E1 – Stephanie, Part 1

Hi, it's Andrea Gunning, the host of Betrayal, and I'm excited to share episode one of the Betrayal Weekly podcast with you. I'm even more excited to tell you that you can listen to this and new episodes 100% ad free and one week early with an iHeart True Crime Plus subscription, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. So head to Apple Podcasts, search for iHeart True Crime Plus, and subscribe today.

Back in 96, Atlanta was booming with excitement around hosting the Centennial Olympic Games. And then a deranged zealot willing to kill for a cause lit a fuse that would change my life and so many others, forever, rippling out for generations.

Welcome to, In Case You Missed It, with Christina Williams, the podcast that's your go-to source for women's hoops. From buzzer beaters to breaking news, I bring you the highlights, analysis, and expert insights you need to stay ahead of the game.

One of the things that I kept a screenshot of was the one that I thought was the worst. It's a collage. It's almost like a Christmas card. There's some writing on the top and the bottom and then all these different photos.

I'm Andrea Gunning, and this is Betrayal, a show about the people we trust the most and the deceptions that change everything.

We got married in 1998.

Stephanie and her husband, I'm going to call him Greg, lived together in a tiny Midwestern town. It's the kind of town where everybody knows everybody.

It's like a small town that you would see on a movie or a sitcom. I didn't want my husband to go to the grocery store with me. It just would take so long if he went with, because we knew every person at the store. And everyone would have to stop and visit with him.

Their big, blended family was well-known in town. Picture a modern-day Brady Bunch. At least that's the feeling I got from a photo she shared with me. It's Stephanie, her sons, and Greg's kids, all six of them, standing side-by-side on the beach smiling. Their family takes up the whole 3x5 photo across, their arm in arm, having the best beach vacation.

He was the absolute ideal husband.

There's another photo of Stephanie and her husband in front of a waterfall in a forest, with his arms wrapped around her. The sun lights her face, and she looks relaxed and blissful.

He was very kind, very generous, very interested in hearing what I had to say. He very much lifted me up. He made me feel seen, and he made me feel like I was smart and competent.

They had great chemistry. They made great partners, not just in marriage, but in business.

I just ended up working at my husband's optometry practice, because, you know, it was a small practice, just him. He always had three employees, and one quit. And I was kind of in between jobs, so it's like, oh, could you just fill in?

Stephanie did a lot more than just fill in. She started managing her husband's optometry practice, pushing insurance claims through, and making the business more profitable than ever. They had a clear vision for their future.

We certainly were not rich, but we were very comfortable. We had our own resort. in our backyard. We had a large in-ground pool, hot tub, basketball court. I have this great photo of Greg on his giant pool lounger, watching the Masters Golf Tournament on our outdoor big-screen TV.

Of course, there were hard moments, bumps along the way. In a 22-year marriage, that's par for the course.

At one point, he admitted that he hadn't been paying the taxes at his business, and there was a possibility we could lose the business, our house, he could go to jail.

They agreed to a payment plan with the IRS and moved forward as a team, back on track for a happy retirement. As the kids got older, Stephanie and her husband adjusted well to the empty nest.

When the kids were grown, things were almost even better.

Even during the 2020 pandemic, Stephanie and her husband got along.

So, you know, during COVID, I'd hop on a Zoom call with like six or seven girlfriends, and we're pretty much all empty nesters. So we're all just stuck in the house alone with our husbands. And my friends have good marriages, and still there was a lot of like, I don't know how much longer I can take this. I'm really bored. And I'm going, gosh, you guys, I feel bad because you know what, we're having a blast over here.

When COVID restrictions lifted, the couple took the opportunity to spend even more time together and enjoy a warmer climate.

Kind of on a whim, we were like, hey, things are opening up. We didn't get to go on our winter vacation to our timeshare in Cancun. Let's go down there. So we had gone down the first week of April and had a fabulous time, as we always do.

But on this little COVID getaway, she could tell that something was off with Greg. She first noticed it when they were lounging by the pool.

One of the things that really struck me as weird on that trip was that we had kind of sat in this same spot a couple days, and there was someone else sitting a couple chairs down from us, another husband and wife. And the guy made me really uncomfortable. You know how some guys just look at you weird, you know, when you're hanging out in your bathing suit, whatever. And the guy just kind of made me uncomfortable. And I told Greg that.

It was weird, but Stephanie didn't think much of it. That night, the couple indulged in a long romantic dinner. This was always part of their vacation, a few dinners where they could really treat themselves.

Many, many courses and lots of different drinks and wine and all of that.

The next morning, Stephanie was in a fog.

