August 13, 2026 • 57 mins
Leslie always knew her father was complicated. After his death, a manuscript reveals secrets, contradictions, and questions no one in her family wants to answer.
You can find Leslie on Instagram @lesliebscott or check out her website: lesliebscott.com
If you would like to share your story, you can reach out to the Betrayal team by emailing us at betrayalpod@gmail.com. You can also find us on Instagram at @betrayalpod and @glasspodcasts.
To access our newsletter and additional content and to connect with the Betrayal community, join our Substack at betrayal.substack.com.
If you are currently in crisis, please reach out to organizations that offer immediate support. We are including a few US-based resources here:
988 Lifeline. If you or someone you know is in crisis or need to talk to someone immediately, please call or text 988 – the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline available 24/7/365.
National Domestic Violence Hotline. They offer 24/7 phone and chat support to help you create a personalized safety plan and connect you with local support.
For resources on sexual violence, visit rainn.org/betrayal. You can also get free, confidential, 24/7 support through RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline. Text HOPE to 64673 or call 1-800-656-HOPE.
Every state has a domestic violence coalition. If you’re looking for help in the US, search the web for your state’s domestic violence coalition.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Listen
Watch
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, everyone, we have some exciting news to share. ABC
News Studios has turned Caroline Barega's story from Betrayal Season
four into a docuseries. You'll get to meet the people involved,
You'll hear from people who have never spoken before, and
you get to see where this story took place. We
are so proud and excited to share it with you.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
All.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Stream Betrayal Dirty Secrets now on Hulu or Hulu for
Disney Plus.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
I just felt like all the breath had been stolen
out of my body. How do we have these completely
different stories? Do I have my own story wrong?
Speaker 1 (00:53):
I'm Andrea Gunning and this is Betrayal. I show about
the people we trust the most and the deceptions that everything.
Mary Anne grew up in Ontario, Canada, in a story
book town called Grimsby.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Grimspay's about as close to Starr's Hollow as you can
get in real life, and especially in the nineteen seventies.
It was fruit orchards, cherry trees, peach trees, canneries, the
kind of town where everybody knows you, they know your
name at the supermarket, and it felt safe and orderly.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
She lived in an old historic house with her brother sister, parents,
and grandmother.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
My bedroom was pink, and it was the whole front
of the house, and I had my own balcony, and
the view from my balcony was of Lake Ontario and
the newly constructed seand Tower.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Their yard was dotted with cherry trees.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
I used to go sit in the cherry trees, pick them,
and then go up to my balcony and eat them.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Her friend's houses were filled with framed family portraits and
neat piles of books. Mary Anne's childhood home, on the
other hand, looked a little different. Her dad, Jean, collected
unusual antiques.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
We had a real, live, honest to God sarcophagus in
our family room. We had a real authentic medieval suit
of armor. We had a tarantula encased in glass.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
They were the kinds of things that could give a
kid nightmares, but she found ways to befriend them.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
I would go to bed and I would always conjure
up these stories about how the mummy princess would come
after us because she didn't want to be in our
living room, but the night would save us from her.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Her house transformed into a fantasy world, one ruled by
mary Anne's imagination. For most of her childhood, her older sister,
Margot was at boarding school, so mary Anne spent her
days with her old brother Brad.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Brad and I were thick as thieves. We did absolutely
everything together. We used to roam the town like free
range kids. We'd go on these epic bike rides. We'd
be living off of chocolate bars and chips and soda,
and it just felt like a really ideal childhood, except
(03:23):
our parents were never home, and I desperately wanted the
attention of my parents. I was very focused on gaining
the attention of my father.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Her dad was often busy with work.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
He owned a shopping plaza, a furniture store. He was
a jeweler, but he was also a concert promoter. He
promoted big bands like Pink Floyd. He brought Johnny Mathis
to town, Bob Hope, all these big name celebrities.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
And her mom did the bookkeeping.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
My mom and dad would go to the office early
in the morning and they would come home until nine
or ten o'clock at night.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Marianne loved being around her dad.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
My dad was like a lighthouse. He'd walk into a room,
scanning and searching and lighting people up. He would engage
with everybody. He would pull you.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
In jeans, stood out in a crowd.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
My dad had long, perbed hair. He'd wear these T
shirts and bell bottomed jeans. He rode a motorcycle. He
was Italian, but he was born in France, so he
had a very European way about him. He spoke with
a thick French accent.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
Jean's three businesses and work as a concert promoter kept
him busy.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
He was just like hustling all day and all along
and always on the move and always around important people.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
But on the weekend he would slow down and spend
time with his family.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Every Sunday he would take over the kitchen.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
Marianne would hang out with him while he prepared Sunday dinner.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
I love to wash him cook. He'd always have a
cigarette in his hand and the opera music would be
playing in the background. He made the kitchen seem like theater,
the way he would tear the basil and then put
it under my nose and say, smell this. This is
fresh food. You only cook with fresh ingredients. You always
buy the best. And he'd be making his big pod
(05:26):
a famous sauce.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
It was clear that her dad was special.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
But the first time that I knew he was extraordinary,
I think I was about eleven years old.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
Through his work as a concert promoter, Gene would bring
an acts like Paul Anka. Many of his songs like
put Your Head on My Shoulder are part of the
fabric of pop culture.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Your Head on My should.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
It was a big deal that Paul Anka was coming
to town. Marianne's grandmother took her and one of her
friends to the show.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
And it was at a place called Hamilton Place, a
big theater. There were thousands of people there. The auditorium
was filling with people that you could feel it was palpable.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
As the excitement bubbled around them. Marianne and her friend
got to go backstage, and.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
I remember seeing my dad when everybody was listening to him,
And then he took me into Paul Anka's dressing room
and he said say hello to mister Anka.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Marianne was too young to be a true Paul Anka fan,
but she knew that he was a big deal.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
This guy's really important, this Paul Anka. I've heard him,
I've heard his records, and here's my dad in charge
of all this. It all came to me like Wow,
he is a really important person and he's really special.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
One day, when Mary was twelve, she was on her
way home from school.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
I got off the bus and it was a short
walk home, and I get to our driveway and I
see a big white moving truck in our driveway, and
I see police on our front lawn, and I see
movers moving our furniture out of the house and onto
the truck.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
She stopped in her tracks.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
My brain can't process what's happening. And my mom and
my grandmother and our doberman Penny are on the front
lawn with suitcases.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
She rushed over to her mom.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
And she says, get in the car. We're going on
a trip.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Mary Anne had a million questions.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Like, where's all my stuff? What do you mean we're
getting in the car? What do you mean we're going?
Where are we going, where's my brother, where's my sister,
where's my dad? What is happening?
Speaker 1 (07:53):
But her mother didn't have any answers.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
She's just like Marianne, Get in the car.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Her mom and grandmother crammed a few suitcases in the
trunk of their Pontiac Lamans and started driving. Marianne looked
out the window as her familiar cozy town of Grimsby
whiz by and faded into the distance.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
I was scared, like, what are my friends going to think?
I didn't even get to talk to my friends. My
life is blowing up, but I don't know why, and
my mom wouldn't talk.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
All her mom told her was that they were going
to America. In fact, they were going all the way
down south to Florida. The drive took almost a week.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
And we ended up at this really crappy motel on
Fort Lauderdale Beach on a NA And it was right
out of a bad horror film. TV's blaring from next door.
There's like nefarious characters in the parking lot.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
This was nothing like her pink bedroom back home.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
It was like being flown in a spaceship to another planet.
I'm feeling totally displaced and terrified.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
After a week at the motel, Mary Anne started pushing
her mom for answers. She was in sixth grade. Their
family had never been separated before. She didn't understand where
her siblings were.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
What's happening, Where's Brad, Where's Marco? Where's Dad? When are
they coming? Like? What are we doing? Are we just
living in this motel for the rest of our lives.
And finally she said that Brad had dropped out of school.
Your father thought it was best he'd go work for
the carnival. So there was a traveling show called Conklin Shows,
and it traveled across Canada, and he was a carneie
(09:43):
at fifteen years old. My sister Margo was living with
my aunt and finishing high school, and then she would
join us, and she said, my dad was doing business.
That's all the information that she would give me.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
It seemed odd to mary Anne that her parents sent
Brad to go work for a traveling circus.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
I guess that could be fun, but shouldn't he be
in school.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
It left more questions than answers. As the weeks turned
two months, Marianne kept waiting for her dad to meet
up with them. She found ways to entertain herself at
the motel.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
I bought an orange Proline skateboard at a yard sale
for ten dollars, and I spent all day riding that
skateboard by myself outside in the parking lot, observing people
and swimming in the pool.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Finally, after two months.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
My mom says, oh, well, we're moving into.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
A house, and not just any house.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
It's in probably, and I would dare say it still
to this day, is the most exclusive neighborhood in Fort Lauderdale.
It's called Harbor Beach. It's a series of islands connected
by bridges, and just about every one of the these
luxury homes has a yacht in the backyard in the canal.
(11:05):
And suddenly we're living there.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
One minute they were living in a roadside motel, the
next they were living in luxury.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Okay, things are looking up. But I was still terrified,
and I was still incredibly lonely. I'm a kid, I
have nobody to talk to. I'm a fish out of water.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
It was strange living in such a big house with
only her mom and grandmother. Mary Anne was twelve years
old at the time, without anyone else her age to
talk to. When the summer ended, her mom told her
she'd be starting middle school here in America. Mary Anne
was excited, maybe she could make some new friends.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
They sent me to a private school and we are
registering for school, and the lady who's sitting across from
me says, so, Leslie, are you excited about starting a
new school? And I'm like, who's Leslie, and my mom's
that's your name, you know, that's your name. I'm like,
I've never heard that name before in my life. Yes,
(12:06):
you have. My name's Marianne. She said, no, No, that's
your middle name.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
I like what her mom just stared straight ahead, and
from that moment on, everyone called her Leslie at home
and at her new school.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
I showed up for my first day in school in
a plaid tent dress with brown clogs and pigtails, and
the girls in my class were wearing jeorde ash jeans,
had highlighted hair with a full face of makeup, and
day one the bullying started. I felt so alone.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
When Christmas rolled around and they'd been living in Florida
for six months, something amazing happened. Her dad finally showed up.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
He rolled in in the rolls Royce, and then it
wasn't too long after that that Brad and Margot came.
I was so excited to see them.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Finally, Leslie breathed a sigh of relief. Their family was
back together. The world made a little more sense. As
soon as Jean arrived in Florida, he got to work.
He was a savvy businessman and saw the move as
an opportunity for him to start new ventures.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
My dad started setting up businesses pretty much on day one.
