August 21, 2025 • 51 mins
Two best friends, a cause worth fighting for, and the knife in the back no one expected.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi everyone. Before we get into this episode, I want
to let you know that the first part discusses details
of cancer symptoms and treatment. Please listen with care.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
She's doing so many lives. She's just broken so many hearts.
That's just left me wondering did she ever have any
love for any of us? And that hurts like hell.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
I'm Andrea Gunning and this is Betrayal, a show about
the people we trust the most and the deceptions that
change everything.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
It's a tale of Peter Rabbit. And I can see
you've drawne a picture of Peter Rabbit that is actally.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
That's Angela MacVicar. She's a grandmother in small town Scotland.
The day we interviewed her, Angela was babysitting her four
year old granddaughter.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Listen, Nana's going to ask if you will be quiet
for a little while longer. Okay, okay'd be very very
good and you'll make me very very happy. Okay, right
on you go.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Angela has lived her whole life in the Scottish countryside.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
What makes Scotland? I think of the people. If a
stranger walks into a bar, they don't leave that bar
until everybody knows who they are and why they're there.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
She came from a close knit family of all girls.
When she was growing up in the seventies, I.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Did actually want to be a midwife, but then I
feel pregnant and had my first daughter, Joanna, when I
was seventeen, so that can of put a hold on anything,
and at that point I was thrown into growing up
very quickly.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Joanna was named for Angela's father, John, and just like
her mom, she would be one of four girls.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Which was hardgoing being a young mum and having four children.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
There was rarely a quiet moment.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
We always had a busy house with four girls that
were always bringing friends home.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Out of all of her girls, Joanna was the most driven.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
You never had to tell her to study. She would
come home and go straight to her room do her homework.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
And she was a talented Highland dancer, which is a
traditional Gaelic folk dance. On weekends, Joanna competed in dance
contests across the country. But something changed when Joanna was sixteen.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Joanna started to get really tired, and I put it
down to her studying so hard for her exams, and
then she started getting little lumps and bruises she would
come and say, Mom, look at this. And then one
time in particular, she couldn't get her shoe on, and
(03:20):
she said, look at my foot, and on the bridge
of her foot there was a lump and it looked
like an egg. It was really quite a significant lump.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Angela wasn't the type to call the doctor over every
scrip or sniffle, but this time she was genuinely alarmed.
When the first doctor dismissed it as a bug bite,
she found another doctor and then another.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
I knew in the back of my mind it wasn't right.
There was something going on.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
One day, Joanna came home from school with a large,
dark purple bruise. It covered her whole lower leg.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Then it hadn't been there in the morning when she left,
and at that point leukemia hit me between the eyes.
I knew that bruising was a symptom. So we went
to the hospital the following day and they said, well,
(04:19):
we need to do a bone marrow asspirit, but they
told me that it was just to confirm what they
already knew, and I just I kept having to leave
her room.
Speaker 4 (04:29):
I kept having to make up excuses because I could
feel myself getting panicked and upset, and I didn't want
her to feel that or see it.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
It was a day that changed their lives forever. At sixteen,
Joanna was diagnosed with cancer.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Just by looking through a microscope, we could tell that
she had chronic Malloyd leukemia.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Today, there are a variety of treatments for chronic Mylloyd leukemia,
but thirty years ago there were very limited options. Joanna's
doctors were scrambling to find answers.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
The doctors would say, I don't know how she's functioning.
I don't know how she can walk.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
A nurse had seen Angela pacing the hallways all day.
She pulled her aside and gave her some stern advice.
Angela was going to have to be her daughter's advocate.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
She wasn't given me tea and sympathy. She was giving
me sound advice. And she was being a bit of
a badass with me and just telling me without saying
the words, pull yourself together. You're going to have to
do this.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
So Angela tried to channel her fear into action. She
was willing to go anywhere in the world do anything
necessary to get Joanna's treatment. Next, she found a specialist.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
He then told us that she had to a bone
matter transplant to survive.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
In order to have a successful bone marrow transplant, Joanna
would need a perfect match. It's rare, but they found
a possible match on the National registry. It wasn't perfect,
but it was close and it was their only shot.
But the procedure is dangerous.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
So what they do is they kill off all your
bone marrow, so you had to go into isolation. You're
in a room where everybody has to be scrubbed up,
and it's very limited to how many people are in
the room because an infection could kill you because you
don't have any white cells to fight infection. And then
(06:47):
the cells from a donor just looks like a bag
of blood and it's hung up on a stand and
you receive it through intravenous and the stem cell that
go through your veins find their way to your bone
marrow and they nest in your bone marrow and start
(07:08):
to multiply and give you a new immune system should
your body accept it. But Joanna's didn't. It wasn't a
close enough match, and her body attacked the new cells.
(07:32):
When that happened, she was left with no immune system
and no donor.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
But for the transplant, Joanna didn't fully grasp how serious
her diagnosis was.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
It was a few times we thought we're going to
lose her. During the transplant, she was just so ill.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
After the transplant failed, Joanna's doctors were blunt.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
So so at that point they said, if she's going
to survive beyond five years, we need to find a
perfect match.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
That's when Angela turned to the Anthony Nolan Register, one
of the first bone marrow registries in the world. It
had been founded by another mother, also desperate to save
her child, and the charity happened to be based in
the UK. So Angela scheduled a meeting with a woman
there and.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
She said, well, this weekend we have got a fundraising
event going on in Glasgow. Would you and Joanna like
to go along? And I said yes, because we have
to do something. We can't sit back and just expect
everybody else to build this register for us.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
So they packed their bags for Glasgow.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Of course, Joanna said she had nothing to wear, which
was a lot of the loneing.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
That weekend, they hoped to meet people who could help Joanna.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
And that's where I met Lindsay McCallum.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Lindsay worked for the Anthony Nolan Trust and she would
be Angela and Joanna's ambassador, guiding them through the process
of growing the registry and trying to find Joanna's match.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
When we arrived at the hotel, she created us so
warmly and kindly, and she was very caring and inviting.
Speaker 5 (09:29):
That night at the fundraiser, there was an auction and
there was people up speaking, and while Lindsay was speaking
on the stage, Joanna actually got up off her chair
and walked.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Up onto the stage and took the mic and told
people that she needed to find a bone marrow match
or she was going to die. I saw her blossom
on that stage. She didn't cry, She just told people
(10:07):
that she wanted to live and thankful for being there
and for helping her.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
In that moment, something shifted. Joanna was no longer just
a patient. She wanted to be an advocate, and an
idea was born. The Anthony Nolan Trust would partner with
Joanna to launch a media campaign. They would use her
story to raise awareness and get new people to donate
bone marrow. Every new donor could potentially be Joanna's match.
(10:37):
They got the campaign off the ground with Lindsay's help,
and the public immediately took notice.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
When we started Joanna's campaign, the media just ate it up.
They just loved her. She loved the camera. The camera
loved her. Yeah. She made friends with lots of different
Scottish celebrities and they just loved their zest for life.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Joanna's story struck a chord. Her personality, her humor, her
sheer will to live. It was irresistible. Plus, the campaign
gave Joanna a larger purpose.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
It's how ridiculous, but she had a blast. She just
wanted to live. That was a message, I just want
to live.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Even though the transplant hadn't been successful, Joanna was well
enough to take her exams and get into college. There
she discovered her love of journalism.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
She used to say, when I'm better, I'm going to
start a newspaper and it's going to be called good
News Only It's going to just be a newspaper full
of good news that people will want to read and
not be drawn into dooming gloom. Wouldn't that be a
wonderful world.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
As the campaign continued to grow, so did Angela's involvement.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
I started to work for the Anthony Nolan Trust. I
was a donor recruitment manager. I then started running clinics
where people could come along and put their name down
to be on their register. And everybody was coming to
join the register, coming in their thousands.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
It was intense work, and Angela says it couldn't have
been accomplished without Lindsay's help. The woman they'd met at
the fundraiser was becoming an integral part of their lives.
