Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, Betrayal listeners, It's Andrea Gunning. We're off this week
for Thanksgiving, but we'll be back next week with a
brand new story. This week, we wanted to re release
a listener favorite, Donnielle's story. We originally released it in
two parts, but for this re release, we're combining both
parts for you so you can hear her full story
all at once. One thing we love about Donnielle's story
(00:21):
is the ending where she finds love again, and as
you'll hear in the episode, she and her new husband
got married at the Thanksgiving table. They said their vows
between dinner and dessert, surrounded by all of their family.
We will be back next week with a brand new episode,
and in the meantime for those celebrating happy Thanksgiving. We
are so grateful to all of you, our listeners. Thank
(00:45):
you for everything. So without further ado, here's Donnielle's story.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
One of my children saw his dad dressed all in black,
and he said that it seemed like his dad was
mad at him because he yelled him to go back
to bed, and the night before that he had actually
told my oldest child to wrap a sledgehammer that we
had that had a really bright yellow handle in black
(01:12):
electric tape and find a black raincoat for him to wear.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
And she was like, Okay, Dad, I'm Anderrea gunning. And
this is Betrayal, a show about the people we trust
the most and the deceptions that change everything. One night
(01:42):
in twenty seventeen, Danielle Oliver Chauve was awoken by the
FBI in state police. They were pointing guns at her,
demanding to know where her husband was. That night, she
learned the man she had spent twenty years with was
hiding some very big secrets. This is don Yelle's first
time telling her story. She's been reluctant to share what
(02:05):
she went through because, as you'll hear in part two,
her husband has other victims. She wants to be respectful
of their experience and suffering. But this episode isn't about
her husband's crimes. It's about the twenty year marriage Donielle
built with him, the ways he deceived and violated her,
and the shocking betrayal that ended it all. It's also
(02:28):
the story of being totally in the dark about your
partner's double life.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
I used to watch Lifetime shows and I used to
be that person saying Oh, she had to know something.
So I totally understand why people say things like that.
But until you are actually walking in those shoes and
living with a person who can be completely double faced,
(02:53):
living a completely separate life, all I know is the
life that he had with me and our kids. That's
all I saw. He was able to do everything else
completely separate.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Danielle grew up in a happy, tight knit family in California.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Family is very important to me. We were just over
in my parents, all of my siblings, and we all
just get along really well. There's hardly ever any arguments
within our family, and when there is, it's results within
the day.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Growing up, Dannielle's parents were her role models. They had
a respectful and happy marriage. It was an environment that
nurtured her easy going and trusting nature.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
I had a really good childhood, and so I didn't
grow up with a lot of strife or bad things
happening in my childhood where that trust was broken down.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
She was raised with a strong sense of faith. That's
still one of her core values.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
I know some religions can be like really strict, do this,
you can't do this. I wouldn't even say that. Mine
is a religion. It's a relationship with christ.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Donielle is one of those rare people who loved high school.
She was popular and she had a long time high
school boyfriend named Billy.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
When we were teenagers. Everybody thought for sure that we
were just going to be together forever, you know, we
were the thing.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Right before their senior year of high school, Billy proposed
to her and she said yes.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
But then I actually had to move to Hawaii because
my dad was working for a military and we moved there.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
She ended up spending her senior year in Hawaii. Then
she got accepted to college in Illinois. She was ready
to start a new life there without her high school boyfriend.
Giving up her first love was hard, but she wanted
to prioritize her independence. Danielle thrived in college. She loved
(04:58):
her major, which was art, and she also loved going
to Bible study on campus. That's where she met Chad.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
He was raising his hand and answering the questions, like
right away, and he was answering the way I would
have answered those questions, right in line with the way
I believed.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
So I was attracted to that immediately. She knew Chad
was special.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
The first time I met him, I said to my
parents when I got back that I was going to
marry him. So it was pretty much love at first sight.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
She felt comfortable around Chad. It was easy, like they'd
known each other for years.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
We actually met at my parents' house and watched a
couple movies and I made amasagna and he changed my
oil in my car. That was our first date.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
From the start, Danielle was serious about Chad.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
When I'm dating someone that I'm deciding whether or not
this person is the person I want to marry. So
I was looking for specific things that I wanted in
a husband. When I was dating him.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Chad checked all the boxes.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
There was lots of things. He grew up in a
Christian home. He had a good relationship with his parents.
He was business minded, like he was able to support me.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
Everything about him felt right. He was pursuing a degree
in finance, He had dreams of starting his own business,
and like her, he also wanted a big family. But
most of all, she just loved being around him.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
I had fun with him, you know, we would laugh
about lots of things. I was just attracted to the
way I felt around him.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
While they were dating, he went above and beyond to
woo her.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Something about Chad, you have to know he likes to
do everything big. It always has to be the best
and the grandest and the most showy.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
It's not who she is, but Chad said she deserved
the best, and it was flattering. After about two years
of dating, he made a particularly grand gesture. He bought
her an expensive dress, rented a limousine, and took them
to a dinner theater.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
And during that intermission he excused himself. I thought he
was going to use the restroom, but he actually turns
out had set up beforehand with the theater that he
would go on stage and asked me to marry him
from the stage. And then he got down on his knee.
And yeah, it was quite the show.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
She said. Yes, he brought her out of her comfort
zone and it felt like a fairy tale.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
I was one hundred percent this is the one I
had to spend the rest of my life with.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Chad was involved in every step of the wedding planning,
which Donielle loved, and he also wanted to go to
pre marriage counseling to discuss their expectations.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
We discussed who would be the breadwinner, in the home.
You know what would be the different roles of both
husband and wife as far as who did what in
the household. It was thoroughly discussed how our marriage would
go before we got married. I mean, as far as
you can. We did know that I wanted to be
a stay at home mom, so that was talked about.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Danielle had been managing her own money in her early twenties,
and although she was good at it, it was a
relief to be marrying someone who had expertise in finance.
