EP 31 – Jan

Speaker 1 This is an iHeart podcast.

Speaker 2 It starts like any other night.

Speaker 3 The glass of red, the cozy blanket, then the drop.

Speaker 5 The stains so dark, so stubborn, it might as well have been a crime scene.

Speaker 3 But this isn't your average couch.

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Speaker 14 That evening, one of the strangest things happened.

Speaker 14 I looked in the mirror and I said out loud, he's not coming home.

Speaker 14 And I thought, my God, am I being dramatic?

Speaker 14 And I dismissed it.

Speaker 1 I'm Andrea Gunning, and this is Betrayal, a show about the people we trust the most and the deceptions that change everything.

Speaker 1 This is our last Betrayal Weekly episode for a little while. We'll be back in May with a whole new season of betrayal.
It'll be one story told over multiple weeks.

Speaker 1 And after that, we have more betrayal weekly episodes coming. Right now, we're actively working on new stories.

Speaker 1 So if you have a story you'd like to share on the podcast, write to us at betrayalpod at gmail.com.

Speaker 1 In the meantime, we have some spectacular bonus content, including updates on cases you've heard on Betrayal Weekly.

Speaker 1 We're also interviewing experts and getting their opinions on the stories you've heard. We can't wait for you to hear what we have coming up.
Now, onto this week's episode.

Speaker 1 This is Jan Canty's story. She grew up in Detroit in the 1950s and 60s.
It was an era of social change, a time when protests erupted across the country and people demanded equality.

Speaker 1 It all informed the woman Jan became.

Speaker 14 I loved growing up in Detroit. It was a very historical time.
I was very active in the women's movement, even as a teenager. I was in demonstrations.

Speaker 14 I wanted to make a difference, and I did not want to grow up and be a housewife and have kids.

Speaker 14 But I lacked role models for how to do that because everybody that I knew that was a woman stayed home and had kids.

Speaker 1 Jan didn't know what possibilities were out there for her. She loves learning, but she didn't love school.

Speaker 14 Hated high school with a big passion.

Speaker 14 Hated it.

Speaker 14 Capital H.

Speaker 14 I thought it was a complete waste of time. I just saw it as babysitting.
It turned me off to school, and I said I was never going to set foot in the classroom again.

Speaker 1 If she could have dropped out of high school, she would have. So college wasn't part of her plan.
She didn't even know how to apply.

Speaker 14 So I just went from one crap job to another, didn't like any of them, got really bored.

Speaker 1 So I kind of started out really floundering not knowing what i wanted to do looking for a little direction she gave school one last try she started taking classes at her local community college and sure enough i loved it so different than high school it was at community college that she took her first psychology course it was a turning point Working in psychology would mean helping others.

Speaker 1 Plus, she found it interesting.

Speaker 14 To me, there's nothing more basic than thought.

Speaker 14 They can take away your family, your health, so on, but they can't take away your thought.

Speaker 14 And that intrigued me. It still does.

Speaker 1 As she began her studies, she was eager to start a life on her own. So she moved downtown and rented the cheapest place she could find.

Speaker 14 My apartment cost me $80 a month. It had rats.
It had about six locks on the door. It had no kitchen.
It was a hot plate, a bathroom, and a bedroom.

Speaker 14 I remember putting my mattress on the floor away from the window so the gunshots outside wouldn't pierce through the window because there was always gunfire at night.

Speaker 14 But it was home to me and it was proof that I was on my way.

Speaker 1 Still, as cheap as it was, if she was going to continue to live there, she needed a job. A friend told her about a psychologist who was hiring.
He needed help typing up a manuscript.

Speaker 1 This was right up Jan's alley. So she applied.
And soon she got a call asking for an interview.

Speaker 14 When she pulled up to the office building, I noticed you had to pay for parking.

Speaker 14 I did not have $2.50 on me to pay.

Speaker 14 So I thought, I'm going to have to ask for a loan from my future employer.

Speaker 1 She went inside and immediately felt like a fish out of water.

Speaker 14 It was staggering. It had marble and bronze and three feet long chandeliers in the corridor and arches and paintings and you name it.
Very, very, very elegant.

Speaker 14 And so I remember walking through the doors

Speaker 14 and instantly I felt out of place. I'm like, I don't belong here.
This is fancy. I don't have any money.
I'm a phony. I was so nervous and I had on my best clothes, which I bought used.

Speaker 14 And I remember watching people how they got to the elevator and how they used the buttons so I wouldn't know how to do it.

Speaker 1 But as she got off the elevator, her nerves faded.

Speaker 14 When I got off on floor eight, he must have heard the elevator gong. He stuck his head out way, way down at the end of the hall.
He said, oh, I'm down here.

Speaker 1 The psychologist's name was Alan Canty.