He went to a busy intersection and rented this warehouse
and painted in large black letters along the side of
it model home furniture.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
And that wasn't the only new business he started.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
He was finding people to teach him how to run
a boat maintenance company.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
He wanted Leslie's brother Brad to run the business with him.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
So he bought him an old pickup diving equipment, had
him get his diving certificate, and then and he set
up this business called D and B Diving.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
D and B for Dad and Brad, and.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
They would go to Marina's and hand out cards, and
my brother would clean barnacles off the bottoms of yachts
and change propellers and zincs and shafts.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Of course, starting a business is a lot of hard work,
but Jeane always made it look easy.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
He would always say, you can start a business anywhere
you land in the world. With fifty bucks in a
classified ad.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Leslie was happy to be around her dad again. His
optimism made the world feel big, like anything was possible.
He also established himself as a jeweler.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
He would come home from Miami and he'd lay out
these velvet rolls and they'd be, for example, a whole
role of Patake, Philippe watches or Rolex watches, or he'd
have all these pouches and they were full of diamonds.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Sometimes Jean took Leslie with him to deliver jewelry to
a client. He explained to her that this was a
very important task and they had to be careful. The
jewels were expensive. He developed his own strategies for keeping
them safe.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
He always transported jewels in a paper lunch bag, because
he said, people will rob a briefcase, but nobody's stealing
your lunch. I remember going to the International Building with
him in Miami, and he'd fill that bag with diamonds
and golden like, all these jewels, and then lee when
we'd be walking downtown Miami with this paper bag with
(15:42):
hundreds of thousands of dollars of jewelry.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
Over the next few months, Leslie's dad started making new friends.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
Some strange men were coming in and out of the house,
and my dad would have me call them all uncle,
Uncle Puddiko, Uncle Georgio, Uncle Eduardo, and they'd be smoking
cube and cigars and drinking at the bar, laughing, and
there'd be hushed tones.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
Around that same time, Leslie started noticing some changes around
the house that scared her.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
There were handguns in our planters inside the house, like
in every room. There was a gun in every single room.
I'd never seen a gun before and that was a
bit scary.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
One day, at breakfast, Leslie shared her concerns with her dad.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
I said, Dad, I'm scared. Why do we have so
many guns in the house? And he said, all you
need to know is that Daddy will always protect you.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
The days stretched on, humid and empty and repetitive. She
missed her home in Canada. It felt like she'd been
plucked out of her familiar life and dropped into an
upside down world. She felt untethered and was searching for purpose.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
I felt like an outsider everywhere in my life. I
felt like an outsider in my home, and I felt
like an outsider at school. And I had no safe
place to belong. I was deeply, deeply lonely, profoundly lonely.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
As they got older, Leslie and her brother grew apart.
Brad was pulled into the family business. He didn't have
time to be a playmate.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
My brother and my dad were hanging out the Marinas
and it was just me and nobody ever thought to
check in on me.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
But then one day her dad told Leslie he needed
her help.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
My dad said that he had an important job for
me and my brother. And I was like, oh, I'm
in an important job. What me I can be helpful? Yes,
I'm there.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Brad and Leslie went with their dad to the New
River Canal. There they walked up to a yacht.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
I think it was probably about seventy feet. It was
a big yacht on the dock.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Jean stopped and turned to face Leslie and Brad and.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
He said, you and Brad, I want you to keep
the guy busy on the deck. I'm going to be
going below and doing a little tour and I'm going
to pretend that I have somebody interested in buying this boat.
You just keep the guy busy. I'm like, yes, I
have a job. I'm definitely up for this job.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
They walked on board and Jean introduced the kids to
the yacht owner. Then he excused himself and went down
below deck.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
He says, I'm just going to have a look around.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
Leslie, knew this was her cue. She got straight to work,
asking the yacht owner questions.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
I'm like, have you ever seen a shark? Have you
ever swam with sharks? Have you seen pirates? And how
does it work when you're out at sea and your
engine stops working.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
Finally, her dad emerged back onto the main deck and
they left.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
I didn't know really why we're there, and it's just
me and my brother talking to this guy. But I
felt special and I felt seen. I felt like I
had purpose.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
For her fifteenth birthday, she got her driving permit and
a gift from her dad.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
My dad bought me in nineteen sixty two cherry red
Skylark convertible. It had white seats and a white top
and beautiful shiny hub caps. It was just the most
beautiful car.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
On top of that, he had another job for her.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
He said, you're going to do a delivery for daddy.
I want you to take this stone. It was a
leven carrot diamond. He says, I just want you to
go over to Los Soles Boulevard, park your car in
front of Pauline Pocock's antique shaw and just wait there.
Somebody's going to come sit in your car, and he's
going to give you a package of money.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
Leslie was eager to help, Like, Wow.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Did I ever feel important? I felt so grown up.
I was on top of the world. I got to
do something for my dad.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
So she got in her cherry red convertible and drove
across town to the antique shop.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
I parked there. I don't remember how long I was there.
I was daydreaming about boys, as fifteen year old girls do.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
Suddenly a man walked up to her car.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
This guy gets in the car and slides in next
to me, and he pulls out a gun and he
presses it to my bare arm, and he says, I'll
take that stone now.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
One day, when Leslie was fifteen, her day dad told
her he needed her help delivering a valuable jewel to
a client. Leslie was eager to help. She drove her
new car across town and parked outside of the antique
store for her dad's client was supposed to meet her,
but when he arrived, things took a turn.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
This guy gets in the car and slides in next
to me, and he pulls out a gun and he
presses it to my bare arm, and he says, I'll
take that stone.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
Now Leslie was in shock.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
I was terrified. I thought he's going to kill me.
I gave him the stone. What else was I going
to do? And then he quickly left.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Leslie drove back home in a panic and frantically told
her dad what happened.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
I thought when I went home that my dad would
call the police. But that is not what happened. My
dad was so disappointed in me. He said, how could
you let that happen? I gave you one simple job.
How did you let that happen?
Speaker 1 (21:58):
Leslie stared at her day, stunned. Hadn't he promised to
protect her? Why was he mad at her?
Speaker 2 (22:06):
He was letting me come into the inner circle. But
now there was a gun, and somebody could have shot me.
That was a new level of terror for me.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
A few weeks later, her parents went out of town.
While they were gone, Leslie borrowed her dad's.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Car and I popped the trunk and the trunk was
full of these bags. Let's just say they were all
about Aquilo Big.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Everything started to click into place, the strange men in
her house, the guns, the secrecy.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
I think my dad's a drug dealer. I think my
dad's a drug dealer, and I have to get him
to stop because he's going to end up in jail
or dead.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Leslie felt a self righteous anger. Even though she was
only fifteen. She realized her dad wasn't the safe person
she thought he was. Her first plan was to try
to convince him to stop. One night after her parents
got back in town, Leslie found herself alone in the
living room with her dad.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
And he was putting a record on the turntable, like
Opera Areas or something.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
While he fiddled with the record player, Leslie took a
deep breath and gathered her courage. Then she blurted out.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
I think you're a drug dealer. I don't like what
you're doing. I want you to stop, daddy, I want
you to stop.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
Her dad snapped around to face her.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
And he said, if you don't like living in my
house with my rules, you can get the fuck out.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Defiant tears began to form in her eyes. She didn't
like his rules.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
I thought, okay, game on, old man.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
So at just fifteen years old, Leslie left home. She
moved in with a friend of a friend.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
And they lived in a really ratty house and it
was crawling with cockroach just this was now my new life.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
She already had a part time job at a diner.
She got a second job at the mall to afford rent,
but to keep up with both jobs, she had a
drop out of high school.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
I didn't think about the future. I was just thinking
about how am I putting food on my table? How
am I paying my rent?
Speaker 1 (24:17):
A year past like that, with Leslie in survival mode,
it was hard to live on her own as a teenager,
but she knew she couldn't live at home with her dad.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
Life was adjusting and I was feeling very independent. I
was broke, but I felt in control of my life
for once.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
Until one night.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
It's about four in the morning and there's a pounding
at the front door of my apartment and I get
up and I look through the keyhole and it's my dad.
I'm like, what is my dad doing here at four
in the morning? And I opened the door and he said,
get in the car right now. Your brother's been in
an accident. We have to go to the hospital.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
On the drive there, Gene explained, Brad was in a
bad car crash.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
We get to the hospital and my brother doesn't look
like my brother. His head is wrapped in white bandages,
and it's huge, and he's hooked up to all these machines.
The doctor said, Bread is brain damaged. There's nothing functioning
in his brain anymore, and he'll never recover. And your
(25:22):
two choices are to keep him unabati later for the
rest of his life, however long he lives, or to
disconnect him from the life support. And as a family,
we decided that he would not have wanted to be
plugged into a machine.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
Brad died in the hospital.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
And after that everything really changed.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
It was too painful to be in Fort Lauderdale and
around their family without Brad. Everything felt even more broken
without him.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
I knew that nobody was coming to save me. I
thought my dad was a drug dealer, and I'm wanted
to build something for myself. And my brother loved the
sea and loved the ocean, and I thought, I want
to join the US Coast Guard.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
Not only was the Coastguard a ticket out of Florida,
it was also a way to rebel against her dad.
She wanted to stop drug runners and enforce the law.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
That was going to be my mission in life. I
wanted to do good. I want to save lives, I
wanted to go after the bad guys. It was the
only course I could see for myself. It was almost
just like a natural progression of things.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
At the age of seventeen, Leslie was accepted into the
Coast Guard and started boot camp. Being in the military
opened so many doors for Leslie, and her assignments took
her across oceans.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
I had a lot of adventures in the Coastguard. When
I was stationed at Oregon Inlet, North Carolina, You'd get
twenty five thirty foot seas, but they were very dangerous
because you'd had currents coming from all different directions. And
I loved it. I thrived on it.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
While she was in the Coastguard, she met the man
who would eventually become her husband.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
He was a Green Beret in US Special Forces on
a temporary detail in Miami from Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
They started dating and got married shortly after. Leslie lost
touch with her parents as she focused on building her
new life. By the time she turned twenty one, her
life felt the most stable it had ever been, but
then her phone rang.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
And it's my dad.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Over the last four years, she and her dad had
grown increasingly distant. She hadn't heard from him in six months.
Leslie picked up the phone. Her dad sounded scared.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
He said, I need you to come to Montreal right
away and pick me up. Do not tell your mother,
do not tell your sister, Do not tell a single soul.
There's bad guys after me and I'm in danger now.