It made her feel safe, and so they agreed that
while she would manage the household, Chad would manage the money.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
And I had full trust in Chad to be able
to do that too, because of his business degree. He
was really good at money, and so he went to
school for it. I didn't have any worries about him
taking over the finances for the family.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
She was happy with this arrangement. She's a do it
yourself kind of person. It's an attitude that's well suited
to raising kids and running the household.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
My dishwasher broke down several years ago, and I wasn't
about to pay somebody because I'm going to figure out
how to fix it. I laid all the flooring in
the house that I'm in right now. I didn't know
how to do that, but I looked it up, just
went on YouTube and figured it out. So I'm that
type of person.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
After they got married, the couple decided to move to
Chad's hometown in Illinois. To call it a small town
is an understatement. The entire population could fit in one
high school football stadium.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Well, the town we live in, Erie is only nineteen hundred.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
It's small, small, but perfectly suited to the life that
they were building, a life that centered around family and community. Plus,
Chad had grown up there, so he knew nearly everyone
in town, and everyone seemed to adore him. In fact,
he'd been the high school valedictorian. Once they moved back
(09:45):
to Erie, the couple also joined Chad's church, the church
he grew up in.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
We were really involved with that church, and his parents
went to that church too, and we led a Sunday
school together. As a couple, their.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Life was falling into place. A happy marriage, a strong
foundation based on shared values, a community that supported them,
and a church they felt welcome by. And Chad was
making progress in his career. He began the certification process
to become a financial advisor. He wanted to start his
own firm.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
He did it all online. I went through classes online
and got his certificate online and all that.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
She was proud of him, and for the time being,
she kept working too.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
I also worked for the post office for a little bit,
but that was not part of our marriage plan. I
didn't want to be a working mom. I wanted to
be a stay at home mom. Pretty much as soon
as we got married, we started trying.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
But conceiving their first baby didn't happen as quickly as
Danielle hoped. The months turned into a year, and during
that year, Chad made a shocking confession.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
He came home from work and me down and said,
I need to tell you something really important and just said,
I had an accounter with a guy in the bathroom,
and I think we need to go see somebody and
talk to like a counselor about it. And so I
was just like, what is going on? It just blindsided me,
(11:18):
Like what just happened.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
She asked him point blank if he was gay. He
said no, he wasn't. She wanted more details about what
actually happened. Who it was with and what they did.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
But he never really gave a straight answer. It was
just we need to go talk to somebody, like a
counselor about it.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Danielle was shaken and confused about her husband's confession to
a one time playing, but at the same time, Chad
was doing everything he could to make it right. He
confessed to it immediately, he wanted to get help, and
most importantly, he was coming to her with sincere remorse.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
He was crying, I was crying. He was saying sorry.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Chad wanted to get help quickly, and so the next
day they did.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
We actually went to the pastor and asked for advice
about who we should see as a marriage counselor for us.
We were given a name of a Christian counselor.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
They had multiple sessions with the counselor, some sessions together
as a couple and some separately. During a one on
one meeting, the counselor gave Danielle some advice.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
He advised me, you should really think carefully about this marriage.
You know, you actually have a right to end this
marriage if he is being unfaithful to you.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
The counselor said he'd seen a situation like this before,
and he wanted Donielle to know that divorce was an option.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
I understood that. I knew that that's something that's perfectly
fine for me to file for a divorce, but I
didn't want to. I wanted to make this marriage work.
I didn't even want the word divorce to come up
in our marriage. Like when I made a commitment in
our marriage at the wedding ceremony, my promise was a promise.
(13:24):
I didn't take my vowels lightly in sickness and in
health a richard for poorr. I was going to walk
through it with him. I wanted to help him resolve
whatever it was that he was going through because I
loved him, and I wanted our marriage to work.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
This one infidelity, it felt small and manageable, especially compared
to the years they'd spend together getting to know each other,
studying the Bible together, and building a life. She really
trusted Chad.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
I felt like I could one percent trust him even
though he had done whatever he had done. I believed
him one hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
They got a workbook on overcoming infidelity and even did
the homework together, and they decided to lean on their
faith to help them rebuild their relationship. Church became an
even bigger part of their lives.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
He was an elder in the church. We jointly were
leaders for kids Christian camps. We were very involved in
our faith.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Their marriage began looking up, especially when a year later
they welcomed their first baby, a baby girl.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
She was an amazing first child, super easy baby, smiling
all the time, happy, alert. It was a great, great
first mom experience.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Danielle was on top of the world, so filled with
love for her first daughter and her young family. It
confirmed to her that she really did want to be
a stay at home mom. She just felt whole.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
People that we would meet walking through a mall always
stop and say, Oh, you have the cutest baby. She's
the cutest thing I've ever seen, and your family is
so cute.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
The difficulties she and Chad faced in the first year
of marriage started to feel like they were in the
rear view mirror.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
At that point, I felt totally in love with him
and close to him. I felt like I had the
perfect life.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
That baby would be the first of six.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
I knew that you could get pregnant even when you
were still nursing, and before you had your first cycle
after pregnancy. I didn't think it was going to happen
to me, but it did.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Soon Donielle's life became consumed by full time childcare. As
their kids got older, she started homeschooling them, and she
loved every minute of it.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
I wouldn't have it any other way. And a lot
of people are like, wow, six kids, that's a lot,
but you know, each one of them is unique and
has their own personality. Each of them is just amazing.
I love it. I absolutely love it.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
With a growing family came more financial demands, but luckily
Chad's business was taking off. They even had the ability
to upgrade their house.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
He had been starting to look at this property that
he really wanted. It was a huge house, way bigger
than we needed. Enormous, huge living room, huge family, a
huge dining room, huge huge master bedroom, you know, basement
that looked like a bowling alley, And so he started
looking at it and dreaming about it and eventually decided
that he was going to try to purchase it.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Danielle didn't think it was the most practical choice, but
the house made him happy. After they moved in, he
tried to tell her how to run the house, but
she stood her ground. She trusted him to handle the finances,
so when it came to the housework, he needed to
trust her.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
He wanted me to do things a certain way, like
do laundry on a certain day, do the dishes on
a certain day, or you know, do dusting on a
certain day. And I was like, no, I will do
it when it needs to be done. When I see
that it needs doing, I'll do it, you know.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
And there were a lot of things that needed dusting.
Chad was a collector. It was a quirk that Danielle accepted.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Precious Moments, figurines, and he was very much in a
Hallmark fan, so he had millions of Hallmark ornaments, tons
of DVDs. I mean we had two huge walls full
of DVDs.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
They loved watching movies as a family, and after the
kids went to bed, the couple would watch their favorite TV.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
Shows, Dexter and Breaking Bad.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Every summer, Danielle, Chad and their six kids would take
family road trips.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Stone the Grand Canyon, Mount Rushmore. We had all the
tourist places in the United States, so we had a
lot of really fun times as family.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
On these trips, they'd stay in huge rental homes. Chad
always wanted the best of the best for the family, and.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
They were very nice, very nice rented houses. Some of them.