Lindsay went above and beyond a Joanna's campaign, and she
mean business.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
She was ex military, had been in the Navy, and
so she had that kind of great organizational skills and
she was charming. She attracted people good fund raiser. Because
we were running a campaign together, the relationship became pretty intense.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Lindsay and Angela became best friends, you know.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
The relationship grew organically. She would phone me during our
work hours and then that would expand it and we
wouldn't just talk work. We just kicked off. We just
kicked off really well and laughed at the same things.
We talked about the same things. We both had families
(13:37):
that were very similar, very close, loving families.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
They had a lot in common and Lindsay made her
feel less alone. Lindsay didn't have a child with cancer
or a personal stake in growing the donor Registry, but
she was passionate about the work and the people she
was helping.
Speaker 6 (13:57):
She just had an aura and we both have a
common goal in increasing the register and helping people, and
she cared about Joanna.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
As the year went on, Lindsay became a part of
their family.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Her families quickly became intertwined. I absolutely adored her mother
and her sisters.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Lindsay and Angela started calling each other first thing in
the morning every morning.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
We're both early birds. Either she would text me or
I would text her saying are you awake yet? And
I don't know what we even spoke about. You know
when you have a relationship and you can be in
the phone for an hour and then you have to
phone back in an hour's time. Oh, I forgot to
tell you. I could speak to her five times a day.
(14:52):
That was the kind of relationship we had. You didn't
get one without the other. Hell Is and Pickle.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
The two women founded an annual ball together as a
fundraiser for the registry. By that point, Lindsay felt like
a sister.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
It's hard to describe just how intense a friendship it was.
I feel it was almost because we had that goal
to save Joanna's life.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
Joanna herself was determined to live and she was open
to trying anything.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
She spoke to doctors about complimentary therapies. Should you have reflexologies,
should you have massage? And thirty years ago doctor scoffed
and rolled her eyes and said, yeah, you could try
that if you like.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
But Joanna was ahead of her time. She believed in
western medicine, and she also believed in the power of rest, food,
and joy. While they kept waiting for the perfect Matchna
decided the best treatment would be living her life to
the fullest.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
She was gotzi. She would do things like skydive. She
went scuba diving.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
She'd been living with cancer for almost ten years. When
she was twenty four, she planned a backpack around the world.
Her doctor has cleared her to go so long as
she had blood work done every few weeks, and Joanna
took the chance.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
She went all over. She was in Thailand, all these
kind of places fichi, I mean made in mind. Joanna
was tiny, tiny little thin thing. Her backpack was almost
as big as her. It was huge, and while she
was in Australia, I got a phone call to say
(16:51):
she had been admitted.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
She started feeling short of breath and it turned out
she had a collapsed long.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
Her lungs are deteriorating. Eventually they managed to get her
on a flight and get her back to Scotland, and
then we discovered that she actually needed a heart and
long transplant.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
Everyone knew what it meant. This was the beginning of
the end and she never.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Ever got that long transplant.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
Joanna died at home with her mom and sisters by
her side. She was twenty seven.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
It was just also unfair. Everything's unfair, though, isn't it.
You know, with a disease, it's never fair. But she
just desperately wanted to live, and.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Allat immediately threw herself into planning a celebration of life
for Joanna.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
I remember saying to somebody, this is the last thing
I get to do for my child.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
The service would be joyful and vibrant, just like Joanna.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
We asked everybody not to wear black, to wear very
colorful clothing. From a tiny little girl, Joanna loved rainbows.
As a toddler. She would scream when she saw a rainbow,
she was fascinated.
Speaker 7 (18:32):
And when she was very ill and she knew she
was dying, she said to me, when we can no
longer be together.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
I will send you a sign and we can meet
in the middle of rainbow.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
As they plan the service, Lindsay was there to help always.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Lindsay actually asked if she could reader Yuligi. I was laying,
my goodness, could you do that? And she was like,
I really, yeah, I could. I want to? And I
was like, oh, that's beautiful.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Even in this dark time, Angela felt like she was
surrounded by love, that she was supported by good and
caring people.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
I thought Lindsay McCallum was one of these people, and
she wasn't.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
After Joanna passed away, Angela leaned on her family and friends,
especially her best friend Lindsay. At this point, they'd been
best friends for nearly a decade. Their daily morning calls
became a lifeline for Angela.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
After Johanna passed. You know, Lindsey would be the first
person I would speak to in the morning, and she
would message me and say a yap where I would
if I was awake, I would miss a yap. And
we would chat and she would just laugh with me
about the funny things. Joanna would get up to the
(20:37):
funny things that she would say, and it lifted my spouts.
And it was just she was always there. She was
so supportive. Never heard her cry right enough, never cried,
but I just thought that she was just composed.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Their friendship went on like this for another seven years.
During this time, Angela was reflecting a lot on Joanna
and how she was always looking for holistic treatments, ways
to make herself feel better and find joy. She thought
about how Joanna used to say.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
There should be a place that people go and they
can just sample.
Speaker 8 (21:22):
All these things and find out what you can do
to bring more joy, more peace, more relaxation, less stress.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
One day, when Lindsay and Angela were on the phone,
they came up with an idea together, a charity that
would provide exactly that.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Seven years after Joanna passed away, Lindsay and I decided
in her memory to launch Rainbow Valley to help other people.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Rainbow Valley to Joanna's vibrancy and her love of rainbows.
They would offer a two day residential program for people
with cancer. The course would include coaching on mindfulness, diet
and emotional well being.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
Remove Valley is not a life saving charity. Remove Aalley
is a life changing charity. And it doesn't matter how
long you have to live, it's what can you do
to take back control of a diagnosis of cancer? I
(22:37):
live a more joyous life.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
Luckily, Lindsay knew how to start a charity and she
was eager to help.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
She had seventeen eighteen years experience as a fund raiser
for a big organization, so she was obviously well respected
within the sector, and I felt she had the expertise.
Johanna gave us the vision, Johanna gave us our mission
(23:07):
why it was the storyteller, and Lindsay was the expertise
behind pulling it together.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
They applied for charitable status and found experts to lead
their courses, and then, in a twist of faith, Lindsay
was laid off from her job at the Anthony Nullan Trust,
so she became Rainbow Valley's first official employee.
Speaker 9 (23:33):
It made sense that Lindsay, you know, after being made redundant,
worked for Rainbow Valley, and we pulled the board together,
a board of trustees, and we took advice from Lindsay.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
We took her lead because she was the one with
twenty years experience.
Speaker 9 (23:54):
I was so grateful that we were able to do
something like this together in Joy and his memory.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
I thought it was all meant to be.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
Under Lindsay's leadership, the charity really came together. In twenty twelve,
Rainbow Valley officially began running courses.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
She was the head of the charity. She was involved
in the day to day running of everything. I trusted
her implicitly implicitly.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
A few years into managing the charity together, the friends
faced their first real conflict. Angela had started to question
some of Lindsay's choices.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
I felt she was spending money on something that wasn't
necessary and it was a bit of a waste of resources.
And I spoke to Lindsay about this, and I remember
saying to her, this is extremely difficult for me because
(25:09):
you're my best friend and I adore you, but this
is a business conversation and I don't feel this is
the way we should be running.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
And Lindsay didn't take it well.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
It was the first time I had ever seen I
don't want to overexaggerate and say aggression but it was
like she was angry. I saw it as not a fallout,
but we disagreed on something which we hadn't done before.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
But it was more than a disagreement. It was a
turning point. After that conversation, Lindsay became cold and she
came to Angela with some feedback of her own.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
She started telling me that people didn't like me and
that I was causing upset on the course. I was
upsetting the staff, and I was upsetting the attendees, and
I was creating a negative atmosphere.
Speaker 9 (26:16):
And of course I loved her and I didn't want
to upset her.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
I didn't want to upset anybody on the course. That
she had me convinced that I was creating this negative atmosphere.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
Angela was taken aback, but she trusted Lindsay's judgment. She
didn't want to be a problem or get in the
way of their mission.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
And she told me that I shouldn't come to the
courses anymore. I wasn't being useful, so I kind of
stepped back from that.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
She wanted to do what was best for the charity,
but Angela was hurt, and to make matters worse, their
friendship was changing.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
During that time, our relationship really deteriorated, and I was
very confused, you know, because Lindsay would turn quite nasty
at times, and it just wasn't like her, you know.
