Betrayal - S2: E6 - Collections

Episode Date: June 22, 2023

A mom in Texas flees her home with her two small children and searches for safety upon discovering her husband’s collection of child sexual abuse material. The path to starting over is riddled with obstacles and doubters about her decision.  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.

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Start your comeback at Purdue Global.edu. He denied it. He was like, I'm not going to get in trouble for anything. And then, I mean, at one point, he admitted, yes, there were pictures of kids, but I've checked all the laws on this, and there's nothing wrong with what I'm doing. I'm Andrei Gunning, and this is Patrial Episode 6. Collections As I mentioned in previous episodes, we heard from women all over the country.

It's what made us realize there's a bigger story here. People from all walks of life are in possession of child sexual abuse material, also known as C. Sam. There's no economic difference or profession that separates deviant behavior as humans. For families that are stung by betrayal, the shock manifests in different ways. We heard from Aaron, whose story has a lot in common with Ashley's, but it's also very different. You've heard about fight, flight, or freeze. This brave lady took it to another level. In my marriage and family therapist,

my dad was military and my oldest brother was also military. My mom had a real heart for the families that were left behind during deployments, and I think that really inspired me to become a marriage and family therapist, someone who could understand that helping out first responders and military is impacting their lifestyle. During the height of going to Afghanistan and going over to the Middle East, deployments

were happening a lot more quickly. So you have these guys out there. And rather than doing your time and then coming home, you were rotating out like every six months. So this trauma was never really ending. Erin's mother is now deceased, but her influence remains. Erin is comfortable around military culture and its people. Through her family, she met a soldier. Joel would come home from deployments and hang out at my brother's house where we became

friends. And I had recently gone through a breakup and my brother said, you have shit-tasted men. You really should date someone more like Joel because he was a soldier, he was in the military, so there were things that we thought were like inherent guarantees. You know, like he wouldn't be on drugs, he would be background checked. You know, certain things that you figure, you probably have the same value system and we grew up in the same community. That friendship grew

into a relationship and then into a marriage. Aaron was happy. He eventually had two kids, a little boy and girl. 90% of the time I would say it fit the mold of my perfect relationship. He was supportive and loving and we had a symmetrical relationship where we could easily interchange parts. You know, I'd mow the lawn, he'd mow the lawn. I'd change a diaper, he'd change a diaper. Like, either of us could take over some task and knock it out and get it done. Erin's husband had the highest military clearance. She understood that she'd never

know everything he faced. Joel worked in explosive ordinance disposal. His job was to make sure that there were no bombs in certain areas or if there were bombs to send in a person or a robot to disarm that bomb, also to pick up any debris, and sometimes that was bodies. You wouldn't leave a body behind, so you'd have to pick it up, bag it, and take it out. She knew his job had unique stressors, so she made some allowances for bad behavior. When the family relocated to a small town in Texas, it took a toll on her. She felt disconnected from people and sense that her husband was becoming more distant as

well. When I noticed that our marriage was declining, I thought it was because I was having a hard time adjusting to this new area. You know, everything was different. It was further away from my family. I felt more and more isolated from them. My mom had died just before we got married. And we had really good communication. But when Jameson got involved, that's when we would fight.

Jameson was Joel's whiskey of choice. When he was really under the influence of alcohol, I felt like I couldn't reach him, I couldn't talk to him. He would kick in the door or I would ask for space, I would say, let's come back to this in an hour and let ourselves cool off and then we can talk about this again. He would pick the lock to the bedroom. She's a therapist, so she did the natural thing. Asked for help, not just for herself, but also for her husband. But the therapist was discouraging. He said, I honestly think you should just not bring that up because he could lose his

job or he could lose his weapon. And so I would just sort of keep that to yourself. Erin thought about other areas where her marriage was struggling. Their sex life was one of them. I did feel like it was very automatic and it was very one-sided. So like when you have one of those Xbox controllers and you're like, up, down, up, down, X, Y, okay, it's done.