Speaker 1 Jan had been expecting a man who matched the building. Someone intimidating, formal, classy.

Speaker 1 Alan was anything but.

Speaker 14 He had a golf shirt on. His pants were too short for his shoes.
He was bashful. And he was very welcoming.
He laughed easily.

Speaker 1 The two of them hit it off. 20 minutes into the interview, Alan offered her the job.
But before she left, she had a favor to ask.

Speaker 14 On my way out, I said, oh, by the way, can you deduct $2.50 out of of my paycheck?

Speaker 1 Jan explained that she wasn't able to pay the exit fee for the parking lot. Alan just smiled.

Speaker 14 He pulled out of his pocket a roll of cash and peeled it off and seemed more than happy to give it to me.

Speaker 1 In the beginning, Jan and Alan's relationship was strictly professional. After all, he was 18 years older than her, well-educated.
He came from a wealthy family.

Speaker 1 To Jan, Alan was elite and accomplished. He was someone to look up to.

Speaker 14 My impression of him was one of respect, given his station in life. I knew I could learn a lot from him in terms of the field of psychology.

Speaker 1 Before long, he started treating her to lunch.

Speaker 14 And I would talk about classes and what I was learning.

Speaker 1 He wanted to give her advice to be a mentor.

Speaker 14 He was the first person

Speaker 14 to ever express belief in my goals.

Speaker 14 The idea that, of course, you can go to college. Of course you can graduate.
Of course you can do that.

Speaker 14 I had never had anybody tell me that in my life.

Speaker 14 It really made a big impression on me. And I was so pleased that he saw potential in me that nobody else acknowledged or validated.

Speaker 1 He encouraged her to transfer to a four-year university and get her bachelor's degree. And he helped her pay for college by promoting her to receptionist.

Speaker 14 It gave me a raise and I was so grateful for that because I was really barely paying my own tuition.

Speaker 14 And one term I had to sell my car to make tuition and I had started to walk to class in those neighborhoods, which was a challenge to get home before dark in the winter.

Speaker 1 Alan started giving her rides home at the end of the day. He liked looking out for her and she liked being cared for.

Speaker 1 After a few months, Alan asked her out on a date. It didn't really come as a surprise.
Jan knew they had chemistry. For their first date, Alan drove her somewhere she'd never been before.

Speaker 14 It looked like a rundown neighborhood, and it looked dangerous.

Speaker 1 As Alan pulled up to a house, Jan thought for a split second that she might have made a terrible mistake.

Speaker 14 The windows were boarded up up and the grass was overgrown. The only sign was a little tiny yellow and green sign that said lelies.
That's it.

Speaker 1 But as they drove around back,

Speaker 14 the aroma coming from the kitchen was beyond description. And they had a man with a violin in the parking lot.

Speaker 1 It was a fancy restaurant. one of the nicest she'd ever been to.
And it was hidden, almost like a speakeasy.

Speaker 1 When they stepped inside, the place was decorated with real oil paintings, chandeliers, candles, and even roaming musicians. Jan was wowed.

Speaker 14 And we talked and talked and talked until we realized we were taking up too much time. Like the waiter was kind of like, come on, guys, let's have a change over at the table.

Speaker 1 They were enjoying each other's company. Alan wasn't a standout when it came to his looks or his charm.
He was shy, awkward even. But Jan felt a real connection with him.

Speaker 14 I liked how he treated me with respect and always helped me with my coat and opened my car door and

Speaker 14 never interrupted me and was always eager to hear about my day. And he'd ask follow-up questions, you know, like, what did you think of that class? And what'd you think of that book?

Speaker 14 tell me more about your parents or why do you like that singer or whatever it might be.

Speaker 1 Their attraction was rooted in conversation. Jan had never had a relationship like this before.

Speaker 14 I felt very lucky because a lot of my friends were floundering. You know, their idea of a date would be to go to McDonald's and ride up and down Woodward Avenue.
And I was like,

Speaker 14 I'd rather go to the museums. I'd rather have an intellectual discussion.

Speaker 1 And with Alan, she could.

Speaker 1 Here was someone on her level. They were spending all day together together at work and then going on dates at night.
Pretty soon, Jan could picture a real future with him.

Speaker 14 They'd been dating about six months, and one morning over breakfast, he's very bashful and I decided, you know, he's never going to ask me, so I better ask him.

Speaker 14 So I had a paper calendar in my pocket and I pulled it out, put it on the table, and I said, I think it's about time that we get married. What do you think? And he goes, okay.

Speaker 14 And I took my calendar out and I took a pen and I stabbed a date. It was a year calendar.
And it landed on a Saturday in September. And I go, there's our date.

Speaker 1 They couldn't wait to be married. Just a year into dating, they had a tiny no-frills ceremony.

