Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, Betrayal fans, I have exciting news to share. Season
three of Betrayal is now a docu series on Hulu.
It's the gripping story of Stacy Tyler and the doctor
who betrayed them. See the voices you've come to know
in Betrayal Under His Eye, streaming now on Hulu. Before
we start this episode, I want to let you know
(00:20):
that this episode discusses suicide and its effects. Please take
care while listening.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
He was just constantly chasing, chasing the next thing. No
car he bought was fast enough, no house we bought.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Was big enough.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
The more money and more success that he had that
almost turned him into this monster.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
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 telling Kimberly's story. She grew up
in rural Pennsylvania where her parents owned their own hair salon.
They didn't have a lot of money, but they were
(01:16):
determined to show Kimberly the world.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
My parents would save up money and take us to
New York and go see Phanom of the Opera and
Glamo's rob So we'd backpack through Europe and we went
to like every single national park in the United States.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Kimberly's parents taught her that no dream was too big.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
I wanted to be a teacher. I wanted to be
a journalist, I wanted to write a book. I wanted
to be a veterinarian. And I remember my father used
to say, I don't ever worry about you.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
I just know that.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
You're going to always succeed and always land on your feet,
because you just have that determination.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Nobody in her family had gone to college, but Kimberly
decided she wanted to be the first in a small
liberal arts school for women.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
I was prepared academically, but I was not prepared to
be moved into this group of very.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Affluent young women.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Many of them come from boarding schools, and they brought
their own horses to campus. I would go to classes
and some of my classmates would be wearing pearls.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
That was our first exposure to the world of wealth
and connections. Kimberly realized that if she wanted to make
it as far as her classmates, she'd have to make
her own way. She graduated with an English degree, and
she got hired at a publishing house in Washington, d C.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
I loved my job in publishing. I was always getting
to read and read all these manuscripts and see everybody's articles.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
It was the nineties. DC was an exciting place for
Kimberly to explore. A few months after she moved to
the city.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
My friend was throwing a Halloween party and I was
actually dressed up as Carme and Miranda. I had a
fruit basket on my head and a parrot.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
There was a guy across the room who kept making
eye contact with her.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
He was cute, and he came over and he was like,
I like your fruit basket, and it was just endearing.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
It was quite the icebreaker. His name was Tim.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
He was blondes, blue eyes. Just something about him.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
I just was like, Oh, he's really, really cute.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
They started chatting. He'd also just graduated college and moved
to DC.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
He was an only child from a small rural town
in Georgia.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
They had mutual friends. Kimberly's roommate knew Tim.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
My roommate was like, he's a great guy. Everyone knows him.
He's really wonderful. He asked for my number and I
gave it to him. He called me shortly after that
and said, I'd would like to see you again. Would
you have any interest in going on a date?
Speaker 1 (04:04):
She said yes. He had two tickets to a black
tie event for the opening of the Russian Embassy.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
The Russian Embassy was just fantastic. I was like, oh
my gosh, this is amazing. You know, free drinks and
free food, and everyone's beautiful and dressed up in gowns
and textedos. I remember everything being like kind of dark
that lit up in like Lauder Crystal, and they had
shots of vodka, like tables and tables of vodka. I
(04:31):
had this handsome young man in front of me, and
I was really impressed. It was such a far cry
from where I had come from.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
It was a whirlwind night. She and Tim tried new
things like caviare and expensive alcohol.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
You could tell he was like me.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
He also felt a little out of his comfort zone.
We fit in, but we didn't, and I think that
was something that really drew.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
Us to each other.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Tim was in DC to make a name for him,
and like Kimberly, he'd gotten there on his own merits.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Tim worked for a senator and he specialized in technology
and agriculture. He also had to drive the Senator regularly,
so he was his personal chauffeur and had breakfast with
him things like that.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
They began exploring DC together and the black tie events continued.