I was very out of it. Like, it was really hard to wake up. I had this feeling it was almost like I was at the bottom of the lake. And I could just see light way up ahead. But it was so hard to try to get there.

But Greg was there to help take care of her.

Last night, you had a lot to drink and we were out in the sun a lot. I'm sure you're dehydrated. Let's get you some water. Let's get you some coffee. Let's try to stay out of the sun a little bit today.

And Stephanie was determined to make the most out of the rest of her vacation.

We got home and on the airplane, I had seen somebody was watching. You know, you can kind of see other people's screens. I could see somebody was watching something with Nicole Kidman. And I was like, oh, that looks kind of intriguing. I got to look that up and see what they're watching.

The Undoing was a fictional TV miniseries about a pediatric surgeon played by Hugh Grant. The character is warm and charming, but is ultimately suspected of a violent crime. It's at complete odds with the man his wife knows. When Stephanie got home, she binge watched the show.

In that first episode, he is just so engaged with his child. And he's so fawning over Nicole Kidman about, you know, just how beautiful and wonderful and perfect she is. But he doesn't want to go and, like, socialize with other people and go to the party.

Eerily, this character reminded Stephanie of Greg.

He just wants this little bubble of his little family. And he loves being adored by his patients. Just this really engaging, charismatic personality, but yet doesn't necessarily always want to be social, unless he can be the center of attention. As it became more and more clear that the Hugh Grant character had this tremendous secret, it just made this feeling in my gut. say, Hmm, you know who else has secrets?

It started with a backpack at the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games. A backpack that contained a bomb. While the authorities focused on the wrong suspect, a serial bomber planned his next attacks. Two abortion clinics and a lesbian bar.

I saw, as soon as I turned the corner, basically someone bleeding out.

The victims of these brutal attacks were left to pick up the pieces, forced to explore the gray areas between right and wrong, life and death. Their once ordinary lives, and mine, changed forever.

It kind of gave me a feeling of pending doom.

And all the while, our country found itself facing down a long and ugly reckoning with a growing threat. Far-right, homegrown, religious terrorism. Listen to Flashpoint on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

In the summer of 2020, in the small mountain town of Idlewild, California, five women disappeared in the span of just a few months. Eventually, I found out what happened to the women. All except one. A woman named Lydia Abrams, known as Dia. Her friends and family ran through endless theories.

Miss the latest in women's basketball? Don't sweat it, I've got you covered. Welcome to, In Case You Missed It, with Christina Williams, the podcast that's your go-to source for women's hoops. From buzzer beaters to breaking news, I bring you the highlights, analysis, and expert insights you need to stay ahead of the game. The people have spoken, and it's time to give the stories that matter most the spotlight.

It's unsettling to see a depiction of a violent and manipulative character on TV and think, Hey, that reminds me of my husband. That's exactly what happened to Stephanie. There was a nagging feeling, a twist in her gut that felt distantly familiar. Stephanie had felt this before, after one big fight she'd had with Greg. Years ago, in 2016,, Stephanie had found out about a secret her husband was keeping.

On this particular weekend in 2016,. it was just a weekend trip with another couple. The guys had been golfing all day, us girls had been hiking and sightseeing. And we got back to the hotel and got ready and went out for dinner, the four of us. And after dinner, I wanted to take a picture of the four of us.

Stephanie enjoyed the physical intimacy of her marriage. She thought it was in a healthy place. But there were boundaries.

I did not ever consent to that. I did not ever say I would do that. And he also knew that. there had been a few times throughout the years when he had asked about taking pictures. And I very adamantly said no.

Instead of respecting her boundary around pornography and nude photos, Greg had used it against her. Twisted it to explain away his own indiscretions.

He knew that I was adamantly opposed to pornography. And the reasoning he gave for taking pictures of me was he felt that he shouldn't look at pornography. And instead, he would create his own just for himself. He ended up telling me, I've only ever done it a couple times. There's only a few pictures.

When they got home from that vacation back in 2016,, Stephanie moved into the guest bedroom. She was mad. It stayed that way for a few weeks. They still worked together and kept the same routine, but they slept in separate bedrooms. Greg worked hard to earn her forgiveness.

One evening in early September, you know, after this had been going on for a few weeks, that I was in the other bedroom, I was sitting in the family room watching TV and he came over and he knelt in front of me. And he sobbed. I mean, just the tears and the snot and the whole thing.

Under a few conditions.

The one thing that I made him agree to was that I had access to all of his devices anytime. I wanted, all his passwords, everything. And I could check them whenever I wanted. Without question. He absolutely agreed to that.

And she lived like that for six years. Checking his phone and devices three times a week.

So the trust was in a really tenuous place after 2016.

