Leona | Betrayal Weekly

On the eve of Leona’s wedding, disturbing messages from an unknown number threaten to derail everything. What starts as a nuisance soon becomes a mystery that consumes her hometown. If you would like to share your story, you can reach out to the Betrayal team by emailing us at [email protected] mailto:[email protected]. You can also find us on Instagram at @betrayalpod https://www.instagram.com/betrayalpod/ and @glasspodcasts https://www.instagram.com/glasspodcasts/. To access our newsletter and additional content and to connect with the Betrayal community, join our Substack at betrayal.substack.com. If you are currently in crisis, please reach out to organizations that offer immediate support. We are including a few US-based resources here: 988 Lifeline. https://988lifeline.org/ If you or someone you know is in crisis or need to talk to someone immediately, please call or text 988 – the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline available 24/7/365. National Domestic Violence Hotline https://www.thehotline.org/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=domestic_violence. They offer 24/7 phone and chat support to help you create a personalized safety plan and connect you with local support. For resources on sexual violence, visit rainn.org/betrayal. You can also get free, confidential, 24/7 support through RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline. Text HOPE to 64673 or call 1-800-656-HOPE. Every state has a domestic violence coalition. If you’re looking for help in the US, search the web for your state’s domestic violence coalition. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Hi, everyone. We have some exciting news to share. ABC News Studios has turned Caroline Borrega's story from Betrayal, season four, into a docu-series. You'll get to meet the people involved, you'll hear from people who have never spoken before, and you get to see where this story took place. We are so proud and excited to share it with you all. Stream Betrayal: Dirty Secrets now on Hulu or Hulu for Disney+. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.

• 0:28Speaker 01

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  to help you with everything, from applying and financial aid, to tutoring and career development. At Southern New Hampshire University, knowledge can be life-changing. Get started at SNHU.edu/Betrayal. That's SNHU.edu/Betrayal.

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• 2:59Speaker 04

  I just lost my mind. It felt like someone opened my brain and it was spilling onto the floor. Everything I had known to be true was just not.

• 3:26Speaker 00

  I'm Andrea Gunning and this is Betrayal, a show about the people we trust the most and the deceptions that change everything.

• 3:38Speaker 00

  For this episode, we've anonymized all the names and locations.

• 3:45Speaker 00

  Leona grew up in the Midwest, in a town where nobody was a stranger.

• 3:50Speaker 04

  This town is tiny. There's less than 5,000 people here, so everybody knows everybody.

• 3:56Speaker 00

  Her family has lived there for four generations.

• 4:00Speaker 04

  It's hard to go anywhere and not be running into somebody that I know or know someone in my family.

• 4:06Speaker 00

  Just outside of town, the landscape gives way to huge fields of corn and soybeans. It's a big farming community. Lots of kids at Leona's school were part of a youth organization called FFA, Future Farmers of America.

• 4:22Speaker 04

  During FFA Week, everyone drove their tractors to school.

• 4:27Speaker 00

  Growing up, Leona spent a lot of time with her younger sister. They were close, and Leona was protective of her. She's an oldest child to her core.

• 4:37Speaker 04

  I am definitely type A personality. I want everything to be perfect. I'm a black and white person. I do not do well with gray, so I have to follow the rules.

• 4:48Speaker 00

  Her family didn't have a lot of money. And if Leona wanted to go to the movies, grab dinner with friends, or go on class field trips, she had to come up with the money herself.

• 4:59Speaker 04

  I started working pretty much full-time at 16. And so I would go to school till 3:00, get to work at 3:30, be there till 10:00.

• 5:09Speaker 00

  After high school, Leona stayed in her hometown and lived with her parents. She was still a teenager and was saving up money to move out. She dreamed of moving to a bigger city one day, but she needed more financial stability.

• 5:24Speaker 04

  Nobody in my family has been to college, so all I had known was you start working.

• 5:31Speaker 00

  At 18, Leona started working at her state's Department of Revenue.

• 5:36Speaker 04

  Shortly after I started that position, I got a friend request on Facebook.

• 5:41Speaker 00

  It was from a guy she went to high school with. His name was Eden. They had never been close, and she only remembered a couple of vague things about him.

• 5:51Speaker 04

  He was a grade above me. He was in theater. And I remember seeing him on stage when I would go watch the performances, but I wasn't going to see him.

• 6:02Speaker 00

  She accepted his friend request. Then Eden sent her a message, asking her how she was doing. The two started chatting.

• 6:11Speaker 04

  Where are you living? Things like that, catching up about what life looked like for the last couple of years.

• 6:18Speaker 00

  Eden told her that he had joined the military and was living a few states away. She told him about her new job and caught him up on what was happening back home. She started to look forward to Aiden's messages.

• 6:31Speaker 04

  It was exciting because I was getting attention and it was from someone who got out of our town. So I was like, okay, maybe I have some chance of getting out of this tiny town.

• 6:44Speaker 00

  They messaged back and forth for months, then the holidays rolled around.

• 6:49Speaker 04

  In December, he said, hey, I'm back home with love to get together and have dinner.

• 6:55Speaker 00

  Leona agreed and a few days later.

• 6:58Speaker 04

  We went on our first date.

• 7:05Speaker 00

  Leona still remembers walking into the restaurant and seeing Aiden.

• 7:09Speaker 04

  He was in the military, so he was clean shaven, all the things. We sat and we talked for hours, just laughing and having such a good time. I was enthralled with him.

• 7:21Speaker 00

  If you had seen them at the restaurant that night, you wouldn't have believed it was their first date.

• 7:27Speaker 04

  We were just making jokes like we had known each other forever, just instant connection.

• 7:34Speaker 00

  Leona and Aiden stayed in their booth, talking and laughing long after they finished their meal. Even after four hours had gone by, Leona didn't want the date to end.

• 7:46Speaker 04

  It was such a significant moment for me. I can tell you exactly what booth we were sitting in. That's how vivid this memory is.

• 7:54Speaker 00

  As soon as she left the restaurant, she told her friends about the date.

• 7:59Speaker 04

  I'm not good at keeping secrets, so I can't at all. When something exciting happens in my life, like I just have to tell.

