Betrayal - S2: Bonus Ep 4 – From the Depths of Hell All the Way to Heaven

Episode Date: December 20, 2023

The Betrayal team checks in with Erin for an update on her family, her therapy practice, and how she is doing after a recent big life change.   If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal Team, email us at [e-mail].   To report a case of child sexual exploitation, call The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's CyberTipline at 1-800-THE-LOST  If you or someone you know is worried about their sexual thoughts and feelings towards children, reach out to stopitnow.org  In the UK reach out to stopitnow.org.uk See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hillary Burton Morgan here, and I'm excited to tell you about a new series I'm launching. It is the companion podcast to Sundance TV's True Crime Story. It couldn't happen here. Now on the TV show, we focus on small towns and the crimes that can rip them apart, and on this podcast, we will go even deeper into our cases and give you a unique insider perspective on how these stories are told. Come join us as we get curious and get involved. Listen to True Crime Story.

It couldn't happen here on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Tune in to the new podcast, Stories from the Village of Nothing Much. Like Easy Listening, but for fiction. If you've overdosed on bad news, we invite you into a world where the glimmers of goodness in everyday life are all around you.

I'm Catherine Nicolai, and I'm an architect of COSI. Come spend some time where everyone is welcome and the default is kindness. Listen, relax, enjoy. Listen to stories from the village of nothing much. On the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Walter Isaacson set out to write about a world-changing genius in Elon Musk and found a man addicted to chaos and conspiracy. I'm thinking it's idiotic to buy Twitter because he doesn't have a fingertip feel for social, emotional, networks.

The book launched a thousand hot takes, so I sat down with Isaacson to try to get past the noise. I like the fact that people who say I'm not as tough on musk as I should be are always using anecdotes from my book to show why we should be tough on musk. Join me, Evan Ratliffe, for On Musk with Walter Isaacson. Listen on the iHeart Radio app Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Andrea Gunning and this is Betrile Bonus Episode 4. Update on Aaron.

Before the bonus starts, I want to tell you that more stories of Betrayal will be coming in 2024. So we want to hear your stories. And although we've talked about marriages and parent relationships, we are open to any Betrayal that has changed your life in a meaningful way. If you're open and want to share your story of Betrayal, email me at patrialpod.com. That's patrialpod.com. And of course, if you want to write in and just

share privately, this email account can continue to be a safe space for you to. Okay, so onto an important update on Erin, one of the women you got to know last season. We received so many wonderful emails expressing support and concern about her. Let me give you a quick recap of her story. Erin is a family therapist. She was married to Joel and they lived with her two kids in Texas. Joel was an explosive specialist for the military.

Erin knew her husband was struggling. Her marriage was in trouble. And after a fight, Erin's intuition kicked in. I decided to look at his computer and I went into his recently deleted files and that's where there was just a plethora of pictures. Like little Miss Country USA, all different ages, all different looks. It was so many people he had collected. I clicked on one and it was this little girl who I'd never seen before. Don't recognize it all. Standing naked on a beach. She had a look on her face like this is

not me being cute and playing on the beach. No, it was inappropriate. So I actually took a picture of her from the face up because I just needed to prove to myself that I wasn't crazy and then I took a picture of the names of the files and then I shed it all down and I put it all back. What Erin found was the tip of the iceberg. She took her two small young children and fled. She drove to the airport and flew back to her hometown in California, seeking solace and family support. Her mother was deceased and her two brothers and father did not offer the safe haven she

was seeking. After almost three years, her husband was prosecuted. He pled guilty to 25 felony charges of child pornography. He was sentenced to eight years, and he only did three. One piece of Aaron's story that really affected our listeners was how difficult it was to start over. She lost her livelihood and her husband's income. At one point, Erin applied for welfare.

Then there was her family. Although there were many family members who helped and supported her, her nuclear family did not seem to find Joel's crimes as troubling and serious as she did. We heard from so many of you, mothers, a former prosecutor, other victims, all rooting for Aaron, and even listeners who wanted to center financial support. Aaron read all of it. I was blown away. I've up believing with kind of a low self-esteem and second guessing my every move. And so I really think that motivated me to go, you know what? I'm really doing my best here.