Speaker 14 By the time we got married, I was finishing my bachelor's. And he encouraged me to go for my master's degree.
When Jan doubted herself, he gave me the confidence to go into my master's program.

Speaker 14 And in the era, too, women did not go to graduate school at all.

Speaker 1 In the early 80s, she started her master's in psychology at the University of Michigan.

Speaker 14 I loved it so much. I did not even want to go home after class was over.

Speaker 14 I loved everything about it. I loved the old, old, old libraries.
Oh,

Speaker 14 it was breathtaking.

Speaker 1 During this time, Alan wanted to move into a bigger home in a more affluent neighborhood.

Speaker 14 He wanted to have us have our own house together. And I said, I have nothing to bring to the table.
Nothing. I mean, you could put everything I had in my trunk.

Speaker 1 And that's exactly what she did. Jan packed up her pillow, clock radio, and a suitcase of clothes.
And she moved in with Alan.

Speaker 14 And we moved into this six-bedroom, six-bathroom house.

Speaker 1 The new home he'd bought for them was a Tudor Revival mansion in one of the most exclusive suburbs of Detroit.

Speaker 14 It was like a public building. It was so big.

Speaker 1 When Jan agreed to move in with him, she only asked for one thing.

Speaker 14 I said, what's important to me is if I can take one of the bedrooms and turn it into a dissertation room. He got me an electric typewriter with a little exchange ball so he could change the fonts.

Speaker 14 And he got me that. He got me a bookshelf.
and a lamp.

Speaker 14 And he bought me a coffee mug that he found someplace Where on the inside, if you look at it, down at the bottom, there's somebody looks like they're mountain climbing up the side of the cup on the inside.

Speaker 14 And he called it a struggle cup. And he goes, when you get discouraged, look in your struggle cup and remind yourself: a day at a time, you're going to do it.
You're going to finish.

Speaker 14 You have what it takes.

Speaker 1 In a little over a year, Alan helped transform Jan's life. Before she'd met him, she was broke, living in a run-down apartment, searching for direction.
Now,

Speaker 1 she was on the path towards becoming a psychologist, and she had a beautiful home in a wealthy neighborhood.

Speaker 1 At the time, she was grateful,

Speaker 1 but looking back now,

Speaker 1 she sees it all a little differently.

Speaker 14 He liked rescuing damsels in distress,

Speaker 14 which I did not understand at the time.

Speaker 14 That's his pattern.

Speaker 2 It starts like any other night.

Speaker 3 The glass of red, the cozy blanket, then the drop.

Speaker 5 The stain so dark, so stubborn, it might as well have been a crime scene.

Speaker 3 But this isn't your average couch.

Speaker 7 This is Anna Bay.

Speaker 8 Fully washable, unspeakably comfortable, and ready for whatever your life, your kids, or your ex throws at it.

Speaker 4 And here's the kicker.

Speaker 6 Starting at just $6.99, you can make sure your sofa isn't part of the problem.

Speaker 4 Fully washable, stain-resistant, and built to hide even the darkest offenses. Right now, get up to 60% off in Black Friday savings because no one should have to live with a stain that won't quit.

Speaker 10 Anna Bay, the only mystery you won't be losing sleep over.

Speaker 13 Shop washablesofas.com today.

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Speaker 1 Once they got married, Alan and Jan were both busier than ever. He had a heavy caseload.
and would often work late into the night at his practice.

Speaker 1 Meanwhile, Jan was charging ahead with her master's in psychology, which eventually turned into a PhD and then a postdoc.

Speaker 14 Oh my god, the hours you put in.

Speaker 14 I mean, 70-hour work weeks were not unheard of.

Speaker 14 And he was very considerate about me coming home and going right up to my room and just working on my dissertation.

Speaker 1 Alan wasn't exactly the romantic type, but life with him was steady and easy.

Speaker 14 I felt special. I felt lucky.
I felt like I had gotten the jackpot.

Speaker 14 We had a routine.

Speaker 14 We'd either have breakfast together or go out to eat. He liked to order the newspaper and read it at night.

Speaker 14 We would have dinner at a prompt time because he often worked in the evenings in his home office. And I would be doing homework.

Speaker 14 It was comfortable.

Speaker 1 Becoming a psychologist was Jan's sole focus.

Speaker 14 We got to the point when I was was finishing my doctorate. He said, You know, we really ought to furnish the living room.
We've been in this house for years, and I go, Oh, yeah, that's a good idea.

Speaker 14 Like, I never noticed it.

Speaker 1 Alan took care of her.

Speaker 14 He took care of the bills, income taxes, et cetera, et cetera. He managed 100% of it, and I was fine with that.
I was just glad not to have one more thing on my plate. So we never argued over money.

Speaker 14 I never worried about it.

Speaker 1 They stuck to the same old routine as the years ticked by.

Speaker 1 Then, in 1984, 10 years into their marriage, Jan noticed a change in Alan.