• 8:05Speaker 00

  Aiden was equally as excited about her.

• 8:08Speaker 04

  We went on the next date within the next few days.

• 8:12Speaker 00

  They went to the movies and saw Flight with Denzel Washington. It's an action movie about a pilot who is forced to crash land an airplane. Leona and Aiden were gripping their armrests the whole time.

• 8:24Speaker 04

  After we left, he was like, why in the hell did you pick that movie?

• 8:28Speaker 00

  They laughed about it as Aiden drove Leona home. He walked her to her front door.

• 8:36Speaker 04

  It was freezing outside because it was December and I remember him just shivering because he was so cold. And I remember having our first kiss on my parents' porch that night.

• 8:49Speaker 00

  Aiden was changing jobs within the military and was transferred to the reserves. He moved into a place an hour outside of their hometown and made the drive to see Leona whenever he had free time.

• 9:01Speaker 04

  He's taking me to his favorite restaurants in this town and we're just hanging out constantly. We're texting all the time, calling each other.

• 9:10Speaker 00

  That initial spark of attraction kept growing. Pretty soon, they were inseparable.

• 9:17Speaker 04

  This is a person I want to spend all my time with because I'm having so much fun. Like, we're talking about whatever, we're laughing, and I had never experienced anything like that before. So I'm like, okay, well, this is obvious that this is the person I'm supposed to be with.

• 9:32Speaker 00

  Aiden introduced her to his family.

• 9:35Speaker 04

  His dad's a preacher, his mom is a nurse. I loved them.

• 9:41Speaker 00

  Aiden's family loved her, too.

• 9:43Speaker 04

  I immediately became a part of their family. I was hanging out at their house. We were always doing stuff together.

• 9:51Speaker 00

  In some ways, Aiden and Leona were very different.

• 9:54Speaker 04

  Aiden was a very private person, and I'm the complete opposite. I'm an open book.

• 9:59Speaker 00

  Aiden planned everything out carefully, while Leona was spontaneous. But in many ways, they were similar. Growing up in the same town meant they understood each other's childhoods.

• 10:12Speaker 04

  We both were raised in a situation where our families didn't have a lot of money. So the movies were like a gift. You get one piece of candy and it was like a luxury.

• 10:22Speaker 00

  She and Aiden were just barely adults, not even 21, but they both made their own money and could indulge in little luxuries. These dates felt exciting.

• 10:34Speaker 04

  We went to the movies. That was our thing. We got to do that together and kind of heal that smaller version of the both of us that like, we didn't get to do that when we were kids, but now as adults, we get to choose to do that.

• 10:47Speaker 00

  It was December of 2012. A new movie had come out that they both wanted to see. The Hobbit. So they grabbed their favorite snacks and settled into their seats. Then Aiden turned to Leona and told her he had a question to ask her.

• 11:04Speaker 04

  He said, "Do you want to go steady with me?" I remember being like, "Absolutely. There's no question about this."

• 11:12Speaker 00

  It was so exciting. But in a few weeks, Aiden was leaving for the East Coast, where he'd complete his next round of military training.

• 11:20Speaker 04

  And so we knew our time together was gonna go by quick. And so any moment we could, we would spend time together. He ended up staying at my parents' house with us during a snowstorm.

• 11:33Speaker 04

  We were just hanging out in my room, and I decided to tell him that I loved him.

• 11:39Speaker 00

  As the snow swirled outside, Aiden told Leona that he loved her too.

• 11:46Speaker 00

  The next week, the day they had both been dreading arrived. It was time for Aiden to leave for the East Coast to start his new position in the military. He would fly there from a military base a few hours away from their hometown. Leona came with him to drop him off.

• 12:03Speaker 04

  And it was pouring rain. It was the kind of rain where the car fogs up and you don't know which temperature to put it on to figure it out.

• 12:13Speaker 00

  But nothing would stop them from savoring those last hours together.

• 12:17Speaker 04

  We were singing at the top of our lungs. We're taking pictures while we're driving, like just being in that moment of like, "We're not gonna see each other for a very long time, so we're gonna just be in it."

• 12:28Speaker 00

  When they said goodbye, they were both crying. The drive back home without him felt so empty.

• 12:35Speaker 04

  I drove home on these curvy-ass roads while it's raining, and I'm on the phone with my best friend, just bawling because I was just so sad, just crying because I'm like, "I just dropped the person off that I love."

• 12:46Speaker 00

  Because Aiden was switching jobs within the military, he had to go through basic training again.

• 12:52Speaker 04

  And because of that, he was not allowed to have a cellphone for the first several weeks. We would write handwritten letters back and forth. So very like, he's in the military, we're writing letters.

• 13:03Speaker 00

  In those letters, they began to dream of what they wanted their future together to look like.

• 13:08Speaker 04

  We knew we wanted to have kids. We were gonna live on the East Coast. We're getting married before I'm 21. You know, there was this very detailed plan.

• 13:16Speaker 00

  Their letters back and forth became a penciled in, hopeful blueprint for their life. When Leona missed Aiden, she reread his letters and imagined their future together. Finally, Aiden got a phone.

• 13:31Speaker 04

  And so Aiden had called me to like, kind of fill me in on what was going on. And then he says, "I think we should get married."

• 13:41Speaker 00

  Leona was overjoyed. She didn't hesitate.

• 13:45Speaker 04

  This is how it's supposed to be. I found my person, so why waste any more of my time?

• 13:50Speaker 00

  She was ready to run full speed towards the life they dreamed of. They decided to get married that Christmas. That gave them just over six months to plan the wedding.

• 14:01Speaker 04

  All the things started happening very quickly. When we were doing wedding planning, his mom and his sister were involved. His sister was one of my bridesmaids. I went that next week and bought my wedding dress.

• 14:11Speaker 00

  While they were apart, Aiden and Leona sent photos and intimate messages back and forth on Facebook Messenger.

• 14:20Speaker 00

  That summer, Aiden flew Leona out to visit him on the East Coast. Seeing each other in person, they were even more giddy about their wedding. They talked through every detail together. Because Aiden proposed over the phone, Leona didn't have a ring yet.

