December 4, 2025 • 51 mins
After twenty years of marriage, April thought she’d seen every side of Joe. She never imagined the one that put him behind bars.
PERPETRATOR DISCLOSURE: This episode discusses crimes committed by Richard Joseph Banks Jr in San Diego, California.
If you or someone you know has experienced sexual assault, you are not alone. RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline offers free, confidential, 24/7 support in English and en Español. Call (800) 656-HOPE (4673) or Text HOPE to 64673.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
We pull out of our house. We get about two
blocks from the old house, and he looks at me
and he says, I think I'm getting ready to be arrested.
Within seconds of that coming out of his mouth, the
squad car lit us up and pulled us over.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
I'm Andrea Gunning, and this is Betrayal, A show about
the people we trust the most and the deceptions that
change everything. Today we're sharing april story. Growing up in
San Diego. April was extremely close to her parents. She'd
been adopted by them when she was six weeks old.
(01:01):
Her dad was her best friend.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
I was definitely a tomboy growing up, and so my
joke had always been that I was the son my
dad never had. I know how to change a spark
plug on my car and all of the things within
the engine.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
They had a typical middle class suburban life. Religion and
faith were the foundation of their family.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
I was born and raised in the Church. I grew
up with Christian values.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Church gave April purpose and community.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
I have a fierce sense of wanting people to feel
like they belong. Being adopted you deal with trauma in
the sense that you were almost rejected from birth. So
I want people to know that they belonged, that they
have a place.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
The church also fed April's passion for music.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
My mom got me into piano lessons at an early
age and so I always played at church.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Her parents' marriage was her model of a healthy, happy relationship.
Their love was a positive example of commitment.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Even now after fifty seveidd years, half the time they're
acting like newlyweds. That's what I wanted. That was the
vision of marriage.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Growing up, April knew she wanted a relationship like theirs.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
In high school, I had a boyfriend and I was
very much a one person girl. So once I was
with someone that was it like I had blinders on.
They were my person.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
She also had a vision for her career. Her passion
was music. She wanted to play in symphony hall and
of course church.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
I want to lead people in worship. I want to
be in a big worship team.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
In January of two thousand and three, April was accepted
into the Hillsong Churches Leadership School in Sydney, Australia. For April,
it was a life changing opportunity.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
My intention was to go to school in Australia, meet
an Australian, marry him and live in Sydney. That was
my whole plan, That was my goal. I was not
looking to date anyone here. I had no intentions of
even coming back to the country.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
She was looking forward to starting over and started preparing
for her move to Australia. But one Wednesday night, April
was setting up to lead worship when someone caught her eye.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
He was a good looking guy, tall, blonde, blue eyes,
and I was like, who is this guy? Like, I'd
never seen him before, didn't know who he was.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
It was uncommon for a stranger to be hanging out
before service. He was chatting with a woman April had
known for years.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
And so I walked down to just say hi to
this lady and she said, April, this is my son Joe.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
So this was Joe. April had heard about him before,
but she had pictured him differently. April knew his mom well.
His mom had told April about how Joe got in
trouble in Texas. He'd gotten involved with a group of
guys that were a bad influence on him. Joe had
just moved to San Diego hoping for a fresh start.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
He was coming out here to start over, I remember
looking at him and shaking his hand and having the
thought of Wow, he's got the most gentle eyes I've
ever seen. It took me by surprise.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
She went about her business that evening, not thinking much
of it. As she started sound check that night, their
sound engineer was nowhere to be found. As the service
grew closer, April started to panic.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
Next thing I know, I look in the back of
the room at the sound booth, and Joe's in the
sound booth, and I look at my guitar player and
I was like, what is he doing. My guitar player
looks back there and he is like, Oh, that's Joe.
Don't worry about it. He knows what he's doing. He
helped build the sound system years ago.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Joe saved the day.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
It was just a welcome surprise. And after that point
Joe became our fund man.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Once a month the worship team would go out to dinner.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Anytime that we would do that, he would make it
a point to sit right next to me and talk
with me. We talked a lot about God and our
relationship with God, and we got to be good friends.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
As they got closer, it became clear that Joe was
interested in a romantic relationship.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
He would say, Hey, can we go grab a cup
of coffee or a slice of pie? And MY response
was always like no, I'm good, Like we can go
hang out with the worship team, like we can go
to dinner with the team or with our friends. But
I was dead set against doing any one on one
dating with him.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
April did not want to complicate things with her team,
Plus she was planning to leave for Australia in a
matter of months.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
I knew that he had been previously married and had
kids from his first marriage.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Despite her rejections, Joe was persistent.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
When I was sick, he would just show up at
my house with the bowl of soup and a get
well card.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
And as time went on, his gestures became more romantic.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
He would send me flowers for no reason. He would
send little notes just to say hi, like a good
morning message. So I would wake up and there would
be an email from him saying good morning, beautiful.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
It made her feel special, but April was still planning
to move to Australia for Hillsong. The night before her flight,
she had to record a tape of her vocal range.
Joe offered to help make the recording.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
And so I ran through all my scales, ran through,
you know, all sorts of different vocal exercises for him
to record.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Once they were done recording, April and Joe packed up
their things and made their way to the parking lot.
She would be gone for a year. It was hard
to say goodbye.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
He and I were standing by the cars just chatting,
and as we're talking, all of a sudden, I just
kissed him, Like there was no thought to it. I
just leaned in and kissed him.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
It was so out of character for April. She surprised herself.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
And I was just shaking. I was like, I'm so sorry,
I don't even know why I did that. And then
the next thing I know, he's kissing me. It was
one of those kisses that just kind of made your
knees vocal.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
The kiss was electric, in part because they both knew
April was about to leave the country.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
And then he was like okay, and I was like, yeah,
I'm good, Like we're good. And I said, I don't
know what's going to happen because I am leaving, but
we'll stay in touch. The next morning, I got on
a plane and went to Sydney.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
When she got there, she jumped right into school. Hillsong
College is well known for their worship and vocational courses.
For April being there was a dream come true.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
They had this program where you would get all the
music theory, learn about worship history, music history within the
church itself, as well as leadership training. I loved every
moment of it. Lives breathed eight school.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
April thought that when she arrived in Sydney she'd forget
about Joe, but she didn't. She found her thoughts drifting
to him and what he was doing back in San Diego.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
He was working at seven eleven and using his money
to get phone cards, so every single day he was
calling me. So we spent a lot of time on
the phone, which forced us to really learn how to
communicate with each other.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
On those long phone calls, they learned a lot about
each other. In many ways, they were opposites.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
I was always so serious and he had the ability
to really make me laugh and just enjoy the moment.
He made life fun.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Joe helped her relax. For the whole year she was
in Australia, their attraction evolved. The distance brought them even
closer When April flew back to the States, Joe surprised
her by picking her up at the airport.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
We're driving back and he pulls off at this rest
stop and it's a beautiful overlook that overlooks the Pacific
Go in San Diego. It was a beautiful day, like
the sun which He's standing behind me with his arms
around me, and we're just talking and he's pointing out
into the water and he was like, can you see
(10:12):
that boat out there? And I was like, no, I
don't see the boat. He's like, take a moment, close
your eyes, and when you open your eyes, I want
you to fixate on where my fingers are pointing. I'm like, okay,
got it. And so I'm standing there with my eyes closed,
and then he says, okay, open them, and when I do,
(10:33):
his hand is in front of me with a ring
box and this beautiful Marquis cut diamond ring is in
the middle of it.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
April stared at Joe dumbfounded.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
And he's like, would you marry me? And I said yes.
You know, I'm in love with this guy. And he
has spent so much time talking to me while I've
been gone, and it just felt right. I was so happy,
and I just I had felt so safe and loved that.
(11:06):
It was like, yeah, this was my person.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Because they had gotten to know each other from Afar,
their love story unfolded in a backwards way.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
After the proposal. We go on our first official date.
We went to finding Nemo.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Even though they didn't have a lot of money, they
found ways to have dates and just enjoy each other's company.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
We would go for a walk on the beach, or
we would go someplace and just kind of sit and
have coffee together. Anything that we could do cheaply we
would do, going and splitting a meal somewhere. We took
opportunity to just try and spend time together when we could.
It was just our own little world at the time.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
They met each other's families and talked about what they
wanted for their future. Joe had three kids from his
first marriage. They lived with their mom out of state.