For their next date, Tim took Kimberly to a party
at the National Post Office.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
This's this amazing building.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
It's huge, and that has this marble entry and you
just walk in and they had live bands and all
this wonderful food, and you'd be hobnobbing with congressman. I
remember meeting Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She had just been confirmed
and they were holding a private meet and greet with her.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Tim loved how ambitious Kimberly was. He was her biggest cheerleader.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
I never felt that he was intimidated by that or
my drive for success. He was just so proud of me,
and he would always say, I'm really proud of you.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
You're doing so great.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
That admiration was mutual. Kimberly and Tim always wanted to
be around each other. They're black Tie dates turned to
dinners and long conversations. They met each other's friends and families.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Our relationship got serious pretty quickly, and we dated for
two and a half years.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
After a year together, Tim made his intentions really clear.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
He told me that I was the woman for him,
and he knew right off the bat that we were
just made for each other and that I was the
love of his life and he wanted to spend the
rest of his life with me. He said, I really
want to take you to this great restaurant. It's the
Inn of Little Washington. It's right outside of d C.
(06:54):
And at that point I was like, I think he's
going to propose. It was just such a beautiful dinner.
The whole dinner went by and he didn't propose. I
was like, well, maybe I just got it wrong. Maybe
he just really wanted to go to this place. And
then he put his hand on his heart and he said,
I don't feel good.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
I was like, oh, are you okay?
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Because we ate so much rich food and like we're drinking,
and he's like, yeah, there's something that's like poking me
in my chest.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
And I was like, do you mean call a doctor?
Like what's going?
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Like, were you okay?
Speaker 3 (07:27):
And he's like he pulled out.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
A box and he opened it up and he said,
I want you to be my wife.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
Will you marry me?
Speaker 2 (07:39):
I was like, oh, because I already thought he was
like dying, you know, and then as that he proposed,
and I just I said, yes, yes, I'm glad, you're
You're okay.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
I remember going to sleep that night just so happy
and so excited. I remember just feeling so over the
moon and just excited to start my life with this man.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
She and Tim saved up and paid for their own wedding.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
We got married in nineteen ninety eight. His dad officiated
the wedding.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
I know, we had a really fun Louisiana, New Orleans
band and everybody was just having the best time, and
everyone was dressed up and dancing.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
As they settled into married life, they tried to save
money wherever they could.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Dacy is so expensive. We were trying to put every
single cent we could into our future, and because we
worked so close together downtown, we would meet for lunch
and I would pack us a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
We would split a diet coke and eat an orange,
and that's all we could really afford.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Eventually, Kimberly got a new job in the tech industry
and she supported them financially while Tim started an MBA program.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
He went to graduate school full time. So I worked
full time and paid the bills.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
Also put money aside to pay off this tuition.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
So I was supporting the two of us and working
like a dog. And I'm never just like sleeping with
my BlackBerry next to my pillow, and I'd hear it beep,
and I'd be like, oh, what's it saying?
Speaker 3 (09:16):
You know, I just I never slept. My nickname was
the Ballbuster.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Because I wasn't afraid of anybody. And here I am
five foot two sitting across the room in a board
meeting with CEO of these big companies. It taught me
not to be afraid of anything.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Tim's first job out of grad school was at a
fortune five hundred company in the healthcare industry. Now that
they had two incomes again, they could finally begin to
save money for their future. That's when Tim got really
strategic about their savings.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
He studied the stock market like it was the most
fascinating thing he had ever seen. He just was reading
up on how to invest all the time. And he
began day trading, and he was making a lot of
money from us, and he didn't spend a lot of money.
(10:18):
And then the company that he was working for kept
promoting him, so we were basically putting his entire salary
in the bank and we were living off of my income.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
By the time they were twenty nine, their financial situation
had completely changed. The days of splitting peanut butter and
jelly sandwiches were far behind them.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
I remember seeing half a million dollars in our bank account,
and that's a lot of money. I think that for him,
that was the turning point. He saw how quickly he
made so much money, and how that was investing and
how it compounded. It was just like the dream come true.
And that's when I decided I'm ready to have children.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
Tim was ready to grow their family too.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
He was so excited. He was really sweet. He took
care of me.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Kimberly gave birth to their first child, a baby girl.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
First time mom. I was so happy and just that
motherly glow. He tag teamed with me. We worked out
a system where I would breastfeed her at eight o'clock
and then go straight to sleep, and I would sleep
until about two or three. He would wake me up
for her next feeding, and then I would go back
to sleep again and he would go to sleep.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Tim made it clear they were in this together. Soon
they found their groove as parents. They had a second
daughter and then a third. Tim was climbing the ladder
as a healthcare executive. Fifteen years into their marriage, he
was making enough for Kimberly to quit her job and
focus on parenting.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
He was making a ton of money at that point.