I was like, okay, guys, don't touch anything, you know,
like expensive paintings on the walls and glass decorations.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
One summer, about fifteen years into their marriage, the family
was on one of their regular road trips, and on
this trip, their rental home was in a remote area.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
I woke up around between the morning. I know, it
was the middle of the night. All the kids were asleep,
and I got up to go to the bathroom or
something and turned over and he was not in bed
with me. I looked around the house to see if
he was just up somewhere. He was not there. I
(19:06):
went out into the garage area. The car was gone,
so I started being like, where did he go? There
was no note as far as he left somewhere. He
didn't leave a message on my phone. He was just gone.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
It was the early two thousands, so she didn't have
a smartphone to look at his location. She started to
worry that something terrible happened.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
So I started calling around to the hospital around the
area and is there any child skipper admitted into this hospital. No, ma'am,
thank you, call the next hospital.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
Around three am, the phone rang. It was Chat.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
And he said he was at Walmart. And I was like, okay,
why are you at Walmart? I just thought I would
pick up some stuff. But you know, you can kind
of tell when somebody's calling from the middle of a store.
Can hear the hum of everything. There was no shopping
cart sounds, no like cashier beeping and stuff. There was
(20:07):
none of that. It did not sound like he was
in a shopping area. I hung up the phone and
just was like, how what is happening? I don't understand.
Says He's are in Walmart, but it's hours away. That
doesn't make any sense. And I just sat in confusion,
shaking until he got home.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
When Chad got back, he tried to explain it away,
and he apologized.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
He said, I'm sorry I didn't tell you where I
was going. You know, everything's fine, You're good, the kids
are good. I'm back, We're safe. He blew it over.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
Whenever they got in a disagreement, this is what he'd
tell her.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
His favorite phrase was, don't make a mountain out of
a mole hill. You know, you just get really emotional
about things. It's okay, you know, calm down. Always made
me feel like I was crazy.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Abandoning the family in a rental house in the middle
of the night with no good explanation. It just didn't
sit right with her, So Donielle called her mom.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
She was like, oh, wow, yeah, that is really weird.
I'm glad you're okay. You know, I'm glad it all
worked out, but that is really weird.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Donielle was the full time caretaker for six children under fifteen.
She didn't have the energy to fight with her husband.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
I didn't confront him. That's one of my personality quirks
is I don't like confrontation. I would rather just not
talk about it than have a huge argument about something,
which is not healthy. I think it's much healthier to
communicate and work it out. But at that point, I
(21:51):
just didn't want to deal with it.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
Plus, whenever she did question him, it always ended up
coming back on her.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
On the rare occasion when I would ask questions, I
would be shut down and told I was crazy or
that is totally not how it went. You have blown
this out of proportion and you don't remember the actual
fact that actually happened. This is how it actually happened.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
When Donielle woke up on a family vacation to find
her husband missing. He said he was picking up something
for work at a Walmart in the middle of the night.
She didn't quite buy the story, but she knew Chad
was busier than ever growing his financial advising firm. Around
the same time, he decided to start making passive income
(22:55):
by buying rental properties in town. It started with one
small house too, then an apartment building in their hometown.
He was so busy that he often worked from home
at nights. He renovated their basement to become his home office.
He even put in a king sized bed.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
I didn't understand why you would need a bed in
your office, but he insisted on having it, and his
reasons were that if he needed a nap, he could
just hop into bed and take a quick nap and
then get back to work.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
It bothered her him staying up late like this and
sleeping in his office. It also bothered her that he
locked the door. He said it was a security measure
because he had important financial documents in there.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
And in the back of my mind, I'm thinking, well,
how do you work at night? If you are a
financial advisor, you can't meet with clients at night. So
it was just very confusing to me. And I do
remember one time just crying my eyes out to him, saying,
I really want you to sleep with me. You know,
at night, I just feel closer to when we're sleeping together.
I feel like we're more like roommates.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
He started coming to bed with her until she fell asleep,
then he would slip out and go back to work.
She would only realize it when she woke up and
found him gone.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
One night, I actually got up out of bed and
was knocking on his basement door, and I heard no answer,
And so I actually got in the car and was
driving around and thinking maybe I would see his car somewhere.
I never did, but I got to that point where
I was like starting to look to see if I
could find anything.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
She never found any proof that her husband was cheating
or having an affair. She didn't have the energy to
start a fight with him. He insisted on sleeping in
the basement. Eventually, she became resigned to the fact she
couldn't change his mind.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
At that point in our marriage, I felt very distant
from him. I felt like there was a wall up
and we never would discuss anything. If I ever wanted
to talk about anything, it was always I'm too tired,
or can we talk about this tomorrow, or let's talk
about this this weekend. But nothing ever got talked about.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
In this period where Chad was sleeping in the basement
office and they were bickering, Danielle knew that their marriage
needed to improve, so she saw it help for herself.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
I actually went and saw a counselor a couple times
on my own because I felt like me having these
issues with our marriage was kind of my fault. I
felt like there was something wrong with me not feeling
close to him. But I wanted our marriage to be
a really good marriage, and I didn't feel that it
was a good marriage.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
She even suggested they try counseling again as a couple,
but this time Chad resisted.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
He refused to go to more than one or two
sessions with me. He felt like it was useless or
he didn't want to tell somebody else our problems.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
With each passing month, Chad spent more and more time
out of the house, renovating the rental properties, and some
nights tenants would call with emergencies.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
There would be nights where he would say, Oh, I
got to go there's a sewage leak. I have to
go really quick and fix the sewage leak.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
Despite their rocky few years, she still trusted him. She
had to.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
You can't have a marriage without trust. It doesn't work.
You know, if one of the partners say I'm going
to go do this outside the home, you have to
trust that they're actually doing what they're saying they're doing.
Like if I say I'm going to go shopping, he
has to trust that I'm actually shopping. If he says
I'm going to go to, you know, fix the sewage
(26:47):
system in his apartments, I have to trust that he's
actually doing that. Otherwise there's no relationships.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
Plus, the rental properties added financial security to their lives.
She believed that, but at the end of the day,
he was working so hard in order to provide for
the family. She often overheard him practicing conversations he needed
to have for work.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
He had this weird quirk where if he was going
to have a conversation with somebody, he would write down
the conversation that he was going to have and then
memorize it, and then I would often see him like
pacing and doing weird things with his hands and with
his mouth. I think he was like rehearsing in his
mind how the conversation would go and what he would
(27:31):
say in response to their responses.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
There was one big meeting in particular Chad was preparing for.