• 14:36Speaker 04

  And he's like, can you explain to me like, what you want your ring to look like? What do you want the band to look like? And so I'm explaining this and I'm kind of leaned up against him and he was like, "Do you want it to look like this?"

• 14:48Speaker 00

  Aiden pulled a ring out of his pocket.

• 14:51Speaker 04

  And he slid it onto my finger. And I was like, oh my God, it was bigger than I expected it to be. It was like a full carrot. It was better than I had dreamed of.

• 15:02Speaker 00

  She called her family right away and they celebrated with her. The rest of her visit was just as magical. They watched fireworks burst through the dark sky and explored the city.

• 15:14Speaker 04

  We were kind of getting a feel for what our life was gonna look like.

• 15:19Speaker 00

  Finally, their wedding week arrived and Aiden traveled back home.

• 15:25Speaker 04

  The night of our rehearsal dinner, everyone, all the bridesmaids, all the groomsmen, we went bowling afterwards.

• 15:34Speaker 00

  They piled into the bowling alley, ordered food and laughed watching their friends get competitive with each other.

• 15:41Speaker 04

  We're just having like the best time, enjoying each other's company, laughing, cutting up. No care in the world because tomorrow, we're gonna be married.

• 15:51Speaker 00

  But then, in the middle of the celebration, something disturbing happened.

• 15:56Speaker 04

  My sister starts receiving these text messages from an unknown number.

• 16:03Speaker 00

  Leona's little sister went pale.

• 16:05Speaker 04

  She was receiving pictures of someone's penis.

• 16:11Speaker 00

  The photos were accompanied by a slew of graphic questions.

• 16:15Speaker 04

  What is her opinion of the way this is shaped or sized? What do you think about this? Do you think this would be pleasurable to you?

• 16:23Speaker 00

  Leona was horrified. Her sister was only 17.

• 16:29Speaker 04

  It was just like the wind got knocked out of me and I was like, oh my God, like I'm so sorry. I mean, she's underage at this point.

• 16:35Speaker 00

  More and more messages flooded her sister's phone.

• 16:39Speaker 04

  Incessantly, we're bowling and we're immediately not having fun because my sister and I are having to deal with this. My sister's like, what the hell's going on?

• 16:48Speaker 00

  Nobody in their friend group recognized the number.

• 16:52Speaker 04

  No idea who it is. None whatsoever.

• 16:55Speaker 00

  Leona pulled Aiden aside to tell him what was going on. He looked disturbed.

• 17:01Speaker 04

  Aiden was like, "Oh, that's really bizarre."

• 17:04Speaker 00

  They were starting to think it was just spam, but then the messages got personal.

• 17:10Speaker 04

  They know who I am and they know who Aiden is. The person had hacked into my Facebook account and got all of these photos and these very specific details about our sex life.

• 17:25Speaker 00

  Leona thought of all the intimate exchanges she'd had with Aiden over the last few months. The thought of someone reading them made her sick. Then the text to her little sister took a turn. It started to sound like blackmail.

• 17:40Speaker 04

  If you don't send us nudes, then we're gonna send out these pictures and release this information about your sister and her husband's sexual relationship.

• 18:10Speaker 00

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  to help you with everything, from applying and financial aid to tutoring and career development. At Southern New Hampshire University, knowledge can be life-changing. Get started at SNHU.edu/Betrayal. That's SNHU.edu/Betrayal.

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• 21:58Speaker 00

  On the night before Leona and Aiden's wedding, they went to a bowling alley with their friends. Everyone was having a great time, until Leona's sister started receiving disturbing text messages from an unknown number. The texts revealed that they had hacked into Leona's Facebook account and accessed hundreds of sexual images and text messages sent between her and Aiden. And now, they were threatening to release these photos and texts if Leona's sister didn't comply with their demands.

• 22:31Speaker 04

  If you don't send us nudes, then we're gonna send out these pictures and release this information about your sister and her husband's sexual relationship.

• 22:40Speaker 00

  She made her way through the bowling alley to Aiden and told him what happened.

• 22:45Speaker 04

  Aiden was like, "Oh, that's really bizarre."

• 22:47Speaker 00

  He left his circle of friends and came over to see the texts himself. When he saw the messages, his concern heightened. Aiden was a private person. Hearing that someone accessed intimate details about their sex life clearly disturbed him.

• 23:03Speaker 04

  You could immediately feel the air in the room just leave.

• 23:08Speaker 00

  Aiden told Leona's sister to ignore the messages for now. They didn't know who they were dealing with. And they needed to treat this with caution.

• 23:17Speaker 04

  We'll just ignore it. Let's just deal with this at a later time.

• 23:20Speaker 00

  They all stayed at the bowling alley until late that night and tried to have fun. Leona did her best to put it out of her mind and taken all the joy and excitement around her. But it was hard to ignore what happened. The next morning, Leona woke up and it was her wedding day.

• 23:38Speaker 04

  I was just so excited to like get down that aisle and see him and be with my husband like, I'm ready to start our life.

• 23:46Speaker 00

  Leona, Aiden, their families and friends packed into a church in their hometown. Leona walked down the aisle and met Aiden at the altar. When their eyes locked, she felt the same certainty she'd felt on their first date.

• 24:01Speaker 04

  I remember knowing that this was the right decision. I'm just crying and like I'm wiping a tear off my face and I was just so happy. Cause he was my best friend. He was someone I could confide in. We had these plans for our future and it was just so exciting to get it started. Let's start our life. Why are we waiting another second?

• 24:25Speaker 00

  The rest of the day was filled with dancing, speeches and wedding cake. Everything was joyful. She tried to stay in the moment and not let the text from the unknown number ruin the day.

• 24:38Speaker 04

  I put it out of my mind. This is my day. I'm not gonna let whatever it is interfere with that. We had so much fun. We're all having a good time, but there also is this like lurking chaos in the background that you can't quite ignore.

• 24:54Speaker 00

  Aiden only got a few days off for the wedding. They didn't have time for a honeymoon. In fact, two days after they got married, he had to return to the base. Leona had been so focused on the wedding that she didn't account for how hard the goodbye would be.