Like, I just, like mortal combat, you know? Like I know exactly what to do. I know exactly what you like and it didn't matter what I liked, but maybe this is a part of marriage is, it gets routine after a while. She wondered if there was something else going on. One night he had gone out with a friend and I had the inclination to snoop on his phone.

I feel like an angel or a guardian angel just was nudging me like, hey, something's off here. Go look through his phone, go do something. So I looked through his phone and I pulled up a picture in his search history. It was a girl in a jazz outfit. It looked like a Facebook page almost. She was maybe about six years old. She was not naked. It wasn't anything glued. It was like your wallet size photos that you would order from whatever.

And she looked really sad. But the comments underneath the picture are what really bothered me. This is our little Jenny with like the devil emoji, like a smiling devil emoji or whatever. And I thought, this is weird. So I confronted him about that and he said, I don't even know what that is. I don't know what you're talking about. Maybe I clicked on something, you know, whatever it's accidental.

Erin wasn't buying Joel's story. It just didn't feel right to me. I knew he had a history with porn, which I didn't necessarily mind. But this wasn't pornography. These were disturbing comments around a little girl's photo in her husband's search history. He gaslit me and I didn't accept it, but I didn't think it was to the point where it was

something reportable, because I don't know this girl. I don't know how he got to this page. Now they were a critical mass, and Aaron knew he needed help. I got him a therapist that was experienced in the military. He was actually a retired military person and we paid cash so there would be no record of him going to therapy, and I just tried to make it as easy as possible for him to go,

but he wasn't getting better. His behavior was growing more concerning. We got into a fight in May. It was a silly fight. Like, he had been snoring all night night so I went and slept on the couch so I could just finally get some sleep. And he woke me up in the morning because he wanted to have sex and I was just so delirious and cranky. I was like, get away from me. I finally fell asleep. Don't touch me. So he got upset and he was in a really grouchy

pouty mood because I had rejected him. I started making breakfast for him and the kids. My daughter was one, my son was three. The tension escalated. Joel said something ugly and Aaron responded in kind. I walked away, he threw a sippy cup at my back, which doesn't sound like a big deal, but it really hurt. Like, he really threw that cup at me hard

and it hit me in the shoulder. So I went in the bathroom and I cried for a while. I ended up leaving. I just got in my car and went for a drive and sat by the side of the road and cried and thought for a while. Hi, my name is Cooper and I'm a mini golden doodle from Crocodoodles. And one bit late, the cover.

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or by your time looking for just the right family member, we're worth the wait. We're all raised by reputable, responsible breeders and can be delivered anywhere in the United States. We're even certified by the Better Business Bureau and have over 500 positive reviews. But if you don't believe me, Jess asked Bentley. He's British, so he knows what he's talking about. Cooper is quite right, are we coming all different breeds and sizes in personalities?

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These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. She needed more support but she didn't know where to turn. I was kind of afraid to tell my family what was going on because already they often had his back on things and I had this reputation for being the dramatic baby sister. So I just kind of sat there and thought like, what am I going to do with this? You know, maybe I can talk to him and get him to agree like he shouldn't be violent with me or whatever the case may be. But I was getting really, really

anxious in having an increase in panic attacks by this point because his behavior was getting more and more unpredictable like that. I ended up coming back to the house because my son had a soccer game and so there we go, just being normal. Couple again, we get in the car, we go to the soccer game and we watch it. Then when we came back to the house, I think he was trying to punish me, so he took off for a while and left me with the kids. And I figured okay, whatever, let him cool off and I'll see him later. That's when that little nudge came at me again. So she followed her gut.