It was with an older couple that went to their church,
a couple that taught Sunday school. They had known Chad
for nearly his whole life, and they were wealthy. Chad
set up a meeting with them to pitch his financial
advising services.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
He was trying really hard to get them to be
one of his clients.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
In the end, they decided not to use him. He
was dejected. He'd been counting on their business. After that
meeting didn't go as planned, he started talking about selling
his financial advising business and instead getting into the storage industry.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
There's a little plot of land that would be perfect
for storage units. So he had said that, you know,
we're going to buy this land over here and I'm
going to start building storage units, and so we need
to set up this LLC.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
He wanted Danielle to sign paperwork to help set up
the business.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
If we have he as a president, then it's better
for taxes because you're a woman.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
He asked her to go to the bank with him
that day to get it set up, and there, out
in public, she noticed that her husband looked disheveled.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
He was not bathed, he didn't shave. I was surprised
that he went to the bank in the state that
he was in. I just thought, well, he must be
so tired. He's trying to sell his financial business, and
he's trying to get these storage units ready, and he's,
you know, he's not getting much sleep, so he just
(29:07):
must be really stressed out.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
Later that day, one of Donille's kids came to her.
He said that last night he'd seen something strange in
the driveway of their house.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
One of my children said that he got up and
saw his dad dressed all in black, and he said
that it seemed like Chad was mad at him because
he yelled at him to go back to bed.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
This was alarming because another one of her kids had
confessed something bizarre.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
The night before that he had actually told my oldest
child to wrap a sledgehammer that we had that had
a really bright yellow handle in black electric tape and
find a black raincoat for him, and she was like, okay, Dad.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Immediately she tried to get in touch with Chad, but
he wasn't answering his phone. After they went to the bank,
he'd left the house to work on a rental property.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
There were several rental places that he owned that he
was either renovating or was currently renting. I texted him
asking if he could call me as soon as possible.
I was starting to feel like, Okay, what's going on.
I hope he's okay. I hope he's not in an accident.
He called shortly after and explained that he had accidentally
(30:26):
fallen asleep at the rental and that he was still
feeling a little disoriented, but reassured me that he was fine.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
If it sounds like Danielle is reading off of a
piece of paper, it's because she is. She's reading from
a written statement documenting this day.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
Nothing is as it seems, absolutely nothing. This is my
living nightmare and what I can remember that has happened
in the last few days. At four to twenty two pm,
I texted him asking if he was okay. Response. I
texted again at five six pm and his response was
yep you. I told him I was just wondering what happened,
(31:09):
and he texted what do you mean? And then around
five point thirty he called and said he was sorry
he didn't see my text and that he must have
been in the basement and hadn't gotten it right away.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
That night, Chad didn't come home for dinner. At the time,
she assumed he'd fallen asleep at the rental property again,
but she couldn't leave her six small children to go
check on him, so around eleven PM, after putting the
kids to bed, she went to sleep herself.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
Next thing I heard was banging and breaking glass and
then yelling state police, state police, hands in the air.
I came out in my bedroom with no glasses on,
hands in the air, wondering if they were actually police
because I can't see very if I can only see
about a foot in front of me without being blurry.
(31:58):
In my mind, I was thinking, well, either I'm being
robbed and they're posing as state police, or something's happening
and I have no idea why there's state police in
my house with a gun pointed at me.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
It was becoming very clear, very quickly this was actually
the State police and the FBI. There wasn't a mistake.
They were looking for Chad, and they were incredibly serious.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
They asked if anyone else was in the house, and
I said, yes, just me and the kids, assuming Chad
was at the rental. My whole mouth got super dry.
I could not hardly even talk. I asked them if
I could go back into the bedroom to get some
water because I kept water by my bed, and they're like, no,
you can't go anywhere. You have to stay right here.
(32:46):
I wasn't even allowed to wake up my kids. They
actually went and woke up all of my kids. They
were asking if there was hiding places in the house,
and it threw me for a loop because I'm like,
I mean, my kids hide in rental places when I
play Hide and seek.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
Then the police asked her about the elderly couple that
went to their church, the ones Chad wanted as clients.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Why are you asking me questions about them? And where
is my husband?
Speaker 1 (33:29):
Danielle Oliver Chauve woke up in the middle of the
night on February eighth, twenty seventeen, to find her house
swarmed with police and FBI agents.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
Something's happening and I have no idea why there's state
police in my house with a gunpoint at me. So
I think at that point they were suspecting me.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
They thought I was involved, but a suspect in what
Danielle would soon find out. Chan Skipper, her husband of
nearly twenty years and the father of their six children,
had I didn't come home that night. He said he'd
been renovating one of their rental properties. The police were
screaming questions at her about where Chad was, asking if
(34:09):
she had any hiding places in the house, and most
confusing of all, the police were asking about an elderly
couple who taught Sunday school at their church.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Why are you asking me questions about them? And where
is my husband?
Speaker 1 (34:23):
The police wouldn't give her any information about what was
happening or why they were at her house, but it
was clear that whatever it was, it was urgent. The
police took her in and began a long interrogation.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
I went into the interrogation room and they started asking
me questions. They asked me about this couple, and I
was thinking, that's a weird question, out of the blue.
Why would you ask me specifically about these people? Yeah,
we know them for sure, We've known them for a
long time.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
They were also asking questions about the family's finances, questions
Donielle just didn't have the answers to.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
I shaking. I was just so confused, like why are
you asking me this? All I was worried about was
his safety, like if he was still alive. It didn't
even dawn on me that it could be what it was.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
After hours of interrogation, the police let Danielle go. She
went to a friend's house where her kids were waiting
for her. She repeatedly tried to get in touch with
Chad without any reply. Then first thing the next morning,
her phone rang. It was Chad's father.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
He asked me, do you know where Chad is? And
I said, no, do you I said, I don't know anything.
If you know anything, just tell me what's going on,
because I need to know what's wrong with my husband
and where he is. And his dad just said there
was a rumor going around that this couple has been kidnapped,
(35:53):
and the rumor is also that Chad did it. My
brain was not registering. It was like, wait, what, No,
that's impossible. This is Chad. We're talking about that rumor's wrong,
and I was thinking, there's just no way that it's
actually my husband. I know my husband would never do
(36:16):
anything like this. That's not who he is.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
Unbeknownst to anyone, that couple from their church had been
missing for three days. We're not saying their names because
Donielle wants to respect their privacy. Before this, they were friends,
and Donnille believes that their story is their families to tell,
just like her story is hers to tell. So for
this episode, she's going to call them his victims.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
I had known them since I had met Chad. He
had known them since the time he was born because
they were part of his church. They were our Sunday
school teachers. We would often go over to their house
and some we would have like a pool party. Sometimes
it would be a Bible study. So we knew them
really well. They were amazing people.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
The day before police raided Danielle's house, a woman had
walked into a bank and asked for a cashier's check
for three hundred and fifty thousand dollars from her own
savings account. Before the teller cut the check, the woman
slipped her note she was being held for ransom. Her
captor was waiting down the block with her husband in
(37:27):
the trunk. If she didn't return to the car with
the check, her kidnapper said he would kill her husband.