He was a senior vice president.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
Tim often traveled for work, and while it put a
strain on their relationship, Kimberly still felt connected to him.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
The romance was still there.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
We still were going on date nights, and we had
this amazing babysitter, and so we would go out every
other Saturday, sometimes even every Saturday and.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
Do date night. So we were still very much getting along.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Now that they had extra income, Tim wanted to spend it.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
He's like, we're buying a house in the mountains for vacation.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
It was a cabin in the mountains of western North Carolina.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
It was a magical place, and the kids we bunked
them all up in one bunk room and we would
boat and paddle board and canoe. We hiked every single
trail and saw every single waterfall, and went up there
for Thanksgiving and had campfires making s'mores and going fishing.
It was so peaceful and so sweet.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
The mountain house became a place where Kimberly and her
kids really bonded, But as time went on, Kimberly felt
a distance growing between her and her husband.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
We stopped talking to each other at night time, like bye,
have a good night. You know, how are the kids today.
We stopped doing that, and that's where I knew. I'm like,
we are growing so far apart. That's when the pandemic hit.
We decided to go up to the mountains and spend
it there because it was scary. We're like, well, we
might as well go where there's nobody and we can
(13:35):
continue doing our quiet, isolated routine up there.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
It was a frightening time. Like many people, Kimberly was
worried about how the pandemic would affect her daughters.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
I was definitely stressed, but I didn't want my kids
to see that. I was like, we're going to be fine.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
But Tim, on the other hand, wasn't fine.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
Tim was manic.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
It was almost this is though he was jailed. He
was one of those individuals that did not handle the
pandemic well. He had been flying and traveling and all
of a sudden, everything stops and he didn't know what
to do with himself, and he became very angry.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
All of a sudden, little things started to set him off.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
And it just became this daily fight. This is the
first time I'd ever seen him behave like this. I
had never seen him so restless and so angry. He
was never an angry person like we rarely thought. You know,
we were always very calm the way we communicated, and
all of a sudden we saw this behavior and we're like,
(14:40):
who is this person? I felt like he was just
losing his mind.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
As the pandemic went on, Tim continued having angry outbursts,
acting strange, and drinking excessively.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
He was pouring what I would call buckets of bourbon
and buckets of vodka, and then would open up a
bottle of wine.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
One night, while they were watching a movie, Kimberly noticed
that Tim was engrossed in his phone.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
He wasn't watching the movie, and I saw him scrolling
through a website and I saw lots of pictures of women,
and I said, it looks like you're really interested in
what you're looking at. What are you looking at? Exactly,
and he said, oh, I had this headhunter that keeps
bugging me to take this other position. And I was
(15:32):
like okay. I said, well, it looks like there's a
lot of women on your phone. I said, would you
rather watch that and look at your phone than watch
the movie we're watching? And he's like, no, I don't
know what you're talking about. You don't understand.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
I'm working so hard.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
And he got really angry with me, but he put
his phone down. And that's when I started really paying
attention to what was going on in my house.
Speaker 4 (15:54):
I was like, okay, start looking.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Well. Kimberly and her family quarantined in their mountain house,
she started noticing changes in her husband. He was being secretive,
even aggressive. One night, she thought she saw photos of
women on her husband's phone and it kind of looked
like a dating site. He said it was something for work,
but she wasn't convinced.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
So I went into his suitcases and I started digging
through his personal effects, his toilet, try bag. I started
going through his desk and going through his clothes, didn't
find anything, went through his golf.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
Bag, nothing.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
She kept coming up empty. I really started to think
maybe everything was fine, after all, maybe she was just
getting in her own head. But then her eyes landed
on one final bag she had missed in her search,
Tim's gym bag.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
And I put my hands in it and I was
feeling around and I didn't feel anything. And then I
noticed there was a zippered compartment on the side, and
I opened it up and there was a treasure trove
of viagra, condoms, lubes, sex toys and they were not mine.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
I was like, oh my god, what did I just see?
Speaker 2 (17:35):
What did I just find?
