cousin this happened to. So it was very personal to me. And so it was just this loss that kind of reverberated throughout our entire community and continues. Because how do two people in their mid-30s just vanish, just literally into thin air? And when we were

exploring doing the story, I thought the families would be very interested, but we would struggle with law enforcement. But then I soon realized that the FBI really needed our help, because the FBI knows that the more coverage they can get of this case, more people will be able to like call in and feel like, let me just do my part. Let me, 20 years later, I'm just gonna do it. I'm just gonna make the phone call. I'm gonna say what I know and be done with it. And I live in this city. And there are parts of this city where this crime isn't a big question mark. There are parts of this city and neighborhoods in this city where people know exactly what happened or they feel like it's a fact. They communicate it like it's a fact. I know who did it. I know why it's done. Isn't that crazy?

Yeah. Like how a whole neighborhood in one city, there's like this understood rumor of what happened to two random people that have no connection. And that was the neighborhood in which I lived. So, to me, it was like, I just want to help these families.

You know, we didn't solve the crime yet, but there was enough people that actually wrote into the FBI for them to reopen and assign new agents. So I feel like I did my job. Hell yeah. I mean, that's amazing. And I think this is one of the most interesting parts of working in the true crime sphere

and why it's so important to like take this job seriously and be really responsible is because it does have real world impacts. And yeah, I mean, this question of law enforcement, it's like, so I, the case that I'm working on right now for our next season is one that I am hoping that some action will happen on. How realistic that is, who knows, but I do think that it is and can be a powerful tool to getting law enforcement involved and that can be the kind of thing where you get,

you know, political will for a local prosecutor to actually file charges on something where they might not otherwise. You can, you know, get people who are making those decisions at the police department to assign some extra muscle to it. You can, you know, flush out some new information from the community. Well, the first thing that, just to interject,

I think one of the biggest things that I feel like we both, you know, betrayal, trauma, and deception is one thing. Your show covers factitious disorder and although they're very different, there's so many commonalities between people who, you know, live through or have a relationship with Munchausens and Munchausens by proxy and people who experience deception and betrayal. The topics we cover on betrayal are extreme, but sadly they're not uncommon.

Yeah. And in season three, we really focus on male sexual abuse and we learned that one in six men have experienced this issue. and we learn that one in six men have experienced this issue. But the really scary reality is it actually is probably more, but it just goes unreported because of the stigma around it. And I just feel like these are two taboo issues, you know, Munchausen syndrome by proxy, and to take that seriously and talk

about it to help dismantle that stigma, it's such a large hurdle. Yeah, no, that's a really good point. And we've definitely learned a lot from the progress that has been made around child sex abuse, which I think it still is underreported. I think most people accept that child sex abuse is real and not rare. Yeah. Certainly anybody that's informed on the topic knows that, but I think that did not always

used to be that way, right? And it was seen as this, like, stranger danger type of aberration, you know, one in a million sort of thing that happened. And then our society grappling with it sort of went through some interesting hurdles along the way. A major one being the satanic panic, where you have all these stories about, you know, daycare workers and undergrad, you know, the McMartin case and all these like underground

tunnels. My take on it is that that was society grappling with something that we really, really didn't want to look at, which is child sex abuse, and that actually it was easier and more comforting to think that it was satanic daycare workers because that's a problem that you can ostensibly solve. But I think it's more comforting to think that there's some evil system that you can ostensibly solve. But I think it's more comforting to think that there's some evil system that you can kind of shut down than it is to confront the reality, which is that this is boy scout leaders, priests,

coaches, dads, uncles who are doing this, right? It's most likely to be someone that that child knows, and it's not gonna be someone who is an obvious creep all the time. And it's so similar with Munchausen. And that's where we get into kind of the hullabaloo that happened around the Maya Kowalski case with the film Take Care of Maya and a lot of the coverage

that really followed in lockstep with that, where they presented it as a medical kidnapping case. Medical kidnapping is our satanic panic, essentially. It's like, you know, this idea that doctors are just separating families, right? Like, doctors don't make those decisions. Doctors evaluate abuse. It's a legitimate subspecialty. There's just so much disinformation around that. And the Maya Kowalski case was sort of the most high-profile one. But I think that there's a similar dynamic going on there. And certainly with munchausen by proxy, it's not a one in a million thing.

I think the behavior is along a spectrum, but I think it's far more common and getting worse because of social media, because of which I would assume actually some of the behaviors that you all talk about on betrayal and this sort of male deception and cheating and that kind of thing like you talk in the Spencer Heron case, like social media has given people unfettered and unlimited access to attention. And I think it was Dr. Romani says in the TV series, like, oh, that's the dangerous combination, right?

