Betrayal: Secrets & Lies with ABC News Studios | BONUS

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I am joined today by David Sloan and Mariel Pearson.
I know who you are, and you guys are huge
advocates of betrayal, But can you tell the audience who
you are in relationship to the show? David?

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Why don't you go first?

Speaker 3 (00:16):
Sure, I'm the creative lead for ABC News long Form,
which comprises ABC News Studios, twenty twenty, Nightline, and Impact
our other news magazines.

Speaker 4 (00:27):
So I'm the creative lead over content, and I'm Muriel Pearson.
I'm the executive producer over here overseeing your wonderful show, Andrea.
And yeah, I work really closely with David on a
lot of the things that he's working on. But I
work really closely with your producer, John Hirsch on making
beautiful television out of your amazing podcast.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
How did you guys get into true crime?

Speaker 4 (00:53):
David is the king of true crime. I'm passing that
to you.

Speaker 3 (00:56):
I mean, I have been doing crime since I worked
on twenty five years ago or maybe a little longer,
and I became the executive producer for twenty years. And
it's ferreting out these stories of not only the most notorious,
and it's it's like the seven deadly sins. I mean,
why crimes are committed. It's jealousy, it's envy, it's angry.

(01:19):
These are universal kinds of feelings in humanity. But the
eighth deadly sin is betrayal. It's almost the eighths deadly sin.
It's not in there along with gluttney and sloth and
all of those other ones, but it really is one
of the deadly sins. And again it has a commonality
where someone everywhere on earth has been betrayed by someone

(01:43):
big or small.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
I'm so curious what made you guys interested in taking
the weekly series and converting it to TV. Obviously we've
done Stacy's story, Jens story, and Ashley's story.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
Yes, what made you interested in the weekly format?

Speaker 3 (02:00):
It's been remarkable. These limited series on Hulu have been
remarkably received and keep adding viewers all the time in
terms of driving subscriptions on Hulu. And then we just thought, like,
why are we doing this for the network.

Speaker 4 (02:16):
But you know what Drea is is really remarkable about
this is we all ask about how transferable these kinds
of stories and the popularity is between platforms, and I
think what we've learned from your show and a couple
others is with a very very powerful podcast that translates
into network, that translates into viewers on Hulu, and it

(02:39):
is astonishing to me because there are very few things
that migrate cross platform. With the success of Betrayal, and
we've seen it happen time in the games, certainly with
the Hulu series and with the network series as well.
Your listeners, your audience are tuned in to watch these
stories as they evolved on television series.

Speaker 1 (02:59):
There are very loyal community and so it's really cool
to see them support every phase of Betrayal, whether it
be when we went from limited to the weekly and
then when we launched the show on Hulu. So it's
really cool to see the feedback from the listeners and
then advocate for the show and for the storytellers. What

(03:20):
are some of the stories that you're looking forward to
the most this season? I mean, obviously I have my darlings,
but I'm curious which ones are yours.

Speaker 3 (03:27):
I'm looking forward to the abduction, I mean, where do
you get the story of First of all, the best
stories have the perpetrator or the husband as I will
call him. He's really a perpetrator. The best villains are
the ones hiding in play site. So this guy is
a devoted father, he's a financial advisor who his clients trust,

(03:51):
he's an elder at their church. And to think that
he also would get involved in abduction and ransom unproofed
dungeon with victims, it almost shocks the conscience. And it
is really the ones who are hiding in plain sight
that are truly remarkable and the most frightening.

Speaker 5 (04:13):
What about you, Maryel I am looking forwards to Morgan
because Morgan is so spunky. Morgan is successful, Morgan is
not going to let anybody take her down. Morgan fights back,
as many.