I would try to speak to and see what's wrong,
and she'd say nothing, nothing, So she had me feeling
(27:34):
I was imagining it.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
Lindsay stopped calling in the mornings.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
I would then be phoning and she would ignore my calls,
and then when I would say to you, I phoned you,
she would say, what if I got a misscall from you.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
Then one night, Angela opened her door to find all
three of her daughters standing in front of her.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
The girls all came to my house one evening and said,
you really need to get help. You're not happy.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
Angela knew Lindsay had something to do with this, and
her daughters confirmed it. Lindsay had approached them and raised
her concerns.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
She was saying to them things like, your mum really
needs help. I know. She said a lot of trauma
in her life, but she really needs help, and that
I was going.
Speaker 10 (28:28):
Off my not.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
And I was like, absolutely not.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
Now Lindsay was interfering in her relationship with her daughters.
It started to feel like it was orchestrated, but to
what end. Angela couldn't figure it out. And on top
of that.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
I felt she was pushing me out, telling me that
I was interfering in the day to day running of
the charity and that she ran the charity.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
But one day Angela stopped by a Rainbow Valley course
that Lindsay was running. She stood in the back and
kept to herself. Lindsay was giving the introduction to the group. Typically,
they shared Joanna's story at the start of every course,
but this time Lindsay skipped over it.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
I remember going to a day course and normally when
we have our intro slides, we talk about what Rainbow
Valley is the inspiration and we have a picture of
Joanna up and we talk about this is where it started,
this was a dream of Joanna's. But this time she
(29:45):
didn't mention Joanna on the course. I said after.
Speaker 11 (29:49):
It wasn't a reason why we stopped talking about Joanna,
and she said, because I don't really think it's relevant.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Angela was at a loss for words. She didn't recognize
Lindsay or where she was taking Rainbow Valley.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
And then in twenty twenty two in January, she said
to me, there's a problem.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
Lindsay said Covid had taken a toll on the charity's
bottom line, and she.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
Said, we've managed to bob along because we got some
grants to run the online courses. But now we're through
all that and it's not viable. We don't have enough money.
The charity's going to close. She announced this at a
board meeting and they all kind of looked at the
(30:50):
figures and were like, we're in trouble here.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
It was bleak. Lindsay explained that the best option was
to wind down the charity at the end of the year.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
I said, wait a week moment, we cannot make this
decision and walk out of the room saying that's it.
We're folding. Give us three weeks. Let reconvene in three
weeks and if we all go away and speak to
everybody and anybody and see if we can find a company,
(31:25):
a trust fund, somebody that will save us, somebody that
will give us a big donation.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
Angela started working the founds. Within a week, someone found
a dinner willing to help get Rainbow Valley back on track.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
I was so relieved and so excited. I met Lindsey
before the board meeting and I thought she would have
been elated, but she was like, oh, that's great.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
Instead of celebrating, Lindsay announced that she would be stepping
down from the charity for good.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
She said, I'm leaving Rainbow Valley. I don't want to
do fundraising anymore. I'm good to resign.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
On her last day, the staff took her out to
lunch and bought her flowers. She and Angela said a
cordial goodbye. Angela felt like it was a new chapter
for the charity. The only thing left to do was
close the accounts Lindsay used. Years ago, she set up
a separate bank account for their annual gala. Angela knew
(32:38):
about the account, but she wasn't involved in managing it.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
I had mentioned this other account that was for the ball,
which Lindsay had advised that we set up as a
friend's account. I knew that she had done this when
she was with the Anthony Nolan Trust previously, so I
just thought, well, that's how it's done.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
The bank account Lindsay set up was called the Friends
of Rainbow Valley.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
And the treasurer said, oh that account is it? Closed,
and I was like, well, I don't know, and she said,
well it needs closed or the name changed.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
So Angela went to the bank and got hard copies
of the account statements to take back to the office
and reconcile. Angela's adult daughter, Kendall, was working for Rainbow
Valley at the time, helping close out the books for
the end of the year.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
I took it back to the office, put it down
on the table and I said to Kendall, let's go
through this. And Kendall continued looking through it, and she said, Mum,
come back and look at this. Why is all this
getting paid out to Lindsay? Why why is all these
(33:54):
payments going out to Lindsay.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
Angela went to look and she saw dozens of transfers,
small transfers, a few hundred dollars each. But the closer
they looked, they realized it quickly totaled a huge sum
of money and it was all made out to one person,
Lindsay McCallum. As Angela and her daughter Kendall were going
(34:38):
through the end of year finances for Rainbow Valley, they
found something alarming. Dozens of payments to Lindsay from a
bank account that only she.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
Used, and she said, why's all this compeyed out to
Lindsay and I said, it will be expenses, and she
said no, look at dates. Why would she have expenses? March, April, May,
June every month, and it's sometimes it's twice a day.
I was really confused, and Kendall just looked at me,
(35:10):
and I was like, no, she's been horrible to me,
but she's not a thief. I know that her family
are very wealthy, she's very comfortable, and she's not a thief. No,
not a chance.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
It's true that Lindsay's husband came from a wealthy family
and she'd been collecting a salary from Rainbow Valley. She
didn't need money. Angela felt like there had to be
another explanation, so she reached out to Lindsay to clear
it up.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
I had sent a message saying, I'm confused why all
these payments are going out to you and are the
expenses and the amounts don't add up. She says it
was expenses. I was just paying things and drips and drabs,
and I wanted to believe that. And I came back
(36:01):
into the office and I said to Kendall, it's fine,
just expenses, and Kendall said, bullshit, bullshit. She says, open
your eyes and look at it properly.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
She needed answers, so she called Lindsey back and she
was just.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
Coming up with, you know, lots of different excuses, and
then she said, well, I should have told you this,
but a good few years ago, Rainbow Valley was in
financial trouble and I put a lump summon to dig
us out a hole, and I should have told you
about it. And I said how much? How much did
(36:49):
you put in? And she said, oh, I can't remember that.
That was me trying to claw the money back. And
I said no, I says, that's not transparent. You can
do that. Bring in all your statements, bring in all
your bank accounts, and you and I will sit at
this table and we will go through everything and we'll
(37:11):
make everything transparent so that every penny's accounted for. And
she said I can't.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
So Angela ended the car. She needed time to think,
and at.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
That point, you know, I'm disgusted. We packed up and
drove home, and the whole way home, my head was
just spinning. And I said to my daughter, just let's
keep this low key. Just now, because I need to
work out what my next steps are.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
Before she could wrap her head around this, Lindsay called again,
this time with a new tactic.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
She phoned and she said, please, Angela, don't take this
any further. And she said, look, I'll give you twenty
thousand pounds, just go to the bank and close it.
And I said, how long has this has been going on?
And she said, oh, no, no, no, it was just
that year. It was just that one year.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
That was it.
Speaker 2 (38:18):
That was it, you know, it was okay, it's okay,
there's nothing else.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
Angela didn't believe her.
Speaker 2 (38:26):
As far as I was concerned. She was trying to
bribe me.
Speaker 1 (38:30):
This wasn't slappy buckkeeping. It was theft.
Speaker 2 (38:34):
So then I phoned my daughter and I said, we're
going to the police. I had to go to the place.
Speaker 1 (38:43):
They wanted to gather all the evidence they could, so
they searched every page of their financial records starting with
the year the charity was founded.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
And my two daughters went through it, highlighting everything and
kind of trying to get a tally. I could have
a two mo own things. I was in such a state.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
The bank statements revealed Lindsay had been stealing money from
Rainbow Valley. For years, she had taken it bit by bit,
three hundred here, two hundred there, and slowly those little
numbers started adding up. In the end they discovered Lindsay
stole eighty six thousand pounds, that's one hundred and sixteen
(39:26):
thousand US dollars. The reason nobody had noticed was because
Lindsay was soliciting donations straight to the Friends of Rainbow
Valley account and she never reported those donations to the organization.