This is my dad. I'm his daughter. Bad guys are
after him. I'm going to get my dad and I'm
(28:10):
going to take my badass new Special Forces husband and
we're going to break him out.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
Despite all the years that had gone by, this was
still her dad asking for help. She didn't hesitate.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
I went into rescue mode. I think a lot had
to do with my training in the Coastguard. It was
like it became a mission.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Leslie and her husband rented a car and drove through
the night to Montreal.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
And it's very late when we get there.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
Leslie's dad had instructed her to meet him in a
bar downtown.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
I walk in, I don't recognize my own father. My father,
who was handsome and full of life and sparkling, he
was really thin, and it was like somebody took a
vacuum and sucked out all the life from him. His
face was hollow, his eyes were sunken, and he was
(29:04):
just crumpled in this booth of a bar. That was
a shock that floored me, like who is this man?
Speaker 1 (29:13):
They sat down next to him at the bar and
Jean began to talk.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
He was jittery, he was very jittery. He said, you're
going to take me to the border of Vermont and Quebec.
You're going to drop me off in the woods. You're
going to check into the first hotel you come to
on the other side of the border, and I will
find you in the morning. But he wouldn't tell us
anything else, so.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
That's what they did.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
It was blackout, there was not much light, and we
dropped him off in the woods. Did as he said.
There was only one motel, it was like an inn
on the other side of the border. Checked into this
little two story inn.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
Going to sleep that night. Leslie was anxious when she
was involved in Brisky operations for the Coast. She always
knew the goal of the mission, but with her dad,
she didn't know what the mission was or her part
in it.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
In the morning, it would get up and I stretch
and yawn and walked to the window because I don't
know what this town looks like because it's dark.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
She pulled back the curtains and immediately froze.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
Were surrounded by a swat team. And next thing I know,
the door opens and my husband and I were tackled
to the ground and there's a knee in my back
and handcuffs are going on me. It just all happened
so fast, and then they instantly separated me from my husband,
put us in different rooms, wouldn't tell us anything about
(30:42):
my dad.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
They interrogated her and her husband, but Leslie didn't know anything.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
I am literally clue less. My dad says bad guys
are coming to murder him, and then all of a sudden,
they left the room. They left me alone, and then
when the door opened again, the guy came back with
my husband and he says, we're free to go.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
Leslie's mind was spitting, trying to figure out what just happened.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
Okay, well, the last time I checked, I thought he
was a drug dealer, So does this have to do
something with drugs?
Speaker 1 (31:21):
She started calling each member of her family.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
I called my sister Margo, and I said, this is
what happened. Do you know anything about this? And she
said don't ask any more questions.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
Her sister said she didn't know anything, but their mom did.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
She said, your dad had been arrested and was on
trial for conspiracy to import cocaine into Canada.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
Her mom said that in the middle of his trial,
Jeane disappeared. That explained why her dad asked to meet
in obscure locations and had her drop him off in
the middle of the woods. He had been on the
run after Jane was captured. He faced trial for importing
narcotics and was sentenced to fifteen years in an Ontario prison.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
I thought, I guess I was right. My dad's the
bad guy. My dad is a drug dealer.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
With her dad in prison, Leslie tried to put him
out of her mind. Throughout her twenties and thirties, a
lot changed for Leslie. She had two daughters of her own,
got divorced, and moved back to Canada. Her dad got
out of prison, but she kept her distance from him.
She did rekindle a relationship with her mother, who had
(32:37):
separated from Jane. Then, one day, Leslie got news that
her dad's health had declined. Quickly, she drove to see
him and attended a doctor's appointment with him.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
We went to the appointment and the doctor said to
my dad, you have cancer in every bone in your body.
Go home and do whatever you want to do. There's
nothing we can do.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
Leslie could hardly process the words her dad was dying.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
It was three weeks that he lived from that diagnosis,
and I sat and held my dad's hand every day.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
Soon Jeanne couldn't leave his bed. It was clear he
didn't have much time left. Leslie's daughters traveled in to
see Jane and say their goodbyes.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
And my father, who no longer was that charismatic, larger
than life figure. He's just this defeated shell of a
man that I no longer recognize. And we're all sitting
up in his bedroom and he's on the morphine drip
and he's pointing at the ceiling and he says, tell
(33:49):
those fuckers to go, tell them to go, get them
out of here.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
But there was nobody in the room except Leslie and
her daughter's We're.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
Like, Dad, who, who, the FBI, the CIA? They're here
to get me. Don't let them take me. Don't you
see them? They're right there, And me and my girls
are like turning our heads and like giggling, like that's
pretty good morphine.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
Jean kept talking nonsensically.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
The guns are in the canal. I dumped all the
guns in the canal. They're still there.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
Leslie and her daughters gave each other a look.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
Like, okay, Dad, the guns they're in the canal.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
Just days later, Jean died. Leslie did her best to
process her complicated feelings the grief, anger, and regrets. She
stayed in touch with her mom, and one day, a
few years later, her mom came to visit.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
She usually came with a trunk full of crap from
her basement to unload on me, but this time she
only had a blue binder and a small cooler.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
Once she was inside, Leslie's mom dropped the binder onto
the table in the hallway.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
And it's massive. It weighs a ton and it just clunk.
I said, Mom, what's that? She said, Oh, it's your
dad's prison manuscript. He wrote that in prison.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
Leslie wasn't sure she heard correctly.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
Like what his what?
Speaker 1 (35:25):
Leslie's mom sounded almost bored.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
Yeah, yeah, he wrote it in prison. I didn't read it.
It's probably full of lies. It's just garbage, just burn it.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
Leslie looked at the binder laying on the table in
front of her. It had to be several hundred pages.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
I picked up the book and it was so heavy,
and I opened the first page and there were ten
words on yellowed paper, and it said, too, Brad, may
you find peace? There is none here? Love Dad.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
Leslie slammed the binder shut. Tears rushed to her eyes.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
I could feel my past rushing back to me. All
the things I tried to forget felt like they were
coming back like a force.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
She wasn't ready to confront whatever was inside.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
So I stuffed it away in my hat and midst
drawer and I ignored it for about six months until
the day I needed a hat and some mits in November,
and I thought, oh, I think it's time. It's time.
Speaker 1 (36:37):
She pulled the binder out of the drawer, sat down
and began to read. Once she started, she couldn't stop.
Finally she had access to her dad's side of the story.
Maybe somewhere in here she could find the truth. Then
she read something that made her freeze.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
My dad claimed that he was an informant for the
CIA and the FBI and THES and that he was
forced into criminal behavior because of corrupt police in Canada
who forced him into the situation of having to work
for the US government, and that he was innocent all along,
(37:18):
And I thought, oh my god, was my dad a
hero and not a villain.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
For years, Leslie believed her dad was a drug dealer.
But one day, years after his death, her mom came
to her house with a manuscript Leslie's dad wrote while
he was in prison, and in it, he claimed that
he was an informant to the CIA, FBI and other
government agencies. Reading his words, Leslie was floored.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
Have I got this story wrong? Was my dad keeping
this a secret because he was protecting us from the
bad guys? He was protecting his family.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
Leslie kept reading. Her father had typed up his life story,
starting from the very beginning. He said. It all started
when he got involved with local politics in Canada. According
to Jean, he was targeted by politicians and police who
didn't want their own corruption exposed. That's why the family
(38:41):
had to flee and abruptly moved to Florida.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
And once we were in Florida. Because of his connections
in Canada and his understanding of the jewelry business, he
was recruited into being an informant.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
Jane claimed he got involved with criminal activity in order
to report information back to the CIA. He became an
insider in the world of organized crime, rubbing elbows with
the mafia and drug runners, all to fulfill his role
as an informant.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
My dad said that he first started with the CIA.
Leveraging his Marina contacts. Him and my brother would go
to the Marinas and suess out drug runners and they
were very successful. I guess it was really easy to
find drug runners back then in the Fort Lauderdal Marinas,
so they were informing on all of them.
Speaker 1 (39:32):
Leslie's eyes were glued to the page she kept reading.
According to Jane, he had been involved in global arms deals.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
It's like, are you kidding me? What?
Speaker 1 (39:45):
So much of what her dad wrote in the manuscript
felt completely outlandish, but then she stumbled upon a scene
that was familiar. Jeanne described going to a yacht with
Leslie and her brother Brad.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
My dad about the day that he asked my brother
and I to go and keep the guy busy on
deck while he went down in the cabin.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
Leslie leaned in. She still remembered every detail of that day,
the questions she asked the man on the boat how
important she'd felt helping her dad. Now she was reading
about that day from her dad's perspective for the first time.
Speaker 2 (40:23):
He writes that that man who was on the boat
was the head of the Montreal mafia, and he was
sent by the FBI to go down in that boat
and find any evidence, any clues they could get their
hands on. I was so shocked.
Speaker 1 (40:41):
In his manuscript, Gene detailed what he did below deck
on the yacht.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
He stole the guy's rolla dex with all his contacts.
He went through his garbage, He stole stuff from his garbage,
and he specifically brought my brother and I as decoys.
Speaker 1 (40:59):
Leslie stared at the word decoys. Her heart sank.
Speaker 2 (41:04):
He said it so casually, He wrote about it so casually,
like it was nothing. It was like I just sent
my kids to the store to get bred.
Speaker 1 (41:13):
We can't confirm if the man on the boat was
the head of the Montreal mafia, but either way, it's
clear Jean had no concern for his kid's safety in
that moment. Any hope she'd had that her dad was
a hero faded away as Leslie kept reading, she recognized
another story, the time her father asked her to make
(41:36):
a jewel delivery and someone pulled a gun on her.
In her father's manuscript, the.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
Story was all wrong, completely different story.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
In her dad's version, Leslie had been conned out of
a jewel he didn't trusted her with. His takeaway was
that it was Leslie's fault.
Speaker 2 (41:55):
He wrote, I wouldn't have been conned, but I felt
bad for the kid, so I tried to make her
not feel bad.
Speaker 1 (42:03):
That was where his account ended. Leslie blinked. Where was
the mention of the gun that was pulled on her?
Where was the mention of her life being at risk?
Speaker 2 (42:14):
How do we have these completely different stories? Do I
have my own story wrong? Am I remembering things wrong?
Speaker 1 (42:24):
But Leslie still remembered the feeling of the gun. It
was undeniable. Her dad had involved her in criminal activity.
He sent her and Brad into dangerous situations and hardly
batted an eye.
Speaker 2 (42:39):
You're using your kids as ponds? What is wrong with you?