Joe didn't want any more kids, and April was on
the same page.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
Kids were never something that I really thought about.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
What mattered more to April was how her parents saw Joe.
Her mom embraced him right away, but her dad was reluctant.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
My dad was a bit harder of a nut to crack.
He was always suspicious of him. There were stories that
Joe would tell and my dad would just be like,
something doesn't add up.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
After dating long distance between California and Australia, April and
Joe engaged. They were thrilled, but April's dad had some
reservations about Joe. He gave him a pass because his
daughter loved him, and in May of two thousand and four,
April and Joe got married.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
I didn't want anything elaborate. I just wanted a simple wedding,
and we had the wedding at a local hotel that
had just opened up their wedding garden. Our friends and
family were there. It was beautiful.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
They wrote their own vowels.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
It wasn't the typical you know, I'm going to love, honor,
and obey you. It was I want to support who
you are as a person and who God has created
you to be.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
After the wedding, the couple moved into their first apartment.
It was the first time April lived with a partner.
In fact, it was a time of a lot of firsts.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
I'd never been with a man period, Like I'd never
had sex until him, so he was my first, so
there was a little bit of am I doing things right?
Am I pleasing him? Am I making him happy? I
can't remember the first year. I would wake up in
the middle of the night and almost freak out because
there was a boy in my bed.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
After thirty years of being independent, it was a big
adjustment to live with a man. April quickly realized.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
I'm doing all the dishes. I'm doing the cooking, cleaning, laundry,
taking the trash out.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
She also noticed a pattern whenever she confronted Joe, he.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Would step up for a couple of weeks, he would
take the trash out without me asking, he would clean
up his own dishes, and then it would slowly slip
back into me taking care of everything again.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
It was disappointing, but Joe was still the same guy
she'd fallen in love with. He always took time to
make her feel seen.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
He was still bringing flowers just because if I had
a rough day, we would go grab a pizza from
the pizza place on the corner, just little things that
it was like, Okay, it's still very thoughtful, and yeah,
we've got this tension of I'm doing everything, but he's
still taking care of me.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Eventually, the couple both found jobs at a local ministry.
Joe worked in their video department.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
She was editing videos and getting everything ready to go
on to actual TV. I worked in the prayer center,
and it was where people could call in that needed
prayer and they could get a hold of a live
person that would take time to sit and listen to
them and just pray with them and talk with them.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
In two thousand and nine, five years into their marriage,
Joe got a call from his first wife. She needed
support with the kids, and she asked if Joe's teenage
son could come live with them. April agreed. She welcomed
him into their home and into their family.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
He was a great kid. He really wasn't any trouble
and he lived with us through his entire high school
years and played football for the high school and all that.
The kid was tenderhearted, he just wanted to do right.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
It was a really successful arrangement. A few years later,
Joe's daughter came to stay with them as well. However,
it was a lot more challenging. Joe's daughter was going
through a difficult time and Joe was too.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
He had been through bouts of unemployment before, but it
was while she was here that he went through the
longest period of unemployment of about two years. And so
during that time, I'm the soul breadwinner. Joe began to
drink and his drinking was escalating.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
It was too much pressure on April to support the
whole family.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
I told him that I was done. I couldn't do
this anymore.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
They weren't able to provide Joe's daughter with the support
she needed, so she went home to Texas. Joe was upset.
He felt like he failed his daughter and in the
process lost her too. To cope, Joe threw himself into
his job working for their church, where he was running
sound and helping them upgrade their audio visual capabilities. The
(17:32):
church wanted to start live streaming their service so members
of the congregation could watch from home.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
She was trying to help our church get up on
live streaming, so he would log onto this website that
had all these various different live streams.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
On these live streaming sites, Joe would sometimes help other
church members troubleshoot any technical difficulties.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
I would notice that every once in a while he
would be chatting with the young girls, not necessarily teenage girls,
but maybe early twenties, and I would ask what are
you doing and he's like, oh, I'm trying to help
them get their streaming correct because their camera's fuzzy. He
could make it sound so logical and so reasonable.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
It seemed a little odd to April, but she believed Joe.
He had always been one to help out the kids
at church, and he took a special interest in mentoring youth.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
At our church. We had had a couple of guys
come in at one point that were following some of
the young girls around the church, and Joe he was
the one that clocked it and went into leadership and
was like, these guys need to go. What they're doing
is sketchy. He'd always been that guy, protective of girls,
(18:56):
protective of youth.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
April was proud of how Joe stood up for their
young church members. Years passed and April and Joe's relationship studied.
They were involved in church together, they kept watching their
favorite sports teams and hung out with friends. The world
they built together felt comfortable and grounding. Eventually, April and
Joe felt like they needed something to break up their
(19:19):
usual routine. They wanted to get back to their community
and spend time outdoors together, so they decided to volunteer
at a horse rescue near their house. They each took
on regular chores at the barn.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
He was feeding the horses in the early mornings or
in the evenings, and I was involved in helping with
some of the training. This was just a real place
of bliss for me and for him, having grown up
in the country in Texas. He was loving it because
(19:55):
it just felt like he found home as well.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
They started getting to know the community at the horse rescue,
including a woman and her teenage daughter that lived on
the property.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
The daughter would end up feeding on weekends by herself
at night, and they'd had a couple of instances of
people trespassing at night that were kind of scary, and
so Joe volunteered to feed with her.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
She was about the same age as his daughter. April
suspected Joe was projecting some of his concern for his
own daughter. Onted this girl at the barn.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
And then there was one day where she needed to
go pick up a piece of equipment that her dad
was giving her, so Joe offered to take her in
one of her girlfriends to go to her Dad's and
haul it back. They left early in the morning, and
(20:55):
I spent the day there on the ranch.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
April was taking a break from barn chores when she
saw one of the two teenage girls wandering up towards
the stable.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
And I was like, oh, hey, you're back, and she
was like, what do you mean. I said, oh, well,
didn't you go with Joe and the other girl? And
she was like no, they left before I even got here.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
It made April uncomfortable that Joe was alone with a
teenage girl.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
I tried calling him multiple times. He never answered. It
was getting to be about six o'clock in the evening
and just him and the girl pull up. I take
one look at him and I'm just livid, like I'm
so angry.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
But Joe seemed completely unbothered. He walked up to the
barn like nothing happened.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
I grab him and I pull him to the side.
I'm like, what is wrong with you? He's like what
do you mean? And I said, do you have any
idea you just spent all day with a teenage girl
alone in a vehicle.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
April made it known Joe had broken an unspoken rule
all the volunteers saw Joe pulling up with this teenage
girl in his car. The girl's mom agreed.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
Her mom put her foot down and was like, you
can no longer spend time with my daughter.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
Joe was hurt by this. He felt like he was
being judged.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
He was emotionally upset about not being able to spend
time with her. I rationalized, it is that he took
this other girl and put her in the place of
his daughter, so it was like he was losing his
daughter all over again.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
Around this time, their church moved into a new space
and downsized their staff. Joe lost his job. He was
really struggling. After searching for a while, he landed a
job working for a doctor who had a medical TV
show on a local network.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
I had seen that show and I was like, oh, yeah,
I know who that doctor is. That's pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
On the morning of Joe's first day, the couple got
ready for work together.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
We both got in our cars. He was behind me.
I went one way and he should have turned left
at the next light, and I watched him turn right
at the next light instead of left.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
April had a sinking feeling.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
So I asked him about it. When I got home.
I said Hey, I saw you turn back towards the house,
and he was like, oh, yeah, I forgot something, so
I had to go back home and get it.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
But April was skeptical.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
Nope, something's not right. For a week he did this,
he got up, got dressed, left with me, and when
right back home.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
April was convinced that Joe's new job was completely vake.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
Sure enough, within a week he's telling me that the
doctor's son was going to take his job, and so
if he didn't have a job again.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
It was unsettling. Now April was on guard, trying to
discern if Joe was telling the truth. It was starting
to affect her sense of certainty and trust.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
She could make me feel like I was going insane.