I decided to look at his computer. There was no search history. There was nothing. It was completely clean. I went into his recently deleted files and that's where there was just a clathura of pictures. The titles of these things were pretty indicative of there being young women on there like little Miss Country USA. All different ages, all different looks. It's not like he had one kink or one fetish. 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. files, and then I shed it all down and I put it all back. I called his brother who was a cop in Colorado and works with cases, specifically like this. She was far away from friends and family. I'm in Texas, and my family is in California, so I was completely frozen in fear not knowing

what to do when he said, do you think you can get the laptop and take it with you? Hell no! I don't even know if I can take me and take it with me. Like, there was no way I was gonna go back into that lion's den and let him know that I was on to him. But she knew now. She knew what he was doing. He had a large stash of photos. She had to get herself and her young kids out of there. He had a weapon and he was a soldier. Now she feared him.

He was probably gone for a couple of hours. So when he came home and I am just soaked with tears, he thought it was because of our fight that morning. He said, you know, I'm really sorry. I hope you can forgive me. Let's just move past this. And so I played along. I said, yeah, you know what? It really hurt, but I'll get over it. I just want to go through the kids' clothes because their dressers are overflowing.

And I'm going to take some of these clothes over to the donation bin. So we're fine, it's fine. We actually hugged, which was so cringy. But I was just trying to get out of there safely. The donating clothes of the ruse, she was packing clothes for the kids just enough for a few days. Aaron offered to take the kids on a play date so he could take a nap. I packed the bag and I just got in the car for a few days. Aaron offered to take the kids on a play date so he could take a nap.

I packed the bag and I just got in the car and I went straight to the airport. It's a very small airport, so it's like one man friends, the whole thing. And I think he could tell to look on my face because he said it's gonna cost you like $1,700 to fly out tomorrow on the next flight. And I said, I don't care.

Let's do it, let's go. Aaron took the kids to a hotel near the airport and stayed the night. When he called asking when they'd be home, I just told him like, oh, I met one of my friends house, the kids are watching a movie, you know, we'll be home later. Oh, the kids fell asleep.

I'm just gonna let them spend the night here. And we'll be home in the morning. And I think he was content with that because then he could just continue to drink and play video games and kind of do his own thing. So he wasn't really alerted. He found out that we were gone when I landed in Dallas. And I got to California, that's when I told him, you know, I know what's on your computer, I know what's going on, I know that this isn't going away and I'm not coming home until I get some answers on what's going on. Aaron returned to her hometown for two older brothers and her father lived and Joel's parents were close by two. Now with her family,. Joel's parents were close by, too.

Now with her family, she wouldn't have to face this alone. I went straight to my brother because he was the closest to me at that time. We were the closest in age, and so I went to his house. I called all the family over, and I said, this is what I found. This is what's going on, and I don't know how to handle this situation and I need help. My dad was like, let's think about this because if he goes to jail or something, you're gonna lose all of your military benefits. Like I give a fuck.

Another question, they ask, well, how old are these girls? It doesn't fucking matter! Another one of her family members counseled her with words like, love the sinner, hate the sin. And I realized there seems to be a kind of ignorance or impediment. There are people who just can't understand that viewing this material is a gregous criminal behavior. It reminded me of what John Huber said a few episodes back.

We were getting some pushback from federal judges of why are you bringing these cases, people looking at pictures. You know, what's the big deal? We thought that was a misunderstanding and that we need to communicate better to the judges what we're talking about. But Erin understood perfectly. If they had been 17 or 16, it's still not consensual. These kids are still affected for the rest of their life. They didn't put their pictures up there. Somebody's abusing them so like, what were you going to say?

That it's OK. Even with the pain, Erin was able to think about the long-term consequences of reconnecting with him. If I covered for him, or if I didn't bring this up, if I didn't tell anyone, but I knew that this had happened, I would never feel okay with my kids having a slumber party. They could never have a birthday party at our house. How could I be sure that he would perpetrate online, but not perpetrate people in real life?

You know, how was I to know that it wouldn't snowball into that? Like, I would have to constantly be on guard. I would have to take them to every grocery trip. It's impossible. And that's not a life for kids to have to live. So that wasn't reasonable. She wasn't getting the family support she had hoped for, but she did find someone who listened.