She believed her husband when he said it began and ended with that photo he took of her on vacation. Like she says, everything else about their life was fantastic. So slowly, they worked through it. During hardships, trust, love, and bonds are often forged even stronger.

It just was this very grounding feeling that as long as I had that relationship, as long as we were together, there really wasn't anything that I couldn't handle. That I couldn't get through. And as much as I talk about how great and how content and how wonderful everything felt. I always had an eye and an ear out for anything to be off.

The couple resumed their normal routine. Every night, Stephanie went to bed early to read, while her husband would stay up late, fiddling around with his guilty pleasure, fantasy sports. And I mean a lot of fantasy sports.

He would participate in 10 or 12 fantasy football leagues every year.

After the break, Stephanie makes a life-shattering discovery.

It started with a backpack at the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games. A backpack that contained a bomb. While the authorities focused on the wrong suspect, a serial bomber planned his next attacks. Two abortion clinics and a lesbian bar.

I saw, as soon as I turned the corner, basically someone bleeding out.

The victims of these brutal attacks were left to pick up the pieces. Forced to explore the gray areas between right and wrong. Life and death. Their once-ordinary lives, and mine, changed forever.

It kind of gave me a feeling of pending doom.

And all the while, our country found itself facing down a long road. A long and ugly reckoning with a growing threat. Far-right, homegrown, religious terrorism. Listen to Flashpoint on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

In the summer of 2020, in the small mountain town of Idlewild, California, five women disappeared in the span of just a few months. Eventually, I found out what happened to the women. All except one. A woman named Lydia Abrams. Known as Dia.

Miss the latest in women's basketball? Don't sweat it, I've got you covered. Welcome to, In Case You Missed It, with Christina Williams, the podcast that's your go-to source for women's hoops. From buzzer beaters to breaking news, I bring you the highlights, analysis, and expert insights you need to stay ahead of the game. The people have spoken, and it's time to give the stories that matter most the spotlight.

There is a photo of Stephanie on vacation with her husband. She is staring into his eyes. The two look madly in love, infatuated, almost. Smiling, so big, it's like they just started dating, not 22 years into their marriage. Looking at that picture, I think, good for them.

I had that feeling. I was like, I gotta check all his stuff while he's gone. I saw his laptop was sitting there by his recliner. I picked it up and I took it over to the kitchen counter.

To make it even more disturbing, there were captions under the photos of Stephanie. Disgusting captions.

I'm in the account and I'm deleting, deleting, deleting, deleting. And then something in me went, I got to have evidence of this. At that point, not even thinking it was illegal, like, I can't even believe this, no one is ever going to believe me. So I took some screenshots and then deleted, so that I deleted all the naked pictures out of his account.

She was in reaction mode, horrified and angry. She confronted him right away.

I texted him a screenshot of that picture of me in the bikini.

And with that picture, she typed out a message. And that message, she called Greg by his online alias. You see, on all of his accounts, he didn't use his real name. Instead, he used the name of one of his patients, a patient who was a mentally disabled adult.

So, on the morning of the 11th, I sent this text. We need to talk. You better come home. So he knows he's busted.

In addition to the photos of herself, there were photos of other women. What was this? And why did he have these photos?

He said, I have those pictures of those other women because I trade.

Stephanie is usually a very calm person. She can count on one hand the times she's ever raised her voice at her family. But on this day, she lost it.

I was screaming, taking pictures off the wall and just smashing them. I took the kitty litter box and dumped it in his bed. I mean, I broke a lot of stuff, completely out of character. I was screaming and breaking things to the point where it set off the house alarm. because we had glass break sensors.

On the day she found out, she was so mad she couldn't even process the bigger question.

I mean, it really took me about 24 hours to get to the point of looking at that and going, I don't understand how he could take those pictures without me knowing.

She squinted at the photos, trying to remember when and where they were taken.

There was a series of photos of me on the bed at our timeshare.

There was only one way it could have happened.

I know what happened.

There was 22 years of marriage. The vows they'd taken, the business they'd grown together, the children they'd raised, their plans for retirement. And then, there was this stranger, this man. she slept beside. A man who was drugging her.

At 5 a.

Next time, Stephanie starts her own investigation. She finds out what her husband was really doing online. And what she discovers is worse than she could have ever imagined.

Back in 96, Atlanta was booming with excitement around hosting the Centennial Olympic Games. And then, a deranged zealot willing to kill for a cause lit a fuse that would change my life and so many others, forever, rippling out for generations.

Welcome to, In Case You Missed It, with Christina Williams, the podcast that's your go-to source for women's hoops. From buzzer beaters to breaking news, I bring you the highlights, analysis, and expert insights you need to stay ahead of the game.