She needed to walk out of that bank check in hand,
so they gave it to her and let her go,
and as soon as she walked out of the door,
the teller called the police. That call initiated a state
wide search for the kidnapped couple and their captor. Immediately,
(37:52):
it became the top story on the local news.
Speaker 3 (37:56):
It all started just before five pm on Wednesday, when
the Sheriff's office received a call from First Trust in
Savings Bank in Albany.
Speaker 4 (38:03):
The investigators are working with the FBI, state Police, and
local agencies. It's a case, they say, that will shock
this community.
Speaker 1 (38:14):
The morning after the raid, Danielle was still in the
dark about what was happening. She was reeling and desperately
trying to get in touch with her husband. She didn't
want to believe the wild theory that Chad could have
kidnapped this elderly couple. That was until she saw his
picture on the news.
Speaker 2 (38:34):
My whole world duck flipped upside down at that moment
when I saw his picture in the police update and
what he had.
Speaker 5 (38:43):
Done developing story in Whiteside County.
Speaker 4 (38:46):
Investigators say they've never seen anything quite like The.
Speaker 1 (38:50):
Man accused of kidnapping a couple at gunpoint from Erie,
Illinois is facing four felony charges in connection to the kidnapping.
Speaker 5 (38:58):
Chad Skipper handcuffed the couple to their b and threatened
to shoot them with his gun if they didn't pay
him three hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
At that point, all I knew was that he abducted somebody.
And that's where I just broke down and started crying
my eyes out and fell to the floor and.
Speaker 5 (39:15):
Was just.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
Didn't know what to do.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
In that moment, she understood why the police woke her
up in the middle of the night.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
When the police knocked out my door asking if I
had any hiding areas in the house, I'm sure they
were looking for the people that he abducted. They were
wanting to know if there was a place in that
house where they could be hidden. As far as they know,
I know where the kidnap victims are because I'm his wife.
(39:49):
I mean most people would assume that the wife would know,
but I had no clue.
Speaker 1 (39:55):
Over the following days and weeks, Danielle discovered the full
extent of her hu spins horrifying crimes.
Speaker 2 (40:02):
This is what she learned a couple days before the
police knocked down my door. He must have gone to
their home. I think that's what the sledgehammer was for.
To break into their home. He had my daughter duct
tape it with black duct tape so that the yellow
handle wouldn't be seen in the dark. I heard that
(40:23):
he had a voice changer and that he was all
dressed in black. And I also heard that he broke
into their home and sat in their kitchen for several
hours before going upstairs to wake them.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
He just sat in their kitchen for hours in the
middle of the night before he finally entered the bedroom
where the elderly couple was sleeping.
Speaker 2 (40:47):
He tazed the guy and threatened his wife and then
said where is your God now and took them from
their home forcibly. They didn't even have a chance to
get their clothes on. And I know that he had
told them that it wasn't just him, like he threatened them,
(41:10):
that it was like a group of people who were
doing this.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
After the police showed up, at the bank. They called
in the FBI, who traced the cashier's check and found
the couple's names in address. When they searched their home,
they discovered signs of forced entry, evidence of a deployed taser,
and small drops of blood in the bedroom, but the
house was eerily quiet. No one was home. In fact,
(41:37):
by the time the police were alerted, no one had
heard from the couple in three days.
Speaker 2 (41:43):
He had her call around and tell a false story
about them deciding to go on vacation. I think he
even took their car to the airport.
Speaker 1 (41:52):
While Chad was committing this elaborate crime, Danielle was at
home taking care of their kids, going about her business
just as usual, completely unaware that her husband had violently
kidnapped their family friends and was holding them for ransom.
But where was Chad and where was he holding the couple?
(42:13):
Donielle had no idea. When the police were finally alerted,
they knew time was of the essence. They relied on
the FBI and state police to use all resources possible
to find the missing couple. Ransom kidnapping cases like this
often end in tragedy, especially considering the money was already exchanged.
(42:35):
They were running out of time. With each passing hour,
the search grew increasingly urgent. Then the FBI got a
tip about a car matching the description of the one
scene leaving the bank with the kidnap victims, a silver
nineteen ninety Chevy Caprice. But Donielle didn't know anything about
a Chevy Caprice, so maybe they had the wrong guy.
(43:00):
The police tracked the car down, but when they went
to pull it over, the driver sped up. It was
all over the local news.
Speaker 3 (43:10):
Around four thirty am, the car crashed here outside Port Byron.
Speaker 5 (43:14):
We've tried to effect a stop on that vehicle and
they took off ed had rate of speed.
Speaker 1 (43:19):
The police approached the crash vehicle and found that the
driver was indeed Chad Skipper. He was injured but alive
and arrested on the spot in connection with the kidnapping.
Law enforcement was hoping to find the victims with Chad
alive in the trunk of his car, but no one
else was with him. Instead, the police found clear plastic painters, tarps,
(43:43):
a saw, duct tape, and a shovel. Now that Chad
was arrested, the only priority was finding the missing couple.
There were still a few places the police hadn't searched
Chad's rental properties. After he was arrested, Chad gave police
the address where he said the couple was being held.
Speaker 2 (44:07):
When he was arrested. I thought that house was still rented,
like I thought people were in the house renting it
from us.
Speaker 1 (44:15):
When police showed up, it looked like a construction zone.
The surfaces were covered in sawdust and power tools. The
doors were taken off their hinges, and there was a
ladder in the middle of the living room. But it
also looked like someone had been squatting there. There was
trash everywhere, plates of half eaten food, Electronic wires and
(44:36):
cables dangled from the outlets. Police searched every room, but
no one seemed to be in the house. Then they
double checked the bedroom, where they took a closer look
at a computer monitor laying on the floor. It appeared
to show a surveillance feed six live feed images of
a windowless room where two figures were lying on a
(44:58):
mattress covered by blankets. On the wall next to them
were hooks and shackles. There was a secret room somewhere
in this house, and Chad's victims were in there. The
(45:28):
night of Chad's arrest, police began searching one of his
rental properties for a secret room, a dungeon where he
was holding two people captive. From what they could see
on the surveillance feed, it was a windowless room somewhere
in the house. The couple was lying motionless on a mattress.