Speaker 1 (42:45):
Leslie wanted to believe her father's story that he was
an innocent informant, but the manuscript revealed small details that
made her realize it wasn't that simple. She learned that
the odd antiques that filled her childhood at home weren't
just a core. They're part of her father's money laundering scheme.
Speaker 2 (43:06):
That wasn't just my dad collecting. That was a way
of hiding illegal money.
Speaker 1 (43:13):
She had her own memories of her childhood, and now
she had her father's memories. As the two versions came together,
a new picture emerged.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
My dad was telling a story about my childhood where
everything made sense and nothing made sense.
Speaker 1 (43:31):
She needed to know what was real. She called her
family to see if they could corroborate anything her dad wrote,
but nobody wanted to talk to her.
Speaker 2 (43:41):
My mom wanted nothing to do with it. She didn't
want to know about it. She didn't want to hear
about it. My sister just kept saying the same thing,
Why do you want to hurt daddy? Leave it alone,
don't bring this up. If you bring this up, you're
just hurting daddy. And she wouldn't talk to me. I
called everybody in my family. I reached out to my cousin,
(44:03):
my aunt. Nobody would talk to me, not a single person.
Speaker 1 (44:07):
But this time she refused to stop asking questions.
Speaker 2 (44:12):
I thought, no, I have to know the truth. I
have to figure this out. I got to get to
the bottom of the story.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
If her family wasn't going to tell her the truth,
she'd have to contact Jean's friends and his enemies. She
started with the name she'd heard her whole life, Detective
Ken Robertson.
Speaker 2 (44:34):
He was the one that my dad said was the
corrupt police. Because of him, we had to leave Canada.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
In his manuscript, Jane mentioned Detective Robertson over seventy times.
He said everything was his fault. It turned out Detective
Robertson was still alive. Leslie got in touch with him.
Over the course of a long phone call. He told
her everything he knew about her dad.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
And he opened a whole new door. It completely blindsided me.
Speaker 1 (45:07):
According to Detective Robertson, there were a series of Italian
bakery bombings in Ontario in the nineteen seventies and nineteen eighties.
It was all part of a mafia turf war, and
some of this criminal activity was being run out of
her father's furniture store.
Speaker 2 (45:24):
So the police initially went in. They started surveilling his
furniture store. They saw the Muzatana and Lupino crime families
going in and out of my dad's furniture store on
the regular and because of that surveillance, they were able
to get the Joint task Force funded by the City Council,
(45:45):
Canada's first joint task force, and that is what led
them to being able to bust up that crime family's
hold on the city.
Speaker 1 (45:53):
The police investigation into Jean's furniture store ultimately led to
his arrest for fraud. This is why the family had
to abruptly move out of Canada. Jean wasn't on a
work trip after all. As a kid and young adult,
Leslie was in the dark about all of this. Who
her father was, the fact that he was arrested.
Speaker 2 (46:16):
Now, you have to remember everything that happened happened before
the internet. I was in Florida when a lot of
this stuff went down. I would have never heard about that.
It would have been in the local paper. You wouldn't
just go online and look it up.
Speaker 1 (46:32):
Leslie asked the detective if her dad was in the mafia.
This is all he knew.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
He wasn't in the mafia, but we don't know if
he was working with the mafia or he was being extorted.
We still don't know, and I asked Ken Robertson, I said,
do you know anything about my dad being in a foremant?
He said, well, I don't know anything about it. However,
(46:58):
he was ripe for picking. He was the perfect person
to be an informant because he had connections, he knew jewelry.
Speaker 1 (47:08):
Leslie really wanted to talk to someone who was close
to her dad, so she reached out to one of
his old friends, who were going to call Leonard. As
they sat across from each other at a cafe, Leonard
told her what he had learned about her dad's jewelry
business over the years. What he said left her astonished.
(47:28):
According to Leonard, the jewelry business was always a front
for an armed robbery ring. After Jean made an expensive
jewelry sale, he would target the wealthy client for robbery.
He then had his employees dress as police officers and
knock on their front door.
Speaker 2 (47:45):
And they'd say, there's been a robbery in the neighborhood.
Can we come in and talk to you?
Speaker 1 (47:50):
But once they were inside, they dropped the.
Speaker 2 (47:52):
Act, and then they would tie these people up in
their chairs and force them to open the safe.
Speaker 1 (47:58):
Then, almost off handedly, Leonard said something that knocked the
wind out of Leslie.
Speaker 2 (48:04):
He says to me, you know, I don't know if
you know this, but your dad told me that Brad
that was in an accident. I'm like, huh. He said, yeah,
that was a hit. That was a revenge killing because
of your dad. I just felt like all the breath
had been stolen out of my body.
Speaker 1 (48:25):
When Leonard left, the weight of his words hit her.
Speaker 2 (48:28):
And I just lost it. I couldn't even get myself together.
My dad was at the hero. My dad was a
worse villain than I ever imagined.
Speaker 1 (48:41):
Jeane involved his son in his crimes, and that may
have been what killed him. This is the most shocking
and devastating thing of all, but we can't confirm if
Brad's death was a hit or an accident.
Speaker 2 (48:53):
I'd like to think it's not true, but there's no
real way of knowing. My brother's gone been gone for
a long time. It doesn't change anything.
Speaker 1 (49:04):
Leslie learned so many shocking things through her investigation. After
talking with everyone, she returned to her family one more time.
Speaker 2 (49:15):
My mom always said that she knew nothing about my
father's dealings. She never saw anything suspicious.
Speaker 1 (49:26):
But if everything Leslie heard was true, then her mom
had to know about it. She kept the books for
her dad's businesses. It's been every day with him for years.
Speaker 2 (49:36):
Bit by bit, I could pull on threads. For example,
I said, are you sure dad never mentioned the CIA
or the FBI. Ah, you know what? Yeah, actually he
did mention that back. Yeah, but I never paid any
attention to that. My mom, I came to understand, was
(49:59):
in survival mode. My mom buried everything she didn't want
to see, and so she turned a blind eye to everything.
Speaker 1 (50:08):
Finally, Leslie went back to the one person who had
never cracked, who had never shared anything about what happened,
or what she felt or what it all meant, her sister, Margot.
Speaker 2 (50:21):
I asked Margot again, Even though she shut me out,
I took another run at her. I said, this is
what I found out, this is what I found out
from everybody I interviewed. Do you know anything about this?
And she said it's true, Yeah, it's all true. I'm
(50:41):
like you knew all along.
Speaker 1 (50:46):
It was a lonely realization her family knew Gene was
involved in criminal activity and didn't tell Leslie even when
she was a kid asking them for answers. Her dad
may have been the one to put her directly and
harm's way, but the rest of her family had failed
to protect her too.
Speaker 2 (51:05):
When every family member keeps the secret, they may not
have committed the crime, but they're all in on the betrayal,
all of them. They all own it.
Speaker 1 (51:17):
Even after their admissions, Leslie's family didn't have the concrete
answers she wanted. Was her dad an informant? How involved
was he in the mafia? Those truths died when her
father did, But one thing is clear. He put her
in harm's way. He involved her in his crimes. When
(51:37):
she trusted him the most, he sent her off into
situations that risked her life, and that is the biggest betrayal.
Speaker 2 (51:47):
Parents are supposed to protect their children. The world is
not a safe place. The world is a very dangerous place.
But when it's inside your own home and it's the
person that you're supposed to trust the most that they're
the most dangerous person in your life, that's damaging.
Speaker 1 (52:05):
After she exhausted all the leads in her investigation, she
realized there was more to this search than finding concrete answers.
There was an emotional truth, one she'd have to answer
for herself.
Speaker 2 (52:19):
In investigating my dad, I was realizing that I was
investigating myself, my identity in relationship to my dad. This
is my story, this is my life, this is my childhood,
this is my family.
Speaker 1 (52:33):
A few years ago, Leslie decided to write a memoir
about her childhood, her father and his crimes, who was
published in May of this year. It's called The Liar's Playbook.
Speaker 2 (52:44):
Writing my book is the first time in my life
that I stopped and I looked back, and I did
not see a monster. I saw a man, simple, brilliant, dangerous, flawed.
Speaker 1 (53:00):
Leslie returned to her dad's manuscript now with clear eyes,
and what she saw this.
Speaker 3 (53:05):
Time was someone she recognized, just so many things that
we shared, and that made me feel less lonely.
Speaker 2 (53:18):
He's a risk taker. I'm a risk taker. He's a visionary.
I'm a visionary. He has big ideas. I have a
big ideas. My dad's best qualities are my best qualities.
His worst qualities are my worst qualities. But I have
that awareness, and now I can break those patterns, and
that's the biggest gift of all.
Speaker 1 (53:41):
Leslie's spent her adult life building stability and safety. Today
she lives on the shores of a lake in Ontario.
She has close relationships with her daughters. In a way,
her life is a reaction to the chaos her father
created in her childhood. She doesn't take it for granted.
Speaker 2 (54:00):
I live in a beautiful little brown writer's cabin and
I spend my days writing. I'm writing a work of fiction.
I'm writing a holiday suspense novel based on the exact
same themes about family dysfunction, about trust, about fraud, and
this next part of my life is going to be
about being an author, about being a full time writer.
Speaker 1 (54:24):
We end every weekly episode with the same question, why
do you want to share your story?
Speaker 2 (54:30):
The truth is highly destabilizing, but once you blow everything up,
you can take those fragments and build something durable. You
can build something honest, something true, and that is freeing
Where we're born, who were born to that's all a lottery.
We have no control over that. We have no control
(54:52):
over the DNA we get, but we get to choose
what genes to express. Our family might shape us, but
we get to define ourselves.
Speaker 1 (55:05):
On the next episode of Betrayal Weekly, I just remember
feeling gutted, completely gutted. This was my darkest here a
member of my family had been taken.
Speaker 2 (55:20):
I even living in the Twilight Zone. I just want
the truth to come out.
Speaker 1 (55:24):
Everything else can stop. If you'd like to share your
story on Betrayal, please email Betrayal Pod at gmail dot com.
That is Betrayal Pod at gmail dot com. Please note
(55:46):
that we are not a mental health organization. If you
are in crisis or currently experiencing domestic violence, we encourage
you to seek local help or dial nine to one one.
Please contact organizations that offer immediate support. And our show notes,
we've included a list of US based resources. You can
(56:07):
follow us on Instagram at Betrayal Pod or find me
at It's Andrea Gunning. To access our newsletter and additional content,
and to 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
(56:29):
review Betrayal. Five star reviews go a long way. Big
thank you to all of our listeners. Betrayal is a
production 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, written and produced by Olivia Hewitt. Our
(56:52):
story editor is Monique Lebord, also produced by Ben Fetterman.