Speaker 1 It started in November when she traveled to Arizona to be with her parents. She'd come down with Mono, so she went to recover where it was warmer.

Speaker 14 That coincidentally happened to fall on his 50th birthday.

Speaker 14 That night, I remember it was his birthday, and I felt like crap, and I had such a raging, raw, sore throat. But I set my alarm and got up and called him at 11 o'clock and thanked him happy birthday.

Speaker 14 And he started tearing up.

Speaker 14 I thought it's because he was worried about me and my health.

Speaker 1 She stayed in Arizona for three weeks. When Jan got better and returned to Michigan, Alan seemed disturbed.
He was panicked. She'd never seen him like this before.

Speaker 1 And he continued to spiral downward for months. And by May of 1985, they decided to admit him to a psychiatric hospital for a few weeks of intensive mental health care.

Speaker 14 And he kept saying to me at the hospital when I was in the process of getting him hospitalized, you're pure as snow, pure as snow, pure as snow.

Speaker 1 What did that mean?

Speaker 1 The phrase didn't make any sense to Jan.

Speaker 14 Throughout Alan's stay in the psych hospital, he kept repeating words, saying things like, pure as snow, I'm so bad. Birthday, dawn, money, purest snow.
I'm so bad. I need to stand tall.

Speaker 14 And I just thought this is just craziness speaking.

Speaker 1 He was having a psychotic break. Eventually, he was released from the hospital, and he seemed much better.
But Jan couldn't shake the feeling that something wasn't quite right.

Speaker 1 And that feeling only grew as spring turned to summer. One day, Jan was gardening out back.

Speaker 14 And I went back there to trim the lilac bush. And this is after days of rain.

Speaker 14 And I noticed three dry cigarette butts

Speaker 14 on the ground in the mud

Speaker 14 near our kitchen window.

Speaker 14 And that set off a big red flag because they were dry, which meant they were recent.

Speaker 1 It was a small detail, but one that didn't sit right with her. Neither she or Alan smoked, and they didn't have a gardener or a housekeeper.

Speaker 1 So that meant someone had been standing outside her kitchen window smoking.

Speaker 1 Jan imagined a stranger just lurking in her backyard, watching her through the window. She checked every room in the house, in the basement, all around the perimeter.
No one was there.

Speaker 1 Alan was at work, so she left him a message at his office. But he never returned her call.

Speaker 14 He came home from work, and I was livid that he had never called me. And he was patronizing.
And he said, well, what do we need to do? Do we need to get you a dog? Would that make you feel better?

Speaker 14 I said, what would make me feel better is if you returned my phone call.

Speaker 14 Something is amiss. Can't you feel it? You don't find cigarette butts out there.
Something is a myth.

Speaker 14 And he just started laughing, like, oh, you're so cute. Oh, that infuriated me.

Speaker 14 You don't dismiss somebody who's got genuine reasons to be worried.

Speaker 1 Was someone casing the house and planning to rob them? Her mind went to dark places.

Speaker 14 My way of handling stress is to do tasks, to get busy. And so after this incident, I decided to catalog every single thing in our house.
How many towels did we own?

Speaker 14 Where was our insurance policy and put it in a photo album so that if somebody was going to rob us, because that's what I thought was happening, I could say to the insurance company, this is what we have.

Speaker 14 Here's proof of our belongings.

Speaker 1 Then one day.

Speaker 14 I went to go write a thank you note to somebody and I reached up in the closet shelf above my head to pull out where I thought was where we put the thank you notes

Speaker 14 and realized that photo album had been missing. And I knew for sure that's where it should be because I was the only one that dealt with it.

Speaker 1 She confronted Alan about it.

Speaker 14 And he goes, what is with you? I took it to work. I was bragging about you.
You don't get it. I thought it was a great idea.
And he went out to his car and he got it and brought it back in to show me.

Speaker 14 And it smelled like cigarettes.

Speaker 1 Alan explained that he wanted to show his colleagues this album. He didn't understand Jan's concern.
Even with this explanation, she still felt uneasy, especially when...

Speaker 14 We started having hang-up calls in the middle of the night.

Speaker 14 A couple of the first ones, I grabbed the phone, and it was always the same man.

Speaker 14 He had a southern draw.

Speaker 14 He sounded like he was drunk. And he was always asking for some person.

Speaker 1 Jan didn't know who he was asking for, but every few days, this man would call back in the middle of the night. And every time,

Speaker 14 I said it was the wrong number and I hung up.

Speaker 1 But nothing was more unsettling than what happened one evening in the beginning of July.

Speaker 14 I was driving along Fox Canal on a stormy, foggy night, and this car was following me. speeding up and then backing off, speeding up and then backing off.
And I'm like, what the heck?