It wasn't clear if they were alive, but then one
(45:51):
of the FBI agents moved a dresser in the closet
and lifted up a piece of carpeting to reveal a
locked steel hatch.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
And the only entry and exit to that dungeon room
was through a steel trap door with a lock on
the outside in a closet hidden under the dresser or something.
He walled it off with cement blocks and soundproofing. You
would only know it was there if you knew it
was there.
Speaker 1 (46:20):
Police used boltcutters to open the door. They found an
eight foot drop into a dark, windowless room, and they
went in. That's where they discovered the couple, miraculously still alive.
They had been tortured and chained. Chad said he had
people watching their kids and grandkids, so if they tried
(46:42):
to escape or get help. He would kill them.
Speaker 2 (46:47):
They were in that dungeon for a couple of days.
I can't even imagine thinking that you're going to die,
thinking that your children are going to die, looked up
on this thing, your hands up in the air for
so many hours that you're basically shaking and can't even stand,
(47:09):
and having their kids and grandkids threatened.
Speaker 1 (47:13):
Once he got the money, he was planning to kill them.
Speaker 2 (47:16):
I mean, what's he going to do? Go, oh, I'm
going to let you go now, forgive me, Everything's fine.
How else could it end?
Speaker 1 (47:25):
And judging by the contents of his car, it seemed
like he meant it. This what if still haunts Donielle.
Chad was charged with felony, home invasion, aggravated kidnapping, an
unlawful restraint. His bail was set at a million dollars overnight.
(47:46):
Danielle had to reckon with the fact that her husband
of nearly two decades and the father of her children
was capable of a violent crime. In addition to processing
that shock, she didn't understand why was it all for
the money.
Speaker 2 (48:02):
I didn't know that we were having financial trouble. I'm
a penny pincher, so I don't know where all the
money was going, and I don't know why he needed that.
Speaker 1 (48:12):
To answer that question, Danielle started looking through Chad's basement office. There,
she made a series of shocking discoveries. First, why he
targeted the people he did.
Speaker 2 (48:25):
He had gotten a hold of their finances and knew
how much they had in the bank because he had
asked them to be clients of his for his fake
financial business.
Speaker 1 (48:40):
His fake financial business. She also found out that he
was never actually a certified financial advisor or planner, so
what did he do for a living? From what she
gathered in his office, he charmed elderly people into letting
him be their financial advisor, where he would skim from
their accounts for years. In fact, after he was arrested,
(49:03):
his own parents sued him for stealing over four hundred
thousand dollars while he claimed to serve as their financial advisor.
But not only did he steal from his own parents,
he also stole from his grandmother.
Speaker 2 (49:19):
It was around that same amount, something like three hundred thousand.
Maybe he felt like he needed to steal that from
his victims in order to repay the money that he
had stolen from his grandma.
Speaker 1 (49:34):
He never confessed to this, but it added up for Danielle.
What never made sense, though, was the construction of the dungeon.
Speaker 2 (49:41):
I found the plans and bills from it in his office.
Speaker 1 (49:45):
Chad had been hiring a contractor to build the dungeon
piece by piece over the past two years.
Speaker 2 (49:53):
I can't even imagine how much that cost it had
it been thousands upon thousands, and I don't think the
person did it ever got paid.
Speaker 1 (50:01):
Honestly, the shocking fact that he built a dungeon to
hold the kidnapping victims kept the story in the headlines
for months.
Speaker 5 (50:10):
Internews ad exclusive Tonight investigative reporter Chris Miner shows us
a photo of that actual room where it's believed the
couple was held against their will.
Speaker 1 (50:21):
Danielle never slept another night in the big house that
she and Chad had shared with their kids.
Speaker 2 (50:27):
I did not want the kids to be back in
the house, knowing that he had done that, knowing that
he was capable of kidnapping people that he's known for
his whole life. I didn't want them back into that house,
and I didn't want to live in that house anymore.
Speaker 1 (50:45):
She and her kids moved into her parents' home while
she got her bearings. For the first few months after
Chad's arrest, Donnielle's dad would accompany her to the old
house to continue excavating Chad's office. The police had already
collected the other they needed, and she was left to
clean up the rest.
Speaker 2 (51:03):
Every day that we went into his office, there was
another thing. Oh he lied about this next day. Oh,
you lied about that too. I remember at one point
we were both looking at each other on our way
to the house, thinking, I wonder what else we're going
to find in his office today? What else could there be?
Speaker 1 (51:23):
There was insurance fraud.
Speaker 2 (51:25):
One of the things we found in his office was
that he actually claimed that my wedding ring was lost
and took insurance out for it. So even our wedding
ring he lied about.
Speaker 1 (51:38):
There was credit card fraud.
Speaker 2 (51:40):
He had fraudulently signed credit cards in his dad's name.
He'd gotten credit cards in my name, he had forged
my name.
Speaker 1 (51:49):
She also found lies about herself, stories she'd never heard before.
Speaker 2 (51:57):
We found several papers that had conversations written down on
them that had lies about me, as far as like
I had to go have a brain surgery in Minnesota,
or somewhere. It just you know, lies like that in
order to gain control or gain sympathy from the people
that he was talking to. There were just like conversations
(52:20):
written down on a piece of paper. Some of them
were to credit card companies because it was with credit
card stuff. Some of it was two different potential clients
that he was going to have.
Speaker 1 (52:32):
And some things she discovered were just suspicious.
Speaker 2 (52:37):
Hiking boots that he never wore, a wet suit that
was still wet and had a little bit of dirt
on the cuff. And it's like he didn't never go
scuba diving, so why does he have a wet suit?
And where would he have used the wetsuit in the
Mississippi River. You know, just strange things that we never
(53:01):
found an answer to.
Speaker 1 (53:04):
One of the most haunting things she found in his
office was a set of life insurance policies on everyone
in their family, policies she never knew existed.
Speaker 2 (53:16):
He had life insurance policies out on me and the kids.
I think mine was a million, and I think my
kids were a quarter of a million each. It messes
with your mind really hard. I never felt like I
was threatened or my kids were threatened for our lives.
It was only after his arrest and when we started
going through the stuff in his office that I was like, WHOA.
(53:38):
If I had confronted him about any of this stuff,
if I had known about it, I don't think I
would be here.
Speaker 1 (53:46):
Donielle didn't want his explanations. She cooperated with the police
and prosecutors and gave them any evidence they needed.
Speaker 2 (53:54):
One of the things that the police told me is
that in all of their cases, they said they have
never come across a case that was so kind of ride.