Attention seeking plus lack of empathy. I mean, that is exactly how you describe Munchausen by proxy behaviors. And so I think there's every reason to believe that it's getting worse. And that is a scary world to live in. I hate to be the one to break this to you, but the world is not what you thought. That mom of the sick child who's raising money on GoFundMe and seems like the most heroic mother you've ever met,

could be the scariest person you've ever met. And so I think that's why these conspiracy theories around medical kidnapping get traction because the reporting on it is very thin. Child abuse professionals do not make good money. Child abuse pediatrics is a highly trained and not well-paid subspecialty. They get trashed in the media. They get accused of snatching babies. I mean, it's not for the faint of heart.

And also just like that work, like doing that frontline work of rushing to the hospital to see a child that's been abused is obviously emotionally grueling work. There isn't any scenario where you could make it make sense that doctors just want to do that. It's a nightmare for the hospitals. The hospitals can get sued. It's a nightmare for the hospitals. The hospitals can get sued. It's like there's no motivation,

but I think the reason those stories still take off in the media is that people's discomfort around the reality of this abuse is so, so deep. I'm a mom on the go in my 40s. I'm writing books, I'm making this show, I'm going down internet rabbit holes. And given the fact that mornings with a 6 and a 2 year old are a complete opera of chaos, I do not have a lot of time to think about what to wear. I want things to be simple and I want them to be really nice. Which is why at least half

of my wardrobe these days is from Quince. Real talk, I love this brand so much and I know so many people who are fans. My friend April loves this brand, my producer Mariah loves it, my husband, my mom, they're all super into Quince. And you can pretty much build a complete wardrobe from Quince with their luxury essentials at affordable prices. Quince offers a range of high quality items at prices within reach like their 100% Mongolian cashmere sweaters that start at $50, their washable silk tops which I love for travel, dresses, organic cotton sweaters, and even 14 karat gold jewelry. All of the items are priced 50 to 80% less

than similar brands. And you can feel great about shopping with Quince because they only work with factories that use safe, ethical, and responsible manufacturing practices and premium fabrics and finishes. I love that. So give yourself the luxury you deserve with Quince. Go to quince.com slash believe for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's q u i n c e dot com slash believe to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com slash believe. We'll include that information at the link in our show notes. And remember that shopping with our sponsors is a great way to support the show. As we get into spring and summer, whether you're going on hikes, walking dogs, or just running after your children who definitely do not want to come inside while the sun is still up, you are going to get sweaty. And that's why you need Lume deodorant. If you've

listened to our recent season five mailbag episode, you will know that we ended up doing an impromptu ad for Lume because that is how much not only I, but the whole Nobody Should Believe Me team loves this product. And most of the team actually lives in Texas, so you know their deodorant is working extra hard. Lumi was created by an OBGYN who saw firsthand how normal BO was being misdiagnosed and mistreated. And Lumi goes beyond a simple swipe to the pits. They have the number one whole body deodorant on the market, because let's face it, other stuff can also get stinky. Lume's Starter Pack is perfect for new customers. It comes with a solid stick deodorant,

cream tube deodorant, and two free products of your choice, like their mini body wash or deodorant wipes, which are my personal favorite, and it includes free shipping. As a special offer for listeners, new customers get 15% off all Lume products with our exclusive code. And if you combine this 15% with the

already discounted starter pack, that equals over 40% off their starter pack. So use the code NOBODY for 15% off your first purchase at lumedeodorant.com. That's code NOBODY at L-U-M-E-D-E-O-D-O-R-A-N-t dot com. And please support the show by telling them that we sent you. All that info is at the link in the show notes. So stay fresher, stay drier and boost your confidence from head to toe with Lummi. Something that we're constantly confronting in true crime is having to tell these hyperbolic versions of true crime stories. And in reality, the more relatable and important ones are the ones that are kind of in the everyday.

I remember when we were covering Ashley Linton's case in Riverton, Utah for Betrayal Season 2, you reached out to ICAC, which is an Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force that every state has. And I remember one of the task force members asked, why are you covering this case? Like I deal with, you know, perpetrators that are 10 times worse than Jason Linton. Why this one? And my response was,

I don't want the hyperbolic version CSAM case. You know, I want to meet people in a very average, everyday story, because that's actually what's happening. And so I feel like that's the same for a lot of these mothers who are, if they're on the news, it's like this monster of a mother that did this. And it's like, you know, we have to hear about the extremes instead of leaning into the reality of what's happening. Yeah. I mean, I became a media outlet because I was so fed up with the way that

media was covering this case, right? And it's been interesting over the last few years as I've kind of jumped first, I guess. I've noticed that awareness is increasing, especially because of the Gypsy Rose Blanchard case, which was so high profile. I do think that there's more of a conversation happening than there was five years ago, but there was so much reticence to talking about it.