Speaker 14 And we turned the corner onto my side street, and I knew that area very well. And I knew that there was a dip in the road where it turned.

Speaker 14 And so when I got close by, I turned off my lights and sped up as fast as I dared do it, drive and turn left into my driveway and left onto the grass behind the hedge and just sat there.

Speaker 14 And sure enough, I watched them come by. They stopped at every driveway on our side street.
And they even stopped at my driveway, but they didn't see me and they drove on.

Speaker 1 If one of these things had happened, sure, she could have chalked it up to paranoia. But the cigarettes, the photo album, the hang-up calls, being followed,

Speaker 1 something was off. And Alan wasn't taking it seriously.

Speaker 14 Al blew it off. You don't know that they were following you.

Speaker 14 Yeah, they were following me.

Speaker 14 He was always belittling me when it came to issues of safety because he wasn't bothered by any of that.

Speaker 1 Then on July 13th, 1985, Alan didn't come home for dinner at his usual time.

Speaker 14 It was a very stormy day. We lost power.
It was hail, rain, wind.

Speaker 14 So I wasn't totally shocked when he didn't arrive promptly, although that was his pattern because of the weather. I figured the roads were probably impassable.

Speaker 14 But by 11 o'clock that night, I got concerned. And this is before cell phones, so there was no way to check where he was.

Speaker 14 And one of the strangest things happened.

Speaker 14 That evening, my anxiety was escalating. And I was pacing.
I walked into his home office.

Speaker 14 And he had a bathroom attached to it. And I looked in the mirror

Speaker 14 and I said out loud, He's dead. He's not coming home.

Speaker 14 And as soon as I said those words, I'm like, what the heck? It was like my voice, but not my thoughts.

Speaker 14 And I thought, my God, am I being dramatic?

Speaker 14 This is stress-speaking. Of course, he's going to be home.
And I dismissed it.

Speaker 1 Jan woke up the next morning without Alan in bed beside her. He had still not returned.
She called friends and family and coworkers of his.

Speaker 1 No one had seen him.

Speaker 1 So after 24 hours, she reported him missing.

Speaker 14 But nothing came of it. That day or the next day or the next day or the next day.

Speaker 1 With each day, she grew more and more panicked. He could have been in a car accident or a carjacking.
He could have been mugged or kidnapped. After all, it was Detroit in the 80s.

Speaker 14 Crime in Detroit was at an all-time high at that point in history. The statistics were at that time that a car was stolen every 13 seconds.

Speaker 14 You heard sirens day and night. We were working in an area that was high crime,

Speaker 14 so it would not be unthinkable

Speaker 14 that he was a victim of a crime.

Speaker 1 Jan needed support. Her parents flew in from Arizona to be with her, but they weren't the only ones at her door.

Speaker 14 On about this third day of him being gone, the media descended

Speaker 14 and they never let up at all.

Speaker 14 They were intrusive. They were relentless.

Speaker 14 They made it a living hell for me. Nonetheless, we had to get the word out, so they did.
It was on the news every time I turned around.

Speaker 1 Jan waited. A week went by.
Then eight days. And nine days.
And then...

Speaker 14 The tenth day, I got a phone call early on a Sunday morning from a detective, Marlos Landeros.

Speaker 14 She asked me to meet her down at the police headquarters.

Speaker 1 The detective was outside the building, waiting for her when she arrived. They went up in the elevator.

Speaker 14 We got off on floor five, which was homicide.

Speaker 14 And I was called into the office of the inspector, Gil Hill.

Speaker 14 It was a very short meeting. He said, we have reason to believe your husband's been murdered, but we don't have his body yet.

Speaker 14 And I suggest you go go home and check your finances because we've been told that he's been handing out a lot of cash down on Cass Corridor,

Speaker 14 which is the red light district of Detroit.

Speaker 2 It starts like any other night.

Speaker 3 The glass of red, the cozy blanket, then the drop.

Speaker 5 The stains so dark, so stubborn, it might as well have been a crime scene.

Speaker 3 But this isn't your average couch.

Speaker 7 This is Anna Bay.

Speaker 8 Fully washable, unspeakably comfortable, and ready for whatever your life, your kids, or your ex throws at it.

Speaker 4 And here's the kicker.

Speaker 6 Starting at just $6.99, you can make sure your sofa isn't isn't part of the problem.

Speaker 4 Fully washable, stain-resistant, and built to hide even the darkest offenses. Right now, get up to 60% off in Black Friday savings because no one should have to live with a stain that won't quit.

Speaker 10 Anna Bay, the only mystery you won't be losing sleep over.

Speaker 13 Shop washable sofas.com today.

Speaker 11 That's washable sofas.com.

Speaker 23 What does Zen really give you? Not just hands-free nicotine satisfaction, but also real freedom. Freedom to do what you love, when and where you want.