I legitimately had moments where I was like, am I
losing my mind? He would tell me that I didn't
say things that I knew for a fact I said,
But then he had me second guessing myself because it
was like, well did I say that? Maybe I didn't
say that.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
April knew that she shouldn't feel this way, but being
honest about her concerns felt like poking a sleeping beast.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
I didn't know how to deal with the confrontation that
would come from it, and I was afraid. I was
afraid of what would come out. I didn't know how
else to move forward, other than to just bury it
and move on.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
April was fighting to regain a sense of stability in
their relationship. Top of the list was getting Joe a
new job, and April had an idea.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
I kept seeing these ads for driving instructors, and I
used to joke with him that I never wanted to
drive with him because he always told me what I
was doing wrong. And so I was like, you should
check that out. You love driving and you do love teaching.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Joe took her advice and reached out to the driving school.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
He went through their training program with the owner. You
have to do so many hours of in car training
with another instructor background check, and so he started teaching
kids how to drive cars and he loved it.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
And April was finding her stride at work too.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
Around the same time that he got his job, I
started working for my dream company. I'm an executive business
partner and an executive assistant. It's almost more of a
chief of staff type role, you know. So it was
like it felt like things were finally turning around. I
was making good money. He was making good money, he
(26:27):
had a steady job. He had found something that he
absolutely was loving. He would come home at night just
lit up, like so excited to talk about who he
had taught and what he had taught, and watching the
light bulb of understanding go off with these kids. It
just felt like we had finally reached a point where
(26:47):
it was like, maybe we're going to be okay. I
felt like I could suddenly start breathing. I didn't realize
that I had been living holding my breath, waiting for
the other shoot a drop.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
One day, April headed into the office early to prepare
for an event with her company CEO.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
And as I'm pulling into our parking garage at the office,
I get a ring alert on my phone from our
doorbell camera and I was like, well, that's weird. So
I pull up the camera and I see about six
police officers at my front door. I completely freak out
(27:34):
because it's like, what is happening.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
She immediately called Joe.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
It rang and rang, and then it went to voicemail,
and I don't know what to do. I just kept
trying to call him over and over again.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
Stunned, April began to drive home to figure out what
was going on.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
He finally calls me and tells me that police officers
and two detectives showed up with a search warrant and
they were taking all of the electronics, the computers, iPads,
apple watch, they took his work vehicle. They were seizing
(28:16):
all of it.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
Joe told April to wait to come home because he
didn't want her car to get seized too, So April
pulled over at a nearby coffee shop and waited. Finally,
Joe called her and said it was okay for her
to come home. But home was far from a comforting site.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
The house is just trashed. Everything is pulled out from
the bookshelves, tables are moved into the middle of the room,
laundry baskets are upended onto the bed. Everything is just
torn apart.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
In the middle of their upended home stood Joe.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
He's very calm, and I asked him. I was like,
did they tell you what is this about? And he
was like, no, they didn't tell me anything. They just
said that they had a search warrant. But the search
warrant doesn't say what the allegations are it doesn't say anything.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
April's mind was spinning, trying to make sense of the
unsettling scene. She found herself in Logically, I'm thinking, Okay,
they took his work vehicle.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
So I told him, I said, obviously it has to
do with your job. They took your car. So can
you think of anything that you might have done? Because
sometimes he would come home and say, yeah, one of
my students just she totally had an anxiety attack and
like broke down crying in the car kind of thing,
Like did you maybe hug one of your students because
(29:41):
you know they were upset? And he was like, no, no, nothing,
I can't think of anything.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
But the fallout was immediate.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
He gets put on administratively from the company.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
April and Joe were desperate to understand what the police
were doing at their house.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
We made the decision to hire a pre trial attorney
to see if we could get any information on what
the allegations were or what we could do.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
In the weeks that followed, April kept pressing Joe. Surely
he had to have some inkling of what was going on.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
I was constantly asking him, is there anything? Can you
think of anything?
Speaker 2 (30:26):
But every time the answer was no, and April wanted
to believe him. Everything had been going well since Joe
started his job as a driving instructor.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
He had never once indicated that there was anything on
his job that was of concern. He had never told
me anything other than that he was referred all the
time to other students.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
April was out of ideas. All she could do was
wait for answers. In the meantime, April and Joe decided
to move. Had started feeling too small.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
So we started looking for houses and I found one
about three miles north of where we had been living
that I just fell in love with, so we signed
a lease.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
Slowly they started moving boxes to their new house and
they ordered new furniture too. This place would be a
fresh start.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
It was January eleventh. He was driving me to work.
We pull out of our house. We get about two
blocks from the old house and he looks at me
and he says, I think I'm getting ready to be arrested.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
April snapped around to face him.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
I was like, why would you say that, and he
goes well. When we pulled out from the house, two
vehicles pulled in behind us, and then a marked police
vehicle pulled in behind those two cars. Within seconds of
that coming out of his mouth, the squad car lit
(32:10):
us up and pulled us over.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
April was frantic, but oddly Joe wasn't. It seemed like
he knew this moment would come.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
He just very calmly handed me his cell phone, put
his hands on the steering wheel, turned the car off,
and a uniformed officer comes up to the driver's side
door tells him to unlock the door. He gets out
of the car, and I'm just sitting there very quietly
(32:43):
freaking out. I still have no idea what is going on.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
Finally, two detectives came to the passenger side door where
April sat. One of them leaned over to talk with her.
Speaker 1 (32:57):
That's when she proceeds to tell me that have been
investigating him for child molestation. He is going to be
charged with thirty two counts and that it is eleven girls,
ten of which are under the age of eighteen.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
One day, when Joe was driving April to work, he
turned to her and calmly told her that he was
about to be arrested. Moments later, the cops pulled them
over and took him out of the car. Leaving April
alone in the passenger seat, terrified and confused. Finally, a
detective told April what her husband was being arrested for.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
They have been investigating him for child molestation. He is
going to be charged with thirty two counts and that
it is eleven girls, ten of which are under the
age of eighteen. I just went numb. My entire system
went into shock.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
April didn't want to believe the detective's words. She had
long ago come to terms with her husband's flaws, but
she never imagined him to be a dangerous person.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
My head, I was like, she might be a liar.
He might be a lousy husband. He might be lazy,
he might be all these things. He's not a child predator.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
But then the detective explained to April what they found.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
When they took his vehicle. Hidden underneath the steering column,
they found a small camera that would allow him to
video and take pictures of girls and their private areas,
and that they have proof of it on his computer.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
The evidence was irrefutable, and there was a lot of it.
Then the detective began to ask April questions.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
She's like, did you ever purchase a camera for the car?
And I said, yeah, we did. And she goes, what
did he tell you about that camera? And I said
just that he wanted to have a camera in the
vehicle to protect not only himself, but to protect the
people that he was teaching to drive.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
When Joe said he was using that camera for safety,
April believed him, But in reality, the camera was part
of Joe's twisted crimes. He'd been sexually abusing young girls
who were his driving students. He did it while they
were driving his driver's ed car was a trap for
the girls defending themselves, even just taking their hands off
(36:01):
the wheel could mean risking their life. On top of that,
Joe videotaped the attacks and saved those videos to his
personal devices so he could rewatch them. Once one girl
came forward, it was like a dan broke. April was
in shock, and the detective could see that. She told
(36:23):
April that she would follow up with her in a
few days time. The police drove away with Joe in
the backseat. April sat in her car, the silence ringing
in her ears. She didn't want to be alone with
her thoughts, so she started making calls.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
I made a phone call to the attorney told them
what happened. I tried calling my dad, tried calling my parents,
and they weren't awake yet. Then I call a friend
of mine and I'm like, I need you and your
husband to come help me because I don't know what
to do, and I need somebody here can think because
(37:01):
I can't think right now. So they met me at
the new house, and I felt like I was spending
the day just in limbell. I'm waiting to hear anything
from Joe or the attorney. I'm waiting to hear from
my pastor. I'm just waiting.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
She didn't know what she should do next.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
It was like everything in my life just exploded all
at once. I was scrambling to try and grab any
pieces that I could hold on to to just try
and make sense of what was happening, but there was
nothing to grab a hold of.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
Finally, her pastor called her back.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
He's like, April, why did I just get a phone
call from a reporter. They're asking me about Joe.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
Joe's arrest was all over the news.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
Within four hours. The San Diego Police Department did a
press release where they put his name out there. They
listed every single charge, everything from harassment of a minor
to sexual assault, and it went across the news nationwide.
(38:20):
His brother, who lives in Texas, heard about it before
I could even call him.
Speaker 2 (38:27):
April's phone was ringing all day, and one of those
calls was from Joe in jail.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
In that phone call, he was just very calm. There
was no emotion. He was just like, they've charged me
as a child molester. It was just almost very matter
of fact.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
April knew the facts of the case, she decided to
give him one chance to be honest with her.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
I asked him, is any of this true? And he's like, no, no,
none of it is true. I'm like, Joe, it's eleven girls.
