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Stephanie (1:50)

Hey, it's Stephanie, back with a bonus episode. We talked in episode three about the many emails Clayton received from Laura Owens during the summer of 2023. He compiled the emails into a Google Drive that he calls the LO File. There was so much more about the Lo File and these emails that we didn't have time to get to in episode three. So I sat down with Clayton to hear a bit more. We're going to start with their back and forth about the paternity test. Laura claimed that Clayton was refusing to take one. He says that wasn't the case and the emails seemed to corroborate his account. In the last episode, we talked about the paternity testing and who was paying for it. Now the whole conversation gets messy as the months drag on. But. But I mentioned that you agreed to pay for the whole thing yourself. So let's get into that a little bit deeper. In the email from Laura to you on June 24, about three weeks after she told you she was pregnant, she says, I wanted to let you know that I will not be paying for the paternity test. It's of no use to me because I know I wasn't physically involved with anyone else, and therefore no one else could be the father. I promise that if it came back any other way, I will fully reimburse you. But trust me, it won't. I haven't lied to you yet. And I don't need to pay several hundred or $1,000 for information that I already have. Okay, so what was your response to that email?

Clayton Eckerd (3:19)

So my response to her was, I will pay for 100% of it. You have my word. Let this message serve as the proof. Just schedule it and let me know where you scheduled and I'll pay.

Stephanie (3:32)

Throughout this entire LO file, I don't see one email of you refusing to take a paternity test. I know you really wanted to take the paternity test based on what I was seeing in the emails. So I found something in the emails that might explain why Laura said you were refusing to take it. Can you read that for me?

Clayton Eckerd (3:52)

So she had sent me an email saying, just confirming that you are refusing a paternity test. No answer equals refusing it.

Stephanie (4:00)

Okay, so it's my understanding, and I came to this conclusion by reading the emails and you telling me about how no response equals a response. That. That's what's happening here. You weren't responding to her emails and she was taking your lack of response as a no.

Clayton Eckerd (4:16)

Yeah, it's ridiculous in nature, but I mean, you've heard, even from a societal standpoint, people say silence speaks volumes. And I think that's what she was trying to lean into is, you know, I know you're reading this. Cause I have the mail trackers. And if you're choosing not to respond, that is still a response. I obviously didn't agree with that. I just didn't want to communicate with her. But she was just looking for ways to manipulate and gaslight me. And eventually the people that were going to see these emails and messages.

Stephanie (4:46)

You just mentioned something that I want to talk about. You mentioned the mail trackers, which we do talk about in the episode with the emails. How did you know that she had those trackers on?

Clayton Eckerd (4:57)

Eventually she told me, but I also just knew. Cause whenever I'd open them and I'd read them, she had send over another one Right away. But if I was ever just busy and I couldn't get around to my emails, then, yeah, nothing would come through.

Stephanie (5:09)

Then she eventually told you that she had a tracker on.

Clayton Eckerd (5:13)

Yeah. And she eventually then told me that she had the trackers. I'm like, okay, this makes sense to me why she continues to send them. I thought I was able to trick her by not responding into thinking that, like, I had her in a block folder and I wasn't paying attention. Again, what I wanted her to believe was that I wasn't looking at these emails. I had way better things to do. She had no power over me, and eventually she would just give up.

Stephanie (5:39)

All right, let's move on to another one. Here's another email. This one's dated July 5th. So this is about a month after she told you she was pregnant, but she had already hinted to you that she might be pregnant with twins. This is the email. I had an idea. What do you think about hanging out tonight and seeing if this is something you want to try out for a couple of weeks before we make a decision about what to do? If either of us decide that we don't want to explore something more serious, then at least we will know and we will both have clarity. With you not responding about the possibility of twins or me giving you the chance to make a different decision about the abortion pills because of that new prospect, then things feel unresolved and my anxiety is through the roof. I'm sure yours is as well. With my stress levels being where they are at now. If the baby or babies are born with any issues, I would blame you for not trying to help me reduce those by supporting me as you said you would. If you just pursued something romantic for a night, you have no idea how much it would help me emotionally. And I definitely would not blame you for any problems the child or children would have. This was still pretty early on when I believe you still thought that there might be that.01% chance that she could actually be pregnant. So how did this email make you feel? And were you concerned for her mental health at the time?