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Speaker 1 Jan Canty's husband Alan had been missing for over a week when she got called into the Detroit police station. The investigators suspected that Alan had been murdered, but they didn't have his body.

Speaker 1 They'd been investigating his disappearance and found something surprising. Alan was well known in Detroit's red light district.
He was often there spending money on sex workers.

Speaker 1 Jan knew her husband to be a bookish, bashful man, a psychologist who spent his free time reading.

Speaker 14 He's got the wrong guy. No, this can't be.
Uh-uh. He doesn't know my husband.
My husband is somebody who reads the newspaper every day.

Speaker 14 He's always home at a certain time when he says he's going to be home. He's not a ladies' man.
He doesn't dress to kill.

Speaker 14 He doesn't do drugs. He doesn't gamble.
He's got the wrong guy.

Speaker 14 There's got to be another explanation. And the fact that he didn't have a body lent itself to my argument that they had the wrong guy.

Speaker 1 Jan was incredulous, but with no other leads, she took the detective's advice to take a look at Alan's finances.

Speaker 14 Everywhere I looked, we were in the red.

Speaker 14 I mean IRS, house payments, office payments.

Speaker 14 There was no savings account. There was no life insurance policy.
There was nothing. It turns out when I totaled it up,

Speaker 14 in 1985 dollars, I was $30,000 in debt. And I had no income to speak of because I had just finished my training.

Speaker 1 A few days later, as she was still making sense of the finances, she got another call from the police.

Speaker 1 They had more intel.

Speaker 14 And they said he's been keeping company with John Carl Fry Sr. and Dawn Maurice Benz on Casper Street.
And they looked at me to see my reaction and I'm like,

Speaker 14 okay

Speaker 14 like it might as well have been Greek I don't know them that was the first I'd heard of them then

Speaker 1 the police revealed we have found his body

Speaker 14 and we need you to identify him the detective explained to Jan that they would need to go to the morgue on the way over there In her very professional and caring way,

Speaker 14 she did her darndest to prepare me to see him in an altered state because he had been buried in a bog for 10 days in three different places.

Speaker 1 His body had been dismembered.

Speaker 14 Some of his body parts were left on the freeway.

Speaker 14 I didn't have to identify those. What I had to identify was his head.

Speaker 14 My dad said, you can't do this by yourself. I'm going to go with you.
And I said, Dad,

Speaker 14 this isn't your problem. This is my problem.
But I could not stand. I could literally not stand.
It felt like my legs were made out of silly buddy.

Speaker 1 The detective held her up on one side as her dad held her up on the other. The experience was incredibly traumatic.
Jan can't even remember who was in the room.

Speaker 14 I do remember Detective Landeros telling me, all you have to do is say yes or no. That's it.

Speaker 14 And we're out of here.

Speaker 14 And

Speaker 14 when they put his head in a table,

Speaker 14 I couldn't speak.

Speaker 14 And I closed my eyes and she was very patient.

Speaker 14 And then she asked me

Speaker 14 yes or no.

Speaker 14 He didn't have his glasses on, but his hair looked the same. and

Speaker 14 his eyelashes and his eyebrows looked the same.

Speaker 14 When I said yes, I was sure it was him.

Speaker 1 The detective snuck Jan out the back. Camera crews were waiting for her out front.
The story had become national news.

Speaker 1 On the way home from the morgue, Jen laid down in the back of the police car.

Speaker 1 Jan could no longer deny the reality. Her husband...
was dead.

Speaker 1 And he was murdered by people she'd never heard of. And who were these people?

Speaker 14 Well,

Speaker 1 they were still at large.

Speaker 14 There was an APB for their whereabouts, and they started having their faces plastered in the news.

Speaker 1 Jan didn't want to look at the TV, but her dad insisted. He said,

Speaker 14 I want you to know their faces.

Speaker 14 I don't think they're on their way to our house,

Speaker 14 but you're out and about in the community.

Speaker 14 I want you to be able to identify them if you ever see them. And your first obligation is to call 911, then me, in that order.

Speaker 14 So that's the first I knew of their faces and connected them with their name.

Speaker 1 Their names were John Carl Fry Sr. and Dawn Marie Spence.
As Jan watched the news, she found out for the first time who these people were.

Speaker 1 Dawn was a sex worker and John was her boyfriend. The media ran with the story of a wealthy psychologist being sucked into a dark love triangle.
But could that be true? Jan still couldn't fathom it.

Speaker 14 And I'm still like, Ell?

Speaker 14 That doesn't make sense. I just couldn't wrap my head around it.
It was so unlike him.

Speaker 1 The man she knew was quiet, intellectual, earnest. Someone who'd get wrapped up in a world like this? was a different Alan Canty entirely.

Speaker 1 Jan barely had the basic facts of the case. She didn't even know how Alan met these people and what their relationship really was.

