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- [00:00]
Ashley I
This is Ashley I from the Ben and Ashley I Almost Famous podcast. If you could lose 10.4 pounds in one month, would you try? Well with Future Health? You can find out if weight loss meds are right for you in just 3 minutes at trifh.com that is try fh.com try fh.com results may vary based on start weight and adherence to diet, exercise and program goals. Database on Independent studies sponsored by Future Health. Future Health is not a health care services provider. Meds are prescribed at provider's discretion.
- [00:32]
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- [01:00]
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- [01:32]
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- [02:02]
Andrea Gunning
Hi, it's Andrea Gunning. Last week we shared Andrea Dunlop's story. On this week's episode, Andrea and I sit down for a conversation about true crime podcasting. We get into what this work means for us and how we approach these stories. We hope you enjoy it. Andrea, thank you so much for joining me. I'm a listener and also a huge fan of Nobody Should Believe Me, which is your show. And you know we just shared your story on Betrayal Weekly and I'm just so glad our two shows are collaborating because I think that Munchausen by Proxy, which is what you cover in your show, shares a lot in common with Betrayal. Earlier, we were joking that this conversation is kind of like the Andrea Andrea True Crime Summit, but that's really what it feels like. So I'm hoping we can really compare notes about what it's like working in this space.
- [03:12]
Andrea Dunlop
Yeah, I'd love to start off with just your background. How did you get into being a true crime podcaster?
- [03:19]
Andrea Gunning
You know, I often joke that I'm a recovering TV executive, and so I hail from the TV space, but I work for a company called Glass Entertainment Group, and we specialize in reality TV and documentaries. And for about seven and a half, eight years, I was overseeing our business department. So I was the executive in charge of production. So I did all the boring things in tv, which is, like, the budget, the financing, like, all the hard stuff. And my colleague Ben and I were constantly working through legal deals with our development department, and we were seeing great stories getting passed by TV executives and networks. And one story that came across our desk, we were working with Kim Goldman, who is the sister of Ron Goldman, who was murdered by O.J. simpson. And we were trying to sell something in TV with her. But a lot of TV networks weren't interested in the project unless O.J. was involved or O.J. was attached, or we could guarantee an interview with O.J. and this was back when O.J. was still living. I think he had just gotten out of prison and was living in Vegas at the time. But my colleagues and I really believe that there was a story here, even without O.J. s voice. So we decided to make it a podcast, and instead of telling the O.J. simpson story, we told the story of people who lived it. And so that's how we got started in the podcast space.
- [04:53]
Andrea Dunlop
That's a great answer. I mean, I really see, like, that imprint for the work you've done after that, you know, and also, that just really plugs into what I think is interesting about true crime stories, which is the sort of long tail of them and the way that they impact the people who are pulled into them.
- [05:16]
Andrea Gunning
Yeah.
- [05:17]
Andrea Dunlop
So one of the things you're known for is your work on Betrayal and now Betrayal Weekly. How did you come to that story? That was the first season of Betrayal.
- [05:30]
Andrea Gunning
It's all kind of related. So Jen Faison is the subject of season one and her marriage and how the marriage unraveled. But she works in television. She's a television executive producer. So we kind of are in the same universe. And Jen had heard confronting O.J. simpson and reached out to her agent, and her agent reached out to me and my colleague Ben for an initial conversation. But the universe has an interesting way of working, because at this time, I was getting out of a relationship. I had moved out of my boyfriend's house. I had discovered a lot of deception, not to the magnitude that Jen had. And I was kind of recovering from understanding, like, why was I in this relationship? Why was I ignoring a lot of signs? Was I ignoring it? Or was it, like, per, you know, all of these questions that were coming to the surface? So it was like I was meeting Jen at the perfect time. I couldn't relate to the magnitude of what Jen was going through, but I knew, like, as it was, like. I don't even want to say as a woman, as a woman, but as a human being, I understood the pain when she pitched me her story. I understood her anger and her confusion. And I found, like, this emotional access. And I thought, if we could maybe do something with that, people will relate and maybe heal. And so just that relatability and that timing of it just so happened to work out.