Our associate producer is Leah Jabloc. Management by Kristin Melcurie,
Booking support by Curry Richmond. Our iHeart team is Ali
Perry and Treessica Crimecheck. Audio editing by Tanner Robbins with
additional editing and mixing by Matt Delbecchio. Betrayals theme composed
(57:14):
by Oliver Baines. Music library provided by my Music and
For more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts,
Hi, everyone, we have some exciting news to share. ABC
News Studios has turned Caroline Barega's story from Betrayal Season
four into a docuseries. You'll get to meet the people involved,
You'll hear from people who have never spoken before, and
you get to see where this story took place. We
are so proud and excited to share it with you.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
All.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Stream Betrayal Dirty Secrets now on Hulu or Hulu for
Disney Plus.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
I just felt like all the breath had been stolen
out of my body. How do we have these completely
different stories? Do I have my own story wrong?
Speaker 1 (00:53):
I'm Andrea Gunning and this is Betrayal. I show about
the people we trust the most and the deceptions that everything.
Mary Anne grew up in Ontario, Canada, in a story
book town called Grimsby.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Grimspay's about as close to Starr's Hollow as you can
get in real life, and especially in the nineteen seventies.
It was fruit orchards, cherry trees, peach trees, canneries, the
kind of town where everybody knows you, they know your
name at the supermarket, and it felt safe and orderly.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
She lived in an old historic house with her brother sister, parents,
and grandmother.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
My bedroom was pink, and it was the whole front
of the house, and I had my own balcony, and
the view from my balcony was of Lake Ontario and
the newly constructed seand Tower.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Their yard was dotted with cherry trees.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
I used to go sit in the cherry trees, pick them,
and then go up to my balcony and eat them.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Her friend's houses were filled with framed family portraits and
neat piles of books. Mary Anne's childhood home, on the
other hand, looked a little different. Her dad, Jean, collected
unusual antiques.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
We had a real, live, honest to God sarcophagus in
our family room. We had a real authentic medieval suit
of armor. We had a tarantula encased in glass.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
They were the kinds of things that could give a
kid nightmares, but she found ways to befriend them.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
I would go to bed and I would always conjure
up these stories about how the mummy princess would come
after us because she didn't want to be in our
living room, but the night would save us from her.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Her house transformed into a fantasy world, one ruled by
mary Anne's imagination. For most of her childhood, her older sister,
Margot was at boarding school, so mary Anne spent her
days with her old brother Brad.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Brad and I were thick as thieves. We did absolutely
everything together. We used to roam the town like free
range kids. We'd go on these epic bike rides. We'd
be living off of chocolate bars and chips and soda,
and it just felt like a really ideal childhood, except
(03:23):
our parents were never home, and I desperately wanted the
attention of my parents. I was very focused on gaining
the attention of my father.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Her dad was often busy with work.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
He owned a shopping plaza, a furniture store. He was
a jeweler, but he was also a concert promoter. He
promoted big bands like Pink Floyd. He brought Johnny Mathis
to town, Bob Hope, all these big name celebrities.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
And her mom did the bookkeeping.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
My mom and dad would go to the office early
in the morning and they would come home until nine
or ten o'clock at night.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Marianne loved being around her dad.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
My dad was like a lighthouse. He'd walk into a room,
scanning and searching and lighting people up. He would engage
with everybody. He would pull you.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
In jeans, stood out in a crowd.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
My dad had long, perbed hair. He'd wear these T
shirts and bell bottomed jeans. He rode a motorcycle. He
was Italian, but he was born in France, so he
had a very European way about him. He spoke with
a thick French accent.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
Jean's three businesses and work as a concert promoter kept
him busy.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
He was just like hustling all day and all along
and always on the move and always around important people.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
But on the weekend he would slow down and spend
time with his family.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Every Sunday he would take over the kitchen.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
Marianne would hang out with him while he prepared Sunday dinner.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
I love to wash him cook. He'd always have a
cigarette in his hand and the opera music would be
playing in the background. He made the kitchen seem like theater,
the way he would tear the basil and then put
it under my nose and say, smell this. This is
fresh food. You only cook with fresh ingredients. You always
buy the best. And he'd be making his big pod
(05:26):
a famous sauce.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
It was clear that her dad was special.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
But the first time that I knew he was extraordinary,
I think I was about eleven years old.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
Through his work as a concert promoter, Gene would bring
an acts like Paul Anka. Many of his songs like
put Your Head on My Shoulder are part of the
fabric of pop culture.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Your Head on My should.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
It was a big deal that Paul Anka was coming
to town. Marianne's grandmother took her and one of her
friends to the show.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
And it was at a place called Hamilton Place, a
big theater. There were thousands of people there. The auditorium
was filling with people that you could feel it was palpable.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
As the excitement bubbled around them. Marianne and her friend
got to go backstage, and.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
I remember seeing my dad when everybody was listening to him,
And then he took me into Paul Anka's dressing room
and he said say hello to mister Anka.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Marianne was too young to be a true Paul Anka fan,
but she knew that he was a big deal.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
This guy's really important, this Paul Anka. I've heard him,
I've heard his records, and here's my dad in charge
of all this. It all came to me like Wow,
he is a really important person and he's really special.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
One day, when Mary was twelve, she was on her
way home from school.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
I got off the bus and it was a short
walk home, and I get to our driveway and I
see a big white moving truck in our driveway, and
I see police on our front lawn, and I see
movers moving our furniture out of the house and onto
the truck.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
She stopped in her tracks.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
My brain can't process what's happening. And my mom and
my grandmother and our doberman Penny are on the front
lawn with suitcases.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
She rushed over to her mom.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
And she says, get in the car. We're going on
a trip.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Mary Anne had a million questions.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Like, where's all my stuff? What do you mean we're
getting in the car? What do you mean we're going?
Where are we going, where's my brother, where's my sister,
where's my dad? What is happening?
Speaker 1 (07:53):
But her mother didn't have any answers.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
She's just like Marianne, Get in the car.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Her mom and grandmother crammed a few suitcases in the
trunk of their Pontiac Lamans and started driving. Marianne looked
out the window as her familiar cozy town of Grimsby
whiz by and faded into the distance.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
I was scared, like, what are my friends going to think?
I didn't even get to talk to my friends. My
life is blowing up, but I don't know why, and
my mom wouldn't talk.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
All her mom told her was that they were going
to America. In fact, they were going all the way
down south to Florida. The drive took almost a week.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
And we ended up at this really crappy motel on
Fort Lauderdale Beach on a NA And it was right
out of a bad horror film. TV's blaring from next door.
There's like nefarious characters in the parking lot.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
This was nothing like her pink bedroom back home.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
It was like being flown in a spaceship to another planet.
I'm feeling totally displaced and terrified.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
After a week at the motel, Mary Anne started pushing
her mom for answers. She was in sixth grade. Their
family had never been separated before. She didn't understand where
her siblings were.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
What's happening, Where's Brad, Where's Marco? Where's Dad? When are
they coming? Like? What are we doing? Are we just
living in this motel for the rest of our lives.
And finally she said that Brad had dropped out of school.
Your father thought it was best he'd go work for
the carnival. So there was a traveling show called Conklin Shows,
and it traveled across Canada, and he was a carneie
(09:43):
at fifteen years old. My sister Margo was living with
my aunt and finishing high school, and then she would
join us, and she said, my dad was doing business.
That's all the information that she would give me.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
It seemed odd to mary Anne that her parents sent
Brad to go work for a traveling circus.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
I guess that could be fun, but shouldn't he be
in school.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
It left more questions than answers. As the weeks turned
two months, Marianne kept waiting for her dad to meet
up with them. She found ways to entertain herself at
the motel.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
I bought an orange Proline skateboard at a yard sale
for ten dollars, and I spent all day riding that
skateboard by myself outside in the parking lot, observing people
and swimming in the pool.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Finally, after two months.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
My mom says, oh, well, we're moving into.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
A house, and not just any house.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
It's in probably, and I would dare say it still
to this day, is the most exclusive neighborhood in Fort Lauderdale.
It's called Harbor Beach. It's a series of islands connected
by bridges, and just about every one of the these
luxury homes has a yacht in the backyard in the canal.
(11:05):
And suddenly we're living there.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
One minute they were living in a roadside motel, the
next they were living in luxury.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Okay, things are looking up. But I was still terrified,
and I was still incredibly lonely. I'm a kid, I
have nobody to talk to. I'm a fish out of water.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
It was strange living in such a big house with
only her mom and grandmother. Mary Anne was twelve years
old at the time, without anyone else her age to
talk to. When the summer ended, her mom told her
she'd be starting middle school here in America. Mary Anne
was excited, maybe she could make some new friends.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
They sent me to a private school and we are
registering for school, and the lady who's sitting across from
me says, so, Leslie, are you excited about starting a
new school? And I'm like, who's Leslie, and my mom's
that's your name, you know, that's your name. I'm like,
I've never heard that name before in my life. Yes,
(12:06):
you have. My name's Marianne. She said, no, No, that's
your middle name.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
I like what her mom just stared straight ahead, and
from that moment on, everyone called her Leslie at home
and at her new school.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
I showed up for my first day in school in
a plaid tent dress with brown clogs and pigtails, and
the girls in my class were wearing jeorde ash jeans,
had highlighted hair with a full face of makeup, and
day one the bullying started. I felt so alone.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
When Christmas rolled around and they'd been living in Florida
for six months, something amazing happened. Her dad finally showed up.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
He rolled in in the rolls Royce, and then it
wasn't too long after that that Brad and Margot came.
I was so excited to see them.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Finally, Leslie breathed a sigh of relief. Their family was
back together. The world made a little more sense. As
soon as Jean arrived in Florida, he got to work.
He was a savvy businessman and saw the move as
an opportunity for him to start new ventures.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
My dad started setting up businesses pretty much on day one.
He went to a busy intersection and rented this warehouse
and painted in large black letters along the side of
it model home furniture.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
And that wasn't the only new business he started.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
He was finding people to teach him how to run
a boat maintenance company.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
He wanted Leslie's brother Brad to run the business with him.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
So he bought him an old pickup diving equipment, had
him get his diving certificate, and then and he set
up this business called D and B Diving.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
D and B for Dad and Brad, and.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
They would go to Marina's and hand out cards, and
my brother would clean barnacles off the bottoms of yachts
and change propellers and zincs and shafts.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Of course, starting a business is a lot of hard work,
but Jeane always made it look easy.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
He would always say, you can start a business anywhere
you land in the world. With fifty bucks in a
classified ad.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Leslie was happy to be around her dad again. His
optimism made the world feel big, like anything was possible.