• 25:11Speaker 04

  The reality hit me at that point. I'm like, oh my God, this man that I love so much is about to leave. And I just immediately start crying.

• 25:19Speaker 00

  They said a tearful goodbye and Aiden reported back to his base on the East Coast. Leona stayed in their hometown. With the wedding over, she focused her energy on helping her sister deal with the blackmailer.

• 25:34Speaker 04

  I just remember being so concerned about it because it was my responsibility to take care of this.

• 25:42Speaker 00

  She started with the most obvious solution.

• 25:44Speaker 04

  I had told my sister to just block the number, but that didn't stop it. We would block the one number and then almost immediately, it would be coming from a different phone number.

• 25:57Speaker 00

  Then, to her horror, her little sister started receiving screenshots of Leona and Aiden's private conversations.

• 26:06Speaker 04

  The person had all of these photos and these very specific details about our sex life.

• 26:15Speaker 00

  Leona felt sick. They really had hacked into her Facebook. They'd seen everything. It was an unthinkable violation. The messages to her little sister all had the same disturbing tone. They were cruel and emasculating towards her husband. They said,

• 26:35Speaker 04

  I've seen photos of Aiden and he's tiny. Can you believe that your sister is with somebody like that? How embarrassing.

• 26:43Speaker 00

  When ignoring the messages didn't work, Leona's sister texted one of the numbers back.

• 26:49Speaker 04

  She would say, "Leave me alone. Stop texting me. Stop doing this." And they would just still pile in.

• 26:54Speaker 00

  Nothing she said made the sender back off. She refused to send intimate photos of herself and tried to just keep blocking the numbers, but it was hard to manage. After her sister had been dealing with this for three months, Leona got a text herself.

• 27:12Speaker 04

  They said, "Your sister isn't doing this. Now we're escalating it."

• 27:23Speaker 00

  After that, they sent Leona a photo, an intimate image of herself, one that she'd sent to Aiden. It was clear, this image was a bargaining chip, a threat. The messages kept coming.

• 27:38Speaker 04

  They were just making fun of our sex life.

• 27:43Speaker 04

  How embarrassing for you that you have to ask your husband to do this so you can be completely satisfied. This is embarrassing.

• 27:51Speaker 00

  She wanted to report it, but the idea of showing these messages to the police mortified her. The fear kept her silent, so she ignored them and blocked the number each time they sent her something new. The next month, she went to visit Aiden at his military base. It would be their last time seeing each other before his upcoming deployment. He would be gone for nearly a year. Before he left, they had a peaceful week together.

• 28:21Speaker 04

  It was such a great time. I was hanging out with the people that were going to be my support system while he was deployed. We went to the movies all the time. We were hanging out with his friends. It felt like nothing could get in our way. But in the meantime, we're still receiving these messages and they're getting worse.

• 28:39Speaker 00

  Finally, Leona snapped. She texted the number back.

• 28:42Speaker 04

  I told the person, I'm like, "You're ruining my life. You're invading our privacy. What I do with my husband is none of your business. You need to get a different hobby."

• 28:53Speaker 00

  But it became clear, humiliating her and Aiden was the hacker's full-time hobby, and they had no plans of dialing it back.

• 29:02Speaker 04

  Whenever they would start messaging, it would just last for hours. Even if you weren't responding, they would just spam you with information or spam you with texts. And so I'm having to stand up for my husband to this person I don't even know, and also trying to figure out how to get them to stop messaging my sister.

• 29:22Speaker 00

  Leona felt alone in this. A few weeks later, Aiden was deployed to Afghanistan, and she was back at home, laying awake at night, thinking about who could be behind these messages. Was it one of their friends, someone else in town, or a random stranger hundreds of miles away?

• 29:44Speaker 00

  Even as the messages escalated, she tried not to burden Aiden with it.

• 29:49Speaker 04

  I was trying to keep his feelings in check because he is literally deployed in the Middle East. So he's got his own stuff going on. Like, I have to control all of this back home. And I'm failing as a wife. This is falling on me in every way.

• 30:05Speaker 00

  Leona had been trying to handle everything on her own, but nothing was working. In fact, it was only getting worse. She needed help.

• 30:15Speaker 04

  I'm gonna go to the police about this.

• 30:17Speaker 00

  Leona and her sister went to the police station together.

• 30:22Speaker 04

  I started explaining what's been going on and they're like, okay, well, we need you to write out everything. So we sit there and we write everything down and I'm like, what are the next steps on this? What can we do to resolve this? And that's when they said, unless you've been physically attacked, there's nothing we can do.

• 30:41Speaker 04

  And it just felt like, why did I just waste my time writing all of this down and reporting it to you?

• 30:49Speaker 00

  A few weeks later, Leona was scrolling through Facebook when she saw a post that made her stop in her tracks. A girl from her high school posted about receiving strange messages from an unknown number.

• 31:01Speaker 04

  She posted a screenshot of the messages that she got and the photo.

• 31:07Speaker 00

  Reading through the messages, Leona immediately recognized the jeering tone.

• 31:12Speaker 04

  Look at this person's penis. What do you think about the size or the shape? Do you think this would be satisfying to you?

• 31:18Speaker 00

  This was clearly Leona's hacker. Her high school classmate turned to Facebook for help. She asked,

• 31:25Speaker 04

  Has anyone else heard from this person? Like, what is going on?

• 31:29Speaker 00

  Leona clicked on the comment section of the post. What she saw stunned her. Dozens of comments from other people in her town saying that they too had been getting harassing texts from an unknown number.

• 31:43Speaker 04

  There were so many people commenting on the post that were like, yeah, I'm also receiving these.

• 31:48Speaker 00

  Leona was shocked. She thought she and her sister were alone in this.

• 31:56Speaker 00

  Over the course of that spring, the hacker tightened their grasp on Leona's town. She saw more friends from high school post about the harassment online. No one knew who it was or how to stop them.

• 32:10Speaker 04

  They were using email, Facebook, text messages. It was just all the time. You never knew where it was going to come from.