So of course the donors thought their money was going
to the charity. In reality, it was going to Lindsay's
(39:49):
slush fund.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
Nobody else would know that thousand pounds ever existed, because
she would be the one that would be writing a
letter of things. So she was so deceitful. And these
are people, this is money from people that she would know.
Speaker 1 (40:06):
Lindsay had robbed their downers, She'd robbed cancer patients and
their families. She'd even tried to close Rainbow Valley forever.
Speaker 2 (40:15):
It was like a jigsaw all coming together. It was
making sense why she was treating me the way she was,
why she had to get rid of me, why she
wanted to leave Rainbow Valley why she was gaslighting me.
She had hoped that the charity would fold and all
(40:37):
the bank accounts would be closed and it would be
all gone and she would have got away with it.
Speaker 1 (40:44):
Angela realized her best friend of twenty years wasn't the
person she thought she was.
Speaker 2 (40:49):
When it all came to light, I was breathed. The
person I thought she was for me had died. She
no longer existed, and that was extremely difficult, intense.
Speaker 1 (41:11):
Angela walked into the police station with hundreds of papers
in hand.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
And I have to say the detective was so good
because I was on there. I was just a wreck
when you would come in, you know, I was just
a blobbing wreck. And he was just very calm and
kind and explained everything as he was going along. And
he warned me, said this will take about two years
to get to court. And I was like, no way,
(41:37):
how can that be. He was right.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
It took the police a year to investigate the case.
A week after Angela confronted her, Lindsay paid twenty five
thou pounds into the Rainbow Valley account in an attempt
to cover up what she'd done. She didn't know that
Angela had already gone to the police, so.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
She thought she had got away with it. You know,
time was passing and she was living our best life.
Their son was getting married. They went away to Cyprus
for this big, laffish wedding, as if there was nothing wrong.
Speaker 1 (42:18):
For Angela, the year of the investigation was an emotional
and unsettling time. Sometimes she had to remind herself that
this was really happening.
Speaker 2 (42:29):
I would get into a panic sometimes and think, oh
my god, have we got this wrong? And I would
have to go back into the office and take out
all the evidence and look at him to remind me
and say, no, it really happened. It really has happened.
Speaker 1 (42:51):
On October thirtieth, twenty twenty three, it got very real
for Angela and for Lindsay.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
The day she was arrested. I'll never forget it as
long as I live.
Speaker 12 (43:03):
I remember it because I was driving home from my
mother's and the detective phoned me and asked me to
pull in, and he said, I've brought her in for questioning.
Speaker 1 (43:16):
And I've charged her.
Speaker 2 (43:18):
And he said okay, and I said yeah, but I
was shaking.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
She thought she'd feel a sense of justice, but really
she just felt heartbreak.
Speaker 2 (43:35):
Bear in mind, I still loved her. Love is not
like a light switch. We don't ever switch it off.
I loved the bones of her. She was a fabulous friend.
She was there for me and some of my darkest,
darkest hours. And then I was confused. I stood and
(44:00):
read a eulogy at Johanna's funeral. How could you do that?
How could you do that?
Speaker 1 (44:08):
But Angela's heartbreak turned to rage when the police uncovered
new information. It turned out Lindsay's fraud didn't start with
Rainbow Valley. She had also stolen from the Anthony Nolan Trust,
the place where Angela and Lindsay first met, and the
police charged her with that fraud too.
Speaker 2 (44:31):
I think that was the point where I felt angry then,
because I thought, you're a serial thief. And it's just
left me wondering did she ever have any love for
any of us? She worked for the Anthony Nolan Trust
(44:57):
when I met her, and Joanna needed the bone marrow transplant,
and I question, did she see Joanna could raise a
lot of money where we just a meal ticket for her?
And that hurts like hell, not because she did that
to me, but because she maybe did that with Joanna.
Speaker 1 (45:22):
It's an unanswerable question, but they'd been friends for decades.
Angela knew Lindsay and what really motivated her.
Speaker 2 (45:31):
Her husband's family are extremely wealthy and elderly, so he
is in for a big, big, big inheritance. Personally, I
just don't think it was coming quick enough to her,
and her vanity and greed took over.
Speaker 1 (45:53):
On the day of Lindsay's sentencing hearing.
Speaker 2 (45:58):
The court opened and she she had to walk past us,
and she stuck her head in the air, stuck her
nose in the air and looked in the opposite direction.
You know, she was very close. Had to walk right
past me, and I recognized her. Fully that felt I
didn't know.
Speaker 1 (46:19):
Lindsay ended up pleading guilty to two fraud charges.
Speaker 2 (46:23):
She knew that you get a third off your sentence,
so she got four years reduced to three years. With
pleading guilty.
Speaker 1 (46:30):
Lindsay was sentenced to three years in prison in order
to repay both charities. She did make that repayment, but
she only served a quarter of her sentence. But justice
looks different for Angela. She wanted anesty and remorse, but
that never came.
Speaker 13 (46:50):
I'll never ever ever get over it. I'll never understand it.
I would love to sit in a room with her
and just say, please be honest, tell me why, and
tell me what's going through your head. I would love
to have a conversation with her, not for me to
call her names or to call her out on anything, but.
Speaker 2 (47:11):
Just to try and unjumble my brain. I missed the
person I thought she was. I really do.
Speaker 1 (47:21):
Even though Lindsay's deception devastated Angela, she isn't willing to
let it change her values.
Speaker 2 (47:29):
I refuse to live my life not trusting people. With
what I've been through with Joanna. I know there are
more good people in the world than there are bad,
and that's why I hang on to I've got seven
(47:50):
beautiful grandchildren. None of them met Joanna, but they all
know her when they talk about her. When they see
rein and if there's a reflection comes into the house
and it's bouncing off, they'll say, oh, Auntie Joe's here.
Speaker 1 (48:09):
Angela lost her best friend, but she didn't lose Rainbow Valley,
and her decision to bring Lindsay's crime to light in
some ways has been a positive. Today, Rainbow Valley has
more interest and support than ever, and Angela dreams of
building a permanent center for the charity. Joanna's legacy has
(48:31):
become part of Angela's legacy too.
Speaker 2 (48:34):
I want this to have longevity and be meaningful for
people way after I've gone. I wanted to keep growing
and flourishing and being there to help people through, you know,
a very difficult period of their life.
Speaker 1 (48:53):
And all of our Weekly episodes with the same question,
why do you want to share your story?
Speaker 2 (49:00):
I'm telling this story mainly because you asked. But Rainbow
Valley was Joanna's dream. Lindsay tried to turn it into
a nightmare, and I wanted the world to know what
she had done and who she really was. But I
(49:20):
also want people to realize that they can survive the
worst times of their life. And Joanna taught me to
stand tall because that's what she did. If she could
do it, I've got to you know, when you have
(49:41):
a rainbows gantee, the sun will come out eventually.
Speaker 1 (49:51):
On the next episode of Betrayal Weekly.
Speaker 10 (49:55):
Never ever did I see that coming. Ever, I truly
thought I was going in to help someone else, and
then I'm theen question, what do you mean I'm his wife?
This isn't a crime. We weren't a crime.
Speaker 1 (50:24):
If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal
team or want to tell us your Betrayal story, email
us at Betrayalpod at gmail dot com. That's Betrayal Pod
at gmail dot com. We're grateful for your support. One
way to show support is by subscribing to our show
on Apple Podcasts, and don't forget to rate and review Betrayal.
Five star reviews go a long way. A big thank
(50:47):
you to all of our listeners. Betrayal is a production
of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group and
partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is executive produced by
Nancy Glass and Jennifer Fason, hosted and produced by me
Andrea Gunning, written and produced by Monique Leboard, also produced
by Ben Fetterman. Associate producers are Kristin Mercury and Caitlin Golden.
(51:11):
Our iHeart team is Ali Perry and Jessica Krincheck. Audio
editing and mixing by Matt Delvecchio, Additional editing support from
Tanner Robbins. Betrayal's theme composed by Oliver Bains. Music library
provided by my Music and for more podcasts from iHeart,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
(51:32):
your podcasts.