Speaker 3 (17:38):
Everything? I had always feared.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
He was cheating on me.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
She couldn't confront Tim right away because she had to
drive her daughters to their dad disappointments, So she drove
across town in a daze.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
And I'm sitting there in the dentist's office and then
I started to cry, and the dental hygienis comes out
and she was like, I need to ask you questions
about your children's teeth. And I remember, just like teeth,
what are you talking about? I couldn't make sense of
anything in my world at that point, and she kept
like asking me questions, like do your kids you know
(18:16):
they need to have their X rays done? I'm like, fine,
take their x rays and she was like, well, and
they probably need a fluorid treatment. I'm like, get to them.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
What are you asking China? She's like, are you okay?
Speaker 2 (18:27):
And I'm crying and I couldn't get the words out
of my mouth. My husband's cheating on me. It just
felt so impossible.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
Later that evening, when they were back home, Kimberly went
into Tim's office where he was sitting at his desk, and.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
I said, I need to talk to you. I placed
the box in front of him and I said, I
need you to explain this to me. And then I
just went quiet. The blood just rushed out of his
face and he just whispered, let's take this into the bedrooms.
(19:06):
We have some privacy. We went in there and I
sat in the bed and he started pacing.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
I said, I need you to explain this, and he
said it's a mistake.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
I said, who is she? His wheels were turning. He
didn't know what to say to me.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
At the time.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
What I didn't know was he was trying to find
the right lies. He finally said her name was Anna.
I said where did you meet? And he said the
whole foods down the street. I said, oh, I said,
how old is she? And I was very calm and
so was he. But when he said she was twenty
(19:54):
one twenty two, I felt sick.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
This daughter was eighteen.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
That's not too far off in age. I said he
was sex with her and he was like yes. I
was so angry because I'm like, Harry, are during the pandemic,
holding up, wearing masks in our face, like not communicating
with anybody, not seeing our friends, and you're having sex
with a cashier from Whole Foods, somebody you don't even know.
(20:23):
And he was like yes. And I said, you just
betrayed me in every single sense, and I need you
to leave.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
He checked into a hotel. Kimberly was in shock.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
I don't remember the rest of the day. I just
stared at my ceiling most.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
Of that night.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
After weeks in a hotel, Tim started trying to win
her back, buying her expensive gifts, apologizing profusely and promising
that he'd change.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
And he's just like, I love you so much. I
just love you. I want to help you with the kids,
and what can I do?
Speaker 3 (21:02):
I want to make up.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Kimberly agreed to let him move back in and they
tried to make it work, but she suspected that there
was more he wasn't telling her. She wanted him to
fully come clean. Whenever she would bring it up, he
kept changing his story, so she decided to find the
truth herself. There was one place she had it looked
his computer.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
And that's when I started investigating him. I started logging
into his computers, and I learned.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
That my.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
Tim, who I thought was the stand up, amazing executive
father of my children, was a sugar daddy. He had
been paying young women to have sex with him. It
first started with him paying their bills, I'll give you
money for rent, and then it went to him just
(22:04):
paying them.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
The realization was sinking in. This was something she'd only
seen on TV or in the movies, not something that
happened in real life. But here she was finding out
her husband was a sugar daddy. A sugar daddy that
paid younger women for sex, paid for their lifestyle, financially
supported their ventures, and gave them romantic gifts in return
(22:28):
for sexual favors. He was doing it all online. There
are websites for this where men can find their sugar baby.
Tim was using them and he was using their money,
money that could have gone to their kids, their education,
their home, and instead he was spending it on other women.
Kimberly began looking at their bank statements.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
I saw all these sums of money going out. I
estimated he spent about forty thousand dollars on sex workers
in the course of a year and a half. He
would take it out in five hundred dollars increments, sometimes
a thousand, it depends on if he was having a threesome.
(23:08):
He would meet up with them in a hotel close
to where our daughters went to school, and he would
spend a few hours with them, smoke some weed, and
then pick our children up in carpool and bring them home.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
Tim had another life online, one where he was constantly
looking for his next sexual experience or his next sugar baby.
Sometimes they were one off rendezvous five hundred and cash
for a meetup, but other times he continued the relationship
and sent thousands of dollars to women, money for them
to start businesses or pay their bills. As Kimberly looked
(23:51):
through the digital trail, she realized this was almost an obsession.
It had consumed his life and so much of the
family's money.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
I confronted him with all of this, and this time
I had more than a box. He just started telling me.
He's like, I have a hole that I can't fill.
And he said, no matter what I do to try
to fill that hole, I cannot seem to fill it.
And he said, I've tried with work, I've tried with golf,
(24:22):
I've tried with buying the house in the mountains and
hiking and doing all these things. Nothing fills that hole.