• 32:20Speaker 00

  When Leona saw her friends or ran into her old high school classmates, the unknown number texts always came up. Their entire town was on edge.

• 32:31Speaker 04

  And then my close friends started getting messages. And email addresses were being spammed with this stuff. It was just encompassing every aspect of my life. Like, it was everywhere all of a sudden.

• 32:45Speaker 00

  More and more people came forward saying that they had received disturbing messages.

• 32:51Speaker 04

  I'd say everyone included probably like 20 or so people. We all went to the same high school.

• 32:58Speaker 00

  Leona's town is a hard place to hide. Remember, it's home to just 5,000 people. This had to be someone they all knew. Everyone was trying desperately to figure out who was lurking behind the unknown number.

• 33:16Speaker 04

  April, May, June, and July were just very intense with the amount of text messages. People in my community are getting stuff. People are posting about it on Facebook. Like, who else is getting these messages?

• 33:31Speaker 00

  For some people in their community, the messages died off or only happened once. But for Leona, they were constant.

• 33:40Speaker 04

  It felt so personal. What did we do?

• 33:44Speaker 00

  Eden and Leona were exhausted trying to figure it all out. Instead of talking about their plans for a family, all of their energy was taken up by the unknown number.

• 33:56Speaker 04

  Our connection is definitely strained because he's working. And, you know, the times we are talking, we're bickering about money or this person that's harassing us. He was irritated that every time we talked on the phone, we were having to deal with this. And so it was like, can I just call you and talk to you about literally anything else? We were just trying to make it till November because that's when he would come home.

• 34:20Speaker 00

  They began to argue more. The hacker was ruining everything in her life, and she worried her relationship with Aiden would be next.

• 34:30Speaker 04

  I remember just bawling my eyes out, like, I'm gonna get a divorce in less than six months because of this shit. What is going on?

• 34:39Speaker 00

  The harassment drove Leona into a state of constant paranoia and exhaustion.

• 34:44Speaker 04

  It was just chaos all the time. Everything around me, I was failing at because I couldn't figure out who this person was. I couldn't protect my sister, couldn't protect my husband.

• 34:56Speaker 00

  Then, the texts took a new turn. The hacker seemed to be watching her and her sister.

• 35:04Speaker 04

  They would know details about our comings and goings, comments about seeing us out and about. We are always looking over our shoulder.

• 35:15Speaker 04

  It felt like a stalker-type vibe.

• 35:18Speaker 00

  But she couldn't protect herself because she didn't know what or who to look for.

• 35:23Speaker 04

  I was panicking because I had no idea who it was.

• 35:27Speaker 00

  This was the last straw. Something had to change. She already knew the police couldn't help, but they needed protection. Finally, Aiden had an idea.

• 35:40Speaker 04

  He knows people in the military world that can figure this out. He was gonna reach out to his friends in the private investigation world, and they were gonna figure this out because of an IP address, especially if they're using a Facebook.

• 35:53Speaker 00

  Aiden contacted one of his friends who worked as a private investigator. Leona agreed to give it a try. Finally, Aiden called her one day with good news. The private investigator was able to trace the text messages back to an IP address.

• 36:10Speaker 04

  Based on these text messages, his PI people had said that they were two hours away. So it's like, okay, he's not in our community, so that seems like we're fine there.

• 36:21Speaker 00

  For the first time in six months, Leona felt relief. This invisible, omnipresent force had finally been pinpointed to one location, one IP address. This felt like a fixable problem.

• 36:37Speaker 04

  His PI then had to step in and take control of it and say something to him to just like make it stop.

• 36:46Speaker 00

  Sure enough, after the PI intervened, the messages from the unknown number went from a constant stream to a slow trickle. And then one day, the messages stopped entirely.

• 37:00Speaker 04

  This person disappeared. I don't know how this person disappeared, but they stopped.

• 37:05Speaker 00

  The entire town seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. Her Facebook feed turned from screenshots of harassing texts back to engagement posts and photos from family reunions. Slowly, people went back to their own lives.

• 37:22Speaker 00

  That summer, Leona packed up and moved to a town on the East Coast near Aiden's military base. For the first time in her life, she was living 1,000 miles away from her hometown. She was 21 now, and Aiden was 23. Aiden was coming home from deployment that fall, and they were going to start their life living together for the first time. Leona wanted everything to be perfect when he got there.

• 37:50Speaker 04

  I decorated the house. I hung balloons. I hung photos of us, welcome home banners. I just made this whole big deal about it because I was so excited to like really start our life.

• 38:00Speaker 00

  Finally, the day arrived. Aiden was coming home.

• 38:04Speaker 04

  It was the classic movie of the guy coming home from deployment. You're in the hangar and you're waiting for him.

• 38:12Speaker 04

  It's the middle of the night and there's a room full of people were just waiting for our loved ones to come home and spotting him from across the room and just like wanting to run directly to him.

• 38:23Speaker 00

  For Leona and Aiden, this was a fresh start, a chance to refocus on their marriage and each other. They had made it out of their hometown and the stress of the unknown number felt far away. Leona hadn't received any disturbing messages in months.

• 38:41Speaker 04

  It was so incredible. There was no deployments on the horizon. We have our home together and we do our favorite things. We go to the movies. We have date nights.

• 38:53Speaker 00

  Before long, Leona found out that she was pregnant. They were both thrilled.

• 38:58Speaker 04

  I quit my job and just started preparing for our oldest daughter to be born.

• 39:05Speaker 00

  When their daughter was born, it felt like everything was clicking into place. This was how she had always envisioned their life together.

• 39:15Speaker 00

  As Leona settled into her new home, she made friends with other military wives.

• 39:20Speaker 04

  And we're hanging out with each other all the time. I become really close with one of the other wives and we're hanging out almost daily. And then, right before my oldest first birthday, I find out I'm pregnant again.

• 39:35Speaker 04

  When our daughter turned one, we had this big party. We invited all of our friends over.

• 39:40Speaker 00

  Everything seemed normal, but then, something bizarre happened.

• 39:46Speaker 04

  Everyone disappeared after that party. I stopped hearing from everybody after that.