I remember when my novel came out and I had written an essay for it and that got killed at the last minute. And there was just a lot of like, no, no, no, no, no, if there's not a conviction, you can't talk about it. And I was like, if we're not talking about the cases where there aren't convictions, then we're not talking about the problem.

Right. Like when you get into the extremes, it allows people to put it at arm's length. That person is a monster. That person is a psychopath that, like, I would see coming, and this would never happen to me, and that's not reality. And I think that was why, for me, it was so important to talk about my own experience,

because the other thing that we do with perpetrators of crimes, especially if it's something where it just feels so, like, deeply, deeply, deeply wrong, we often say, oh, well, that person must have had a horrible childhood. That person must have been abused as a child. There must be some, like, dots I can connect. And I think that that's part of the let me tell myself a story about this that makes me feel safe,

right, where, like, as long as XYZ doesn't happen in my family, we won't end up with one of these perpetrators in our family. And that's just not the case, right? I mean, my sister did not, by anybody else's, you know, nobody else witnessed anything traumatic happening to her. We were not raised in an abusive household.

Like, it's not something where, oh, there's some straight line that you can draw. And I think that's really uncomfortable for people. I think people really want to believe that something awful has to happen to a person to make them like this. And I don't think that's true. I think it is that combination of lack of empathy and need for attention that really can supercharge these behaviors. Totally. I think one of the things that I also felt was really relatable, and the circumstances are so different, but just knowing your sister's story and having to go in front of the judge

in family court, like you're dealing with family court and criminal court are two separate things. And the issues that I've seen a lot of the women that I deal with on betrayal, having to navigate the criminal side and once that's over and the father of their children are released, then they're dealing with family court, either in their divorce or child support

or dealing with visitation. It is a whole other ball of wax where parents have a ton of rights, rightfully so, but they're in situations where kids are at risk. It's a really scary system because they are two separate entities. rightfully so, but they're in situations where kids are at risk. It's a really scary system because they are two separate entities. Yeah, and I think that that's something that the vagaries of that like really is lost on people that have not had to interact with these systems.

And I think people here, and a lot of this again when I'm talking about like, you know, Mike Hixenberg's work for NBC and his whole Do No Harm series. A lot of this is, I think, intentionally created confusion, where it'll be like, courts said doctors disagree. Courts said this and that. And you're like, OK, which court, under what circumstances, give me more information? And everything goes to the family court first, because those investigations take less you know, those investigations

take less time than the criminal investigation. So we end up in a lot of situations where the family court gives the children back during an active criminal investigation, which just I think sounds insane, but that happens all the time. Likewise, you know, there's this thing of like, well, doctors at this hospital said this but other doctors disagree without ever mentioning that those other doctors are people who were hired as expert witnesses by the parent defending themselves, right? Important information.

And like, I think people don't realize that the courts don't take the steps that you would think in the face of a criminal conviction to like to limit that person's access to their own children. For instance, we just had a case that we're talking about in the show, the Jessica Jones case in Texas, where she got a 60-year prison sentence, and the courts did not terminate her parental rights. And so now the dad has to pay to do that. So just the onus that ends up on a protective parent in any child abuse situation, I think

people have no idea what that looks like or just people don't realize how easy it is actually to get access to children again. Yeah. In the case of Stacey Rutherford and Tyler from season three of Betrayal, I think the courts got it right. So, for people that don't know, Stacey was married to a man named Justin, and he was a doctor in Reading, Pennsylvania.

She had two children in a previous marriage, and then met Justin, and they got married. They had two kids of their own. And he was, by all all accounts a great husband, an incredible doctor, beloved by his community. Turns out that he was abusing Stacey's son from her first marriage, his stepson, since he was 11. And Tyler didn't disclose until he was, I wanna say 17.