He's like, I know, but you know, no, it's not true.
Speaker 2 (39:08):
She knew he was lying. That Tuesday was Joe's arraignment.
April decided to go. It would be hard to see him,
but she needed to see what he had done and
she wanted to know what was going to happen to him.
Speaker 1 (39:23):
When I went into the courtroom, I had to go
and give them my name and who I was there
for in my relationship to the person that I was
there for. So I told him, I said, here's my name,
I'm here for Richard JESSEP. Banks. I'm his spouse. And
then the woman that was right behind me, she gave
her name. She looked at me. I looked at her,
(39:45):
and she said, I'm here for Richard Joe Banks. I'm
the mother of one of his and she stopped. She
looked at me again, and I said victims, and she
goes victims. I looked at her and I just started
crying and I said, I am so sorry. I had
(40:06):
no idea that any of this was happening. I didn't know,
and I'm so sorry for the damage. And she came
over to me and she just hugged me and she said,
I know, and it's gonna be okay. We both just
stood there hugging each other and just sobbing.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
Then the arraignment got underway.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
The DA stands up and she talks through how many
charges there are, and then he goes through every single
one of the girls. Basically, he doesn't name any of them.
He just uses their initials. But he's like, you will
not speak contact see each of the girls. As says
(40:56):
I understood. He says, yes, sir, I understand. That was
the one and only time that I went to court
for him, because after that, it was like, I'm done.
I'm done.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
April focused her energy on moving into her house, and
suddenly the fact that Joe had never called this place
home felt like a breath.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
Of fresh air. I spent the rest of that week
getting everything set up in my new house, with all
new furniture that he's never sat on, never touched, never
slept in.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
But she still had all of Joe's belongings.
Speaker 1 (41:35):
I remembered that I still had his cell phone, and
I was like, I wonder if there's anything here that
I need to see. So I started looking through it
and came across a folder that was the same name
as the video camera that we had purchased for his
work vehicle. So I pull up those files and I
(41:56):
started looking through them, and sure enough, there's pictures of
him touching girls. I just got sick and I threw
the phone. I had now officially seen for myself what
he had done, and I just like, I just was sick.
(42:17):
I was sick.
Speaker 2 (42:20):
The next day, April had dinner with her parents and
told them that her marriage with Joe was over.
Speaker 1 (42:28):
My dad, he looks at me, he goes, I want
to be clear You're getting a divorce, and I said, yes,
I am getting a divorce. Both my mom and dad
were so relieved because they had spent years loving Joe
and really taking him under their wing and treating him
(42:49):
like family. But for both of them, there had always
been this underlying mistrust that I never knew about. I
never knew they had that.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
As she disentangled herself from Joe, more and more lies
began to emerge. April and Joe had been planning to
take a cruise to celebrate their twentieth anniversary. She'd been
giving him money every month out of her paycheck and
he was putting it towards the cruise. But after the arrest,
I went.
Speaker 1 (43:18):
To cancel our twentieth anniversary cruise. He had told me
he had put close to three thousand dollars down, so
I'm expecting to get some of that back. But he
had only put two hundred dollars down.
Speaker 2 (43:33):
So what was he doing with that money from April's paychecks?
She isn't sure, but in the course of his sentencing,
she found out he was giving money to the girls
he sexually abused.
Speaker 1 (43:44):
She was paying students or students' families when a student
would pass their driver's test. It was presented as a
congratulatory gift, and some of the girls that he was
giving money to were ones that he violated, but I
(44:05):
personally think that he was using it in some way
as a bribe to keep them quiet.
Speaker 2 (44:13):
In the end, Joe pled guilty in exchange for a
lighter sentence. He received five years in state prison. Once
he was sent away, April made one final appointment to
speak with Joe face to face.
Speaker 1 (44:26):
I knew it was going to be the last time
that I would see him, So I went to the prison,
sat down across from him, and I looked at him
and I said, do you understand what you've done?
Speaker 2 (44:43):
Joe stared blankly back at her.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
He just very calmly and quizzically looked at me. He said,
but why would they continue to refer me? And my
job just dropped. It was like, so that made it
okay because you were still being referred. You were probably
(45:08):
being referred by their parents, who had no idea that
you were doing this to them.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
Joe had no remorse. He spoke about his crimes like
he was discussing the weather.
Speaker 1 (45:22):
That's when I realized there was something seriously disconnected something
seriously wrong with him, because what he did was absolutely horrific,
and there's nothing that indicates that he understands, or is remorseful,
or has any ounce of understanding of what he has done.
Speaker 2 (45:47):
April's community rallied around her.
Speaker 1 (45:50):
I had a friend stay with me for about three
months during that time, just so I wasn't alone. I've
got some incredible friends that I've made over the years
that I didn't realize how incredible they were until this.
Speaker 2 (46:09):
She had a great support system, but there was a
lot of internal work. She had a face on her own.
Speaker 1 (46:16):
During that time. I'm going through a lot of therapy.
I was seeing a therapist at the time about three
times a week. I needed to talk to somebody that
wasn't emotionally connected to any of it.
Speaker 2 (46:30):
Slowly, she began to unpack the emotions she had been carrying.
Speaker 1 (46:34):
There was so much grieving happening, Grieving the life that
I thought I had, grieving the marriage that I wish
I had had, grieving the marriage I did have.
Speaker 2 (46:46):
But underneath the grief was something else, so.
Speaker 1 (46:49):
Much anger, anger for how I was treated. Still to
this day, I get so angry because I feel like
his victims deserve so much much more than what they're getting,
so much more. He took a plea deal, and the
junch gave him five years with time served. Like it's
(47:11):
not fair. It's not fair to the girls. They deserve
so much more than that.
Speaker 2 (47:19):
Because they reminders, the full names of Joe's victims weren't released.
This was to protect the girl's privacy. While she has
never met them personally, April thinks of them often.
Speaker 1 (47:31):
I don't know who his victims are, but if for
some reason any of them ever listen, I would say
that I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry for what you've
been through. If I had known, I would have done
everything within my power to stop it.
Speaker 2 (47:54):
Since his arrest, the number of known victims has risen
to eighteen. Joe could be out of prison as soon
as spring of twenty twenty six. But I'll never have
a place in April's world again.
Speaker 1 (48:06):
I have no need to see him. I don't talk
to him. I have nothing to do with him.
Speaker 2 (48:10):
At this point, April has been busy building a life
that brings her joy.
Speaker 1 (48:17):
It's just me and my dog and my cat. I'm
living by myself. My home is my sanctuary. Now I'm
rediscovering reading. I'm getting to explore new foods. I've gotten
to travel quite a bit because there are places that
I've always wanted to go to and he never did.
(48:40):
I'm finding a whole new sense of freedom.
Speaker 2 (48:43):
What April endured with Joe has forced her to reckon
with what it means to truly know someone. We end
every weekly episode with the same question, why do you
want to share your story?
Speaker 1 (48:56):
I wanted to talk about it because finding this podcast
was a huge part of what helped me to hear
experiences that so closely mirror your own. There's something different
about that. I suddenly realized that I wasn't alone. Some
(49:18):
people have the uncanny ability to hide the deepest, darkest
parts of themselves from those that are closest to them,
and sometimes maybe even from themselves. There's no way to
ever really truly know a person, and I just have
to resign myself to the fact that this was a
part of him that he was never going to allow
(49:40):
anyone to see until it was too late.
Speaker 2 (49:51):
On the next episode of Betrayal Weekly, I'm in.
Speaker 3 (49:55):
Shock and disbelief, like just nauseatingly sick the reality. I
guess us is slowly sinking in that my life is
all a lie. He's in the kitchen going to the
coffee machine to make himself an espresso.
Speaker 1 (50:09):
And he literally looks at me and shrugs, and he's like, So.
Speaker 2 (50:22):
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, or follow us on Instagram at
Betrayal Pod. You can also connect with me on Instagram
at It's Andrea Gunning. To access our newsletter, view additional content,
(50:44):
and connect with the Betrayal community, join our substack at
Betrayal dot substack 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 along a big thank
you to all of our listeners. Betrayal is a production
(51:05):
of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group, in
partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is executive produced by
Nancy Glass and Jennifer Fason, hosted and produced by me
Andrea Gunning. This episode was written and produced by Olivia
Hewitt and Monique Leboard, with additional production from Ben Fetterman.