- [07:05]
Andrea Dunlop
Yeah, that's amazing. And I think that that shows up in the quality of the season and just the emotional depth of it. And I'm really interested in what you said about this idea of not coming from a place of anger. This is a really complicated part of interviewing people about these stories, Right, because they have every right to be angry. You have every right to want to even go on a sort of revenge journey. But doing that on a podcast is not actually helpful to anyone. Right. It's not helpful for the listener. It's not really ethical to sort of try and get someone in that energy, even if it can be compelling in its own right. And I have the same sort of thing when I talk to folks who are often dealing with really extreme betrayals. And then on top of that, you know, the abuse to them or abuse to their children or children that they care about. And it's, I think, really important to make sure that someone is ready to have that conversation. It was important to me. You know, I. I started off with telling my own story in the first two seasons of the show, kind of bit by bit. And I sort of revisit pieces of it from time to time. But, like, I had to wait, you know, a decade until I was ready to talk about it. I was like, it's such a vulnerable thing, and it's such a vulnerable thing to put out there and then have people react to. There are so many points along this journey where getting on a mic would have been the absolute wrong choice for me.
- [08:47]
Andrea Gunning
Right.
- [08:48]
Andrea Dunlop
And I think there's also, like, the expectation setting, because if you're talking about a case where it's either an unsolved case or it's a case where there wasn't a good outcome, or it's a case where, like, the person you're talking to wants some action to be taken by authorities, that's not something that we can make happen.
- [09:09]
Andrea Gunning
Can't always guarantee.
- [09:11]
Andrea Dunlop
Right. And like, so I think that that's also like, a really tricky part of it, of making sure that who I'm talking to, like, yes, we're gonna put all this out there, and I think people are gonna care. I think people are gonna get something out of it. They're gonna learn something important. They're gonna relate with this experience. I hope you get a deep personal catharsis from sharing this. But, like, the cavalry is unlikely to mount up because unfortunately, that's just not often how it works. And this may not end with answers.
- [09:39]
Andrea Gunning
Yeah. And that was my worry, producing There and Gone, which came out this past summer in 2024. And I have to give iHeart a lot of credit because we pitched them this story and there wasn't an ending, and we couldn't guarantee that we would find or solve this case. And so you're taking a lot of risk. And then the partnerships that you make with distributors are also taking a lot of risk for. What's the payoff? You know, what's the audience going to leave thinking? Are they going to walk away feeling satisfied? And, you know, these are people. Like, we're studying and we're exploring stories of people and their loss and their trauma and their grief. And so we're not always gonna get a payoff. That makes sense to everybody. You know, I like telling stories that really show the complexity of the human experience. And I think There and Gone is an example of that.
- [10:37]
Andrea Dunlop
Yeah. Can you. Can you kind of give us a. Give us an intro to the case and how you got interested in it?
- [10:42]
Andrea Gunning
Sure. It's the story of Richard Petrone and Danielle Imbo. 20 years ago, two 30 somethings just literally vanished off of south street in Philadelphia, which is basically like the Bourbon street of Philadelphia, the busiest place for nightlife. They were seen leaving a bar and then never seen again. And then till this day, no one knows what happened. Was it an accident? Was it murder for hire? And so I remember this. Cause I was a. I think a senior in high school, and it was terrifying. Because one of the victims, his parents have a bakery that I grew up going to. And both of their families look so much like mine in different ways. They do Sunday dinner. I come from an Italian family. We do Sunday dinner. You know, they gamble on Sunday over football bets. Like, I'm wearing my Eagles jersey. Like, it.
- [11:35]
Andrea Dunlop
It.
- [11:35]
Andrea Gunning
This feels like this could be my own cousin this happened to. So it was very personal to me. And so it was just this loss that kind of reverberated throughout our entire community and continues. Because how do two people in their mid-30s just vanish, just literally into thin air? And when we were exploring doing the story, I thought the families would be very interested, but we would struggle with law enforcement. But then I soon realized that the FBI really needed our help, because the FBI knows that the more coverage they can get of this case, more people will be able to, like, call in and feel like, let me just do my part. Let me. 20 years later, I'm just gonna do it. I'm just gonna make the phone call, I'm gonna say what I know and be done with it. And I live in this city, and there are parts of this city where this crime isn't a big question mark. There are parts of this city and neighborhoods in this city where people know exactly what happened or they feel like it's a fact. They communicate it like it's a fact. I know who did it. I know why it's done. Isn't that crazy?