Speaker 1 But she didn't have the time to look for answers.

Speaker 14 I had so many more urgent, immediate things on my plate. I was worried about the IRS selling my house.
If I had AIDS, I was going through AIDS testing.

Speaker 14 I had no time to wonder and think about what did he do? What did he say? Where did he go?

Speaker 14 That was a low priority. I was worried about my own safety.

Speaker 1 After all, she had been followed. The fear and stress were taking a massive toll on her.

Speaker 14 I wasn't sleeping. I went into permanent menopause.
I was physically sick. I lost a lot of my hair.
I lost a lot of weight.

Speaker 1 Alan had led a double life, one she still didn't have a clear picture of.

Speaker 1 She was deeply betrayed, but she was also grieving.

Speaker 14 I

Speaker 14 was very defensive, irrationally angry. Like I would get angry at going into the grocery store that they didn't make loaves of bread for one person.

Speaker 14 I was looking for things to get angry about. Somebody opened the door for me.
I'm like, what do they think? I'm weak. They got to open the door for me?

Speaker 14 I didn't maybe say anything to him, but internally I was very angry all the time.

Speaker 1 With Alan dead, there was nowhere for her anger to go he couldn't answer for what he'd done and to make matters worse alan had kept financial secrets big ones

Speaker 14 i got handed a bill for thirty seven thousand dollars he owed for back rent

Speaker 14 he'd taken out personal loans he'd forged my name

Speaker 14 i was so broke I didn't know how I was going to get through the winter. I turned down the heat so much that I had frozen pipes.
I started eating less. I conserved my trips to the store.

Speaker 14 I walked when I could. I sold off everything I could.
His car parts, jewelry, furniture, books.

Speaker 14 One night, I was by myself as usual,

Speaker 14 and it was a peaceful night. I was sitting by the fire at my house.
The room was empty. There wasn't a stick of furniture in there because I'd sold it all.

Speaker 14 And I remember thinking,

Speaker 14 somehow,

Speaker 14 some way,

Speaker 14 I'm going to make this a positive thing.

Speaker 14 I don't know how, I don't know when, but I do know why.

Speaker 14 Because if I don't, it'll crumble me.

Speaker 1 It took two years for Jan to get on steady ground after Alan was murdered. And during that time, She was still unaware of who her husband really was and what he had truly done.

Speaker 1 Then in 1987, Jan got approached by a reporter. He was writing a book about Alan's case.
At first, Jan tried to shut the book down.

Speaker 1 She didn't need anyone showing up on her doorstep again, digging up old wounds.

Speaker 14 I didn't want to speak with him. I didn't want anything to do with it.
And I went to my attorney about it and he goes, you can't stop it. He's writing it based on public records.

Speaker 14 And in fact, there's a reason you should cooperate with him. And I go, what's that? And he said, you're going to learn things that you need to know.
He's going to have the time.

Speaker 14 He's going to have the answers. And if you don't get the answers, you'll always wonder.

Speaker 14 So I'd suggest you meet with him.

Speaker 1 So she did.

Speaker 1 And through the reporter's findings, the other Alan Canty finally revealed himself.

Speaker 1 Here's what she learned.

Speaker 14 Throughout our marriage, he had women on the side, and every single one of them was in need financially. He had offered to put up some in their own apartments.

Speaker 14 He had offered to pay the tuition of others. He'd paid the medical bills of some and even visited them in the hospital.

Speaker 14 There was never a time when he was the person I thought he was.

Speaker 1 All those late nights that he was working,

Speaker 1 He was really with these women. It was like he had a pathological desire to save women in need.
So when his mother gave Alan $500 for his 50th birthday, he took that money and spent it on Dawn.

Speaker 14 That's the first time he met her.

Speaker 1 This was when Jan was sick with Mono and resting at her parents' place in Arizona. Jan thought back to that birthday call when Alan started to cry.

Speaker 1 Originally, she thought it was out of concern for her health.

Speaker 14 I think instead it was a little pang of guilt, but it was short-lived.

Speaker 1 The guilt apparently subsided, and Alan continued to spend time in the Red Light District where he met Don.

Speaker 14 There,

Speaker 1 he wasn't the sheepish guy Jan had known. Even smaller details didn't square up with what she knew about him.

Speaker 14 For one thing, she discovered he was a very good pool player.

Speaker 14 And he would challenge people playing pool, which I can't even picture him in a bar, let alone playing pool.

Speaker 1 The other Alan spent his nights with Dawn at bars, and the reporter told Jan something that changed her understanding of the whole dynamic.

Speaker 1 Before Alan died, he'd been hanging out with Don and John for nine months. For most of that time, Alan wasn't paying Don for sex.

Speaker 14 They stopped having sex.

Speaker 14 They only had sex the first two months.