So a long time. Yeah. And Justin also tried to hire a hitman while he was in prison to murder Tyler so that he wouldn't testify in court, which is what we cover in season three of Betrayal. And what the judge did is not only did he get, he'll be basically in jail for the rest of his life. I don't wanna misquote what his sentencing was. But he isn't allowed to speak to his biological children

or have any contact with the family until he's done his probation, basically for the rest of his life. And so I remember talking to Stacy and Tyler and them feeling really complicated emotions because they deeply love Justin. The person that they knew as a human being, Tyler loved his stepdad. But then there was the monster, the abuser. They were two different people to him. And that was a scenario where the court really contemplated

a lifetime of abuse and grooming and narcissistic behavior and just got it and knocked it out of the park. And I was like, heck yeah, like this is Pennsylvania. Like I was really proud. So yeah, like sometimes we talk about things getting wrong. Like that was a scenario where I think the courts got it right. And it's, you know, it's so complicated. And I think it kind of goes back to this question of once you have identified a person as this type of abuser,

where it has so much in common, my child's my proxy with child sex abuse, where it is an extremely compulsive behavior, it's one of those things where, again, I think, and I think we can more easily recognize it in child sex abuse cases where it's like, okay, if you cross that line with a child, you're not a safe adult, period.

Like if you're capable of doing that, like, you know, whether or not you should be thrown in jail for the rest of your life or we should do something else with you is sort of a separate question, but like, you are not a, that's why we put people on registries, that's why we say they can't go near schools. Like we have no such attitude

towards much as my proxy perpetrators. There is this idea that it is like some mental illness that people are sort of quote suffering from. And much like child sex abuse, there is an underlying psychiatric disorder, affective disorder imposed on another, very similar to pedophilic disorder, which is also in the DSM, also very challenging to treat,

also very unlikely that a perpetrator will take enough accountability to be treated for it. And it doesn't reduce someone's culpability. And it's like a very complicated thing that happens when like children always want their parents. That's such a biological drive for kids. That's a survival mechanism. Even if their parent is not capable of loving them or being safe with them, like they will

always kind of have this longing. So you can have a situation where someone is separated from their parent and then they really, really, really idealize that parent and don't then protect themselves. I mean, it's really complicated. And then for survivors that have fully processed the abuse or not going that direction of saying, this didn't happen to me, right?

A fully understand, fully process the abuse. I mean, we saw Joe in our fourth season really struggling with this, with their mom of saying, this didn't happen to me, right? A fully understand, fully process the abuse. I mean, we saw Joe in our fourth season really struggling with this, with their mom, of like, they totally recognize what their mom did to them and they understand a lot about the dynamics and they still love that person. And I mean, I would say most of the survivors I know are either low contact or no contact,

but it's really complicated to navigate that relationship. With the FIZ loyalty program, you get rewarded just for having a mobile plan. You know, for texting and stuff. And if you're not getting rewards like extra data and dollars off with your mobile plan, you're not with FIZ. Switch today. Conditions apply.

Details at fiz.ca. This episode is brought to you by FX's Dying for Sex on Disney+. Based on the podcast of the same name, Dying for Sex tells the story of Molly, who is diagnosed with stage four breast cancer. Determined to feel everything she can before she can't feel anything, she decides to leave her unhappy marriage to explore her sexuality with some encouragement from her best friend Nikki. FX's Dying for Sex, streaming April 4th,

only on Disney+. Sign up now at DisneyPlus.com. We're working on a case for season four of Betrayal about this woman out of Colorado Springs. She was with her husband for 20 years. She lived like a typical American life. She thought that she was just basically living like the suburban dream and I won't give all the details cuz we air in May.

But things unravel and the family is torn apart. And she has to look back on 20 years and basically readjust her sense of reality because he shares things, discloses things that completely alters core memories in her life, where she's living and thinks one thing is happening, where there's another almost like parallel universe where he's operating and she has to hold both realities at the same time.

She often says perception is my reality and that really is true. And I remember because I had listened to your first season so long ago, I was like, let me listen to this again. Like, you know, Hope's family and then your family, I was thinking about you guys, and like you having to look back, like once things became clearer to you, or things were coming into focus, how are you looking back on that time? And how painful was it to try to merge what you thought you were experiencing and then the reality that you now learn. It's just, it feels like those memories start to hold on to you in a way that you're like,

I don't even know what to do. Yeah, I mean, it's a really profound part of the experience. And I think when people, you know, people like to throw the word gaslighting. I know. As like, you know, it's sort of this like pop psychology term, but I think like when you really have gone through, like, gaslighting to my mind is someone is

systematically making you doubt your perception of reality, and it's extremely disorienting, and it's sort of its own whole thing to recover from. Certainly for me, given that my sister is in my whole life growing up and is in my earliest memories, and it was a huge part of my childhood. I mean, very close in age, she's my only sibling. It really breaks your brain for a while.