And he takes his fist and starts beating himself as
hard as he can in the face, repeatedly, like punching
himself in the eye and in the forehead. He kept saying,
I'm so fucked up. I'm so fucked up.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
I don't even know who.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
I am so fucked up. And I remember just screaming.
I was like, oh my god, like I had never
seen him violent, I had never seen him behave like this.
And I grabbed his arm and I was like stop.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
I was like screaming.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
I was like stop, stop, and he was bleeding, and
I was like, what are you doing. He's like, I
don't know who. Something's wrong with me.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
In that conversation, Tim told Kimberly that he wanted to
end his life. She was worried about his safety and
encouraged him to get professional support.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
So I kept saying, I really feel like you need
to get treatment, and Tim refused. He said I can't
take off a month because of work.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
Refused.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
At that point, I was like, I need to get
out of this marriage.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
Any hope Kimberly had for repairing their relationship was gone.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
And I said I want a divorce. He kind of
went from this like super caring, love bombing husband to
business executive. This was going to be a transaction, just
like the transactions he had with the young girls. It
was just transactional. So I was as well, and he said,
(26:01):
I'll give you, and he gave me a number. You
can have the kids, you can have the house. I
will take care of you. I will take care of them.
I will take care of.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
All of their school bills.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
I need you to walk away. And I just looked
at him and I said, that number's really low. North
Carolina is a fifty to fifty equitable state. I knew
what we were worth. I had already pulled all the financials.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
Kimberly wanted half of everything. They owned together. That was fair.
But the minute she said it, his whole demeanor changed.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
He was like, well, but it's my money. You haven't
even worked. And I remember just being so dumbfounded. I
was like, what do you mean.
Speaker 3 (26:45):
I put you through business school.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
I worked until our second child was born. I was
making more than you. The large part of why we
have what we have is because we were able to
invest in properties and invest in stocks. And he's like,
I was the one who did that. And I said, well,
that's not the way the courts.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
Are going to see it. And he's like, fine.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
I just want you to know if you continue down
this path, I will take every single cent I have
and every single cent you have, and I will spend it,
burning you to the ground.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Kimberly found out that her husband had spent a lot
of their family savings being a sugar daddy to younger women.
He was paying for things like their rent and their bills.
He was also paying for sex with sex workers. When
Kimberly urged him to get help, he refused, so she
was left with no other option but divorce.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
I didn't want alimony from him because I knew it'd
be a way for him to control me, and I
kept saying to the attorneys, I'm like, I don't want alimony.
I want a clean break. I need the cash settlement.
I can dig in my heels until I hit the
core of this planet, and I did.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
Three weeks later, I.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Think I finally warmed down and he agreed to a
cash settlement. It was a thirty seventy split. I knew
at that minute, I'm going to be free of this man.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
She got the money, but she wouldn't be free from Tim.
His breakdown was just beginning. In fact, Kimberly noticed an
uneasy feeling creeping in one she couldn't shake.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
Sometimes I felt like I was being watched, and I
felt like I was being followed.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
Tim moved into an apartment nearby. Kimberly wanted space from
the whole situation, so she decided to splurge on a
trip to the Caribbean for her fiftieth birthday. It would
be her her closest friends, and her three teenage daughters. Finally,
she could be far away from Tim and could let
her guard down. But the first morning of the trip,
(29:14):
something strange happened.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
I'm on the beach, I'm having my coffee.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
It's just me.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
I'm enjoying the morning, enjoying the view, and there's no
one around except for this man.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
I watched him turn. He pulls out a.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
Camera and start taking pictures of me. It's one of
those moments you're like, am I imagining this? I turn around,
so I'm thinking, maybe he's taking pictures of the villa.
You can't see the villa from the beach. And I
pretend to look down again, and here he is doing
it a second time, taking more pictures.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
A man was on the beach taking pictures of her.
She was sure of it. She just didn't know why.