- [12:50]
Andrea Dunlop
Yeah.
- [12:51]
Andrea Gunning
Like, how a whole neighborhood in one city, there's, like, this understood rumor of what happened to two random people that have no connection, and that was the neighborhood in which I lived. So to me, it was like, I just want to help these families. You know, we didn't solve the crime yet, but there was enough people that actually wrote into the FBI for them to reopen and assign new agents. So I feel like I did my job.
- [13:19]
Andrea Dunlop
Hell, yeah. I mean, that's amazing. And I think this is one of the most interesting parts of working in the true crime sphere and why it's so important to, like, take this job seriously and be really responsible is because it does have real world impacts. And, yeah, I mean, this question of law enforcement, it's like. So I. The case that I'm working on right now for our next season is one that I am hoping that some action will happen on. How realistic that is, who knows? But I do think that it is and can be a powerful tool to getting law enforcement involved. And that can be the kind of thing where you get, you know, Political will for a local prosecutor to actually file charges on something where they might not otherwise. Yeah, you can, you know, get people who are making those decisions at the police department to assign some extra muscle to it. You can, you know, flush out some new information from the community.
- [14:18]
Andrea Gunning
Well, the first thing that. Just to interject, I think one of the biggest things that I feel like we both, you know, betrayal, trauma, and deception is one thing. Your show covers factitious disorder. And although they're very different, there's so many commonalities between people who, you know, live through or have a relationship with Munchausens and Munchausens by proxy, and people who experience deception and betrayal. The topics we cover on betrayal are extreme, but sadly, they're not uncommon.
- [14:55]
Andrea Dunlop
Yeah.
- [14:56]
Andrea Gunning
And in season three, we really focus on male sexual abuse, and we learn that one in six men have experienced this issue. But the really scary reality is it actually is probably more. But it just goes unreported because of the stigma around it. And I just feel like these are two taboo issues, you know, Munchausen syndrome by proxy. And to take that seriously and talk about it to help dismantle that stigma, it's such a large hurdle.
- [15:35]
Andrea Dunlop
Yeah, no, that's a really good point. And we've definitely learned a lot from the progress that has been made around child sex abuse, which I think it still is underreported. I think most people accept that child sex abuse is real and not rare. Yeah, certainly anybody that's informed on the topic knows that. But I think that did not always used to be that way. Right. And it was seen as this, like, stranger danger type of aberration, you know, one in a million sort of thing that that happened. And then our society grappling with it sort of went through some interesting hurdles along the way. A major one being the satanic panic where you have all these stories about, you know, daycare workers and underground, you know, the McMartin case and all these, like, underground tunnels, which my take on it is that that was society grappling with something that we really, really didn't want to look at, which is child sex abuse. And that actually it was easier and more comforting to think that it was satanic daycare workers, because that's a problem that you can ostensibly solve. But I think it's more comforting to think that there's some evil system that you can kind of shut down than it is to confront the reality, which is that this is boy Scout leaders, priests, coaches, dads, uncles who are doing this. Right. It's so it's most likely to be someone that that child knows, and it's not gonna be someone who is an obvious creep all the time. And it's so similar with Munchausen. And that's where we get into kind of the hullabaloo that happened around the Maya Kowalski case with the film Take Care of Maya and a lot of the coverage that really followed in lockstep with that, where they presented it as a medical kidnapping case. Medical kidnapping is our satanic panic, essentially. It's like, you know, this idea that doctors are just separating families, right? Like, doctors don't make those decisions. Doctors evaluate abuse. It's a legitimate subspecialty. There's just so much disinformation around that. And the Maya Kowalski case was sort of the most high profile one. But I think that there's a similar dynamic going on there. And certainly with Munchausen