He also established himself as a jeweler.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
He would come home from Miami and he'd lay out
these velvet rolls and they'd be, for example, a whole
role of Patake, Philippe watches or Rolex watches, or he'd
have all these pouches and they were full of diamonds.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Sometimes Jean took Leslie with him to deliver jewelry to
a client. He explained to her that this was a
very important task and they had to be careful. The
jewels were expensive. He developed his own strategies for keeping
them safe.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
He always transported jewels in a paper lunch bag, because
he said, people will rob a briefcase, but nobody's stealing
your lunch. I remember going to the International Building with
him in Miami, and he'd fill that bag with diamonds
and golden like, all these jewels, and then lee when
we'd be walking downtown Miami with this paper bag with
(15:42):
hundreds of thousands of dollars of jewelry.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
Over the next few months, Leslie's dad started making new friends.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
Some strange men were coming in and out of the house,
and my dad would have me call them all uncle,
Uncle Puddiko, Uncle Georgio, Uncle Eduardo, and they'd be smoking
cube and cigars and drinking at the bar, laughing, and
there'd be hushed tones.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
Around that same time, Leslie started noticing some changes around
the house that scared her.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
There were handguns in our planters inside the house, like
in every room. There was a gun in every single room.
I'd never seen a gun before and that was a
bit scary.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
One day, at breakfast, Leslie shared her concerns with her dad.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
I said, Dad, I'm scared. Why do we have so
many guns in the house? And he said, all you
need to know is that Daddy will always protect you.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
The days stretched on, humid and empty and repetitive. She
missed her home in Canada. It felt like she'd been
plucked out of her familiar life and dropped into an
upside down world. She felt untethered and was searching for purpose.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
I felt like an outsider everywhere in my life. I
felt like an outsider in my home, and I felt
like an outsider at school. And I had no safe
place to belong. I was deeply, deeply lonely, profoundly lonely.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
As they got older, Leslie and her brother grew apart.
Brad was pulled into the family business. He didn't have
time to be a playmate.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
My brother and my dad were hanging out the Marinas
and it was just me and nobody ever thought to
check in on me.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
But then one day her dad told Leslie he needed
her help.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
My dad said that he had an important job for
me and my brother. And I was like, oh, I'm
in an important job. What me I can be helpful? Yes,
I'm there.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Brad and Leslie went with their dad to the New
River Canal. There they walked up to a yacht.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
I think it was probably about seventy feet. It was
a big yacht on the dock.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Jean stopped and turned to face Leslie and Brad and.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
He said, you and Brad, I want you to keep
the guy busy on the deck. I'm going to be
going below and doing a little tour and I'm going
to pretend that I have somebody interested in buying this boat.
You just keep the guy busy. I'm like, yes, I
have a job. I'm definitely up for this job.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
They walked on board and Jean introduced the kids to
the yacht owner. Then he excused himself and went down
below deck.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
He says, I'm just going to have a look around.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
Leslie, knew this was her cue. She got straight to work,
asking the yacht owner questions.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
I'm like, have you ever seen a shark? Have you
ever swam with sharks? Have you seen pirates? And how
does it work when you're out at sea and your
engine stops working.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
Finally, her dad emerged back onto the main deck and
they left.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
I didn't know really why we're there, and it's just
me and my brother talking to this guy. But I
felt special and I felt seen. I felt like I
had purpose.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
For her fifteenth birthday, she got her driving permit and
a gift from her dad.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
My dad bought me in nineteen sixty two cherry red
Skylark convertible. It had white seats and a white top
and beautiful shiny hub caps. It was just the most
beautiful car.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
On top of that, he had another job for her.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
He said, you're going to do a delivery for daddy.
I want you to take this stone. It was a
leven carrot diamond. He says, I just want you to
go over to Los Soles Boulevard, park your car in
front of Pauline Pocock's antique shaw and just wait there.
Somebody's going to come sit in your car, and he's
going to give you a package of money.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
Leslie was eager to help, Like, Wow.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Did I ever feel important? I felt so grown up.
I was on top of the world. I got to
do something for my dad.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
So she got in her cherry red convertible and drove
across town to the antique shop.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
I parked there. I don't remember how long I was there.
I was daydreaming about boys, as fifteen year old girls do.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
Suddenly a man walked up to her car.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
This guy gets in the car and slides in next
to me, and he pulls out a gun and he
presses it to my bare arm, and he says, I'll
take that stone now.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
One day, when Leslie was fifteen, her day dad told
her he needed her help delivering a valuable jewel to
a client. Leslie was eager to help. She drove her
new car across town and parked outside of the antique
store for her dad's client was supposed to meet her,
but when he arrived, things took a turn.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
This guy gets in the car and slides in next
to me, and he pulls out a gun and he
presses it to my bare arm, and he says, I'll
take that stone.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
Now Leslie was in shock.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
I was terrified. I thought he's going to kill me.
I gave him the stone. What else was I going
to do? And then he quickly left.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Leslie drove back home in a panic and frantically told
her dad what happened.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
I thought when I went home that my dad would
call the police. But that is not what happened. My
dad was so disappointed in me. He said, how could
you let that happen? I gave you one simple job.
How did you let that happen?
Speaker 1 (21:58):
Leslie stared at her day, stunned. Hadn't he promised to
protect her? Why was he mad at her?
Speaker 2 (22:06):
He was letting me come into the inner circle. But
now there was a gun, and somebody could have shot me.
That was a new level of terror for me.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
A few weeks later, her parents went out of town.
While they were gone, Leslie borrowed her dad's.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Car and I popped the trunk and the trunk was
full of these bags. Let's just say they were all
about Aquilo Big.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Everything started to click into place, the strange men in
her house, the guns, the secrecy.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
I think my dad's a drug dealer. I think my
dad's a drug dealer, and I have to get him
to stop because he's going to end up in jail
or dead.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Leslie felt a self righteous anger. Even though she was
only fifteen. She realized her dad wasn't the safe person
she thought he was. Her first plan was to try
to convince him to stop. One night after her parents
got back in town, Leslie found herself alone in the
living room with her dad.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
And he was putting a record on the turntable, like
Opera Areas or something.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
While he fiddled with the record player, Leslie took a
deep breath and gathered her courage. Then she blurted out.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
I think you're a drug dealer. I don't like what
you're doing. I want you to stop, daddy, I want
you to stop.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
Her dad snapped around to face her.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
And he said, if you don't like living in my
house with my rules, you can get the fuck out.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Defiant tears began to form in her eyes. She didn't
like his rules.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
I thought, okay, game on, old man.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
So at just fifteen years old, Leslie left home. She
moved in with a friend of a friend.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
And they lived in a really ratty house and it
was crawling with cockroach just this was now my new life.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
She already had a part time job at a diner.
She got a second job at the mall to afford rent,
but to keep up with both jobs, she had a
drop out of high school.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
I didn't think about the future. I was just thinking
about how am I putting food on my table? How
am I paying my rent?
Speaker 1 (24:17):
A year past like that, with Leslie in survival mode,
it was hard to live on her own as a teenager,
but she knew she couldn't live at home with her dad.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
Life was adjusting and I was feeling very independent. I
was broke, but I felt in control of my life
for once.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
Until one night.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
It's about four in the morning and there's a pounding
at the front door of my apartment and I get
up and I look through the keyhole and it's my dad.
I'm like, what is my dad doing here at four
in the morning? And I opened the door and he said,
get in the car right now. Your brother's been in
an accident. We have to go to the hospital.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
On the drive there, Gene explained, Brad was in a
bad car crash.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
We get to the hospital and my brother doesn't look
like my brother. His head is wrapped in white bandages,
and it's huge, and he's hooked up to all these machines.
The doctor said, Bread is brain damaged. There's nothing functioning
in his brain anymore, and he'll never recover. And your
(25:22):
two choices are to keep him unabati later for the
rest of his life, however long he lives, or to
disconnect him from the life support. And as a family,
we decided that he would not have wanted to be
plugged into a machine.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
Brad died in the hospital.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
And after that everything really changed.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
It was too painful to be in Fort Lauderdale and
around their family without Brad. Everything felt even more broken
without him.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
I knew that nobody was coming to save me. I
thought my dad was a drug dealer, and I'm wanted
to build something for myself. And my brother loved the
sea and loved the ocean, and I thought, I want
to join the US Coast Guard.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
Not only was the Coastguard a ticket out of Florida,
it was also a way to rebel against her dad.
She wanted to stop drug runners and enforce the law.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
That was going to be my mission in life. I
wanted to do good. I want to save lives, I
wanted to go after the bad guys. It was the
only course I could see for myself. It was almost
just like a natural progression of things.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
At the age of seventeen, Leslie was accepted into the
Coast Guard and started boot camp. Being in the military
opened so many doors for Leslie, and her assignments took
her across oceans.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
I had a lot of adventures in the Coastguard. When
I was stationed at Oregon Inlet, North Carolina, You'd get
twenty five thirty foot seas, but they were very dangerous
because you'd had currents coming from all different directions. And
I loved it. I thrived on it.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
While she was in the Coastguard, she met the man
who would eventually become her husband.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
He was a Green Beret in US Special Forces on
a temporary detail in Miami from Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
They started dating and got married shortly after. Leslie lost
touch with her parents as she focused on building her
new life. By the time she turned twenty one, her
life felt the most stable it had ever been, but
then her phone rang.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
And it's my dad.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Over the last four years, she and her dad had
grown increasingly distant. She hadn't heard from him in six months.
Leslie picked up the phone. Her dad sounded scared.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
He said, I need you to come to Montreal right
away and pick me up. Do not tell your mother,
do not tell your sister, Do not tell a single soul.
There's bad guys after me and I'm in danger now.
This is my dad. I'm his daughter. Bad guys are
after him. I'm going to get my dad and I'm
(28:10):
going to take my badass new Special Forces husband and
we're going to break him out.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
Despite all the years that had gone by, this was
still her dad asking for help. She didn't hesitate.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
I went into rescue mode. I think a lot had
to do with my training in the Coastguard. It was
like it became a mission.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Leslie and her husband rented a car and drove through
the night to Montreal.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
And it's very late when we get there.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
Leslie's dad had instructed her to meet him in a
bar downtown.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
I walk in, I don't recognize my own father. My father,
who was handsome and full of life and sparkling, he
was really thin, and it was like somebody took a
vacuum and sucked out all the life from him. His
face was hollow, his eyes were sunken, and he was
(29:04):
just crumpled in this booth of a bar. That was
a shock that floored me, like who is this man?