It was disturbing. But that wasn't the only upsetting thing
that happened on their trip.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
Two days later, we get a basket delivered and it's
a gift basket and I thought, oh, well, maybe it's
a friend sending me something because it is my birthday
weekend and whatever.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
And there was a note in it.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
I think it said enjoy your trip that I paid
for my hard work. I spent my fiftieth birthday in
a bar.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
It was from Tim.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
It was a bag of cookies, I think, some chocolate
covered fruit and a bag of mixed nuts, and at
this point the kids are like, oh my god, he
knows we're here, He's found us. I mean, they go
into full panic mode.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
Something about this basket immediately raised alarm bells. One of
their daughters had a severe nut allergy. Tim spent eighteen
years making sure everything his daughter ate was nut free,
making sure he packed the EpiPen. Kimberly and her daughters
looked at each other, eyes widened.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
My daughter looked at the nuts and she's like, is
he trying to kill me?
Speaker 1 (31:11):
The vacation was meant to be relaxing, but it left
the family more on edge than before. At this point,
Kimberly was dating other people. When she got back from vacation,
she had a date planned.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
We went out to this upscale restaurant. It was like
seven o'clock and a busy Saturday night, and I'm in
a pretty dress and he's in a suit, and we
order our cocktail and order an appetizer, and before it
even comes out, Tim comes charging towards our table from
the bar.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
He's got a drink in his hand and he was drunk.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
And I remember just being so panicked because I hadn't
seen him since we had separated, and he got in
our face and he's said, you're doing drugs and dealing drugs,
and I know who you are, but he's like saying
it loudly, and people like stopping with their eating and
like looking at our table.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
And then the maid of d came over.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
And he left and he's like, you go okay, And
I'm like, no, no, But I was so shaken, and
I remember going home.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
I'm like, how did he know we were there?
Speaker 1 (32:14):
Kimberly's head was spinning. Somehow Tim knew exactly where she
was at all times. A few weeks later, Kimberly was
at the doctor's office. Over the last year, her PABs
mirrors kept coming back abnormal. The doctors told her it
was due to a past HPV infection, likely from the
(32:35):
unprotected sex Tim was having with other women.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
I was sitting in the gynecologist's office with a robe on.
I heard my phone and I looked at it and
it was a text from Tim, and it said, just
remember while you're there getting tested for your STDs with
all your boyfriends, you can't use our health insurance money
to pay for it. Just like shaking, like I could
(33:02):
not even control my hands. I dropped my phone and
I was like, he knows I'm here. He physically knows
I'm here.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
She thought maybe Tim had been following her. That was
until she brought her car in to be serviced.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
It was just a routine service and everything went fine.
I was pulling away and I noticed there was this
device sitting in my console. I picked it up and
I'm like, what is this. I called the technician. I'm like, hey,
I think they left something in my car. He was like, oh, no,
(33:38):
that's your tracking device.
Speaker 3 (33:41):
I was like what. He's like, yeah, that was.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
Your tracking device. Sorry, we forgot to put it back in.
He put a tracking device inside my car.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
Tim was tracking Kimberly everywhere she went, but he knew
much more than just her location. Whenever they had to
talk to each other about their daughters or divorce proceedings.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
He had been referencing conversations that I was having inside
my house.
Speaker 3 (34:06):
One time, He's like, yeah, I saw.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
You playing volleyball with our daughter in the house when
I was there. You would never let that fly. And
I was like, could you look through my windows? And
I went actually outside and looking at my house. I'm like,
you can't see into my house unless you're in my
backyard looking into my windows.
Speaker 3 (34:27):
He knew about a.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
Trip that I was planning.
Speaker 3 (34:29):
I was taking a cruise, and he knew about it.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
He said, I hope you have fun on your trip,
and I'm like, how does he know all of these things?
Speaker 1 (34:40):
It felt like Tim had eyes and ears everywhere. There
was no escaping, and Kimberly was struggling.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
I was definitely in trauma mode, wondering when he was
going to pop up again. And I turned into this
paranoid mess. I was so jumpy all the time he was.
I'm so angry. I had this feeling he was going
to come for me. I was always locking and unlocking
the doors. I unlocked and locked my door so many
(35:09):
times I actually broke the doorknob.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
She lived in this paranoid state for a whole year.
Then one weekend, when Kimberly was out of town, she
got a strange notification on her home security app.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
Somebody had gone in and changed my password to my
home security system.