• 39:52Speaker 00

  All of her new friends suddenly stopped talking to her, even her closest friend, who she saw almost every day.

• 40:01Speaker 04

  I don't understand what happened. We just stopped communicating and she doesn't answer my text messages.

• 40:08Speaker 00

  She told Aiden about how all of the women seemed to be ghosting her.

• 40:12Speaker 04

  And he's like, I think it's probably best you just distance yourself. I had a lot of things going on, so I was just like, I'm just gonna focus on my family.

• 40:22Speaker 00

  Leona gave birth to their second daughter. She and Aiden savored all of their time with their two girls. But their time together as a family was limited.

• 40:32Speaker 04

  He is gearing up for another deployment. Then he deploys six weeks after she's born, and he's gone for six months.

• 40:41Speaker 00

  Leona's mom stayed with her during Aiden's deployment to support her and her kids. It was hard being away from Aiden, and Leona looked for things to fill her days. She started filming makeup tutorials.

• 40:55Speaker 04

  I'm doing these videos of live doing makeup, and this friend that I was really close with starts popping up on my lives making comments and like, reaching back out to me.

• 41:06Speaker 00

  It was her close friend, who hadn't replied to her in months.

• 41:10Speaker 04

  And so I'm like, so excited to hear from her. So I called her, and I'm like, "I'm so excited to hear from you, but what the hell? Where have you been the last year?" And she tells me, she's like, "Well, you need to talk to your husband."

• 41:25Speaker 04

  And I'm like, "What do you mean?" And so she proceeds to tell me that he had been harassing all the women in the group, and all the wives of the group.

• 41:36Speaker 00

  Leona was confused. Aiden would never harass women. But then her friend said something chilling. Over the past year, some of the military wives had been getting strange harassing messages from an unknown number.

• 41:50Speaker 04

  It was the same stuff that had been happening. And they have proof that it's Aiden.

• 42:02Speaker 00

  That's why everyone ghosted her. Leona was still in disbelief. Her friend sent her all the screenshots they'd gathered.

• 42:11Speaker 04

  It took me three hours to read through all of these screenshots. They were emails, they were Facebook messages.

• 42:17Speaker 00

  As she read through the messages, her stomach dropped.

• 42:21Speaker 04

  "What do you think about this? Isn't this embarrassing?"

• 42:24Speaker 00

  It was the exact same language her hacker used.

• 42:28Speaker 04

  It felt unreal. I felt like I was looking at myself, watching myself receive this information.

• 42:36Speaker 00

  In that moment, everything clicked.

• 42:38Speaker 04

  Oh my God. It was Aiden the entire time. It was right in front of my face, and I didn't see it. He did all of this.

• 43:09Speaker 00

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• 43:54Speaker 03

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• 44:09Speaker 00

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• 44:53Speaker 00

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• 45:09Speaker 00

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• 47:01Speaker 00

  For six months, Leona and her husband Aiden dealt with sexually threatening texts from an unknown number. By the time they moved to the East Coast for Aiden's job in the military, the texts had stopped. But after a few years, one of Leona's friends told her the military wives had been receiving disturbing messages from an unknown number. And when she saw the messages, Leona was horrified. The texts were identical to the ones she had received back in her hometown. The pattern had repeated, even though they were 1,000 miles away. The only constants were her and Aiden. Suddenly, it was horrifyingly clear.

• 47:43Speaker 04

  Oh my God, it was Aiden the entire time. He did all of this.

• 47:51Speaker 00

  The military community figured out it was him because one of the men who works with Aiden was able to recognize him in the photos. In the military, there are often communal showers. That's how he recognized parts of Aiden's body. When Leona saw the photo, she recognized it too. It was Aiden. When this happened the first time, Leona believed her private messages with Aiden had been hacked. But now, there was no reason why these women would be receiving nude images of Aiden. Unless, he was the one sending them.

• 48:27Speaker 04

  This seems like a joke. What the hell is going on? I was just so pissed. And I had to wait hours before I could confront him because he was in the Middle East again. And so I had to wait almost 24 hours before I could talk to him about it.

• 48:42Speaker 00

  Those 24 hours crawled by slowly. Leona's reality was coming apart at the seams.

• 48:48Speaker 04

  I just lost my mind. It felt like someone opened my brain and it was spilling onto the floor. Everything I had known to be true was just not.

• 49:04Speaker 00

  She thought back to the moment this all started. A celebration the night before their wedding, when her teenage sister received graphic messages. Aiden was standing right there, pretending to be horrified.

• 49:17Speaker 04

  While we're all together, we're all in the same room. I mean, it was right in front of my face and I just didn't even see it.

• 49:24Speaker 00

  Aiden watched Leona and her sister suffer. He even pretended to hire a private investigator to stop the hacker. All the while, he was the one orchestrating all of the chaos. He was the source of their pain.

• 49:41Speaker 04

  He knew everything, every step of the way. How have I been duped like this?

• 49:47Speaker 00

  The Aiden she knew was calm, rational, and private. The texts were volatile, humiliating, and violated their privacy on every level.

• 49:58Speaker 04

  I don't even know who he was. My vision of who he was in the moment was just so wildly disconnected.

• 50:06Speaker 00

  Aiden felt like a stranger now, and a dangerous one.

• 50:10Speaker 04

  It's such an evil, lack-fog feeling. I don't know what love feels like. Because I thought that was it, but someone who loves you doesn't treat you like that.

• 50:21Speaker 00

  The next day, Leona finally got the chance to video chat with Aiden. She knew she had to be strategic.

• 50:28Speaker 04

  I got on the Skype call with him, trying to just stay as calm as possible. Because he can just hang up and be done. So I wanted to lull him in before I said anything to him. So we were just talking about our normal day. He's asking about the girls. And then I told him that I had talked to my friend. And he's like, oh, how'd that go? And I was like, is there anything that you want to tell me that she would be upset about? And he was like, no, I can't think of anything. And I was like, you wouldn't know why she's upset? And he was like, no, I have no idea. I said, okay, I'm gonna ask you one more time. And this time, when I ask you, I'm gonna make sure that you know that I have hundreds of screenshots that tell me otherwise.