I saw my therapist from when I was 15 years old. I got ahold of her and she's a really great therapist and she made time to see me for just a few minutes. She said, so what are you doing back in California? And I just balled and broke down and told her, she said, if you don't report this, I'm going to report this. And I was like, oh fuck, it's go time. She called the office where Joel worked and reported it.

His colleague asked questions. One of them was, how old were the girls in the photos? Like, maybe I don't have to report it if their birthday's coming up, you know, like, no, it's a big deal. And he really kind of acted like maybe we'd gotten in a fight. I was being a vindictive wife, like I'm just throwing these accusations out there.

It's hard to stomach the reaction from Joel's co-worker. It's another version of, are you just being dramatic? This was difficult. This was a loss for Erin. Initially, I felt like, yes, I'm doing the right thing, but I feel like someone just cut off my right arm. I just betrayed my husband and I don't know what's going on." She held onto a little bit of hope that there was a reason Joel had done this.

Maybe it's a part of a secret mission she couldn't know about. What if there's some miraculous thing like there's a reasonable explanation for this and I just completely betrayed my best friend, you know, and now I'm shoving him out the door, I'm pushing him off the cliff. It just felt awful. I felt gaslit for a lot of years thinking, not did I do the right thing, I know I did the right thing, but I just felt gaslit because no one else could understand that. And I felt really alone and miserable, to be honest. Aaron wasn't finding any evidence of a reasonable explanation.

She was finding more suspicious activity. I found charges on his credit card to like weird websites. I was like, oh my god god this is not good he's been doing this for a while. He took some of the money and started paying off those credit cards or recording them stolen to kind of like start covering his tracks and I was like okay now I know this is bad because your reaction. Erin's called the military made its way to the office of special investigations, the OSI. And then OSI faced time to me and asked me again what I had seen and what I had heard.

And they said, okay, well, we are going to take care of this. We're not going to scare him or anything. We're not going to hurt him or anything. Erin was upset, heartbroken, and angry. But she still didn't want Joel to be injured. And then what actually happened the next day was that they decided because we didn't technically live on base, they passed it over to the local police department and the local police department decided that because he had all of this top-secret security clearance because he had experience working with bombs that he was a high threat.

And the local police weren't taking any chances. They went into the house with flashbangs knocking down the door. The detective told me he was sitting at the couch with his hard drives trying to erase everything, trying to get rid of all of this evidence. So they went in there and they arrested him and they took all the electronics. I'm really glad we weren't there for that. Hi, my name is Cooper and I'm a mini golden doodle from Crocodoodles.

And I'm a Bentley, the Cavalry. Now I know what you're thinking, talking dogs? Well, hold on to your tails because it gets better than that. I mean, not better, like, more impressive than a talking dog, exactly. But if you apply now at Crocodoodles.com, you could adopt me or any other breed we offer with just a few easy steps. Whether you find a match immediately or by your time looking for just the right family member,

we're worth the wait. We're all raised by reputable, responsible breeders and could be delivered anywhere in the United States. We're even certified by the Better Business Bureau and have over 500 positive reviews. But if you don't believe me, just ask Bentley. He's British so he knows what he's talking about. Cooper is quite right. Are we coming all different breeds and sizes in first-generation? Plus we have a three-year health guarantee. So, check us out at Crocododles.com and apply for the perfect addition to your family now.

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or prevent any disease. Joel was arrested and made bail soon after, and he was determined to see his wife and kids. I think he was trying to be nice to me, hoping that I would reneg or whatever, like pull back on all of this stuff. And I said, we're not going home until I fully understand what happened here, what's going on. Like, you can't have any secrets from me.

So until you're ready to just still your guts, we are not going back there at all. She fled Texas with just her children. She'd left everything. Her job, her clothes, the kid's toys. He did come out at one time after I left to bring me some of my stuff and the kids' stuff. His visit to California went downhill quickly.