Hi everyone. Before we get into this episode, I want
to let you know that the first part discusses details
of cancer symptoms and treatment. Please listen with care.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
She's doing so many lives. She's just broken so many hearts.
That's just left me wondering did she ever have any
love for any of us? And that hurts like hell.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
I'm Andrea Gunning and this is Betrayal, a show about
the people we trust the most and the deceptions that
change everything.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
It's a tale of Peter Rabbit. And I can see
you've drawne a picture of Peter Rabbit that is actally.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
That's Angela MacVicar. She's a grandmother in small town Scotland.
The day we interviewed her, Angela was babysitting her four
year old granddaughter.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Listen, Nana's going to ask if you will be quiet
for a little while longer. Okay, okay'd be very very
good and you'll make me very very happy. Okay, right
on you go.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Angela has lived her whole life in the Scottish countryside.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
What makes Scotland? I think of the people. If a
stranger walks into a bar, they don't leave that bar
until everybody knows who they are and why they're there.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
She came from a close knit family of all girls.
When she was growing up in the seventies, I.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Did actually want to be a midwife, but then I
feel pregnant and had my first daughter, Joanna, when I
was seventeen, so that can of put a hold on anything,
and at that point I was thrown into growing up
very quickly.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Joanna was named for Angela's father, John, and just like
her mom, she would be one of four girls.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Which was hardgoing being a young mum and having four children.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
There was rarely a quiet moment.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
We always had a busy house with four girls that
were always bringing friends home.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Out of all of her girls, Joanna was the most driven.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
You never had to tell her to study. She would
come home and go straight to her room do her homework.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
And she was a talented Highland dancer, which is a
traditional Gaelic folk dance. On weekends, Joanna competed in dance
contests across the country. But something changed when Joanna was sixteen.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Joanna started to get really tired, and I put it
down to her studying so hard for her exams, and
then she started getting little lumps and bruises she would
come and say, Mom, look at this. And then one
time in particular, she couldn't get her shoe on, and
(03:20):
she said, look at my foot, and on the bridge
of her foot there was a lump and it looked
like an egg. It was really quite a significant lump.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Angela wasn't the type to call the doctor over every
scrip or sniffle, but this time she was genuinely alarmed.
When the first doctor dismissed it as a bug bite,
she found another doctor and then another.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
I knew in the back of my mind it wasn't right.
There was something going on.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
One day, Joanna came home from school with a large,
dark purple bruise. It covered her whole lower leg.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Then it hadn't been there in the morning when she left,
and at that point leukemia hit me between the eyes.
I knew that bruising was a symptom. So we went
to the hospital the following day and they said, well,
(04:19):
we need to do a bone marrow asspirit, but they
told me that it was just to confirm what they
already knew, and I just I kept having to leave
her room.
Speaker 4 (04:29):
I kept having to make up excuses because I could
feel myself getting panicked and upset, and I didn't want
her to feel that or see it.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
It was a day that changed their lives forever. At sixteen,
Joanna was diagnosed with cancer.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Just by looking through a microscope, we could tell that
she had chronic Malloyd leukemia.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Today, there are a variety of treatments for chronic Mylloyd leukemia,
but thirty years ago there were very limited options. Joanna's
doctors were scrambling to find answers.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
The doctors would say, I don't know how she's functioning.
I don't know how she can walk.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
A nurse had seen Angela pacing the hallways all day.
She pulled her aside and gave her some stern advice.
Angela was going to have to be her daughter's advocate.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
She wasn't given me tea and sympathy. She was giving
me sound advice. And she was being a bit of
a badass with me and just telling me without saying
the words, pull yourself together. You're going to have to
do this.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
So Angela tried to channel her fear into action. She
was willing to go anywhere in the world do anything
necessary to get Joanna's treatment. Next, she found a specialist.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
He then told us that she had to a bone
matter transplant to survive.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
In order to have a successful bone marrow transplant, Joanna
would need a perfect match. It's rare, but they found
a possible match on the National registry. It wasn't perfect,
but it was close and it was their only shot.
But the procedure is dangerous.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
So what they do is they kill off all your
bone marrow, so you had to go into isolation. You're
in a room where everybody has to be scrubbed up,
and it's very limited to how many people are in
the room because an infection could kill you because you
don't have any white cells to fight infection. And then
(06:47):
the cells from a donor just looks like a bag
of blood and it's hung up on a stand and
you receive it through intravenous and the stem cell that
go through your veins find their way to your bone
marrow and they nest in your bone marrow and start
(07:08):
to multiply and give you a new immune system should
your body accept it. But Joanna's didn't. It wasn't a
close enough match, and her body attacked the new cells.
(07:32):
When that happened, she was left with no immune system
and no donor.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
But for the transplant, Joanna didn't fully grasp how serious
her diagnosis was.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
It was a few times we thought we're going to
lose her. During the transplant, she was just so ill.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
After the transplant failed, Joanna's doctors were blunt.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
So so at that point they said, if she's going
to survive beyond five years, we need to find a
perfect match.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
That's when Angela turned to the Anthony Nolan Register, one
of the first bone marrow registries in the world. It
had been founded by another mother, also desperate to save
her child, and the charity happened to be based in
the UK. So Angela scheduled a meeting with a woman
there and.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
She said, well, this weekend we have got a fundraising
event going on in Glasgow. Would you and Joanna like
to go along? And I said yes, because we have
to do something. We can't sit back and just expect
everybody else to build this register for us.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
So they packed their bags for Glasgow.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Of course, Joanna said she had nothing to wear, which
was a lot of the loneing.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
That weekend, they hoped to meet people who could help Joanna.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
And that's where I met Lindsay McCallum.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Lindsay worked for the Anthony Nolan Trust and she would
be Angela and Joanna's ambassador, guiding them through the process
of growing the registry and trying to find Joanna's match.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
When we arrived at the hotel, she created us so
warmly and kindly, and she was very caring and inviting.
Speaker 5 (09:29):
That night at the fundraiser, there was an auction and
there was people up speaking, and while Lindsay was speaking
on the stage, Joanna actually got up off her chair
and walked.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Up onto the stage and took the mic and told
people that she needed to find a bone marrow match
or she was going to die. I saw her blossom
on that stage. She didn't cry, She just told people
(10:07):
that she wanted to live and thankful for being there
and for helping her.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
In that moment, something shifted. Joanna was no longer just
a patient. She wanted to be an advocate, and an
idea was born. The Anthony Nolan Trust would partner with
Joanna to launch a media campaign. They would use her
story to raise awareness and get new people to donate
bone marrow. Every new donor could potentially be Joanna's match.
(10:37):
They got the campaign off the ground with Lindsay's help,
and the public immediately took notice.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
When we started Joanna's campaign, the media just ate it up.
They just loved her. She loved the camera. The camera
loved her. Yeah. She made friends with lots of different
Scottish celebrities and they just loved their zest for life.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Joanna's story struck a chord. Her personality, her humor, her
sheer will to live. It was irresistible. Plus, the campaign
gave Joanna a larger purpose.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
It's how ridiculous, but she had a blast. She just
wanted to live. That was a message, I just want
to live.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Even though the transplant hadn't been successful, Joanna was well
enough to take her exams and get into college. There
she discovered her love of journalism.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
She used to say, when I'm better, I'm going to
start a newspaper and it's going to be called good
News Only It's going to just be a newspaper full
of good news that people will want to read and
not be drawn into dooming gloom. Wouldn't that be a
wonderful world.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
As the campaign continued to grow, so did Angela's involvement.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
I started to work for the Anthony Nolan Trust. I
was a donor recruitment manager. I then started running clinics
where people could come along and put their name down
to be on their register. And everybody was coming to
join the register, coming in their thousands.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
It was intense work, and Angela says it couldn't have
been accomplished without Lindsay's help. The woman they'd met at
the fundraiser was becoming an integral part of their lives.