Casting support from Curry Richmond. Our iHeart team is Ali
(51:28):
Perry and Jessica Krincheck. Audio editing and mixing by Matt Delvecchio.
Additional audio editing by 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 your podcasts
We pull out of our house. We get about two
blocks from the old house, and he looks at me
and he says, I think I'm getting ready to be arrested.
Within seconds of that coming out of his mouth, the
squad car lit us up and pulled us over.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
I'm Andrea Gunning, and this is Betrayal, A show about
the people we trust the most and the deceptions that
change everything. Today we're sharing april story. Growing up in
San Diego. April was extremely close to her parents. She'd
been adopted by them when she was six weeks old.
(01:01):
Her dad was her best friend.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
I was definitely a tomboy growing up, and so my
joke had always been that I was the son my
dad never had. I know how to change a spark
plug on my car and all of the things within
the engine.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
They had a typical middle class suburban life. Religion and
faith were the foundation of their family.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
I was born and raised in the Church. I grew
up with Christian values.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Church gave April purpose and community.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
I have a fierce sense of wanting people to feel
like they belong. Being adopted you deal with trauma in
the sense that you were almost rejected from birth. So
I want people to know that they belonged, that they
have a place.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
The church also fed April's passion for music.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
My mom got me into piano lessons at an early
age and so I always played at church.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Her parents' marriage was her model of a healthy, happy relationship.
Their love was a positive example of commitment.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Even now after fifty seveidd years, half the time they're
acting like newlyweds. That's what I wanted. That was the
vision of marriage.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Growing up, April knew she wanted a relationship like theirs.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
In high school, I had a boyfriend and I was
very much a one person girl. So once I was
with someone that was it like I had blinders on.
They were my person.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
She also had a vision for her career. Her passion
was music. She wanted to play in symphony hall and
of course church.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
I want to lead people in worship. I want to
be in a big worship team.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
In January of two thousand and three, April was accepted
into the Hillsong Churches Leadership School in Sydney, Australia. For April,
it was a life changing opportunity.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
My intention was to go to school in Australia, meet
an Australian, marry him and live in Sydney. That was
my whole plan, That was my goal. I was not
looking to date anyone here. I had no intentions of
even coming back to the country.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
She was looking forward to starting over and started preparing
for her move to Australia. But one Wednesday night, April
was setting up to lead worship when someone caught her eye.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
He was a good looking guy, tall, blonde, blue eyes,
and I was like, who is this guy? Like, I'd
never seen him before, didn't know who he was.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
It was uncommon for a stranger to be hanging out
before service. He was chatting with a woman April had
known for years.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
And so I walked down to just say hi to
this lady and she said, April, this is my son Joe.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
So this was Joe. April had heard about him before,
but she had pictured him differently. April knew his mom well.
His mom had told April about how Joe got in
trouble in Texas. He'd gotten involved with a group of
guys that were a bad influence on him. Joe had
just moved to San Diego hoping for a fresh start.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
He was coming out here to start over, I remember
looking at him and shaking his hand and having the
thought of Wow, he's got the most gentle eyes I've
ever seen. It took me by surprise.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
She went about her business that evening, not thinking much
of it. As she started sound check that night, their
sound engineer was nowhere to be found. As the service
grew closer, April started to panic.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
Next thing I know, I look in the back of
the room at the sound booth, and Joe's in the
sound booth, and I look at my guitar player and
I was like, what is he doing. My guitar player
looks back there and he is like, Oh, that's Joe.
Don't worry about it. He knows what he's doing. He
helped build the sound system years ago.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Joe saved the day.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
It was just a welcome surprise. And after that point
Joe became our fund man.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Once a month the worship team would go out to dinner.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Anytime that we would do that, he would make it
a point to sit right next to me and talk
with me. We talked a lot about God and our
relationship with God, and we got to be good friends.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
As they got closer, it became clear that Joe was
interested in a romantic relationship.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
He would say, Hey, can we go grab a cup
of coffee or a slice of pie? And MY response
was always like no, I'm good, Like we can go
hang out with the worship team, like we can go
to dinner with the team or with our friends. But
I was dead set against doing any one on one
dating with him.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
April did not want to complicate things with her team,
Plus she was planning to leave for Australia in a
matter of months.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
I knew that he had been previously married and had
kids from his first marriage.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Despite her rejections, Joe was persistent.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
When I was sick, he would just show up at
my house with the bowl of soup and a get
well card.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
And as time went on, his gestures became more romantic.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
He would send me flowers for no reason. He would
send little notes just to say hi, like a good
morning message. So I would wake up and there would
be an email from him saying good morning, beautiful.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
It made her feel special, but April was still planning
to move to Australia for Hillsong. The night before her flight,
she had to record a tape of her vocal range.
Joe offered to help make the recording.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
And so I ran through all my scales, ran through,
you know, all sorts of different vocal exercises for him
to record.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Once they were done recording, April and Joe packed up
their things and made their way to the parking lot.
She would be gone for a year. It was hard
to say goodbye.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
He and I were standing by the cars just chatting,
and as we're talking, all of a sudden, I just
kissed him, Like there was no thought to it. I
just leaned in and kissed him.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
It was so out of character for April. She surprised herself.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
And I was just shaking. I was like, I'm so sorry,
I don't even know why I did that. And then
the next thing I know, he's kissing me. It was
one of those kisses that just kind of made your
knees vocal.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
The kiss was electric, in part because they both knew
April was about to leave the country.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
And then he was like okay, and I was like, yeah,
I'm good, Like we're good. And I said, I don't
know what's going to happen because I am leaving, but
we'll stay in touch. The next morning, I got on
a plane and went to Sydney.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
When she got there, she jumped right into school. Hillsong
College is well known for their worship and vocational courses.
For April being there was a dream come true.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
They had this program where you would get all the
music theory, learn about worship history, music history within the
church itself, as well as leadership training. I loved every
moment of it. Lives breathed eight school.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
April thought that when she arrived in Sydney she'd forget
about Joe, but she didn't. She found her thoughts drifting
to him and what he was doing back in San Diego.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
He was working at seven eleven and using his money
to get phone cards, so every single day he was
calling me. So we spent a lot of time on
the phone, which forced us to really learn how to
communicate with each other.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
On those long phone calls, they learned a lot about
each other. In many ways, they were opposites.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
I was always so serious and he had the ability
to really make me laugh and just enjoy the moment.
He made life fun.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Joe helped her relax. For the whole year she was
in Australia, their attraction evolved. The distance brought them even
closer When April flew back to the States, Joe surprised
her by picking her up at the airport.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
We're driving back and he pulls off at this rest
stop and it's a beautiful overlook that overlooks the Pacific
Go in San Diego. It was a beautiful day, like
the sun which He's standing behind me with his arms
around me, and we're just talking and he's pointing out
into the water and he was like, can you see
(10:12):
that boat out there? And I was like, no, I
don't see the boat. He's like, take a moment, close
your eyes, and when you open your eyes, I want
you to fixate on where my fingers are pointing. I'm like, okay,
got it. And so I'm standing there with my eyes closed,
and then he says, okay, open them, and when I do,
(10:33):
his hand is in front of me with a ring
box and this beautiful Marquis cut diamond ring is in
the middle of it.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
April stared at Joe dumbfounded.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
And he's like, would you marry me? And I said yes.
You know, I'm in love with this guy. And he
has spent so much time talking to me while I've
been gone, and it just felt right. I was so happy,
and I just I had felt so safe and loved that.
(11:06):
It was like, yeah, this was my person.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Because they had gotten to know each other from Afar,
their love story unfolded in a backwards way.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
After the proposal. We go on our first official date.
We went to finding Nemo.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Even though they didn't have a lot of money, they
found ways to have dates and just enjoy each other's company.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
We would go for a walk on the beach, or
we would go someplace and just kind of sit and
have coffee together. Anything that we could do cheaply we
would do, going and splitting a meal somewhere. We took
opportunity to just try and spend time together when we could.
It was just our own little world at the time.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
They met each other's families and talked about what they
wanted for their future. Joe had three kids from his
first marriage. They lived with their mom out of state.
Joe didn't want any more kids, and April was on
the same page.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
Kids were never something that I really thought about.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
What mattered more to April was how her parents saw Joe.
Her mom embraced him right away, but her dad was reluctant.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
My dad was a bit harder of a nut to crack.