by Proxy, it's not a one in a million thing. I think the behavior is along a spectrum, but I think it's far more common and getting worse because of social media, because of which I, I would assume actually some of the behaviors that y'all talk about on betrayal in this sort of more male deception and cheating and that kind of thing. Like you talk in the Spencer Heron case, like, social media has given people unfettered and unlimited access to attention. And, you know, I think it was Dr. Rahmani says in the TV series, like, oh, that's the dangerous combination, right? Attention seeking plus lack of empathy. I mean, that is exactly how you describe Munchausen by proxy behaviors. And so I think there's every reason to believe that it's getting worse. And that is a scary world to live in. I hate to be the one to break this to you, but, like, the. The world is not what you thought. That mom of the sick child who's raising money on GoFundMe and seems like the most heroic mother you've ever met, could be the scariest person you've ever met. And so I think that's why these conspiracy theories around medical kidnapping get traction, because the reporting on it is very thin. Child abuse professionals do not make good money. Child abuse pediatrics is a highly trained and not well paid subspecialty. They get trashed in the media, they get accused of snatching babies. I mean, it's not for the faint of heart. And also, just like that work, like doing that frontline work of rushing to the hospital to see a child that's been abused is obviously emotionally grueling work. There. There isn't any scenario where you could make it make sense that doctors just want to do that. It's a nightmare for the hospitals. The hospitals can get sued. You know, it's like there's motivation. But I think the reason those stories still take off in the media is that people's discomfort around the reality of this abuse is so, so deep.
- [19:54]
Ashley I
This is Ashley Aetti from the Ben and Ashley I Almost Famous podcast. You could have lost 10 pounds already if you already started one month ago. So are you ready to start today? Find out if weight loss meds are right for you in just 3 minutes at try fh.com try fh.com try fH.com results vary based on start weight and adherence to diet, exercise and program goals. Database on independent studies sponsored by Future Health. Future Health is not a healthcare services provider. Meds are prescribed at provider's discretion.
- [20:25]
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- [20:54]
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- [21:55]
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- [22:50]
Andrea Gunning
Something that we're constantly confronting in true crime is having to tell these hyperbolic versions of true crime stories, when in reality the more relatable and important ones are the ones that are kind of in the everyday. I remember when we were covering Ashley Lytton's case in Riverton, Utah for Betrayal Season 2, he reached out to ICAC, which is an Internet crimes against children task force that every state has. And I remember one of the task force members asked, why are you covering this case? Like, I deal with, you know, perpetrators that are 10 times worse than Jason Lynton. Why this one? And my response was, I don't want the hyperbolic version. See Sam case. You know, I want to meet people in a very average everyday story because that's actually what's happening. And so I feel like that's the same for a lot of these mothers who are, if they're on the news, it's like this monster of a mother that did this. And it's like, you know, we have to hear about the extremes instead of leaning into the reality of what's happening.
- [24:07]
Andrea Dunlop
Yeah, I mean, I became a media outlet because I was so fed up with the way that media was covering this case. Right. And it's been interesting over the last few years as I've kind of jumped first, I guess I've noticed that awareness is increasing, especially because of the Gypsy Rose Blanchard case, which was so high profile. I do think that there's more of a conversation happening than there was five years ago. But you know, there was like so much reticence to talking about it. Like, I remember when my novel came out and like, I Had written, like, an essay for it, and that got killed at the last minute. And there was just, like, a lot of, like, no, no, no, no, no. If there's not a conviction, you can't talk about it. And I was like, if we're not talking about the cases where there aren't convictions, then we're not talking about the problem.
- [24:49]
Andrea Gunning
Right.