Lindsay went above and beyond a Joanna's campaign, and she
mean business.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
She was ex military, had been in the Navy, and
so she had that kind of great organizational skills and
she was charming. She attracted people good fund raiser. Because
we were running a campaign together, the relationship became pretty intense.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Lindsay and Angela became best friends, you know.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
The relationship grew organically. She would phone me during our
work hours and then that would expand it and we
wouldn't just talk work. We just kicked off. We just
kicked off really well and laughed at the same things.
We talked about the same things. We both had families
(13:37):
that were very similar, very close, loving families.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
They had a lot in common and Lindsay made her
feel less alone. Lindsay didn't have a child with cancer
or a personal stake in growing the donor Registry, but
she was passionate about the work and the people she
was helping.
Speaker 6 (13:57):
She just had an aura and we both have a
common goal in increasing the register and helping people, and
she cared about Joanna.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
As the year went on, Lindsay became a part of
their family.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Her families quickly became intertwined. I absolutely adored her mother
and her sisters.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Lindsay and Angela started calling each other first thing in
the morning every morning.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
We're both early birds. Either she would text me or
I would text her saying are you awake yet? And
I don't know what we even spoke about. You know
when you have a relationship and you can be in
the phone for an hour and then you have to
phone back in an hour's time. Oh, I forgot to
tell you. I could speak to her five times a day.
(14:52):
That was the kind of relationship we had. You didn't
get one without the other. Hell Is and Pickle.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
The two women founded an annual ball together as a
fundraiser for the registry. By that point, Lindsay felt like
a sister.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
It's hard to describe just how intense a friendship it was.
I feel it was almost because we had that goal
to save Joanna's life.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
Joanna herself was determined to live and she was open
to trying anything.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
She spoke to doctors about complimentary therapies. Should you have reflexologies,
should you have massage? And thirty years ago doctor scoffed
and rolled her eyes and said, yeah, you could try
that if you like.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
But Joanna was ahead of her time. She believed in
western medicine, and she also believed in the power of rest, food,
and joy. While they kept waiting for the perfect Matchna
decided the best treatment would be living her life to
the fullest.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
She was gotzi. She would do things like skydive. She
went scuba diving.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
She'd been living with cancer for almost ten years. When
she was twenty four, she planned a backpack around the world.
Her doctor has cleared her to go so long as
she had blood work done every few weeks, and Joanna
took the chance.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
She went all over. She was in Thailand, all these
kind of places fichi, I mean made in mind. Joanna
was tiny, tiny little thin thing. Her backpack was almost
as big as her. It was huge, and while she
was in Australia, I got a phone call to say
(16:51):
she had been admitted.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
She started feeling short of breath and it turned out
she had a collapsed long.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
Her lungs are deteriorating. Eventually they managed to get her
on a flight and get her back to Scotland, and
then we discovered that she actually needed a heart and
long transplant.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
Everyone knew what it meant. This was the beginning of
the end and she never.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Ever got that long transplant.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
Joanna died at home with her mom and sisters by
her side. She was twenty seven.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
It was just also unfair. Everything's unfair, though, isn't it.
You know, with a disease, it's never fair. But she
just desperately wanted to live, and.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Allat immediately threw herself into planning a celebration of life
for Joanna.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
I remember saying to somebody, this is the last thing
I get to do for my child.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
The service would be joyful and vibrant, just like Joanna.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
We asked everybody not to wear black, to wear very
colorful clothing. From a tiny little girl, Joanna loved rainbows.
As a toddler. She would scream when she saw a rainbow,
she was fascinated.
Speaker 7 (18:32):
And when she was very ill and she knew she
was dying, she said to me, when we can no
longer be together.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
I will send you a sign and we can meet
in the middle of rainbow.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
As they plan the service, Lindsay was there to help always.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Lindsay actually asked if she could reader Yuligi. I was laying,
my goodness, could you do that? And she was like,
I really, yeah, I could. I want to? And I
was like, oh, that's beautiful.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Even in this dark time, Angela felt like she was
surrounded by love, that she was supported by good and
caring people.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
I thought Lindsay McCallum was one of these people, and
she wasn't.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
After Joanna passed away, Angela leaned on her family and friends,
especially her best friend Lindsay. At this point, they'd been
best friends for nearly a decade. Their daily morning calls
became a lifeline for Angela.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
After Johanna passed. You know, Lindsey would be the first
person I would speak to in the morning, and she
would message me and say a yap where I would
if I was awake, I would miss a yap. And
we would chat and she would just laugh with me
about the funny things. Joanna would get up to the
(20:37):
funny things that she would say, and it lifted my spouts.
And it was just she was always there. She was
so supportive. Never heard her cry right enough, never cried,
but I just thought that she was just composed.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Their friendship went on like this for another seven years.
During this time, Angela was reflecting a lot on Joanna
and how she was always looking for holistic treatments, ways
to make herself feel better and find joy. She thought
about how Joanna used to say.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
There should be a place that people go and they
can just sample.
Speaker 8 (21:22):
All these things and find out what you can do
to bring more joy, more peace, more relaxation, less stress.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
One day, when Lindsay and Angela were on the phone,
they came up with an idea together, a charity that
would provide exactly that.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Seven years after Joanna passed away, Lindsay and I decided
in her memory to launch Rainbow Valley to help other people.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Rainbow Valley to Joanna's vibrancy and her love of rainbows.
They would offer a two day residential program for people
with cancer. The course would include coaching on mindfulness, diet
and emotional well being.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
Remove Valley is not a life saving charity. Remove Aalley
is a life changing charity. And it doesn't matter how
long you have to live, it's what can you do
to take back control of a diagnosis of cancer? I
(22:37):
live a more joyous life.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
Luckily, Lindsay knew how to start a charity and she
was eager to help.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
She had seventeen eighteen years experience as a fund raiser
for a big organization, so she was obviously well respected
within the sector, and I felt she had the expertise.
Johanna gave us the vision, Johanna gave us our mission
(23:07):
why it was the storyteller, and Lindsay was the expertise
behind pulling it together.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
They applied for charitable status and found experts to lead
their courses, and then, in a twist of faith, Lindsay
was laid off from her job at the Anthony Nullan Trust,
so she became Rainbow Valley's first official employee.
Speaker 9 (23:33):
It made sense that Lindsay, you know, after being made redundant,
worked for Rainbow Valley, and we pulled the board together,
a board of trustees, and we took advice from Lindsay.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
We took her lead because she was the one with
twenty years experience.
Speaker 9 (23:54):
I was so grateful that we were able to do
something like this together in Joy and his memory.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
I thought it was all meant to be.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
Under Lindsay's leadership, the charity really came together. In twenty twelve,
Rainbow Valley officially began running courses.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
She was the head of the charity. She was involved
in the day to day running of everything. I trusted
her implicitly implicitly.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
A few years into managing the charity together, the friends
faced their first real conflict. Angela had started to question
some of Lindsay's choices.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
I felt she was spending money on something that wasn't
necessary and it was a bit of a waste of resources.
And I spoke to Lindsay about this, and I remember
saying to her, this is extremely difficult for me because
(25:09):
you're my best friend and I adore you, but this
is a business conversation and I don't feel this is
the way we should be running.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
And Lindsay didn't take it well.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
It was the first time I had ever seen I
don't want to overexaggerate and say aggression but it was
like she was angry. I saw it as not a fallout,
but we disagreed on something which we hadn't done before.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
But it was more than a disagreement. It was a
turning point. After that conversation, Lindsay became cold and she
came to Angela with some feedback of her own.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
She started telling me that people didn't like me and
that I was causing upset on the course. I was
upsetting the staff, and I was upsetting the attendees, and
I was creating a negative atmosphere.
Speaker 9 (26:16):
And of course I loved her and I didn't want
to upset her.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
I didn't want to upset anybody on the course. That
she had me convinced that I was creating this negative atmosphere.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
Angela was taken aback, but she trusted Lindsay's judgment. She
didn't want to be a problem or get in the
way of their mission.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
And she told me that I shouldn't come to the
courses anymore. I wasn't being useful, so I kind of
stepped back from that.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
She wanted to do what was best for the charity,
but Angela was hurt, and to make matters worse, their
friendship was changing.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
During that time, our relationship really deteriorated, and I was
very confused, you know, because Lindsay would turn quite nasty
at times, and it just wasn't like her, you know.