Right, and now you're estranged. You guys haven't talked in over a decade? Yeah, this is now 14 years that this has been in my life, and I've really gone through different stages of processing it. And then it was like very clear that that this, okay, this is permanent. And then I sort of started to think about it as a death. I started to think about it as there was a person that I grew up with, that I love, that I had these experiences with, and she died. I came to a new understanding of it,

which is that that person that I thought I knew was probably never there, and that it was always a mask. And that the parts of her that I experienced as being loving and being connected were just a person, like, experienced as being loving and being connected, were just a person like mimicking those behaviors. And that was a really painful revelation. It was much easier to think of her as a person

that I loved and was there and died. But I think it was a really necessary one. So then there's the question of like, what do you do with all those memories? And the way that I frame it, and when I see other people struggling with this, what I hope people can come to eventually is a place that I think I finally arrived at after a lot of work, which is my experiences were still real. Like, I loved my sister.

I had fun with her growing up. I had a happy childhood with her. You know, those memories loved my sister. I had fun with her growing up. I had a happy childhood with her. You know, those memories are my memories. And at the end of the day, it was real. It was real for me. So I get to keep them. Yeah. Like, I'm a twin. And so, you know, my relationship with my sister, next to having my own children, that's the most important relationship in my life always will be like, I entered the world with her.

I did every fundamental first with her. I could imagine losing my sister or not being able to share in critical moments. It's a profound loss, that relationship with a sister. It is, and I think like, I'm sure that you get so many emails and messages from people listening to the betrayal shows that like relate with that experience and see themselves in that.

And I think there can be such, there's healing in making that content, there's healing in listening to it. Listening to the betrayal shows has helped me. Yeah, again, it's the complexity of the human experience. That's kind of like our driving force at Glass Podcast and what we do with Betrayal. You guys have that in your DNA too. Like I've heard it and it's been evident

in every season that you guys have done. Well, I really appreciate that. It means a lot coming from you and I similarly really respect what you guys do over there at Glass. And I think I know how much this can mean to people as listeners. And navigating the pitfalls of how exploitative true crime can be is a huge job.

I know y'all take it seriously, because I know you're behind the scenes process. And I hope that we together can set a new standard in this industry, because I think it really needs to happen. Yeah, I was giving I Heart credit. I gotta give Hulu and ABC so much credit. I mean, this is like a big platform, and some of these stories are really hard to tell.

And at a time where people like, afraid to go there, I'm, like, really impressed. I mean, season three is tough, but they saw a landscape. I mean, this past year, the Menendez brothers were all over the place. SHANNON. I was thinking about that when you were saying you guys were tackling this. I was like, this is a really good time, because we did, like,

a little thing on our Patreon about that case, because I was like, oh, this just feels so germane to like, especially talking about, you know, because obviously the Gypsy Rose Blanchard case, there's a lot of parallels there, right? Where you have someone who's an abuse victim who commits a crime and like, how do you talk about that? How do you think about that?

And I think just the, we were talking about how the discomfort around male sexual abuse in particular weighed so heavily on that court case. Absolutely. And for them to see that people are actually open to hearing about that and discussing that and just really sitting with that and taking Tyler and Stacey's story

and pursuing that for the Hulu documentary is really exciting because it's only going to help dismantle the stigma around this issue. And I'm really proud to work with partners like that. I truly am. Yeah, that's incredible. I'm so glad that they're supporting it, something that is very special about podcasting. Like podcasting feels like a medium where you can take a lot of risks.

Yeah. Someone has to go first. So I think like having a proof of concept with the podcast, like that certainly helps TV folks make good decisions of like, okay, there's an audience for this, so maybe it is worth taking a little bit more of a risk. It's a safer landing. Yeah, exactly, exactly. It's all it all works together.

So your book that just came out, this is your first intro to nonfiction, right? Or did I have that wrong? No, this, yep, this is my first nonfiction book of other four-hour novels. And it's very funny because people are always like, with the book or with the show, they're like, oh my God, I love your show.

I mean, not because like, you know, I know it's like, they're trying to they're like, oh my God, I love your show. I mean, not because like, you know, I know it's like it's like they're trying to tell me like, oh, not because I love child abuse. I'm like, no, I know, I understand what you're saying. And it's like, right, of course, like, I want people to be engaged with the storytelling. I want them to connect to that. They're not going to care about it unless they are connecting to the story and unless they are staying engaged with the story.

Right. And like, obviously obviously we take it really seriously. Obviously we do the utmost to tell things ethically, but like, you also have to have a good story. Yeah, for sure. Um, well, this was amazing. We just got like straight in the deep end, which I love. I could talk to you for hours. Thank you so much to Andrea Gunning for doing this episode with me and to her and the entire betrayal team for having me on the show and for their help

producing and editing this episode. If you are not tuned into betrayal yet, you've got to check them out. There are three full seasons of betrayal that you can binge right now, as well as more than 30 episodes of Betrayal Weekly. I cannot recommend it enough.