He was always suspicious of him. There were stories that
Joe would tell and my dad would just be like,
something doesn't add up.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
After dating long distance between California and Australia, April and
Joe engaged. They were thrilled, but April's dad had some
reservations about Joe. He gave him a pass because his
daughter loved him, and in May of two thousand and four,
April and Joe got married.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
I didn't want anything elaborate. I just wanted a simple wedding,
and we had the wedding at a local hotel that
had just opened up their wedding garden. Our friends and
family were there. It was beautiful.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
They wrote their own vowels.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
It wasn't the typical you know, I'm going to love, honor,
and obey you. It was I want to support who
you are as a person and who God has created
you to be.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
After the wedding, the couple moved into their first apartment.
It was the first time April lived with a partner.
In fact, it was a time of a lot of firsts.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
I'd never been with a man period, Like I'd never
had sex until him, so he was my first, so
there was a little bit of am I doing things right?
Am I pleasing him? Am I making him happy? I
can't remember the first year. I would wake up in
the middle of the night and almost freak out because
there was a boy in my bed.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
After thirty years of being independent, it was a big
adjustment to live with a man. April quickly realized.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
I'm doing all the dishes. I'm doing the cooking, cleaning, laundry,
taking the trash out.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
She also noticed a pattern whenever she confronted Joe, he.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Would step up for a couple of weeks, he would
take the trash out without me asking, he would clean
up his own dishes, and then it would slowly slip
back into me taking care of everything again.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
It was disappointing, but Joe was still the same guy
she'd fallen in love with. He always took time to
make her feel seen.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
He was still bringing flowers just because if I had
a rough day, we would go grab a pizza from
the pizza place on the corner, just little things that
it was like, Okay, it's still very thoughtful, and yeah,
we've got this tension of I'm doing everything, but he's
still taking care of me.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Eventually, the couple both found jobs at a local ministry.
Joe worked in their video department.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
She was editing videos and getting everything ready to go
on to actual TV. I worked in the prayer center,
and it was where people could call in that needed
prayer and they could get a hold of a live
person that would take time to sit and listen to
them and just pray with them and talk with them.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
In two thousand and nine, five years into their marriage,
Joe got a call from his first wife. She needed
support with the kids, and she asked if Joe's teenage
son could come live with them. April agreed. She welcomed
him into their home and into their family.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
He was a great kid. He really wasn't any trouble
and he lived with us through his entire high school
years and played football for the high school and all that.
The kid was tenderhearted, he just wanted to do right.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
It was a really successful arrangement. A few years later,
Joe's daughter came to stay with them as well. However,
it was a lot more challenging. Joe's daughter was going
through a difficult time and Joe was too.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
He had been through bouts of unemployment before, but it
was while she was here that he went through the
longest period of unemployment of about two years. And so
during that time, I'm the soul breadwinner. Joe began to
drink and his drinking was escalating.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
It was too much pressure on April to support the
whole family.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
I told him that I was done. I couldn't do
this anymore.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
They weren't able to provide Joe's daughter with the support
she needed, so she went home to Texas. Joe was upset.
He felt like he failed his daughter and in the
process lost her too. To cope, Joe threw himself into
his job working for their church, where he was running
sound and helping them upgrade their audio visual capabilities. The
(17:32):
church wanted to start live streaming their service so members
of the congregation could watch from home.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
She was trying to help our church get up on
live streaming, so he would log onto this website that
had all these various different live streams.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
On these live streaming sites, Joe would sometimes help other
church members troubleshoot any technical difficulties.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
I would notice that every once in a while he
would be chatting with the young girls, not necessarily teenage girls,
but maybe early twenties, and I would ask what are
you doing and he's like, oh, I'm trying to help
them get their streaming correct because their camera's fuzzy. He
could make it sound so logical and so reasonable.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
It seemed a little odd to April, but she believed Joe.
He had always been one to help out the kids
at church, and he took a special interest in mentoring youth.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
At our church. We had had a couple of guys
come in at one point that were following some of
the young girls around the church, and Joe he was
the one that clocked it and went into leadership and
was like, these guys need to go. What they're doing
is sketchy. He'd always been that guy, protective of girls,
(18:56):
protective of youth.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
April was proud of how Joe stood up for their
young church members. Years passed and April and Joe's relationship studied.
They were involved in church together, they kept watching their
favorite sports teams and hung out with friends. The world
they built together felt comfortable and grounding. Eventually, April and
Joe felt like they needed something to break up their
(19:19):
usual routine. They wanted to get back to their community
and spend time outdoors together, so they decided to volunteer
at a horse rescue near their house. They each took
on regular chores at the barn.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
He was feeding the horses in the early mornings or
in the evenings, and I was involved in helping with
some of the training. This was just a real place
of bliss for me and for him, having grown up
in the country in Texas. He was loving it because
(19:55):
it just felt like he found home as well.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
They started getting to know the community at the horse rescue,
including a woman and her teenage daughter that lived on
the property.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
The daughter would end up feeding on weekends by herself
at night, and they'd had a couple of instances of
people trespassing at night that were kind of scary, and
so Joe volunteered to feed with her.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
She was about the same age as his daughter. April
suspected Joe was projecting some of his concern for his
own daughter. Onted this girl at the barn.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
And then there was one day where she needed to
go pick up a piece of equipment that her dad
was giving her, so Joe offered to take her in
one of her girlfriends to go to her Dad's and
haul it back. They left early in the morning, and
(20:55):
I spent the day there on the ranch.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
April was taking a break from barn chores when she
saw one of the two teenage girls wandering up towards
the stable.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
And I was like, oh, hey, you're back, and she
was like, what do you mean. I said, oh, well,
didn't you go with Joe and the other girl? And
she was like no, they left before I even got here.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
It made April uncomfortable that Joe was alone with a
teenage girl.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
I tried calling him multiple times. He never answered. It
was getting to be about six o'clock in the evening
and just him and the girl pull up. I take
one look at him and I'm just livid, like I'm
so angry.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
But Joe seemed completely unbothered. He walked up to the
barn like nothing happened.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
I grab him and I pull him to the side.
I'm like, what is wrong with you? He's like what
do you mean? And I said, do you have any
idea you just spent all day with a teenage girl
alone in a vehicle.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
April made it known Joe had broken an unspoken rule
all the volunteers saw Joe pulling up with this teenage
girl in his car. The girl's mom agreed.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
Her mom put her foot down and was like, you
can no longer spend time with my daughter.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
Joe was hurt by this. He felt like he was
being judged.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
He was emotionally upset about not being able to spend
time with her. I rationalized, it is that he took
this other girl and put her in the place of
his daughter, so it was like he was losing his
daughter all over again.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
Around this time, their church moved into a new space
and downsized their staff. Joe lost his job. He was
really struggling. After searching for a while, he landed a
job working for a doctor who had a medical TV
show on a local network.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
I had seen that show and I was like, oh, yeah,
I know who that doctor is. That's pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
On the morning of Joe's first day, the couple got
ready for work together.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
We both got in our cars. He was behind me.
I went one way and he should have turned left
at the next light, and I watched him turn right
at the next light instead of left.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
April had a sinking feeling.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
So I asked him about it. When I got home.
I said Hey, I saw you turn back towards the house,
and he was like, oh, yeah, I forgot something, so
I had to go back home and get it.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
But April was skeptical.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
Nope, something's not right. For a week he did this,
he got up, got dressed, left with me, and when
right back home.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
April was convinced that Joe's new job was completely vake.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
Sure enough, within a week he's telling me that the
doctor's son was going to take his job, and so
if he didn't have a job again.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
It was unsettling. Now April was on guard, trying to
discern if Joe was telling the truth. It was starting
to affect her sense of certainty and trust.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
She could make me feel like I was going insane.