Speaker 4 (04:25):
Of these women do. You don't have to be victimized,
you don't have to take it from somebody. You can
do something about it. And it is fascinating to me
how a woman like Morgan kind of shows you a
little bit of the heart of darkness. Because one little
theme that I've seen emerge from this series is a
lot of men who really didn't feel comfortable with their wives'

(04:48):
success that they really who knows at what point they
decided they wanted to take that down, But it was
a power thing. It wasn't just a betrayal thing. Which
is already a awful enough but it really raised questions
in my mind about what the ultimate, deeper, darker motivation
of some of these men was. Were they trying to

(05:08):
take that woman down.

Speaker 2 (05:10):
It's such a great point.

Speaker 1 (05:11):
When you watch Crystal Harris's episode, you will find similarities
between Sean Harris, which is Chrissel's husband, and Rodney Morgan's
ex husband. Different scenarios. Christl was the breadwinner, she was working,
he was taking care of the kids, and then he

(05:32):
experiences loss and he starts to change the same story
is very similar in Morgan's case.

Speaker 2 (05:38):
It's really to see things just you know, to see.

Speaker 1 (05:42):
Those like themes come up in these perpetrators and the
offenders is so fascinating.

Speaker 2 (05:47):
Yes, the one thing I was going to.

Speaker 1 (05:49):
Say off your point David about these perpetrators hiding in
plain sight is these stories are hiding in plain sight.
I remember when Donielle emailed us. I think her email
was like three sentences long, and it was just like
big fan of the podcast. You know, really quick in
and out. You would have no idea what that woman

(06:11):
went through. She just heard the show, she wrote in
and you would never know that her husband at one
point had dungeon in a random rental property. You know,
it's a real indication of you just don't know what
someone has gone through or what they're going through.

Speaker 3 (06:26):
I'm so full of admiration to the class group because
what you have done with the podcast, and we've been
lucky enough to meet you and to collaborate with you
on the on the network and on Hulu, is that
you've created a sisterhood. Yeah, you've created a sisterhood not
of just listeners, but women who can can bear witness

(06:51):
two stories like the other listeners. And it's it's very,
very impressive and rare. And the fact that it can
keeps regenerating and really snowballing into almost this sort of
movement of women sharing these stories and taking power and
empowering themselves. It's just this collective strain that I really

(07:16):
admire all of you for bringing us about.

Speaker 2 (07:18):
Oh, thank you for saying that.

Speaker 1 (07:20):
That means a lot to me.

Speaker 4 (07:21):
What I kind of love about this series is true
crime in the past has taken a little bit of
criticism because it's been too much about the crime, the
relations of the crime or the perpetrator. This brings it
firmly into the space of the victims, of the people
to whom the crime is being perpetrated on. But I've

(07:42):
got to say that there's something incredibly emotionally compelling about
constantly reframing the crime within that context between a woman's
inside of a woman's point of view. Well though I
shouldn't just say a woman, because I mean we should
tease it a little little bit.

Speaker 2 (08:00):
Andrea that we have a man we do betrayal coming up,
We do Ramone, and he was the first man that
we had on the weekly, and that was a watershed moment, obviously,
aside from Tyler on the you know, the Hulu doc
it was I think Tyler really.

Speaker 1 (08:19):
Set a stage for men to participate in betrayal because
I do think that there's a lot there is a
level of shame in every storyteller where they feel they
are the only one that got duped, they're the only
one that didn't see it. And I think for male
storytellers it's really hard in particular, and ramone man, is
he not just so strong and willing and just to

(08:41):
stand on his two feet and say this is what
happened to me. I am so grateful to the both
of you for believing in Betrayal and just being a
fan of the show and the stories, and so I
can't thank you enough. Muriel, do you want to tell
the audience where they can find betrayal secrets and lies?

Speaker 4 (09:00):
Betrayal Secrets and Lies coming to the ABC News Network
near you Sundays, ten o'clock Eastern Standard Time, streaming on
Hulu and Disney Plus. Afterwards, watch us and be part
of that wonderful sisterhood that David was talking about.

Speaker 2 (09:17):
Thank you, guys, I really appreciate you taking the time