- [24:50]
Andrea Dunlop
Like, when you get into the extremes, it allows people to put it at arm's length. That person is a monster. That person is a psychopath that, like, I would see coming, and this would never happen to me, and that's not reality. And I think that was why, for me, it was so important to talk about my own experience. Because the other thing that we do with perpetrators of crimes, especially if it's something where it just feels so, like, deeply, deeply, deeply wrong, we often say, oh, well, that person must have had a horrible childhood. That person must have been abused as a child. There must be some, like, dots I can connect. And I think that that's part of the. Let me tell myself a story about this that makes me feel safe, right? Where, like, as long as XYZ doesn't happen in my family, we won't end up with one of these perpetrators in our family. And that's just not the case. Right. I mean, my sister did not by anybody else's. You know, nobody else witnessed anything traumatic happening to her. You know, we're not raised in abusive household. Like, it's not something where, oh, there's some straight line that you can draw. And I think that's really uncomfortable for people. I think people really want to believe that something awful has to happen to a person to make them like this. And I don't think that's true. I think it is that combination of lack of empathy and need for attention that really can supercharge these behaviors totally.
- [26:21]
Andrea Gunning
I think one of the things that I also felt was really relatable, and the circumstances are so different. But just knowing your sister's story and having to go in front of the judge in family court, like, you're dealing with family court and criminal court are two separate things. And the issues that I've seen a lot of the women that I deal with on betrayal, having to navigate the criminal side. And once that's over and, you know, the father of their children are released, then they're dealing with family court, either in their divorce or child support or dealing with visitation. It is a whole other ball of wax where parents have a ton of rights, rightfully so, but they're in Situations where kids are at risk. It's a really scary system because they are two separate entities. Yeah.
- [27:23]
Andrea Dunlop
And I think that that's something that the vagaries of that, like, really is lost on people that have not had to interact with these systems. And I think people hear and a lot of this, again, when I'm talking about, like, you know, Mike Hicks and Bog's work for NBC and his whole do no Harm series, like, a lot of this is, I, I think intentionally created a confusion where it'll be like, courts said, doctors disagree. Like, courts said, you know, this and that. Right. And you're like, okay, which court? Under what circumstances? Like, give me more information. Right.
- [27:54]
Andrea Gunning
Yep.
- [27:54]
Andrea Dunlop
And everything goes to the family court first because those are less, you know, those investigations take less time than the criminal investigation. So we end up in a lot of situations where the family court gives the children back during an active criminal investigation, which just, I think sounds insane, but that happens all the time. Likewise, you know, there's this thing of like, well, doctors at this hospital said this, but other doctors disagree without ever mentioning that those other doctors are people who were hired as expert witnesses by the parent, defending themselves. Right. Important information. And like, I think people don't realize that the courts don't take the steps that you would think in the face of a criminal conviction to, like, limit that person's access to their own children. Like, for instance, you know, we just had a case that we were talking about on the show, the Jessica Jones case in Texas where she got a 60 year prison sentence and the courts did not terminate her parental rights. And so now the dad has to pay to do that. So just the onus that ends up on a protective parent in any child abuse situation, I think people have no idea what that looks like or just people don't realize how easy it is actually to get access to children again.
- [29:10]
Andrea Gunning
Yeah. In the case of Stacey Rutherford and Tyler from season three of Betrayal, I think the courts got it right. So for people that don't know, Stacey was married to a man named Justin, and he was a doctor in Reading, Pennsylvania. She had two children in a previous marriage and then met Justin and they got married. They had two kids of their own. And he was by all accounts a great husband, an incredible doctor, beloved by his community. Turns out that he was abusing Stacey's son from her first marriage, his stepson, since he was 11. And Tyler didn't disclose until he was, I want to say, 17, so a long time.
- [30:02]
Andrea Dunlop
Yeah.
- [30:03]
Andrea Gunning
And, you know, Justin also tried to hire a hitman while he was in prison to murder Tyler so that he wouldn't testify in court, which is what we cover in season three of betrayal. And what the judge did is not only did he get. He'll be basically in jail for the.
- [30:24]
Andrea Dunlop
Rest of his life.