I legitimately had moments where I was like, am I
losing my mind? He would tell me that I didn't
say things that I knew for a fact I said,
But then he had me second guessing myself because it
was like, well did I say that? Maybe I didn't
say that.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
April knew that she shouldn't feel this way, but being
honest about her concerns felt like poking a sleeping beast.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
I didn't know how to deal with the confrontation that
would come from it, and I was afraid. I was
afraid of what would come out. I didn't know how
else to move forward, other than to just bury it
and move on.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
April was fighting to regain a sense of stability in
their relationship. Top of the list was getting Joe a
new job, and April had an idea.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
I kept seeing these ads for driving instructors, and I
used to joke with him that I never wanted to
drive with him because he always told me what I
was doing wrong. And so I was like, you should
check that out. You love driving and you do love teaching.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Joe took her advice and reached out to the driving school.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
He went through their training program with the owner. You
have to do so many hours of in car training
with another instructor background check, and so he started teaching
kids how to drive cars and he loved it.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
And April was finding her stride at work too.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
Around the same time that he got his job, I
started working for my dream company. I'm an executive business
partner and an executive assistant. It's almost more of a
chief of staff type role, you know. So it was
like it felt like things were finally turning around. I
was making good money. He was making good money, he
(26:27):
had a steady job. He had found something that he
absolutely was loving. He would come home at night just
lit up, like so excited to talk about who he
had taught and what he had taught, and watching the
light bulb of understanding go off with these kids. It
just felt like we had finally reached a point where
(26:47):
it was like, maybe we're going to be okay. I
felt like I could suddenly start breathing. I didn't realize
that I had been living holding my breath, waiting for
the other shoot a drop.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
One day, April headed into the office early to prepare
for an event with her company CEO.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
And as I'm pulling into our parking garage at the office,
I get a ring alert on my phone from our
doorbell camera and I was like, well, that's weird. So
I pull up the camera and I see about six
police officers at my front door. I completely freak out
(27:34):
because it's like, what is happening.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
She immediately called Joe.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
It rang and rang, and then it went to voicemail,
and I don't know what to do. I just kept
trying to call him over and over again.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
Stunned, April began to drive home to figure out what
was going on.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
He finally calls me and tells me that police officers
and two detectives showed up with a search warrant and
they were taking all of the electronics, the computers, iPads,
apple watch, they took his work vehicle. They were seizing
(28:16):
all of it.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
Joe told April to wait to come home because he
didn't want her car to get seized too, So April
pulled over at a nearby coffee shop and waited. Finally,
Joe called her and said it was okay for her
to come home. But home was far from a comforting site.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
The house is just trashed. Everything is pulled out from
the bookshelves, tables are moved into the middle of the room,
laundry baskets are upended onto the bed. Everything is just
torn apart.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
In the middle of their upended home stood Joe.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
He's very calm, and I asked him. I was like,
did they tell you what is this about? And he
was like, no, they didn't tell me anything. They just
said that they had a search warrant. But the search
warrant doesn't say what the allegations are it doesn't say anything.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
April's mind was spinning, trying to make sense of the
unsettling scene. She found herself in Logically, I'm thinking, Okay,
they took his work vehicle.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
So I told him, I said, obviously it has to
do with your job. They took your car. So can
you think of anything that you might have done? Because
sometimes he would come home and say, yeah, one of
my students just she totally had an anxiety attack and
like broke down crying in the car kind of thing,
Like did you maybe hug one of your students because
(29:41):
you know they were upset? And he was like, no, no, nothing,
I can't think of anything.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
But the fallout was immediate.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
He gets put on administratively from the company.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
April and Joe were desperate to understand what the police
were doing at their house.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
We made the decision to hire a pre trial attorney
to see if we could get any information on what
the allegations were or what we could do.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
In the weeks that followed, April kept pressing Joe. Surely
he had to have some inkling of what was going on.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
I was constantly asking him, is there anything? Can you
think of anything?
Speaker 2 (30:26):
But every time the answer was no, and April wanted
to believe him. Everything had been going well since Joe
started his job as a driving instructor.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
He had never once indicated that there was anything on
his job that was of concern. He had never told
me anything other than that he was referred all the
time to other students.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
April was out of ideas. All she could do was
wait for answers. In the meantime, April and Joe decided
to move. Had started feeling too small.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
So we started looking for houses and I found one
about three miles north of where we had been living
that I just fell in love with, so we signed
a lease.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
Slowly they started moving boxes to their new house and
they ordered new furniture too. This place would be a
fresh start.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
It was January eleventh. He was driving me to work.
We pull out of our house. We get about two
blocks from the old house and he looks at me
and he says, I think I'm getting ready to be arrested.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
April snapped around to face him.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
I was like, why would you say that, and he
goes well. When we pulled out from the house, two
vehicles pulled in behind us, and then a marked police
vehicle pulled in behind those two cars. Within seconds of
that coming out of his mouth, the squad car lit
(32:10):
us up and pulled us over.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
April was frantic, but oddly Joe wasn't. It seemed like
he knew this moment would come.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
He just very calmly handed me his cell phone, put
his hands on the steering wheel, turned the car off,
and a uniformed officer comes up to the driver's side
door tells him to unlock the door. He gets out
of the car, and I'm just sitting there very quietly
(32:43):
freaking out. I still have no idea what is going on.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
Finally, two detectives came to the passenger side door where
April sat. One of them leaned over to talk with her.
Speaker 1 (32:57):
That's when she proceeds to tell me that have been
investigating him for child molestation. He is going to be
charged with thirty two counts and that it is eleven girls,
ten of which are under the age of eighteen.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
One day, when Joe was driving April to work, he
turned to her and calmly told her that he was
about to be arrested. Moments later, the cops pulled them
over and took him out of the car. Leaving April
alone in the passenger seat, terrified and confused. Finally, a
detective told April what her husband was being arrested for.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
They have been investigating him for child molestation. He is
going to be charged with thirty two counts and that
it is eleven girls, ten of which are under the
age of eighteen. I just went numb. My entire system
went into shock.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
April didn't want to believe the detective's words. She had
long ago come to terms with her husband's flaws, but
she never imagined him to be a dangerous person.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
My head, I was like, she might be a liar.
He might be a lousy husband. He might be lazy,
he might be all these things. He's not a child predator.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
But then the detective explained to April what they found.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
When they took his vehicle. Hidden underneath the steering column,
they found a small camera that would allow him to
video and take pictures of girls and their private areas,
and that they have proof of it on his computer.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
The evidence was irrefutable, and there was a lot of it.
Then the detective began to ask April questions.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
She's like, did you ever purchase a camera for the car?
And I said, yeah, we did. And she goes, what
did he tell you about that camera? And I said
just that he wanted to have a camera in the
vehicle to protect not only himself, but to protect the
people that he was teaching to drive.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
When Joe said he was using that camera for safety,
April believed him, But in reality, the camera was part
of Joe's twisted crimes. He'd been sexually abusing young girls
who were his driving students. He did it while they
were driving his driver's ed car was a trap for
the girls defending themselves, even just taking their hands off
(36:01):
the wheel could mean risking their life. On top of that,
Joe videotaped the attacks and saved those videos to his
personal devices so he could rewatch them. Once one girl
came forward, it was like a dan broke. April was
in shock, and the detective could see that. She told
(36:23):
April that she would follow up with her in a
few days time. The police drove away with Joe in
the backseat. April sat in her car, the silence ringing
in her ears. She didn't want to be alone with
her thoughts, so she started making calls.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
I made a phone call to the attorney told them
what happened. I tried calling my dad, tried calling my parents,
and they weren't awake yet. Then I call a friend
of mine and I'm like, I need you and your
husband to come help me because I don't know what
to do, and I need somebody here can think because
(37:01):
I can't think right now. So they met me at
the new house, and I felt like I was spending
the day just in limbell. I'm waiting to hear anything
from Joe or the attorney. I'm waiting to hear from
my pastor. I'm just waiting.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
She didn't know what she should do next.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
It was like everything in my life just exploded all
at once. I was scrambling to try and grab any
pieces that I could hold on to to just try
and make sense of what was happening, but there was
nothing to grab a hold of.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
Finally, her pastor called her back.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
He's like, April, why did I just get a phone
call from a reporter. They're asking me about Joe.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
Joe's arrest was all over the news.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
Within four hours. The San Diego Police Department did a
press release where they put his name out there. They
listed every single charge, everything from harassment of a minor
to sexual assault, and it went across the news nationwide.
(38:20):
His brother, who lives in Texas, heard about it before
I could even call him.
Speaker 2 (38:27):
April's phone was ringing all day, and one of those
calls was from Joe in jail.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
In that phone call, he was just very calm. There
was no emotion. He was just like, they've charged me
as a child molester. It was just almost very matter
of fact.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
April knew the facts of the case, she decided to
give him one chance to be honest with her.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
I asked him, is any of this true? And he's like, no, no,
none of it is true. I'm like, Joe, it's eleven girls.
He's like, I know, but you know, no, it's not true.
Speaker 2 (39:08):
She knew he was lying. That Tuesday was Joe's arraignment.