Speaker 3 (35:29):
And I'm like, oh my god.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
And I logged in and I saw that he had
accessed my home security system, logged me out, logged him in,
self in, and made himself the master user, so he
could see into my home and he could hear the conversations.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
Suddenly puzzle pieces started clicking into place. It wasn't just
paranoia that like Kimberly to believe Tim could hear what
she was saying inside her house. He had hacked into
her home security system. From there, he would watch her
in her home and listen to her private conversations.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
The reason he was able to do that is when
they changed over the account to my name, they failed
to log out all the devices, and even though I
had changed the password, he was able to access it
through face idea.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
During the court hearings for Kimberly's protective order against him,
he admitted to putting the tracking device.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
On her car.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
Apparently that was legal. Then the line of questioning shifted
to the home security system.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
My attorney's asking him how many times did you look
into Kimberly's house and watch her? And he was like countless.
And the judge popped her head up and she said, sir,
I need you to explain that when you say countless,
that means you can't count that high. Can you quantify that?
(37:00):
It's like dozens?
Speaker 1 (37:04):
On the stand Tim also admitted to hiring a private
investigator to follow Kimberly twenty four to seven.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
I mean, it's like one hundred dollars an hour to
do what to watch to me go to the grocery
store and turn my lights on and off. It was
just insanity.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
The judge did the right thing.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
She ruled in favor that I got the restraining order.
Speaker 1 (37:26):
Tim fought this on appeal, but ultimately Kimberly prevailed. It
was a landmark case because before this, North Carolina courts
required proof of physical abuse or explicit violent threats to
grant a protective order. Kimberly's case created a precedent in
their home state. It was a big win, but Tim
was still spiraling out of control.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
He threatened to have my two older children arrested. He
was claiming that they were part of a bitcoin scheme
to blackmail him, and that he had proof, and he
sent this to my attorney, like this wasn't on the
bingo card.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
Tim was spending obscene amounts of money. It seemed like
any semblance of control and order in his life was
slipping away. Kimberly's oldest daughter had gone off to college,
but she still had two of her daughters at home,
and she was trying to hold everything together for them.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
A few weeks later, on November twenty third, I was
out to dinner and I get a text from one
of his old girlfriends, something he dated and I'd always
liked her, and says I need to talk to you.
I was like, that's really weird. And I call her
and I'm like, hey, you know, is everything okay? And
she said, Kimberly, Tim's dead and I was like, what.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
Tim had gone into the woods and taken his own life.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
She's like, I'm so sorry, and I just was calm.
I was like, you know, I didn't even have to
say and I threw up.
Speaker 3 (39:07):
I didn't cry.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
I felt sick, I felt shocked, and then I felt relief.
And I hate that I felt that, but it's human nature.
He had abused and tortured me and made my life
living hell.
Speaker 1 (39:30):
Kimberly had to find a way to tell her daughters.
Speaker 3 (39:33):
I took the girls into my bedroom.
Speaker 2 (39:35):
I said, let's sit down and talk about this. It's
okay to be upset, it's okay to be shocked, it's
okay to be angry. The girls end up being named
administrators to the estate. Obviously they're young girls. They decided
they couldn't do it. They named me and appointed me.
So now here I am with my ex husband managing
(39:56):
his estate.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
In the weeks that followed, Kimberly went to old apartment
to clean it out. When she stepped inside, she was
shocked at the state he had been living in. She
saw for his hand what he had been draining his
accounts on. It wasn't just private investigators and legal fees.
He'd been buying all kinds of things.
Speaker 2 (40:16):
He was a hoarder. To see like the state of
his stuff, and it was expensive stuff. He had like
a chicken coop for chickens he didn't have, and pool
equipment for a pool he didn't have, and watches, and
flipflops that were like from Target thrown in with a
box of like a thousand dollar pair of Italian leather shoes.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
There was even a box of fifty vintage pencil sharpeners
that cost two thousand dollars.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
And a nineteen forties chipbox. He had an RV that
he wrecked. He had motorcycles, a jet ski, two trailers.
I mean hundreds of thousands dollars.
Speaker 3 (40:53):
Worth of stuff.
Speaker 1 (40:54):
One of the strangest and most alarming things he'd spend
his money on was a trained German shepherd.
Speaker 2 (41:01):
He had it imported overseas, and it was a trained
killer guard dog. He spent close to eighty thousand dollars
on the dog.
Speaker 1 (41:10):
He eventually bought a second guard dog. At first, Kimberly
wanted to adopt the dogs herself. Then she had a
conversation with the trainer, who strongly advised her against interacting
with the dogs.