With the amount of evidence for this guy, I was like, wow,
And he thought he was so smart.
Speaker 1 (54:09):
She sent him one letter in jail where she said
she would be praying for him but needed to cut
off communication. After that, she filed for divorce, but letters
from Chad never stopped coming. Every few weeks there'd be
that distinctive envelope in their mailbox.
Speaker 2 (54:28):
Every time I got a letter from him, my whole
body would just shake. I would get sweaty, palms, hard
to breathe. But as soon as I saw that envelope,
I'm like, not another one.
Speaker 1 (54:39):
She never replied, hoping his letters would finally stop coming.
But one day she got a letter that was different
from the others.
Speaker 2 (54:48):
On the outside of the envelope, it was not addressed
as him. It was addressed as Eloisa May. And that
threw me because I'm like, well, this is definitely a
letter from that jail. Elouisa May is kind of weird.
I don't know in Elouis May, and there was no
liked return address. It was just the name. And so
(55:08):
when I opened it and it wasn't in his writing either,
I was thinking, Okay, that's weird too, there's something off.
The whole letter is written in this weird Southern accent.
I felt like I was reading Huckleberry Finn.
Speaker 1 (55:24):
This is how the letter began.
Speaker 2 (55:26):
How do you there, missye? My name is Eloisa May.
You don't know me, honey child, but maybe we can
remedy that with this here letter.
Speaker 1 (55:50):
While Chad sat in jail, Danielle was trying to rebuild
her life. That's when she began to get strange letters
in the mail. The return address just said the name
Eloisa May. This is what the letters were about.
Speaker 2 (56:03):
If this fake character who supposedly lives I think in
Arkansas or something. But she moved to Illinois because her
daughter is in Illinois. She had a stroke, and so
now she's in the hospital and she came across my
story and she starts telling me how her husband was
(56:24):
an alcoholic and at one point he physically abused her,
and so she left him and went to live with
his parents.
Speaker 1 (56:32):
Finally, Chad or Eloise a May got to the point she.
Speaker 2 (56:37):
Ended up deciding to get a divorce because you know,
she didn't want to do with his abusive, addictive issues.
He ended up killing himself, and because of her decision
to get a divorce, her daughter and son are having
issues in their lives and they take the blame for
him dying. I felt like it was a threat. If
(56:58):
you divorce me, I'm going to kill my and your
kids are gonna feel like it was their fault. That's
the feeling I got from the letter.
Speaker 1 (57:08):
The letters were four five six pages long, written in
a tiny, neat handwriting that didn't look like Chad's at all.
She assumed that either he was disguising his handwriting or
got someone in the jail to write it for him
while he dictated. Either way, the character Chad was putting
on was so transparently manipulative.
Speaker 2 (57:28):
He didn't directly say how can you divorce me? But
through the character of Eloisa, May was basically saying that.
Speaker 1 (57:36):
She suspects that he made the character Southern to try
to pull on Danielle's heartstrings because her grandmother was from
the South.
Speaker 2 (57:44):
A little bit later, he goes, I feel the Good
Lord telling me to do something, and I got a
little eager. Danielle sugar and May, I declare Darlin, that
is one of the most beautiful and unique names I've
ever heard. Something we have in common, sweetie.
Speaker 1 (58:01):
Chad also used his extensive knowledge of the Bible to
try and make Danielle question her decisions.
Speaker 2 (58:07):
He basically has a sermon in there and quotes Bible
passages about God hates divorce and gives me examples of
different characters in the Bible who wanted to get a
divorce but didn't because it's not the right thing to do.
Speaker 1 (58:23):
The Eloise and May letters almost amused her, but they
also felt like an insult. Did he really think she
would fall for this?
Speaker 2 (58:31):
I think he had a very very low opinion of me,
art still does. I struggle with that with my marriage too,
because he treated me like a child.
Speaker 1 (58:46):
She kept the aloeis in May letters to remind herself
of just how delusional and scheming Chad really was. A
year after his arrest, Chad pled guilty, but before he
faced a sentencing hearing for the kid napping, they had
their divorce trial.
Speaker 2 (59:03):
He actually did not have a lawyer to do those proceedings.
He was pro se and so he questioned me on
the stand, which was really really nerve wreaking.
Speaker 1 (59:17):
Danielle was awarded full custody, and shortly after she attended
her ex husband's sentencing hearing. It started with the victim's statements.
Speaker 2 (59:26):
There were no dry eyes in that courtroom. There are
amazing people.
Speaker 1 (59:33):
The judge was done by Chad's crime, especially the premeditation
that had gone into building the dungeon and the torture
the victims injured.
Speaker 2 (59:42):
From what the judge said when he sentenced him, he
wanted people to know this is not acceptable in society.
It's heinous. You can't just do that type of a
crime and get away with it.
Speaker 1 (59:57):
The judge gave Chad the maximum sentence possible.
Speaker 3 (01:00:01):
Today Chad Skipper, in a packed courtroom, listened as he
awaited his jail sentence sixty years the rest of his
life in prison.
Speaker 2 (01:00:09):
I was thinking he was only going to get twenty years,
and so when it was sixty, I was surprised.
Speaker 1 (01:00:16):
Surprised, but grateful. She sees how dangerous Chad is and
doesn't want him anywhere near her or their children ever again.
She says she forgives him, but forgiveness can include boundaries.
Speaker 2 (01:00:32):
I have a big, big problem with some of the
ways that Christian pastors portray forgiveness that every marriage, one
hundred percent of marriages can be resolved. And I was like,
that is very very untrue and very very dangerous to say.
(01:00:57):
If there's an abuse happening, that's not true.
Speaker 1 (01:01:02):
Danielle decided to stay in that small town of Eerie, Illinois.
Chad's victims still live there too, and Donielle has seen
them around town.
Speaker 2 (01:01:11):
I have seen them, Yeah, I've seen them seeing their kids.
You know. I smile at them when they see me.
I don't know if they recognize me or not. I
don't know if they see me when I see them.
I really don't know.
Speaker 1 (01:01:26):
She's even thought about reaching out to apologize for the
pain her husband caused and to grieve with them.
Speaker 2 (01:01:32):
I would love to talk to them directly. I haven't
because when I was speaking with my lawyer and also
the police even said something about don't reach out, and
so've I just kind of like took a step back.
I don't even know what their thoughts are towards me,
if they feel like I was part of it, or
(01:01:53):
if they know that I had no idea what was
going on. One of the reasons why I haven't reached
out because I really don't want to cause them more pain.