I would try to speak to and see what's wrong,
and she'd say nothing, nothing, So she had me feeling
(27:34):
I was imagining it.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
Lindsay stopped calling in the mornings.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
I would then be phoning and she would ignore my calls,
and then when I would say to you, I phoned you,
she would say, what if I got a misscall from you.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
Then one night, Angela opened her door to find all
three of her daughters standing in front of her.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
The girls all came to my house one evening and said,
you really need to get help. You're not happy.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
Angela knew Lindsay had something to do with this, and
her daughters confirmed it. Lindsay had approached them and raised
her concerns.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
She was saying to them things like, your mum really
needs help. I know. She said a lot of trauma
in her life, but she really needs help, and that
I was going.
Speaker 10 (28:28):
Off my not.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
And I was like, absolutely not.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
Now Lindsay was interfering in her relationship with her daughters.
It started to feel like it was orchestrated, but to
what end. Angela couldn't figure it out. And on top
of that.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
I felt she was pushing me out, telling me that
I was interfering in the day to day running of
the charity and that she ran the charity.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
But one day Angela stopped by a Rainbow Valley course
that Lindsay was running. She stood in the back and
kept to herself. Lindsay was giving the introduction to the group. Typically,
they shared Joanna's story at the start of every course,
but this time Lindsay skipped over it.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
I remember going to a day course and normally when
we have our intro slides, we talk about what Rainbow
Valley is the inspiration and we have a picture of
Joanna up and we talk about this is where it started,
this was a dream of Joanna's. But this time she
(29:45):
didn't mention Joanna on the course. I said after.
Speaker 11 (29:49):
It wasn't a reason why we stopped talking about Joanna,
and she said, because I don't really think it's relevant.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Angela was at a loss for words. She didn't recognize
Lindsay or where she was taking Rainbow Valley.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
And then in twenty twenty two in January, she said
to me, there's a problem.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
Lindsay said Covid had taken a toll on the charity's
bottom line, and she.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
Said, we've managed to bob along because we got some
grants to run the online courses. But now we're through
all that and it's not viable. We don't have enough money.
The charity's going to close. She announced this at a
board meeting and they all kind of looked at the
(30:50):
figures and were like, we're in trouble here.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
It was bleak. Lindsay explained that the best option was
to wind down the charity at the end of the year.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
I said, wait a week moment, we cannot make this
decision and walk out of the room saying that's it.
We're folding. Give us three weeks. Let reconvene in three
weeks and if we all go away and speak to
everybody and anybody and see if we can find a company,
(31:25):
a trust fund, somebody that will save us, somebody that
will give us a big donation.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
Angela started working the founds. Within a week, someone found
a dinner willing to help get Rainbow Valley back on track.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
I was so relieved and so excited. I met Lindsey
before the board meeting and I thought she would have
been elated, but she was like, oh, that's great.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
Instead of celebrating, Lindsay announced that she would be stepping
down from the charity for good.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
She said, I'm leaving Rainbow Valley. I don't want to
do fundraising anymore. I'm good to resign.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
On her last day, the staff took her out to
lunch and bought her flowers. She and Angela said a
cordial goodbye. Angela felt like it was a new chapter
for the charity. The only thing left to do was
close the accounts Lindsay used. Years ago, she set up
a separate bank account for their annual gala. Angela knew
(32:38):
about the account, but she wasn't involved in managing it.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
I had mentioned this other account that was for the ball,
which Lindsay had advised that we set up as a
friend's account. I knew that she had done this when
she was with the Anthony Nolan Trust previously, so I
just thought, well, that's how it's done.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
The bank account Lindsay set up was called the Friends
of Rainbow Valley.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
And the treasurer said, oh that account is it? Closed,
and I was like, well, I don't know, and she said,
well it needs closed or the name changed.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
So Angela went to the bank and got hard copies
of the account statements to take back to the office
and reconcile. Angela's adult daughter, Kendall, was working for Rainbow
Valley at the time, helping close out the books for
the end of the year.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
I took it back to the office, put it down
on the table and I said to Kendall, let's go
through this. And Kendall continued looking through it, and she said, Mum,
come back and look at this. Why is all this
getting paid out to Lindsay? Why why is all these
(33:54):
payments going out to Lindsay.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
Angela went to look and she saw dozens of transfers,
small transfers, a few hundred dollars each. But the closer
they looked, they realized it quickly totaled a huge sum
of money and it was all made out to one person,
Lindsay McCallum. As Angela and her daughter Kendall were going
(34:38):
through the end of year finances for Rainbow Valley, they
found something alarming. Dozens of payments to Lindsay from a
bank account that only she.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
Used, and she said, why's all this compeyed out to
Lindsay and I said, it will be expenses, and she
said no, look at dates. Why would she have expenses? March, April, May,
June every month, and it's sometimes it's twice a day.
I was really confused, and Kendall just looked at me,
(35:10):
and I was like, no, she's been horrible to me,
but she's not a thief. I know that her family
are very wealthy, she's very comfortable, and she's not a thief. No,
not a chance.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
It's true that Lindsay's husband came from a wealthy family
and she'd been collecting a salary from Rainbow Valley. She
didn't need money. Angela felt like there had to be
another explanation, so she reached out to Lindsay to clear
it up.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
I had sent a message saying, I'm confused why all
these payments are going out to you and are the
expenses and the amounts don't add up. She says it
was expenses. I was just paying things and drips and drabs,
and I wanted to believe that. And I came back
(36:01):
into the office and I said to Kendall, it's fine,
just expenses, and Kendall said, bullshit, bullshit. She says, open
your eyes and look at it properly.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
She needed answers, so she called Lindsey back and she
was just.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
Coming up with, you know, lots of different excuses, and
then she said, well, I should have told you this,
but a good few years ago, Rainbow Valley was in
financial trouble and I put a lump summon to dig
us out a hole, and I should have told you
about it. And I said how much? How much did
(36:49):
you put in? And she said, oh, I can't remember that.
That was me trying to claw the money back. And
I said no, I says, that's not transparent. You can
do that. Bring in all your statements, bring in all
your bank accounts, and you and I will sit at
this table and we will go through everything and we'll
(37:11):
make everything transparent so that every penny's accounted for. And
she said I can't.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
So Angela ended the car. She needed time to think,
and at.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
That point, you know, I'm disgusted. We packed up and
drove home, and the whole way home, my head was
just spinning. And I said to my daughter, just let's
keep this low key. Just now, because I need to
work out what my next steps are.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
Before she could wrap her head around this, Lindsay called again,
this time with a new tactic.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
She phoned and she said, please, Angela, don't take this
any further. And she said, look, I'll give you twenty
thousand pounds, just go to the bank and close it.
And I said, how long has this has been going on?
And she said, oh, no, no, no, it was just
that year. It was just that one year.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
That was it.
Speaker 2 (38:18):
That was it, you know, it was okay, it's okay,
there's nothing else.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
Angela didn't believe her.
Speaker 2 (38:26):
As far as I was concerned. She was trying to
bribe me.
Speaker 1 (38:30):
This wasn't slappy buckkeeping. It was theft.
Speaker 2 (38:34):
So then I phoned my daughter and I said, we're
going to the police. I had to go to the place.
Speaker 1 (38:43):
They wanted to gather all the evidence they could, so
they searched every page of their financial records starting with
the year the charity was founded.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
And my two daughters went through it, highlighting everything and
kind of trying to get a tally. I could have
a two mo own things. I was in such a state.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
The bank statements revealed Lindsay had been stealing money from
Rainbow Valley. For years, she had taken it bit by bit,
three hundred here, two hundred there, and slowly those little
numbers started adding up. In the end they discovered Lindsay
stole eighty six thousand pounds, that's one hundred and sixteen
(39:26):
thousand US dollars. The reason nobody had noticed was because
Lindsay was soliciting donations straight to the Friends of Rainbow
Valley account and she never reported those donations to the organization.