Speaker 2 (41:23):
If I were to ever come around, I think that
they were trained to attack me.
Speaker 1 (41:27):
The trainer ended up taking the dogs for Kimberly. The
dogs became another what if, another decision Tim made that
left her speechless. For twenty years, she'd known Tim to
be a dependable man. She adored him and respected him.
She built a family with him, and then, seemingly out
(41:48):
of the blue, he blew up their marriage, blew their savings,
and turned against his own daughters. Worst of all, he
spent his final years stalking and tearing the family. Kimberly
was trying to make sense of this as she sorted
through Tim's belongings. That's how she learned that a few
days before he took his own life, Tim had checked
(42:11):
himself into a rehab facility.
Speaker 5 (42:14):
Tim had a lot of demons that he did not
share with me, and one of the things that I
learned after he passed away he had admitted himself into rehab.
Speaker 2 (42:27):
He went to a place in Kentucky and willingly checked
himself in and checked himself out.
Speaker 3 (42:35):
A few days later.
Speaker 1 (42:37):
Kimberly called the rehab, hoping to learn more about his
state of mind while he was there, and any more
information about those final days leading up to his death.
Speaker 2 (42:47):
I felt like I had this puzzle, but I didn't
know what the picture was and pieces were missing. So
I called him and I said, I'm assuming he was
in here for substance abuse. And they're like, no, that's
not what we do. And I was like, well, why
was he in here? And They're like, he wasn't here
for childhood sexual abuse. I was just shocked.
Speaker 1 (43:14):
Kimberly knew that Tim had been a victim of childhood
sexual abuse, but she had no idea how significant the
trauma continued to be for him in adulthood. As she
worked to put together a painful puzzle of loss, she
also did everything she could to help her daughters through
(43:35):
their grief.
Speaker 2 (43:37):
I still have his ashes here in my home, and
I talked to my daughters about what they wanted to do,
and we're going to take him up to the mountains
where we had so many happy times and had a
ceremony and service there and just remember the good times.
I feel like that's going to be a final thing
for us to like.
Speaker 1 (43:58):
End this chapter, Kimberly is still in the process of
finding her way back to herself.
Speaker 2 (44:05):
I have trouble finding joy like I used to. This
did such a number on me for so long. Now
I'm trying to find out who I am and what
do I really like to do.
Speaker 1 (44:17):
Through everything, her relationship with her daughters remained strong.
Speaker 2 (44:21):
I think they see the strength that I've shown and
the strength that's taken for them to overcome it. As
much as I hate that they went through it, I
tell them all the time, You're going to use these
skills that you've learned for the rest of your life,
and you will help other women, and you will be
(44:44):
a source of support for other people going through the
same thing.
Speaker 1 (44:51):
We end every weekly episode with the same question, why
do you want to share your story?
Speaker 3 (44:57):
I think it's.
Speaker 2 (44:58):
Important for people to know when they do hit that
rock bottom moment and again I've hit it, I hit
it hard.
Speaker 3 (45:06):
You can get through these horrible, horrible times.
Speaker 2 (45:10):
Somebody can betray you, and you might just want to
be like, I can't do this anymore, I can't think
of this anymore.
Speaker 3 (45:17):
How am How am I going to get.
Speaker 2 (45:18):
Myself out of this? Just keep putting one foot in
front of the other, and you're going to get to
the other side of the dark forest and see the
light if you just keep moving. Don't be embarrassed, don't
be ashamed, don't be afraid to tell your story, because
the more times you talk about it, the more you
(45:40):
can make sense of it and process it.
Speaker 3 (45:43):
And that's been very helpful for me.
Speaker 1 (45:50):
On the next episode of Betrayal Weekly, this was my
best friend.
Speaker 6 (45:54):
This was somebody who was in my house every single day.
This is somebody who I told all my secrets too.
She did this because she wanted to She did this
because she likes to manipulate. She did this because she
likes the control.
Speaker 1 (46:16):
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,
(46:38):
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 a long way. A
big thank you to all of our listeners. Betrayal is
a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group,
(47:01):
in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is executive produced
by Nancy Glass and Jennifer Fasin, 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
(47:21):
Perry and Jessica Krincheck. Audio editing and mixing by Matt
del Vecchio. Additional audio editing by Tanner Robbins. Betrayal's theme
composed by Oliver Bain's music library provided by mybe Music.
And for more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.