And so it was really miraculous. And I can't tell you how healing this podcast was for me. One thing that really gets me is when people wrote to me and they said, I wish I had a mom like you. My mom was great. My mom was amazing. She had cancer for 26 years and she never dropped a ball. I mean, she was really, really fantastic. And I always wished that everyone had a mother like her. It's an honor to her also that I'm making good choices and that I'm looking out for my

kids and that I keep them number one. Once Aaron's ex-husband Joel was released from prison in Texas, he moved in with his parents. It was only about a mile from where Aaron and her children were living. When he got out, I got the restraining order and he got awarded visitation with the kids in a supervised facility. Aaron managed to avoid those visits while other parental litigation was still pending. Then the lawyer called me and said he just got arrested again. And when we looked it up online, it did mention possession of child pornography. And I still don't know the details of all of that, but it sounds as though he may have had his first parole check. The first time in a year and they found some things on his phone like social media,

which we've learned is a common way that people share CS Sam material. Hillary Burton Morgan here and I am excited to share with you in new series. I'm launching a companion podcast to my passion project Sundance TV's true crime story, it couldn't happen here. Now, on the show, we focus on small towns and the crimes that can rip them apart. The cases we've covered have confused me and they have made me deeply question our judicial system. What got me so excited about doing this podcast is that we have more time to really dig in.

So you're gonna hear more information on these cases about doing this podcast is that we have more time to really dig in. So you're going to hear more information on these cases as well as never before heard interviews, and you'll get to go behind the scenes with me and the team and learn what it's like to make a show like this. Come join us as we get curious and get involved. Listen to True Crime Story. It couldn't happen here on the iHeart Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Tune in to the new podcast, Stories from the Village of Nothing Much. Like easy listening, but perfection. If you've overdosed on bad news, we invite you into a world where the glimmers of goodness in everyday life are all around you. I'm Catherine Nicolai, and you might know me from the bedtime story

podcast, nothing much happens. I'm an architect of cozy, and I invite you to come spend some time where everyone is welcome and kindness is the default. When you tune in, you'll hear stories about bakeries in the walks in the woods. A favorite booth at the diner and a blustery autumn day. Cats and dogs and rescued goats and donkeys. Old houses, bookshops, beaches were kites flying, and pretty stones are found. I have so many stories to tell you, and they are all designed to help you feel good and feel connected to what is good in the world. Listen, relax, enjoy.

Listen to stories from the village of Nothing Much on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When Walter Isaacson set out to write his biography of Elon Musk, he believed he was taking on a world-changing figure. That night he was deciding whether or not to allow Starlink to be enabled to allow a sneak attack on Crimea. What he got was a subject who also sowed chaos and conspiracy. I'm thinking it's idiotic to buy Twitter because he doesn't have a fingertip feel for social emotional networks.

When I sat down with Isaacs in five weeks ago, he told me how he captured it all. They had Kansas spray paint and they're just putting big axes on machines and it's almost like kids playing on the playground. Just choose them up left, right, and center. And then like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, he doesn't even remember it getting the bars, done an excuse being a total f***. But I want the reader to see it in action.

My name is Evan Ratliffe and this is on Musk with Walter Isaacson. Join us in this four-part series as Isaacson breaks down how he captured a vivid portrait of a polarizing genius. Listen to On Musk on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Joel LaVelle Callahan was a reigned on September 26, 2023, in the Superior Court of Fresno and assigned a public defender. He denied the public defender so that he could hire a private, criminal law attorney. He has a private family law attorney, which has bought him quite a bit of time out in the free world. Aaron has kept moving forward and stayed focused on building a healthy life with her two kids. She's a licensed therapist in California.

My private practice is what I would consider very successful, and very comfortable, and able to give my children the life that I want without needing child support for relying on that. Aaron moved her family a few hours away to a beach community for a fresh start. That is just like going from the depths of hell all the way to heaven. I've already seen so much healing happening in myself, which I think trickles down to them as well. They love where we

live. They said it's like being on vacation every day. We have a lot more crashgrowngrown local produce here, so another part of our healing was having better nutrition. So we're working on diets, we're working on mental health. We like to go to the park a lot, we feel safer. Aaron lived in fear for a long time. At one point, she felt she needed to be armed. A year ago, I was walking around with a gun strap to my person. I had my concealed carry weapons permit and I didn't even want to leave to go to the office without that.