Joel returned to work in Texas. He went back to work and the military decided that because he wasn't convicted, he wasn't found guilty yet, that they would just put him in a different position. That's what they call like pencil whipped, you know, basically like you're going to do paperwork over here for a while until this settles down. Aaron says that Joel wasn't contrite about downloading the images he had collected. He denied it. He was like, I'm not going to get in trouble for anything. And then, I mean, at one point he admitted, yes, you know, there were pictures of kids, but it's art. It's considered art. I'll never forget that. He was saying like, I've checked all the laws on this and I know exactly what is considered art and what is considered pornography and there's nothing wrong with what I'm doing. And I said,

there is though because those kids are not even old enough to consent to having their pictures taken. These kids are being abused and you are facilitating that. You're endorsing that. I don't care what your excuses and I pretty much didn't even bother to debate it with him anymore, I was just so done. Aaron didn't return to Texas. Instead, she stayed in California with the kids.

But she couldn't practice as a therapist there, because she wasn't licensed. She had to walk away from an entire book of business. And I had left a whole client base. I had clients waiting to have their therapy session. And I had to be like, there was this huge family emergency. I had to leave. I'm so sorry. The family support that she was hoping for,

never materialized. My brother said that his home isn't a place for children. So we couldn't stay with him. My dad's house has a lot of like, nicknacks everywhere. And he would have let us stay with him, but it was just kind of stressful with toddlers that want to touch everything.

So we were now homeless. We stayed in a trailer in his backyard for a while just so we could kind of have our own space. Her father helped her pick up the kids from school. There were times her family pitched in, and she was grateful for those moments. But they felt like favors, like she owed something. Even though none of this was her fault, she still felt like she should have been repaired or seen it coming.

It was these moments when she ached for her mother. While trying to survive in California, Aaron kept tabs on Joel and the case. He had to stay in Texas and keep working, and he was three for the next three years. So for three years, I had to live with this reputation of maybe Aaron's lying, maybe Aaron's vindictive, maybe he did something to her to make her make up all these lies. Yes, it took nearly three years before the case went to court,

and it turned out Joel wasn't an art collector after all. He pled guilty to 25 felony charges of child pornography. He was sentenced to eight years and he only did three. He served his prison sentence in Texas, but once he got out, he ended up moving back to California as well. He got out last summer, August of 2022, and moved in with his parents a mile away from me. And my anxiety just came right back. I was not on antidepressants. I was not on anxiety medication, but when that ingredient is dropped back into my life,

it just threw me away out of whack again. And as I understood his parents to be excited about his release, I was writing letters to the prison every year, saying, please don't let him out. Please don't let about. If he does come out, he's going to want to come to California, at least keep him in Texas. Don't let him near us.

We're not the victims. We're not the people in the photos, but we are the victims. We've been hurt by this too. And if you let him out, he's going to come for my children, our children. And like many parents in her position, she wonders how do you know what is safe? How do you measure rehabilitation? When his parents were all excited and they were like, Aaron, he's gone to church in prison How do you measure rehabilitation? church workout. You know, like this is not rocket science to me. So while they're very deeply ingrained in their religion, and I'm sure they had a lot of faith in that, and they wanted to believe that that would be enough, I said, show me one scholarly article that says that

he could be fully recovered. Show me one. And nobody ever would. Nobody ever gave me any guidance. Not even in school, not even in therapy. Like no guidance on how does someone lay this down and what's the rate of recidivism on this kind of thing. But you found other parents to help fill the gap. She couldn't afford to live on her own. It was for us to look for alternatives. I've had a few really good roommates that totally understand their single parents.