- [30:24]
Andrea Gunning
I don't want to misquote what his sentencing was, but he isn't allowed to speak to his biological children or have any contact with the family until he's done his probation, basically, for the rest of his life. And so I remember talking to Stacey and Tyler and them feeling, like, really complicated emotions because they deeply love Justin, like, the person that they knew as a human being. Like, Tyler loved his stepdad. But then there was the monster, the abuser. They were two different people to him. And that was a scenario where the court really contemplated a lifetime of abuse and grooming and narcissistic behavior and just got it and knocked it out of the park. And I was like, heck, yeah. Like, this is a Pennsylvania. Like, I was really proud. So, yeah, like, sometimes we talk about things getting wrong. Like, that was a scenario where I think the courts got it right.
- [31:27]
Andrea Dunlop
And it's, you know, it's so complicated. And I think it kind of goes back to this question of once you have identified a person as this type of abuser, where it has so much in common. Mental by proxy with. With child sex abuse, where it is, you know, an extremely compulsive behavior. It's one of those things where, again, I think, like. And I think we can more easily recognize it in child sex abuse cases where it's like, okay, if you cross that line with a child, you're not a safe adult, period. Like, if you're capable of doing that, like, you know, whether or not you should be thrown in jail for the rest of your life or we should do something else with you is sort of a separate question. But, like, you are not a pr. That's why we put people on registries. That's why we say they can't go near schools. Like, we have no such attitude towards much as my proxy perpetrators. Yeah, there is this idea that it is like, some mental illness that people are sort of, quote, suffering from. And much like child sex abuse, there is an underlying psychiatric disorder, affectitious disorder imposed on another. It's very similar to pedophilic disorder, which is also in the dsm. Also very challenging to treat. Also very, you know, unlikely that a perpetrator will take enough accountability to be treated for it. And it doesn't reduce someone's culpability. And it's like a very complicated thing that happens when like children always want their parents. That's such a biological drive for kids. That's a survival mechanism. Even if their parent is not capable of loving them or being safe with them, like, they will always kind of have this longing. So you can have a situation where someone is separated from their parent and then they really, really, really idealize that parent and don't then protect themselves. I mean, it's really complicated. And then for survivors that have fully processed the abuse so are not going that direction of saying this didn't happen to me. Right. Fully understand, fully process the abuse. I mean, you know, we saw Joe in our fourth season really struggling with this with, with their mom of like they totally recognize what their mom did to them and they understand a lot about the dynamics and they still love that person. And I mean, I would say most of the survivors I know are either low contact or no contact. But it's really complicated to navigate that relationship. Foreign.
- [33:51]
Andrea Gunning
This is Jenny Garth from I do part two. If you could lose 10.4 pounds in one month, would you try with Future Health?
- [33:58]
Andrea Dunlop
You can.
- [33:59]
Andrea Gunning
Future Health gives millions access to affordable weight loss meds for less than three bucks a day. Find out if weight loss meds are right for you in just three minutes at try fh.com try fh.com results vary based on start weight and adherence to diet, exercise and program goals. Data based on independent study sponsored by Future Health. Future Health is not a healthcare services provider. Meds are prescribed at provider's discretion.
- [34:22]
Target Advertiser
Bring spring to your door with target circle 360. Get all you need for Easter hosting spring get togethers and more with unlimited same day Delivery through Target Circle360. From Easter Basket goodies to fresh florals, getting everything the same day is easy. Open the Target app and bring the magic of the season to your door with unlimited same day Delivery through Target Circle360. Visit Target.com or the Target app for more details. Subscription required. Same day delivery is subject to terms. Applies to orders over $35.
- [34:51]
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- [35:46]
Andrea Gunning
Good news. Your favorite Caribbean beaches are sale@cheapcaribbean.com Cheap Caribbean is your go to website for finding the best deals on all inclusive vacation packages. They're all about getting you more sand for your dollar. Check out their beach favorite sale to score $175 instant savings on bookings of four nights or more to the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Aruba and the Bahamas. Offer ends April 1st. Go to CheapCaribbean.com to start saving. We're working on a case for season four of Betrayal about this woman out of Colorado Springs. She was with her husband for 20 years. She lived like a typical American life. She thought that she was just basically living like the suburban dream. And I won't give all the details because we air in May, but things unravel and the family is torn apart and she has to look back on 20 years and basically readjust her sense of reality because he shares things, discloses things that completely alters core memories in her life where she's living and thinks one thing is happening where there's another, almost like parallel universe where he's operating and she has to hold both realities at the same time. She often says perception is my reality. And that really is true. And I remember because I had listened to your first season so long ago. I was like, let me listen to this again. Like, you know, Hope's family and then your family. I was thinking about you guys and like you having to look back like once things became clearer to you or things were coming into focus. How are you looking back on that time and how painful was it to try to merge what you thought you were experiencing and then the reality that you now learn, it's just, it feels like those memories start to hold onto you in a way that you're like, I don't even know what to do.