Speaker 1 (29:13):
They sat down next to him at the bar and
Jean began to talk.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
He was jittery, he was very jittery. He said, you're
going to take me to the border of Vermont and Quebec.
You're going to drop me off in the woods. You're
going to check into the first hotel you come to
on the other side of the border, and I will
find you in the morning. But he wouldn't tell us
anything else, so.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
That's what they did.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
It was blackout, there was not much light, and we
dropped him off in the woods. Did as he said.
There was only one motel, it was like an inn
on the other side of the border. Checked into this
little two story inn.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
Going to sleep that night. Leslie was anxious when she
was involved in Brisky operations for the Coast. She always
knew the goal of the mission, but with her dad,
she didn't know what the mission was or her part
in it.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
In the morning, it would get up and I stretch
and yawn and walked to the window because I don't
know what this town looks like because it's dark.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
She pulled back the curtains and immediately froze.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
Were surrounded by a swat team. And next thing I know,
the door opens and my husband and I were tackled
to the ground and there's a knee in my back
and handcuffs are going on me. It just all happened
so fast, and then they instantly separated me from my husband,
put us in different rooms, wouldn't tell us anything about
(30:42):
my dad.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
They interrogated her and her husband, but Leslie didn't know anything.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
I am literally clue less. My dad says bad guys
are coming to murder him, and then all of a sudden,
they left the room. They left me alone, and then
when the door opened again, the guy came back with
my husband and he says, we're free to go.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
Leslie's mind was spitting, trying to figure out what just happened.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
Okay, well, the last time I checked, I thought he
was a drug dealer, So does this have to do
something with drugs?
Speaker 1 (31:21):
She started calling each member of her family.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
I called my sister Margo, and I said, this is
what happened. Do you know anything about this? And she
said don't ask any more questions.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
Her sister said she didn't know anything, but their mom did.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
She said, your dad had been arrested and was on
trial for conspiracy to import cocaine into Canada.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
Her mom said that in the middle of his trial,
Jeane disappeared. That explained why her dad asked to meet
in obscure locations and had her drop him off in
the middle of the woods. He had been on the
run after Jane was captured. He faced trial for importing
narcotics and was sentenced to fifteen years in an Ontario prison.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
I thought, I guess I was right. My dad's the
bad guy. My dad is a drug dealer.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
With her dad in prison, Leslie tried to put him
out of her mind. Throughout her twenties and thirties, a
lot changed for Leslie. She had two daughters of her own,
got divorced, and moved back to Canada. Her dad got
out of prison, but she kept her distance from him.
She did rekindle a relationship with her mother, who had
(32:37):
separated from Jane. Then, one day, Leslie got news that
her dad's health had declined. Quickly, she drove to see
him and attended a doctor's appointment with him.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
We went to the appointment and the doctor said to
my dad, you have cancer in every bone in your body.
Go home and do whatever you want to do. There's
nothing we can do.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
Leslie could hardly process the words her dad was dying.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
It was three weeks that he lived from that diagnosis,
and I sat and held my dad's hand every day.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
Soon Jeanne couldn't leave his bed. It was clear he
didn't have much time left. Leslie's daughters traveled in to
see Jane and say their goodbyes.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
And my father, who no longer was that charismatic, larger
than life figure. He's just this defeated shell of a
man that I no longer recognize. And we're all sitting
up in his bedroom and he's on the morphine drip
and he's pointing at the ceiling and he says, tell
(33:49):
those fuckers to go, tell them to go, get them
out of here.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
But there was nobody in the room except Leslie and
her daughter's We're.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
Like, Dad, who, who, the FBI, the CIA? They're here
to get me. Don't let them take me. Don't you
see them? They're right there, And me and my girls
are like turning our heads and like giggling, like that's
pretty good morphine.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
Jean kept talking nonsensically.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
The guns are in the canal. I dumped all the
guns in the canal. They're still there.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
Leslie and her daughters gave each other a look.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
Like, okay, Dad, the guns they're in the canal.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
Just days later, Jean died. Leslie did her best to
process her complicated feelings the grief, anger, and regrets. She
stayed in touch with her mom, and one day, a
few years later, her mom came to visit.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
She usually came with a trunk full of crap from
her basement to unload on me, but this time she
only had a blue binder and a small cooler.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
Once she was inside, Leslie's mom dropped the binder onto
the table in the hallway.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
And it's massive. It weighs a ton and it just clunk.
I said, Mom, what's that? She said, Oh, it's your
dad's prison manuscript. He wrote that in prison.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
Leslie wasn't sure she heard correctly.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
Like what his what?
Speaker 1 (35:25):
Leslie's mom sounded almost bored.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
Yeah, yeah, he wrote it in prison. I didn't read it.
It's probably full of lies. It's just garbage, just burn it.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
Leslie looked at the binder laying on the table in
front of her. It had to be several hundred pages.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
I picked up the book and it was so heavy,
and I opened the first page and there were ten
words on yellowed paper, and it said, too, Brad, may
you find peace? There is none here? Love Dad.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
Leslie slammed the binder shut. Tears rushed to her eyes.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
I could feel my past rushing back to me. All
the things I tried to forget felt like they were
coming back like a force.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
She wasn't ready to confront whatever was inside.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
So I stuffed it away in my hat and midst
drawer and I ignored it for about six months until
the day I needed a hat and some mits in November,
and I thought, oh, I think it's time. It's time.
Speaker 1 (36:37):
She pulled the binder out of the drawer, sat down
and began to read. Once she started, she couldn't stop.
Finally she had access to her dad's side of the story.
Maybe somewhere in here she could find the truth. Then
she read something that made her freeze.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
My dad claimed that he was an informant for the
CIA and the FBI and THES and that he was
forced into criminal behavior because of corrupt police in Canada
who forced him into the situation of having to work
for the US government, and that he was innocent all along,
(37:18):
And I thought, oh my god, was my dad a
hero and not a villain.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
For years, Leslie believed her dad was a drug dealer.
But one day, years after his death, her mom came
to her house with a manuscript Leslie's dad wrote while
he was in prison, and in it, he claimed that
he was an informant to the CIA, FBI and other
government agencies. Reading his words, Leslie was floored.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
Have I got this story wrong? Was my dad keeping
this a secret because he was protecting us from the
bad guys? He was protecting his family.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
Leslie kept reading. Her father had typed up his life story,
starting from the very beginning. He said. It all started
when he got involved with local politics in Canada. According
to Jean, he was targeted by politicians and police who
didn't want their own corruption exposed. That's why the family
(38:41):
had to flee and abruptly moved to Florida.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
And once we were in Florida. Because of his connections
in Canada and his understanding of the jewelry business, he
was recruited into being an informant.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
Jane claimed he got involved with criminal activity in order
to report information back to the CIA. He became an
insider in the world of organized crime, rubbing elbows with
the mafia and drug runners, all to fulfill his role
as an informant.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
My dad said that he first started with the CIA.
Leveraging his Marina contacts. Him and my brother would go
to the Marinas and suess out drug runners and they
were very successful. I guess it was really easy to
find drug runners back then in the Fort Lauderdal Marinas,
so they were informing on all of them.
Speaker 1 (39:32):
Leslie's eyes were glued to the page she kept reading.
According to Jane, he had been involved in global arms deals.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
It's like, are you kidding me? What?
Speaker 1 (39:45):
So much of what her dad wrote in the manuscript
felt completely outlandish, but then she stumbled upon a scene
that was familiar. Jeanne described going to a yacht with
Leslie and her brother Brad.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
My dad about the day that he asked my brother
and I to go and keep the guy busy on
deck while he went down in the cabin.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
Leslie leaned in. She still remembered every detail of that day,
the questions she asked the man on the boat how
important she'd felt helping her dad. Now she was reading
about that day from her dad's perspective for the first time.
Speaker 2 (40:23):
He writes that that man who was on the boat
was the head of the Montreal mafia, and he was
sent by the FBI to go down in that boat
and find any evidence, any clues they could get their
hands on. I was so shocked.
Speaker 1 (40:41):
In his manuscript, Gene detailed what he did below deck
on the yacht.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
He stole the guy's rolla dex with all his contacts.
He went through his garbage, He stole stuff from his garbage,
and he specifically brought my brother and I as decoys.
Speaker 1 (40:59):
Leslie stared at the word decoys. Her heart sank.
Speaker 2 (41:04):
He said it so casually, He wrote about it so casually,
like it was nothing. It was like I just sent
my kids to the store to get bred.
Speaker 1 (41:13):
We can't confirm if the man on the boat was
the head of the Montreal mafia, but either way, it's
clear Jean had no concern for his kid's safety in
that moment. Any hope she'd had that her dad was
a hero faded away as Leslie kept reading, she recognized
another story, the time her father asked her to make
(41:36):
a jewel delivery and someone pulled a gun on her.
In her father's manuscript, the.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
Story was all wrong, completely different story.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
In her dad's version, Leslie had been conned out of
a jewel he didn't trusted her with. His takeaway was
that it was Leslie's fault.
Speaker 2 (41:55):
He wrote, I wouldn't have been conned, but I felt
bad for the kid, so I tried to make her
not feel bad.
Speaker 1 (42:03):
That was where his account ended. Leslie blinked. Where was
the mention of the gun that was pulled on her?
Where was the mention of her life being at risk?
Speaker 2 (42:14):
How do we have these completely different stories? Do I
have my own story wrong? Am I remembering things wrong?
Speaker 1 (42:24):
But Leslie still remembered the feeling of the gun. It
was undeniable. Her dad had involved her in criminal activity.
He sent her and Brad into dangerous situations and hardly
batted an eye.
Speaker 2 (42:39):
You're using your kids as ponds? What is wrong with you?
Speaker 1 (42:45):
Leslie wanted to believe her father's story that he was
an innocent informant, but the manuscript revealed small details that
made her realize it wasn't that simple. She learned that
the odd antiques that filled her childhood at home weren't
just a core. They're part of her father's money laundering scheme.
Speaker 2 (43:06):
That wasn't just my dad collecting. That was a way
of hiding illegal money.
Speaker 1 (43:13):
She had her own memories of her childhood, and now
she had her father's memories. As the two versions came together,
a new picture emerged.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
My dad was telling a story about my childhood where
everything made sense and nothing made sense.
Speaker 1 (43:31):
She needed to know what was real. She called her
family to see if they could corroborate anything her dad wrote,
but nobody wanted to talk to her.