They've all been single parents. And we just get it done. Somebody with their pants at school, okay, I'll go over there. I'm off work. I can go pick them up. Somebody's sick. Okay, well, I can take the day off. I'm working from home while keeping an eye on it. Whatever we needed, we were all

there for each other. Then we still are. We still have really good relationships with each other, but she can't shake the deep disappointment she feels for her own family. Even when I was in between places, I asked my other brother if I could come stay at his house until my apartment was ready and he charged me rent It was just really really hurt all the work you're using I get feel myself getting choked up. I don't know if I ever did something to lose people's trust or Where I got this reputation put on me. I mean my

brothers were older, they were moved out, so it's not like they saw me grow up. I've never been arrested, I've never done anything like wildly wrong or hurtful to other people in my life. So I don't know why they don't trust me, I don't know why they don't trust me. I don't know why they don't believe me and I have really really good kids. They're polite. They can make their own breakfast. They can assert their own rights. They can stand up for other people like everybody raves about what great kids they are and yet I still feel like I'm not getting credit for having raised them on my own. You know when I lost a contract in 2019,

at the same time Joel stopped paying child support completely, I went on welfare and I didn't know how to navigate that system. I know that's a really privileged thing to say but No one in my family had been on welfare before us So I didn't even know where to start and I cried in the office. I said I have a master's degree. How am I here? How am I in this spot and what do I do? So I continued to create So I continued to create my own private practice because I stopped trusting other people to

pay me what they said they would pay me. And I just pushed on living off of people's co-pays because I didn't know how to bill insurance at the time either. So I was doing therapy for an hour for $10 a session, $15 a session, you know, like whatever, as long as I could just kind of keep generating income, I couldn't afford groceries. So when I told my dad and my brothers, it's hard to even buy groceries. They didn't do shit. The church gave me a gift card for groceries.

My village was there for me. My friends were there for me. My friends were there for me. I don't know how we had the same parents and they turned out so differently, but I would have been right there for any of them. I would have brought them in. I would have brought their kids in no matter what. Sleep on my couch, sleep on my floor, sleep on my bed. I'll sleep somewhere else. I don't think that these are big concessions to make for family. Erin is working to have Joel removed

as a custodial parent permanently. It's a long and difficult core battle. The kids were very young when this happened and she wants them to continue on the successful trajectory that they're on. The case is ongoing, but there was one way she thought they could all make a fresh start together. I said to my kid, do you want us to keep the same last name so we all match?

Or do you want to change last names? Do you want to separate yourself from what's going on in this side of the family? Because we have the opportunity to do that now, or it's up to you to do later on in life. And my son, who's 10, he suggested that we change our last name to ramen because he likes ramen. Such a kid idea, you know. But all kidding aside, they all agreed on a new last name, but we're keeping that private because Aaron has worked hard for a fresh start. new last name. But we're keeping that private because Aaron has worked hard for a fresh start. It makes me feel like we don't belong to men anymore. We're not doing this misogyny of women don't know what's best for themselves or they don't know what's going on. You know,

we're not doing that. We're not doing the maiden name and we're not doing the married last name either because you can easily Google that and then you're associated. Now we have family pictures of just the three of us. We feel like a solid family. On the next episode of the trial, he is a threat, a danger to everyone around him, a child walking to or from school, a child at a grocery store or even a gas station. That thought haunts me to my very core every moment of my life now.

I have seen the devastation his actions have caused. If you would like to reach out to the betrayal team, email us at patrialpod.com. That's patrialpod.com. To report a case of child sexual exploitation, call the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's Cyber Tip Line 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 United Kingdom, go to StopItNow.org.uk. These organizations can help.

We're grateful for your support. One way to show support is by subscribing to our show on Apple Podcasts. 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 IHART Podcasts. The show was executive produced by Nancy Glass and Jennifer Fason, hosted and produced by

me, Andreye Gunning, Written and Produced by Kerry Hartman, also produced by Ben Federman, an associate producer, Kristen Melcuri. Our I Heart team is Allie Perry and Jessica Crinecheck, special thanks to our talent Ashley Litten, a production assistant test shields. Thank you to Erin for sharing her story on this episode. Audio editing and mixing by Matt Albeckio, Trails theme composed by Oliver Baines, Music Library provided by Mike Music, and for more podcasts from I Heart, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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