Speaker 1 (01:02:03):
Some people in their community just didn't believe that Danielle
was in the dark about her husband's double life.
Speaker 2 (01:02:10):
When you first was arrested, there were some posts on
Facebook about it. People were saying, oh, she knew, and
all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1 (01:02:18):
Around town. She's noticed that people don't smile and wave
as much as they used to.
Speaker 2 (01:02:23):
I haven't had anybody approach me and accuse me of anything.
It's just, you know, when you're walking around in a
small town sometimes you get looks, just kind of a
weird side look, like I know who you are, don't
look at me, don't interact with me.
Speaker 1 (01:02:40):
She's had to reckon with blaming herself for not knowing
who her husband actually was and what he was really doing.
All those nights he claimed to be in the basement working.
Speaker 2 (01:02:52):
I couldn't have known. He didn't show that part of
himself to me. All I know is the life that
he had with me and our kids. That's all I saw.
He was able to do everything else completely separate. I
can't blame myself for something that he did without me knowing.
Speaker 1 (01:03:14):
As part of her healing process, she's learned about people
like Chad and the tactics they use, tactics that felt
very familiar.
Speaker 2 (01:03:23):
When I was doing my studies of narciss to behavior.
One of the things that really spoke to me was
a thing called word salad, and I totally was like, Yep,
that's exactly what it was, just words that twist. Anything
that I said, he would twist it around and jumbled
it up like a salad and then shoot it back
at me. And my mind would just be like, I
don't even know what's going on.
Speaker 1 (01:03:45):
These kinds of things helped her understand how he had
subtly manipulated her for so long, but that didn't ease
the self blame or the sense that she couldn't trust
anyone around her, or even herself.
Speaker 2 (01:03:59):
If my hun can pull the wool over my eyes
so easily, and I thought that he was an amazing person.
Does that mean that this amazing person can also pull
the wool over my eyes? Like? What are they actually
behind closed doors? Are they the person that they are
presenting to me as a loving brother, a loving friend?
(01:04:23):
But then when we are not in each other's presence,
are they somebody else? Like? Okay, this pastor seems like
he is everything that a pastor should be. But now
that I've been through what I've been through, is he
who he says he is? Or is this just his
presentation of who he says he is.
Speaker 1 (01:04:45):
For Donielle, trusting the wrong person building a life with
them left her all alone and a single parent.
Speaker 2 (01:04:52):
All the weight of the responsibility is now mine because
I know I had six kids and I had to
support them. Now.
Speaker 1 (01:05:01):
She found work as an online English tutor, and she
built a business writing and selling knitting patterns.
Speaker 2 (01:05:09):
My business is called knitting nicely but then nicely, spoke
with a Cayen. I'm really proud that I have a
business that I absolutely love and enjoy.
Speaker 1 (01:05:21):
After her divorce, she decided that she was done with
romantic relationships.
Speaker 2 (01:05:27):
My whole view of the loving caring relationship of marriage
got trashed. Even when I would see couples in church
or shopping holding hands, or I would see a post
about somebody celebrating an anniversary, it would kind of turn
my stomach. It just felt you to me because of
(01:05:47):
what I went through, you know, having trust in someone
and then having that trust completely destroyed. I didn't want
to go through what I went through again. I didn't
want to put my kids through that again. So for me,
I was like, Okay, I am going to do this
single mom thing and we're going to make it.
Speaker 1 (01:06:05):
But then, but then she saw a post on Facebook
from her high school boyfriend Billy, the one who proposed
to her thirty years ago. They'd since drifted apart and
hadn't talked in nearly a decade, but in his post,
she saw that his fiance had recently passed away, so
she reached out to lend support.
Speaker 2 (01:06:25):
We were just like being there for each other, you know.
I kind of wanted to uplift him and make him
come out of the hole that I felt like he
was about to go into, just to have somebody to
talk to, to be able to laugh with. But then
the conversations got longer, and then we ended up staying
up all night talking over Messenger, and my daughter was
(01:06:48):
starting to say, who is this that you're talking to
all this time? And I think she knew before I
knew that I was starting to fall in love again.
Speaker 1 (01:06:57):
Danielle and Billy planned a FaceTime call. They would see
each other for the first time.
Speaker 2 (01:07:02):
In years, and as soon as I saw his smiling face,
I knew that was that was it. I was going
to pursue that relationship for sure. The trust issue was
not even an issue in the situation because I had
known him from when I was a teenager. There wasn't
(01:07:23):
that is he really who he says he is? Question?
Speaker 1 (01:07:27):
So they started dating again.
Speaker 2 (01:07:29):
Both of us were like, this is weird. How could
this actually be happening again? Donnie and Billy two point zero.
Speaker 1 (01:07:38):
After a few months of dating again, they got married
surrounded by their families at the Thanksgiving table.
Speaker 2 (01:07:45):
So we had Thanksgiving dinner, and then between Thanksgiving dinner
and dessert is when the wedding happened. Yeah, it was
really cool. I loved it. Wouldn't have it any other way.
Speaker 1 (01:07:55):
We end all of our weekly episodes with the same question,
why did you want to tell you story.
Speaker 2 (01:08:01):
Knowing that you're not alone is so helpful. That's huge
for people who've gone through stuff like that. That was
one of the main things that helped me. Knowing that
people have actually survived it and are happy again, that
was really huge. My main reason for wanting to tell
(01:08:22):
my story is to give people hope that even though
you may feel like your world is upside down and
it can never become upside up again, there is a
light at the tunnel, maybe really tiny and small, might
be a little tiny speck, but there is a light.
Speaker 1 (01:08:47):
If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal
team or want to tell us your Betrayal story, email
us at Betrayal pod at gmail dot com. That's Betrayal
pod at gmail dot com. We're grateful for your support.
One way to show support is by subscribing to our
show on Apple Podcasts and don't forget to rate and
review Betrayal. Five star reviews go a long way. A
(01:09:09):
big thank you to all of our listeners. Betrayal is
a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment
Group and partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is executive
produced by Nancy Glass and Jennifer Fason. Hosted and produced
by me Andrea Gunning, written and produced by Monique Leboard,
also produced by Ben Fetterman. Associate producers are Kristin Mercury
(01:09:32):
and Caitlin Golden. Our iHeart team is Ali Perry and
Jessica Krinchech. Audio editing and mixing by Matts Delvecchio, additional
editing support from Nico Aruka. Betrayal's theme composed by Oliver Bains.
Music library provided by Mob Music and For more podcasts
from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
(01:09:55):
you get your podcasts,