Speaker 2 (43:41):
My mom wanted nothing to do with it. She didn't
want to know about it. She didn't want to hear
about it. My sister just kept saying the same thing,
Why do you want to hurt daddy? Leave it alone,
don't bring this up. If you bring this up, you're
just hurting daddy. And she wouldn't talk to me. I
called everybody in my family. I reached out to my cousin,
(44:03):
my aunt. Nobody would talk to me, not a single person.
Speaker 1 (44:07):
But this time she refused to stop asking questions.
Speaker 2 (44:12):
I thought, no, I have to know the truth. I
have to figure this out. I got to get to
the bottom of the story.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
If her family wasn't going to tell her the truth,
she'd have to contact Jean's friends and his enemies. She
started with the name she'd heard her whole life, Detective
Ken Robertson.
Speaker 2 (44:34):
He was the one that my dad said was the
corrupt police. Because of him, we had to leave Canada.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
In his manuscript, Jane mentioned Detective Robertson over seventy times.
He said everything was his fault. It turned out Detective
Robertson was still alive. Leslie got in touch with him.
Over the course of a long phone call. He told
her everything he knew about her dad.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
And he opened a whole new door. It completely blindsided me.
Speaker 1 (45:07):
According to Detective Robertson, there were a series of Italian
bakery bombings in Ontario in the nineteen seventies and nineteen eighties.
It was all part of a mafia turf war, and
some of this criminal activity was being run out of
her father's furniture store.
Speaker 2 (45:24):
So the police initially went in. They started surveilling his
furniture store. They saw the Muzatana and Lupino crime families
going in and out of my dad's furniture store on
the regular and because of that surveillance, they were able
to get the Joint task Force funded by the City Council,
(45:45):
Canada's first joint task force, and that is what led
them to being able to bust up that crime family's
hold on the city.
Speaker 1 (45:53):
The police investigation into Jean's furniture store ultimately led to
his arrest for fraud. This is why the family had
to abruptly move out of Canada. Jean wasn't on a
work trip after all. As a kid and young adult,
Leslie was in the dark about all of this. Who
her father was, the fact that he was arrested.
Speaker 2 (46:16):
Now, you have to remember everything that happened happened before
the internet. I was in Florida when a lot of
this stuff went down. I would have never heard about that.
It would have been in the local paper. You wouldn't
just go online and look it up.
Speaker 1 (46:32):
Leslie asked the detective if her dad was in the mafia.
This is all he knew.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
He wasn't in the mafia, but we don't know if
he was working with the mafia or he was being extorted.
We still don't know, and I asked Ken Robertson, I said,
do you know anything about my dad being in a foremant?
He said, well, I don't know anything about it. However,
(46:58):
he was ripe for picking. He was the perfect person
to be an informant because he had connections, he knew jewelry.
Speaker 1 (47:08):
Leslie really wanted to talk to someone who was close
to her dad, so she reached out to one of
his old friends, who were going to call Leonard. As
they sat across from each other at a cafe, Leonard
told her what he had learned about her dad's jewelry
business over the years. What he said left her astonished.
(47:28):
According to Leonard, the jewelry business was always a front
for an armed robbery ring. After Jean made an expensive
jewelry sale, he would target the wealthy client for robbery.
He then had his employees dress as police officers and
knock on their front door.
Speaker 2 (47:45):
And they'd say, there's been a robbery in the neighborhood.
Can we come in and talk to you?
Speaker 1 (47:50):
But once they were inside, they dropped the.
Speaker 2 (47:52):
Act, and then they would tie these people up in
their chairs and force them to open the safe.
Speaker 1 (47:58):
Then, almost off handedly, Leonard said something that knocked the
wind out of Leslie.
Speaker 2 (48:04):
He says to me, you know, I don't know if
you know this, but your dad told me that Brad
that was in an accident. I'm like, huh. He said, yeah,
that was a hit. That was a revenge killing because
of your dad. I just felt like all the breath
had been stolen out of my body.
Speaker 1 (48:25):
When Leonard left, the weight of his words hit her.
Speaker 2 (48:28):
And I just lost it. I couldn't even get myself together.
My dad was at the hero. My dad was a
worse villain than I ever imagined.
Speaker 1 (48:41):
Jeane involved his son in his crimes, and that may
have been what killed him. This is the most shocking
and devastating thing of all, but we can't confirm if
Brad's death was a hit or an accident.
Speaker 2 (48:53):
I'd like to think it's not true, but there's no
real way of knowing. My brother's gone been gone for
a long time. It doesn't change anything.
Speaker 1 (49:04):
Leslie learned so many shocking things through her investigation. After
talking with everyone, she returned to her family one more time.
Speaker 2 (49:15):
My mom always said that she knew nothing about my
father's dealings. She never saw anything suspicious.
Speaker 1 (49:26):
But if everything Leslie heard was true, then her mom
had to know about it. She kept the books for
her dad's businesses. It's been every day with him for years.
Speaker 2 (49:36):
Bit by bit, I could pull on threads. For example,
I said, are you sure dad never mentioned the CIA
or the FBI. Ah, you know what? Yeah, actually he
did mention that back. Yeah, but I never paid any
attention to that. My mom, I came to understand, was
(49:59):
in survival mode. My mom buried everything she didn't want
to see, and so she turned a blind eye to everything.
Speaker 1 (50:08):
Finally, Leslie went back to the one person who had
never cracked, who had never shared anything about what happened,
or what she felt or what it all meant, her sister, Margot.
Speaker 2 (50:21):
I asked Margot again, Even though she shut me out,
I took another run at her. I said, this is
what I found out, this is what I found out
from everybody I interviewed. Do you know anything about this?
And she said it's true, Yeah, it's all true. I'm
(50:41):
like you knew all along.
Speaker 1 (50:46):
It was a lonely realization her family knew Gene was
involved in criminal activity and didn't tell Leslie even when
she was a kid asking them for answers. Her dad
may have been the one to put her directly and
harm's way, but the rest of her family had failed
to protect her too.
Speaker 2 (51:05):
When every family member keeps the secret, they may not
have committed the crime, but they're all in on the betrayal,
all of them. They all own it.
Speaker 1 (51:17):
Even after their admissions, Leslie's family didn't have the concrete
answers she wanted. Was her dad an informant? How involved
was he in the mafia? Those truths died when her
father did, But one thing is clear. He put her
in harm's way. He involved her in his crimes. When
(51:37):
she trusted him the most, he sent her off into
situations that risked her life, and that is the biggest betrayal.
Speaker 2 (51:47):
Parents are supposed to protect their children. The world is
not a safe place. The world is a very dangerous place.
But when it's inside your own home and it's the
person that you're supposed to trust the most that they're
the most dangerous person in your life, that's damaging.
Speaker 1 (52:05):
After she exhausted all the leads in her investigation, she
realized there was more to this search than finding concrete answers.
There was an emotional truth, one she'd have to answer
for herself.
Speaker 2 (52:19):
In investigating my dad, I was realizing that I was
investigating myself, my identity in relationship to my dad. This
is my story, this is my life, this is my childhood,
this is my family.
Speaker 1 (52:33):
A few years ago, Leslie decided to write a memoir
about her childhood, her father and his crimes, who was
published in May of this year. It's called The Liar's Playbook.
Speaker 2 (52:44):
Writing my book is the first time in my life
that I stopped and I looked back, and I did
not see a monster. I saw a man, simple, brilliant, dangerous, flawed.
Speaker 1 (53:00):
Leslie returned to her dad's manuscript now with clear eyes,
and what she saw this.
Speaker 3 (53:05):
Time was someone she recognized, just so many things that
we shared, and that made me feel less lonely.
Speaker 2 (53:18):
He's a risk taker. I'm a risk taker. He's a visionary.
I'm a visionary. He has big ideas. I have a
big ideas. My dad's best qualities are my best qualities.
His worst qualities are my worst qualities. But I have
that awareness, and now I can break those patterns, and
that's the biggest gift of all.
Speaker 1 (53:41):
Leslie's spent her adult life building stability and safety. Today
she lives on the shores of a lake in Ontario.
She has close relationships with her daughters. In a way,
her life is a reaction to the chaos her father
created in her childhood. She doesn't take it for granted.
Speaker 2 (54:00):
I live in a beautiful little brown writer's cabin and
I spend my days writing. I'm writing a work of fiction.
I'm writing a holiday suspense novel based on the exact
same themes about family dysfunction, about trust, about fraud, and
this next part of my life is going to be
about being an author, about being a full time writer.
Speaker 1 (54:24):
We end every weekly episode with the same question, why
do you want to share your story?
Speaker 2 (54:30):
The truth is highly destabilizing, but once you blow everything up,
you can take those fragments and build something durable. You
can build something honest, something true, and that is freeing
Where we're born, who were born to that's all a lottery.
We have no control over that. We have no control
(54:52):
over the DNA we get, but we get to choose
what genes to express. Our family might shape us, but
we get to define ourselves.
Speaker 1 (55:05):
On the next episode of Betrayal Weekly, I just remember
feeling gutted, completely gutted. This was my darkest here a
member of my family had been taken.
Speaker 2 (55:20):
I even living in the Twilight Zone. I just want
the truth to come out.
Speaker 1 (55:24):
Everything else can stop. If you'd like to share your
story on Betrayal, please email Betrayal Pod at gmail dot com.
That is Betrayal Pod at gmail dot com. Please note
(55:46):
that we are not a mental health organization. If you
are in crisis or currently experiencing domestic violence, we encourage
you to seek local help or dial nine to one one.
Please contact organizations that offer immediate support. And our show notes,
we've included a list of US based resources. You can
(56:07):
follow us on Instagram at Betrayal Pod or find me
at It's Andrea Gunning. To access our newsletter and additional content,
and to 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
(56:29):
review Betrayal. Five star reviews go a long way. Big
thank you to all of our listeners. Betrayal is a
production 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, written and produced by Olivia Hewitt. Our
(56:52):
story editor is Monique Lebord, also produced by Ben Fetterman.
Our associate producer is Leah Jabloc. Management by Kristin Melcurie,
Booking support by Curry Richmond. Our iHeart team is Ali
Perry and Treessica Crimecheck. Audio editing by Tanner Robbins with
additional editing and mixing by Matt Delbecchio. Betrayals theme composed
(57:14):
by Oliver Baines. 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
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by Audiochuck Media Company.
NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal
Gregg Rosenthal and a rotating crew of elite NFL Media co-hosts, including Patrick Claybon, Colleen Wolfe, Steve Wyche, Nick Shook and Jourdan Rodrigue of The Athletic get you caught up daily on all the NFL news and analysis you need to be smarter and funnier than your friends.