April decided to go. It would be hard to see him,
but she needed to see what he had done and
she wanted to know what was going to happen to him.
Speaker 1 (39:23):
When I went into the courtroom, I had to go
and give them my name and who I was there
for in my relationship to the person that I was
there for. So I told him, I said, here's my name,
I'm here for Richard JESSEP. Banks. I'm his spouse. And
then the woman that was right behind me, she gave
her name. She looked at me. I looked at her,
(39:45):
and she said, I'm here for Richard Joe Banks. I'm
the mother of one of his and she stopped. She
looked at me again, and I said victims, and she
goes victims. I looked at her and I just started
crying and I said, I am so sorry. I had
(40:06):
no idea that any of this was happening. I didn't know,
and I'm so sorry for the damage. And she came
over to me and she just hugged me and she said,
I know, and it's gonna be okay. We both just
stood there hugging each other and just sobbing.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
Then the arraignment got underway.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
The DA stands up and she talks through how many
charges there are, and then he goes through every single
one of the girls. Basically, he doesn't name any of them.
He just uses their initials. But he's like, you will
not speak contact see each of the girls. As says
(40:56):
I understood. He says, yes, sir, I understand. That was
the one and only time that I went to court
for him, because after that, it was like, I'm done.
I'm done.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
April focused her energy on moving into her house, and
suddenly the fact that Joe had never called this place
home felt like a breath.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
Of fresh air. I spent the rest of that week
getting everything set up in my new house, with all
new furniture that he's never sat on, never touched, never
slept in.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
But she still had all of Joe's belongings.
Speaker 1 (41:35):
I remembered that I still had his cell phone, and
I was like, I wonder if there's anything here that
I need to see. So I started looking through it
and came across a folder that was the same name
as the video camera that we had purchased for his
work vehicle. So I pull up those files and I
(41:56):
started looking through them, and sure enough, there's pictures of
him touching girls. I just got sick and I threw
the phone. I had now officially seen for myself what
he had done, and I just like, I just was sick.
(42:17):
I was sick.
Speaker 2 (42:20):
The next day, April had dinner with her parents and
told them that her marriage with Joe was over.
Speaker 1 (42:28):
My dad, he looks at me, he goes, I want
to be clear You're getting a divorce, and I said, yes,
I am getting a divorce. Both my mom and dad
were so relieved because they had spent years loving Joe
and really taking him under their wing and treating him
(42:49):
like family. But for both of them, there had always
been this underlying mistrust that I never knew about. I
never knew they had that.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
As she disentangled herself from Joe, more and more lies
began to emerge. April and Joe had been planning to
take a cruise to celebrate their twentieth anniversary. She'd been
giving him money every month out of her paycheck and
he was putting it towards the cruise. But after the arrest,
I went.
Speaker 1 (43:18):
To cancel our twentieth anniversary cruise. He had told me
he had put close to three thousand dollars down, so
I'm expecting to get some of that back. But he
had only put two hundred dollars down.
Speaker 2 (43:33):
So what was he doing with that money from April's paychecks?
She isn't sure, but in the course of his sentencing,
she found out he was giving money to the girls
he sexually abused.
Speaker 1 (43:44):
She was paying students or students' families when a student
would pass their driver's test. It was presented as a
congratulatory gift, and some of the girls that he was
giving money to were ones that he violated, but I
(44:05):
personally think that he was using it in some way
as a bribe to keep them quiet.
Speaker 2 (44:13):
In the end, Joe pled guilty in exchange for a
lighter sentence. He received five years in state prison. Once
he was sent away, April made one final appointment to
speak with Joe face to face.
Speaker 1 (44:26):
I knew it was going to be the last time
that I would see him, So I went to the prison,
sat down across from him, and I looked at him
and I said, do you understand what you've done?
Speaker 2 (44:43):
Joe stared blankly back at her.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
He just very calmly and quizzically looked at me. He said,
but why would they continue to refer me? And my
job just dropped. It was like, so that made it
okay because you were still being referred. You were probably
(45:08):
being referred by their parents, who had no idea that
you were doing this to them.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
Joe had no remorse. He spoke about his crimes like
he was discussing the weather.
Speaker 1 (45:22):
That's when I realized there was something seriously disconnected something
seriously wrong with him, because what he did was absolutely horrific,
and there's nothing that indicates that he understands, or is remorseful,
or has any ounce of understanding of what he has done.
Speaker 2 (45:47):
April's community rallied around her.
Speaker 1 (45:50):
I had a friend stay with me for about three
months during that time, just so I wasn't alone. I've
got some incredible friends that I've made over the years
that I didn't realize how incredible they were until this.
Speaker 2 (46:09):
She had a great support system, but there was a
lot of internal work. She had a face on her own.
Speaker 1 (46:16):
During that time. I'm going through a lot of therapy.
I was seeing a therapist at the time about three
times a week. I needed to talk to somebody that
wasn't emotionally connected to any of it.
Speaker 2 (46:30):
Slowly, she began to unpack the emotions she had been carrying.
Speaker 1 (46:34):
There was so much grieving happening, Grieving the life that
I thought I had, grieving the marriage that I wish
I had had, grieving the marriage I did have.
Speaker 2 (46:46):
But underneath the grief was something else, so.
Speaker 1 (46:49):
Much anger, anger for how I was treated. Still to
this day, I get so angry because I feel like
his victims deserve so much much more than what they're getting,
so much more. He took a plea deal, and the
junch gave him five years with time served. Like it's
(47:11):
not fair. It's not fair to the girls. They deserve
so much more than that.
Speaker 2 (47:19):
Because they reminders, the full names of Joe's victims weren't released.
This was to protect the girl's privacy. While she has
never met them personally, April thinks of them often.
Speaker 1 (47:31):
I don't know who his victims are, but if for
some reason any of them ever listen, I would say
that I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry for what you've
been through. If I had known, I would have done
everything within my power to stop it.
Speaker 2 (47:54):
Since his arrest, the number of known victims has risen
to eighteen. Joe could be out of prison as soon
as spring of twenty twenty six. But I'll never have
a place in April's world again.
Speaker 1 (48:06):
I have no need to see him. I don't talk
to him. I have nothing to do with him.
Speaker 2 (48:10):
At this point, April has been busy building a life
that brings her joy.
Speaker 1 (48:17):
It's just me and my dog and my cat. I'm
living by myself. My home is my sanctuary. Now I'm
rediscovering reading. I'm getting to explore new foods. I've gotten
to travel quite a bit because there are places that
I've always wanted to go to and he never did.
(48:40):
I'm finding a whole new sense of freedom.
Speaker 2 (48:43):
What April endured with Joe has forced her to reckon
with what it means to truly know someone. We end
every weekly episode with the same question, why do you
want to share your story?
Speaker 1 (48:56):
I wanted to talk about it because finding this podcast
was a huge part of what helped me to hear
experiences that so closely mirror your own. There's something different
about that. I suddenly realized that I wasn't alone. Some
(49:18):
people have the uncanny ability to hide the deepest, darkest
parts of themselves from those that are closest to them,
and sometimes maybe even from themselves. There's no way to
ever really truly know a person, and I just have
to resign myself to the fact that this was a
part of him that he was never going to allow
(49:40):
anyone to see until it was too late.
Speaker 2 (49:51):
On the next episode of Betrayal Weekly, I'm in.
Speaker 3 (49:55):
Shock and disbelief, like just nauseatingly sick the reality. I
guess us is slowly sinking in that my life is
all a lie. He's in the kitchen going to the
coffee machine to make himself an espresso.
Speaker 1 (50:09):
And he literally looks at me and shrugs, and he's like, So.
Speaker 2 (50:22):
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, or follow us on Instagram at
Betrayal Pod. You can also connect with me on Instagram
at It's Andrea Gunning. To access our newsletter, view additional content,
(50:44):
and connect with the Betrayal community, join our substack at
Betrayal dot substack 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 along a big thank
you to all of our listeners. Betrayal is a production
(51:05):
of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group, in
partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is executive produced by
Nancy Glass and Jennifer Fason, hosted and produced by me
Andrea Gunning. This episode was written and produced by Olivia
Hewitt and Monique Leboard, with additional production from Ben Fetterman.
Casting support from Curry Richmond. Our iHeart team is Ali
(51:28):
Perry and Jessica Krincheck. Audio editing and mixing by Matt Delvecchio.
Additional audio editing by 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 your podcasts
Host
Andrea Gunning
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