• 51:12Speaker 04

  So, again, is there anything that you would like to tell me?

• 51:18Speaker 00

  Aiden had been calm before this moment, relaxed, but in a split second, his face rearranged into an expression she had never seen.

• 51:28Speaker 04

  This look on his face that has just seared into my brain forever. A deer in headlights look. He starts panicking.

• 51:39Speaker 00

  She asked him one last time. Did he do this?

• 51:44Speaker 04

  And he said, yes.

• 51:46Speaker 04

  I'm like, what do you mean? How could you do this to me? I have no idea who you are. And he was just so like, I'm so sorry. You mean everything to me. He's begging me not to leave him, trying to make it better.

• 52:02Speaker 00

  There was one question Leona wanted an answer to. Why did he do this? She couldn't understand the degrading, humiliating messages about his own body. He told her.

• 52:15Speaker 04

  He has low self-esteem. But he also enjoys being talked down to. This was his outlet. He likes to be humiliated.

• 52:25Speaker 00

  Then Aiden told her he had an explanation for everything. A medical issue.

• 52:31Speaker 04

  He's pretty sure he has a brain injury and he just can't control himself when it comes to that type of stuff because his brain is messed up from this deployment that he went on.

• 52:42Speaker 00

  Specifically, Aiden said he had a TBI, a traumatic brain injury. He got it during combat in Afghanistan when an explosion threw him against the side of a mountain. Leona remembers the call from his commanding officer when it happened. How worried she'd been. But this was the first time she learned the accident had caused a TBI. Severe TBIs can cause changes in personality, out of character, even inappropriate behavior. Aiden told Leona that his brain injury was the root of all of his behavioral issues. But this wasn't who he really was. He wanted to get help.

• 53:21Speaker 04

  I took some time over the next few days to like, just leave me alone. I need to process all of this.

• 53:28Speaker 00

  Leona felt pressure to make her marriage with Aiden work. She had put all of her eggs into this basket. They had two young kids together. She didn't have her own source of income and was completely dependent on him financially.

• 53:43Speaker 04

  I'm really good at compartmentalizing things and I was just grasping at every straw to like, be okay.

• 53:50Speaker 00

  While Aiden finished his deployment, she weighed her options.

• 53:55Speaker 04

  I can't leave because this is my entire life. This is my one job to make this work and I can't even do that. So I'm gonna double down and do what I can.

• 54:06Speaker 00

  But when Aiden came home, nothing about their relationship was the same.

• 54:11Speaker 04

  I didn't want to be around him. I would sleep in a different room. It felt like living with a stranger.

• 54:18Speaker 00

  The only thing she could hold on to was the hope that Aiden's behavior really was stemming from a brain injury, that this was a medical issue beyond his control. So she asked Aiden to get a professional opinion.

• 54:32Speaker 04

  And so we start down this path of getting these diagnoses.

• 54:38Speaker 00

  Aiden went in for imaging and testing. When the results came back, they confirmed he had a traumatic brain injury and PTSD. Leona began doing research about the diagnosis and some of the information she learned lined up with Aiden's explanation. TBIs can lead to impulsivity, disinhibition, even inappropriate sexual behavior.

• 55:02Speaker 04

  The day he got his brain injury diagnosis, I was like, okay, I can breathe. That's what this was. This was just how the military has shaped him and this is not his fault. I put all of my weight on that.

• 55:17Speaker 00

  Aiden was medically retired from the military. Leona felt like she needed to be there for him. She'd made the vow, in sickness and in health. And she clung to that. But deep down, she knew their relationship was broken.

• 55:32Speaker 04

  I think in the underlying, I was working on my way out. I was preparing myself.

• 55:39Speaker 00

  But while she was finding a way out,

• 55:41Speaker 04

  he starts acting just super bizarre again.

• 55:46Speaker 00

  He became incredibly possessive about his phone. When she asked him about it,

• 55:51Speaker 04

  I'm like, "Just tell me if you're cheating on me." And he looks me dead in the eyes and he goes, "Yes, I'm cheating on you."

• 55:58Speaker 00

  The next chapter was tumultuous. Getting out of Aiden's grasp was not a straightforward path, as is often the case with abusive relationships.

• 56:09Speaker 04

  While you're going through this, you're just doing anything and everything to just survive. And you're just outside of your body the entire time.

• 56:18Speaker 00

  Leona feared leaving Aiden on his own, with no one to care for him with his TBI. He was an expert at playing the victim, of seeming so terrified of his own behavior that somehow she ended up trying to protect him from himself.

• 56:37Speaker 00

  Leona would often sleep on the couch. Then, one night, after Leona fell asleep,

• 56:43Speaker 04

  I woke up to him choking me. And I remembered just like getting him off of me. And he gets down into the fetal position and starts crying. And he was like, "Oh, my God, I was asleep. I'm so sorry."

• 56:58Speaker 00

  She looked at Aiden sobbing on the ground. In that moment, it became clear to her. It didn't matter if he was sick or hurt. Either way, she was in danger.

• 57:11Speaker 04

  Would I want my children to stay in this situation? No.

• 57:15Speaker 00

  So after that, she faced Aiden. And she told him,

• 57:19Speaker 04

  "I'm done with this. You are not going to treat me like this. I made the decision to leave and I packed up all my stuff. And my mom and my sister came to get me in the middle of the night and get the girls."

• 57:32Speaker 00

  When she was out of their house, the full weight of the situation caught up with her. She was 28 years old and had two young kids.

• 57:41Speaker 04

  I just went off the deep end. Like, I was just so distraught. I didn't sleep for 50 hours after that. I didn't know what was up and what was down. My life exploded in front of my face. What the hell do I do next?

• 58:00Speaker 00

  Leona decided to divorce Aiden.

• 58:03Speaker 04

  We did an uncontested divorce. I agreed to anything and everything to just get it done. I needed to just get out of it alive. I was just concerned that it was either going to be me or him.

• 58:16Speaker 00

  Then she hired an attorney to fight for custody of her daughters.

• 58:20Speaker 04

  When I hired my attorney to hear her tell me that I was an abuse victim,

• 58:28Speaker 04

  this was the first time anyone had said that to me.