Clayton Eckerd (6:57)

Yeah, so of course I was concerned for her mental health reading these messages. But I had my guard up, and I was like, there's no way that I can explore intimacy. It has to be off the table. I can date her, quote, unquote, for a week and give her attention. And at the end of it, I was gonna say, oh, you know, I just don't think it's gonna work between us. But we gave it a fair go. All right, I guess this is the end of it. Right? Like, that's essentially where I was gonna head with it. But she obviously was like, no, we have to be intimate if we do do this. And of course, I wasn't willing to go there.

Stephanie (7:31)

Okay, so I'm gonna jump into another document that I found in the LO file. This one is from August 13th. So. So this was just a few days after that dating contract that you received. Do you remember getting another contract like document after the dating contract?

Clayton Eckerd (7:47)

So many emails came in that maybe she did sandwich another contract in there, but I don't recall off the top of my head.

Stephanie (7:54)

Okay, well, I'm going to read it to you. It appears to be sent through DocuSign. And the title of the document is Agreement between Laura Owens and Clayton Eckerd. It begins, we, Laura Owens and Clayton Eckerd agreed to meet up tonight, August 13, 2023, for the court mandated good faith consultation. And I'll pause here for a second. She's mentioning a good faith consultation because this document came through two weeks after she filed in court to establish paternity. So a good faith consultation is basically like a formal requirement for opposing parties to attempt to resolve a dispute that was brought to court. And you kind of handle it sincerely, honestly. It's like a good faith attempt to resolving it before you seek further intervention from the court. Okay, so back to the document. In addition, Laura Owens will alert the court to the fact that there is no longer a need to take action against Clayton Eckerd for his refusal to participate in the good faith consultation. Laura Owens agrees to take and pay for both her and Clayton Eckerd to take the prenatal paternity test at Rav Gen to be taken at the earliest possible date, and promises not to cancel. Clayton Eckerd agrees to unblock Laura Owens and not block her again. Now, Laura signed this document, but I don't see a signature from you on that document.

Clayton Eckerd (9:11)

Yeah, because it just wasn't a fair trade off. I mean, I was willing to negotiate with her. I was working at every moment to try to find that little common ground where she would say, yeah, this could work. But as far as this contract went, I'm like, you're not going to do what you say you're going to do anyways. And no, I don't want to unblock you because it doesn't accomplish anything. You're just going to send me another barrage of emails and text.

Stephanie (9:39)

This was another theme I noticed in a lot of these emails, is that she really wanted you to unblock her phone number. Now she could still get in touch with you via email. It seemed even though you had her blocked, they were still kind of getting through. But why do you think that the unblocking of her phone number was such a priority for her?

Clayton Eckerd (9:57)

To me, it's completely stemming from a hurt ego. I feel that she felt less than if she was blocked. Therefore, if I unblocked her, there wasn't as much hostility because it's like, okay, now we have an open chain of communication, like two people that respect one another would have. I mean, who do you block? Typically, you block people that are individuals that you don't want to talk to, people that you don't want to have access to your life, people that are extremely rude. I mean, you don't block just the average person. Right. You're blocking people that you do not want to have any interactions with. So there's a negative connotation around being blocked, and I believe Laura just wanted to remove that.

Stephanie (10:38)

A lot of your correspondence with Laura happened almost three years ago now. What has it been like for you going back, reading these messages and reliving this time of your life?

Clayton Eckerd (10:50)

It's been very agitating. Anger has been the main emotion that I feel arise whenever I have to reopen this box, that I've compartmentalized as much as possible because I still have a life to live beyond this matter. But Laura makes it really hard. I mean, she's always reopening the box. And so for me, this is a still ongoing matter. And I am hoping to have a outcome where we can close this completely because it's tiring. I am so tired of talking about this, feeling this, dealing with this in my eyes. And what I would have thought would have occurred was like, this would have been done over the course of six months at max. And here we are on year three, and we're still going.

Stephanie (11:47)

Thanks so much for listening. If you want to see the emails we mentioned, you can read them for yourself at our Instagram Lasspodcasts. And stay tuned for new episodes and bonus episodes on the Love Trapped feed. Then she says, have you seen a photo of my son? And I'm like, who is this person?

Host of Boys and Girls Podcast (12:16)

Welcome to the Boys and Girls Podcast. Arranged marriage is basically a reality show, and you're auditioning for your soulmate. And who's judging? Only your entire family. I sacrificed myself to this ancient tradition hoping to find love the right way. And instead I found chaos, comedy, and a lot of cringe. Listen to boys and Girls on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Stephanie (12:48)

Segregation in the day, integration at night. It was like stepping on another world.

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Stephanie (12:58)

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They had to crush him.

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