So of course the donors thought their money was going
to the charity. In reality, it was going to Lindsay's
(39:49):
slush fund.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
Nobody else would know that thousand pounds ever existed, because
she would be the one that would be writing a
letter of things. So she was so deceitful. And these
are people, this is money from people that she would know.
Speaker 1 (40:06):
Lindsay had robbed their downers, She'd robbed cancer patients and
their families. She'd even tried to close Rainbow Valley forever.
Speaker 2 (40:15):
It was like a jigsaw all coming together. It was
making sense why she was treating me the way she was,
why she had to get rid of me, why she
wanted to leave Rainbow Valley why she was gaslighting me.
She had hoped that the charity would fold and all
(40:37):
the bank accounts would be closed and it would be
all gone and she would have got away with it.
Speaker 1 (40:44):
Angela realized her best friend of twenty years wasn't the
person she thought she was.
Speaker 2 (40:49):
When it all came to light, I was breathed. The
person I thought she was for me had died. She
no longer existed, and that was extremely difficult, intense.
Speaker 1 (41:11):
Angela walked into the police station with hundreds of papers
in hand.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
And I have to say the detective was so good
because I was on there. I was just a wreck
when you would come in, you know, I was just
a blobbing wreck. And he was just very calm and
kind and explained everything as he was going along. And
he warned me, said this will take about two years
to get to court. And I was like, no way,
(41:37):
how can that be. He was right.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
It took the police a year to investigate the case.
A week after Angela confronted her, Lindsay paid twenty five
thou pounds into the Rainbow Valley account in an attempt
to cover up what she'd done. She didn't know that
Angela had already gone to the police, so.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
She thought she had got away with it. You know,
time was passing and she was living our best life.
Their son was getting married. They went away to Cyprus
for this big, laffish wedding, as if there was nothing wrong.
Speaker 1 (42:18):
For Angela, the year of the investigation was an emotional
and unsettling time. Sometimes she had to remind herself that
this was really happening.
Speaker 2 (42:29):
I would get into a panic sometimes and think, oh
my god, have we got this wrong? And I would
have to go back into the office and take out
all the evidence and look at him to remind me
and say, no, it really happened. It really has happened.
Speaker 1 (42:51):
On October thirtieth, twenty twenty three, it got very real
for Angela and for Lindsay.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
The day she was arrested. I'll never forget it as
long as I live.
Speaker 12 (43:03):
I remember it because I was driving home from my
mother's and the detective phoned me and asked me to
pull in, and he said, I've brought her in for questioning.
Speaker 1 (43:16):
And I've charged her.
Speaker 2 (43:18):
And he said okay, and I said yeah, but I
was shaking.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
She thought she'd feel a sense of justice, but really
she just felt heartbreak.
Speaker 2 (43:35):
Bear in mind, I still loved her. Love is not
like a light switch. We don't ever switch it off.
I loved the bones of her. She was a fabulous friend.
She was there for me and some of my darkest,
darkest hours. And then I was confused. I stood and
(44:00):
read a eulogy at Johanna's funeral. How could you do that?
How could you do that?
Speaker 1 (44:08):
But Angela's heartbreak turned to rage when the police uncovered
new information. It turned out Lindsay's fraud didn't start with
Rainbow Valley. She had also stolen from the Anthony Nolan Trust,
the place where Angela and Lindsay first met, and the
police charged her with that fraud too.
Speaker 2 (44:31):
I think that was the point where I felt angry then,
because I thought, you're a serial thief. And it's just
left me wondering did she ever have any love for
any of us? She worked for the Anthony Nolan Trust
(44:57):
when I met her, and Joanna needed the bone marrow transplant,
and I question, did she see Joanna could raise a
lot of money where we just a meal ticket for her?
And that hurts like hell, not because she did that
to me, but because she maybe did that with Joanna.
Speaker 1 (45:22):
It's an unanswerable question, but they'd been friends for decades.
Angela knew Lindsay and what really motivated her.
Speaker 2 (45:31):
Her husband's family are extremely wealthy and elderly, so he
is in for a big, big, big inheritance. Personally, I
just don't think it was coming quick enough to her,
and her vanity and greed took over.
Speaker 1 (45:53):
On the day of Lindsay's sentencing hearing.
Speaker 2 (45:58):
The court opened and she she had to walk past us,
and she stuck her head in the air, stuck her
nose in the air and looked in the opposite direction.
You know, she was very close. Had to walk right
past me, and I recognized her. Fully that felt I
didn't know.
Speaker 1 (46:19):
Lindsay ended up pleading guilty to two fraud charges.
Speaker 2 (46:23):
She knew that you get a third off your sentence,
so she got four years reduced to three years. With
pleading guilty.
Speaker 1 (46:30):
Lindsay was sentenced to three years in prison in order
to repay both charities. She did make that repayment, but
she only served a quarter of her sentence. But justice
looks different for Angela. She wanted anesty and remorse, but
that never came.
Speaker 13 (46:50):
I'll never ever ever get over it. I'll never understand it.
I would love to sit in a room with her
and just say, please be honest, tell me why, and
tell me what's going through your head. I would love
to have a conversation with her, not for me to
call her names or to call her out on anything, but.
Speaker 2 (47:11):
Just to try and unjumble my brain. I missed the
person I thought she was. I really do.
Speaker 1 (47:21):
Even though Lindsay's deception devastated Angela, she isn't willing to
let it change her values.
Speaker 2 (47:29):
I refuse to live my life not trusting people. With
what I've been through with Joanna. I know there are
more good people in the world than there are bad,
and that's why I hang on to I've got seven
(47:50):
beautiful grandchildren. None of them met Joanna, but they all
know her when they talk about her. When they see
rein and if there's a reflection comes into the house
and it's bouncing off, they'll say, oh, Auntie Joe's here.
Speaker 1 (48:09):
Angela lost her best friend, but she didn't lose Rainbow Valley,
and her decision to bring Lindsay's crime to light in
some ways has been a positive. Today, Rainbow Valley has
more interest and support than ever, and Angela dreams of
building a permanent center for the charity. Joanna's legacy has
(48:31):
become part of Angela's legacy too.
Speaker 2 (48:34):
I want this to have longevity and be meaningful for
people way after I've gone. I wanted to keep growing
and flourishing and being there to help people through, you know,
a very difficult period of their life.
Speaker 1 (48:53):
And all of our Weekly episodes with the same question,
why do you want to share your story?
Speaker 2 (49:00):
I'm telling this story mainly because you asked. But Rainbow
Valley was Joanna's dream. Lindsay tried to turn it into
a nightmare, and I wanted the world to know what
she had done and who she really was. But I
(49:20):
also want people to realize that they can survive the
worst times of their life. And Joanna taught me to
stand tall because that's what she did. If she could
do it, I've got to you know, when you have
(49:41):
a rainbows gantee, the sun will come out eventually.
Speaker 1 (49:51):
On the next episode of Betrayal Weekly.
Speaker 10 (49:55):
Never ever did I see that coming. Ever, I truly
thought I was going in to help someone else, and
then I'm theen question, what do you mean I'm his wife?
This isn't a crime. We weren't a crime.
Speaker 1 (50:24):
If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal
team or want to tell us your Betrayal story, email
us at Betrayalpod at gmail dot com. That's Betrayal Pod
at gmail dot com. We're grateful for your support. One
way to show support is by subscribing to our show
on Apple Podcasts, and don't forget to rate and review Betrayal.
Five star reviews go a long way. A big thank
(50:47):
you to all of our listeners. Betrayal is a production
of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group and
partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is executive produced by
Nancy Glass and Jennifer Fason, hosted and produced by me
Andrea Gunning, written and produced by Monique Leboard, also produced
by Ben Fetterman. Associate producers are Kristin Mercury and Caitlin Golden.
(51:11):
Our iHeart team is Ali Perry and Jessica Krincheck. Audio
editing and mixing by Matt Delvecchio, Additional editing support from
Tanner Robbins. Betrayal's theme composed by Oliver Bains. Music library
provided by my Music and for more podcasts from iHeart,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
(51:32):
your podcasts.
Host
Andrea Gunning
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