• 58:32Speaker 04

  I was just like, oh, my God. This really was abuse. This is very serious what I went through, and I'm lucky to be alive.

• 58:42Speaker 00

  Aiden's abuse severely impacted Leona's mental health. She struggled with suicidality, and it was a long road to regain stability.

• 58:52Speaker 04

  I just like had to pull up my bootstraps and be able to afford to take care of my children.

• 58:58Speaker 00

  Aiden's abuse extended beyond Leona. Her sister was very much a victim of his, too.

• 59:04Speaker 04

  I still struggle with that guilt to this day of like, I brought this person into our world at my family level. I brought this person into our life, and he caused so much turbulence.

• 59:17Speaker 00

  Leona's sister endured abuse and harassment at the hands of Aiden, starting when she was a minor. His abuse has had lasting impacts on their relationship as sisters. Growing up, Leona and her sister were close. But now?

• 59:34Speaker 04

  We have a very strained relationship. We've had conversations about it that have been very tearful. I would love for it to be resolved, and I know she would too, but we're just completely different because of this. You know, we were essentially abused by the same person.

• 59:51Speaker 00

  As far as Leona knows, Aiden really did have a TBI. But the incident that caused it happened after he had already started his online harassment. And he never mentioned the impact the TBI had on his behavior until he was caught.

• 1:00:08Speaker 00

  This betrayal is recent. As of today, Aiden has not been charged with any crimes. Their daughters live with Leona nearly full-time, but Aiden still sees them some weekends. Leona is still fighting for full custody of her daughters, and she plans to tell the court the full story of Aiden's harassment and abuse.

• 1:00:30Speaker 04

  I will make sure my children are raised in a way that they will not be abused this way. But it's hard to do when they still have to have communication with their dad. I give them the pieces to be able to recognize when things are not right. I can't ever get away from it as much as I would like to, but now how I handle him is much different.

• 1:00:55Speaker 00

  She's slower to trust others.

• 1:00:58Speaker 04

  I really have trouble giving my full trust to anybody. Having to remind myself that not every single person is out here to try to take advantage of me, learning to trust yourself, as well as a completely different piece of this puzzle that I still haven't figured out.

• 1:01:17Speaker 00

  She has fought hard for her independence and stability. She savors the life she's built.

• 1:01:22Speaker 04

  I learned how to be grateful for the little things, like curling up in bed next to my children while we're reading, the time that I spend with the people around me. Those moments hit way harder, and I'm not just blasting through life trying to survive.

• 1:01:43Speaker 00

  We end every weekly episode with the same question. Why do you want to share your story?

• 1:01:50Speaker 04

  Because this podcast changed the view that I had with what I was going through. And it finally got me to the point where I felt healed enough and came out the other end.

• 1:02:04Speaker 04

  It feels like a poison when you are not talking about it. The more you talk about it, the better it gets.

• 1:02:14Speaker 00

  On the next episode of Betrayal Weekly.

• 1:02:17Speaker 06

  I was crying, wailing, sobbing. I didn't think that he could take anything else from me, but I was wrong. That was the last thing that he could do to me.

• 1:02:35Speaker 00

  If you'd like to share your story on Betrayal, please email [email protected]. That is [email protected]. Please note that we are not a mental health organization. If you are in crisis or currently experiencing domestic violence, we encourage you to seek local help or dial 911. Please contact organizations that offer immediate support. In our show notes, we've included a list of US-based resources. You can follow us on Instagram @BetrayalPod or find me @It'sAndreaGunning. To access our newsletter and additional content and to connect with the Betrayal

• 1:03:17Speaker 00

  community, join our Substack at betrayal.substack.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. Big thank you to all of our listeners. Betrayal is a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is executive produced by Nancy Glass and Jennifer Fason. Hosted and produced by me, Andrea Gunning. Written and produced by Olivia Hewitt. Our story editor is Monique LaBord. Also produced by Ben Fetterman. Our associate producer is Lea Jablow.

• 1:04:00Speaker 00

  Production management by Kristin Melchurey. Booking support by Curry Richmond. Our iHeart team is Ally Perry and Jessica Krychek. Audio editing by Tanner Robbins with additional editing and mixing by Matt Del Vecchio. Betrayal's theme composed by Oliver Baines. Music library provided by MyMusic. And for more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 1:04:34Speaker 00

  Listen, we're all trying to save for something. For me, I'd love to save up for a really nice vacation and maybe put some money aside for a new car. It's always nice having something to look forward to and knowing you're actually making progress towards those bigger goals feels really good. But in reality, it can be hard to actually save money. But that's what's great about the One Pay app. It makes saving money easy. First, you earn 3% cash back on up to $150. You choose categories like Walmart, gas, or dining, and then get rewarded when you spend in those categories. So you're rewarded for what you're already buying. With high-yield savings, your money keeps growing. So download the One Pay app or visit onepay.com for banking that gives you more for what matters.

• 1:05:19Speaker 03

  One Pay is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided by Coastal Community Bank or Lead Bank, members FDIC. Cash back is earned as points. Go to onepay.com/prewards/terms for redemption options and additional details.

• 1:05:35Speaker 06

  Ready to feel more energized and in control of your health? If you've tried diet and exercise but still aren't seeing the results you're looking for, it may be time to explore a different approach. At orderlymeds.com, you can connect with licensed medical providers through a simple virtual process, all from the comfort of home, and find out if a GLP-1 treatment may be right for you. Learn more at orderlymeds.com. That's orderlymeds.com. Compounded medications are not FDA-approved. Eligibility determined by a licensed provider. Individual results may vary. See website for details.

• 1:06:05Speaker 07

  With ChatGPT, you can do more than get answers. You can get things done. Whether you're leading a big project, planning an elaborate trip, or trying to balance work and life, ChatGPT can help. Give it a goal, plus things like files, notes, or project plans, develop a trip itinerary with daily updates, or create a prioritized schedule, so you can spend less energy sorting out the details and more on bringing your biggest ideas to life. Get started at chatgpt.com.

• 1:06:33Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.