And out here, also, we live in a very safe area that I feel like we can sleep with the windows open and hear the ocean outside. Her son has become a top runner in his school. Her daughter just won an award for writing. They're thriving. Still heartbreak sneaks up every once in a while, especially around the holidays. Thanksgiving just passed by. My brother hosted Joel and his family for Thanksgiving, whereas we were in a town with no familiar faces and no one familiar to celebrate that with. And that's just like, you just continue

to keep stabbing me in the heart. Aaron does not want Joel to have rights to the kids at all. Her fighting court is for him to be removed as a parent. I'm prepared to fire on all cylinders, but I hope for my sanity that I don't have to keep proving why he shouldn't have visitations more than he's trying to prove why he should. I genuinely think I'm probably still doing more to help Joel than anybody else is, you know, how much of a privilege is it to say I've got our kids I will take great care of them

Well, you take the time to figure your life out or clean your life up or whatever you got to do. I can't make our kids Not love him. I can't make them Disown him or anything like that And so if they want to have a relationship with him when they get older or they have questions about their health or whatever, that is still on the table. And so all I'm trying to do is keep them out of that equation so that they're not affected and give them a nice, comfortable life so that they don't have to endure everything that he's putting them through. I'm trying to give him and my children both the space

that they need to get healthy. And myself as well. I mean, I've been severely damaged with trust and trauma through a lot of this. And so we need to be able to untether in order to show up for one another. How do you measure recovery for someone who consumes CSAM? Do services provided in prison cure the addiction?

It's something we talked about during the series, and there isn't a clear answer. His whole case was precipitating on the fact that they thought he was reformed and clearly he's not reformed and I think it's a lot of people who don't work in mental health that don't know what is required to treat addiction or treat this type of abusive behavior. Maybe they do think church is enough. Maybe they do think that court consequences are enough. But I know through direct experience having work with people with similar attributes that that is not enough. You need a lot more accountability, a lot more hand holding out of that. Because you know, he didn't become addicted to things in a day. He's not going to recover in a day. So I just wish that there was more mental health woven into that equation so that they could look at it from that perspective, but I am not convinced and his re-offence just supported what my feeling was this whole time.

It was really good to find out how Aaron has been doing since betrayal season two for Stroped. We'll be back soon with an update on Ashley Litten. You can always reach out to our team at PetrilePod at gmail.com, that's Petrile, P-O-D at gmail.com. Thank you for listening. Petrile is a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group

and partnership with IHAR Podcasts. The show was executive produced by Nancy Glass and Jennifer Fason, hosted and produced by me, Andrea Gunning, Written and produced by Carrie Hartman, also produced by Ben Fetterman, Associate Producer, Kristen Melcuri, our IHAR teams, Allie Perry and Jessica Crincheck,

audio editing and mixing by Matt Albeckio, a trails theme composed by Oliver Baines, music library provided by my music, and for more podcasts from I Heart, visit the I Heart Radio app Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Hillary Burton Morgan here, and I'm excited to tell you about a new series I'm launching. It is the companion podcast to Sundance TV's True Crime Story. It couldn't happen here.

Now, on the TV show, we focus on small towns and the crimes that can rip them apart, and on this podcast, we will go even deeper into our cases and give you a unique insider perspective on how these stories are told. Come join us as we get curious and get involved. Listen to True Crime Story. It couldn't happen here on the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Tune in to the new podcast Stories from the Village of Nothing Much. Like easy listening but for fiction.

If you've overdosed on bad news, we invite you into a world where the glimmers of goodness in everyday life are all around you. I'm Catherine Nicolai, and I'm an architect of COSI. Come spend some time where everyone is welcome and the default is kindness. Listen, relax, enjoy. Listen to stories from the village of nothing much.

On the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Walter Isaacson set out to write about a world-changing genius in Elon Musk and found a man addicted to chaos and conspiracy. I'm thinking it's idiotic to buy Twitter because he doesn't have a fingertip feel for social, emotional networks. The book launched a thousand hot takes, so I sat down with Isaacson to try to get past the noise.

I like the fact that people who say I'm not as tough on musk as I should be are always using anecdotes from my book to show why we should be tough on musk. Join me, Evan Ratliffe, for on musk with Walter Isaacson. Listen on the iHeart Radio App Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.