- [37:57]
Andrea Dunlop
Yeah, I mean, it's a really profound part of the experience. And I think when people, you know, people like to throw the word gaslighting. I know as, like, you know, it's sort of this, like, pop psychology term. But I think, like, when you really have gone through, like, gaslighting, to my mind, is like someone is systematically making you doubt your perception of reality. And, you know, it's extremely disorienting, and it's sort of its own whole thing to recover from. And certainly for me, you know, given that my sister is in my whole life growing up and is in my earliest memories, and it was a huge part of my childhood. I mean, very close in age. She's my only sibling. It really breaks your brain for a while.
- [38:38]
Andrea Gunning
Right. And now you're estranged. You guys haven't talked in over a decade.
- [38:43]
Andrea Dunlop
Yeah, this is now 14 years this has been in my life, and I've really gone through different stages of processing it. And then it was, like, very clear that, like, this, okay, this is permanent. And then I sort of started to think about it as a death. I started to think about it as there was a person that I grew up with that I loved, that I had these experiences with, and she died. I came to a new understanding of it, which is that that person that I thought I knew was probably never there, and that it was always a mask, and that the parts of her that I experienced as being loving and being connected were just a person, like, mimicking those behaviors. And that was a really painful revelation. It was much easier to think of her as a person that I loved and was there and died. But I think it was a really necessary one. So then there's the question of, like, what do you do with all those memories and the way that I frame it, and when I see other people struggling with this, what I hope people can come to eventually is a place that I think I finally arrived at after a lot of work, which is my experiences were still real. Like, I loved my sister. I had fun with her growing up. I had a happy childhood with her. You know, those memories are my memories. And at the end of the day, it was real. It was real for me. So I get to keep them.
- [40:23]
Andrea Gunning
Yeah, Like, I'm a twin. And so, you know, my relationship with my sister, next to having my own children, that's the most important relationship in my life, always will be. Like, I entered the world with her. I did every fundamental first with her I could imagine. Losing my sister or not being able to share in critical moments. It's a profound loss, that relationship with a sister.
- [40:51]
Andrea Dunlop
It is. And I think, like, I'm sure that you get so many emails and messages from people listening to the betrayal shows that, like, relate with that experience and see themselves in that. And I think there can be such. There's healing in making that content. There's healing in listening to it. Listening to the betrayal shows has helped me.
- [41:11]
Andrea Gunning
Yeah, again, it's the complexity of the human experience that's kind of like our driving force at Glass podcast and what we do with betrayal. You guys have that in your DNA too. Like, I. I've. I've heard it, and it's been evident in every season that you guys have done.
- [41:26]
Andrea Dunlop
Oh, well, I really appreciate that means a lot coming from you. And I similarly really respect what you guys do over there at gl. And I think, you know, I know how much this can mean to people as listeners. And navigating the pitfalls of how exploitative true crime can be is a huge job. Yeah, I know y'all take it seriously because I know you're behind the scenes process. And I hope that we together can set a new standard in this industry because I think it really needs to happen.
- [41:55]
Andrea Gunning
Yeah, I was giving I heart credit. I gotta give Hulu and ABC so much credit. I mean, this is like a big platform and some of these stories are really hard to tell in a time where people are, like, afraid to go there. I'm, like, really impressed. I mean, season three is tough, but they saw a landscape. I mean, this past year, the Menendez brothers were all over the place.
- [42:20]
Andrea Dunlop
I was thinking about that when you were saying you guys are tackling this. I was like, this is a really good time because we. We did like a little thing on our Patreon about that case because I was like, oh, this just feels so germane to like, especially talking about, you know, because obviously the Gypsy Rose Blanchard case, there's a lot of parallels there. Right. Where you have someone who's an abuse victim who commits a crime. And like, how do you talk about that? How do you think about that? And I think just the. We were talking about how the discomfort around male sexual abuse in particular weighed so heavily on that court case.
- [42:52]
Andrea Gunning
Absolutely. And for them to see that people are actually open to hearing about that and discussing that and just really sitting with that and taking Tyler and Stacey's story and pursuing that for the Hulu documentary is really exciting because it's only going to help dismantle the stigma around this issue. And I'm really proud to work with partners like that. I truly am.
- [43:21]
Andrea Dunlop
Yeah, that's. That's incredible. I'm so. I'm glad that they're supporting it. Something that is very special about podcasting. Like, podcasting feels like a medium where you can take a lot of risks.
- [43:32]
Andrea Gunning
Yeah.
- [43:33]
Andrea Dunlop
Someone has to go first. So I think, like, having a proof of concept with the podcast, like, that certainly helps TV folks make good decisions of, like, okay, there's an audience for this, so maybe it is worth taking a little bit more of a risk.
- [43:46]
Andrea Gunning
It's a safer landing.
- [43:47]
Andrea Dunlop
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It's all. It all works. Works together.
- [43:51]
Andrea Gunning
So your book that just came out, this is your first, like, intro to nonfiction, right? Or do I have that wrong?
- [43:59]
Andrea Dunlop
No, this. Yep. This is my first nonfiction book. The other four are novels. And it's very funny because people are always like, with the book or with the show, they're like, oh, my God, I love your show. I mean, not because, like, you know, I know it's like, it, like they're trying to tell me, like, oh, not because I love child abuse. I'm like, it's. No, I know. I understand what you're saying. And it's like, right, of course. Like, I want people to be engaged with the storytelling. I want them to connect to that. They're not going to care about it unless they are connecting to the story and unless they are staying engaged with the story. Right. And like, obviously we take it really seriously. Obviously we do the utmost to tell things ethically, but, like, you also have to have a good story.
- [44:38]
Andrea Gunning
Yeah, for sure.
- [44:40]
Andrea Dunlop
Well, this was amazing. We just got, like, straight in the deep end, which I love.
- [44:46]
Andrea Gunning
I could talk to you for hours. Andrea, thank you so much for coming on our show and sharing your story with us. Thanks for listening. Next week, we're sharing the first episode in Andrea's latest season of Nobody Should Believe Me. It's about Sophie Hartman, a mother who adopted two girls from Zambia. But the story takes a tragic turn when one of her daughters becomes terribly ill. So stay tuned and we'll be back next week with that episode. If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal team or want to tell us your Betrayal story, email us@betrayalpodmail.com that's betrayalpodmail.com we're grateful for your support. One way to show support is by subscribing to our show on Apple Podcasts. And don't forget to rate and review Betrayal. Five star reviews go a long way. A big thank you to all of our listeners. Betrayal is a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is executive produced by Nancy Glass and Jennifer Faison, hosted and produced by me, Andrea Gunning Written and produced by Monique Laborde Also produced by Ben Federman. Associate producers are Kristen Melchiori and Kaitlin Golden. Our iHeart team is Ali Perry and Jessica Krynczyk. Audio editing and mixing by Matt Del Vecchio Additional editing support from Tanner Robbins Betrayal's Theme composed by Oliver Baines Music Library provided by MIB Music and for more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [46:31]
Ashley I
This is Ashley Ietti from the Ben and Ashley I Almost Same as Podcast if you could lose 10.4 pounds in one month, would you try well with Future Health? You can find out if weight loss meds are right for you in just three minutes at trifh.com that is. Try fh.com Try fh.com Results may vary based on start weight and adherence to diet, exercise and program goals. Database on independent studies sponsored by Future Health. Future Health is not a healthcare services provider. Meds are prescribed at provider's discretion okay.
- [47:02]
Nissan Advertiser
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- [47:29]
Andrea Dunlop
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