Speaker 1 So, what was the point of their relationship? Could it be drugs? The reporter reporter turned to Jan for an answer. And in her gut, she knew it was an addiction of a different kind.

Speaker 1 An addiction to being needed.

Speaker 14 So this was like a guarantee. You know, if I'm going to surround myself with people who need me financially, I have a guarantee.
of an audience. I have a guarantee of a partner.

Speaker 14 They're not going to leave me.

Speaker 1 He liked having a captive audience.

Speaker 14 He would go over there and read the paper and bring them breakfast.

Speaker 14 And they'd sit and listen with boredom to his stories.

Speaker 1 Of course, Don and John got something out of this relationship too.

Speaker 1 They were in it for money. Jan was able to figure out just how much Alan had given them.

Speaker 14 It was $150,000.

Speaker 1 In today's money, that's nearly $440,000.

Speaker 14 And that doesn't include the cars he bought them, the rent he paid, the meals he paid for.

Speaker 1 He also bought them heroin.

Speaker 14 He would take them on drug runs for them. And I think that was his making sure they were going to be dependent upon him.

Speaker 1 This was Alan's M.O. He got people to need him.

Speaker 1 But this time,

Speaker 1 Alan was mixed up with some very dangerous people.

Speaker 14 I mean, even among other criminals, John was feared. That's how vicious he was.

Speaker 1 Remember those phone calls Jan got in the middle of the night? The ones from the man with the southern accent?

Speaker 14 That was John Fry.

Speaker 1 Alan had lied and said he was a widower. So when John called the house and heard Alan's wife on the line, he was surprised.
Then he got an idea.

Speaker 1 He could use that information to extort Alan, to threaten his wife, in exchange for more and more money.

Speaker 14 and they drained him dry when he ran out of money they lost patience with him they had no interest in him

Speaker 14 and decided at least john decided best thing to do was just to kill him get him out of their hair near the end alan started to see the writing on the wall he was running out of money to give them

Speaker 14 He realized that John had been calling our house and hanging up.

Speaker 14 Things were coming to a head, and I think he'd be compensated.

Speaker 1 That led to Alan's psychotic break, or what Jan had thought was a psychotic break. She remembered that phrase Alan kept repeating when he was in the hospital.

Speaker 14 You're pure as snow, pure as snow, pure as snow.

Speaker 14 And I think in his mind at that point in time, he was seeing Dawn and me as very different people.

Speaker 1 To Alan, Jan and Dawn were total opposites. Jan was the woman he transformed into something good and clean and pure.

Speaker 14 Dawn

Speaker 1 brought out his dark side.

Speaker 1 But when Jan learned more about Dawn's backstory,

Speaker 1 it resonated with her.

Speaker 14 Dawn came from an abusive household and she did not have a good self-esteem. I mean,

Speaker 14 she quit school a month before she graduated high school and she was nominated valedictorian.

Speaker 14 Instead, she threw all that away, left the suburbs to go downtown and met up with John, and her life took a turn for the worst after that.

Speaker 1 Jan learned of at least four other women he supported financially. Jan herself had been that young woman with a lot of potential and no direction to go in.
When she met Alan, her life changed too.

Speaker 14 In a way, that was the old me. I mean, I had nothing when I met him.

Speaker 14 And he was... Saying, I'll pay your tuition, just like he said it to them.

Speaker 1 And now, for the first time, she saw their relationship through his eyes.

Speaker 14 It explained to me his attraction to me, you know, that I was a project. I was a challenge to be fixed,

Speaker 14 to be provided for.

Speaker 14 I was a good prop,

Speaker 14 someone he could perform for with his knowledge and his money. And I sat and ate it all up.
I was a willing participant.

Speaker 1 It's a strange feeling, especially considering that Alan helped her achieve so many dreams.

Speaker 14 I will always be grateful for what he gave me. I don't mean just financially, but the encouragement.
He was instrumental in getting me on my path, and I don't think I would have done it without him.

Speaker 1 The very things she loved about Alan were the ones that destroyed him and destroyed her life.

Speaker 1 John Fry was eventually convicted of murder and the mutilation of a body. He served the rest of his life in prison.
John served 10 months plus three years probation for her role in the crime.

Speaker 1 As for Jan, she wanted to get out of Detroit.

Speaker 14 Once I left Detroit and paid off the bills and got away from the media and got away from the police,

Speaker 14 I felt like I could start to reinvent my life.

Speaker 1 She's lived many lives since that time. She's taught and practiced psychology, traveled the world, gotten remarried.
Still, she couldn't leave what happened with Alan behind completely.

Speaker 1 She continued to think about the man he'd been as both a victim and a perpetrator.

Speaker 14 What that did was end up in conflicted grief.

Speaker 14 You have dueling emotions. There's a part of you that's like the typical grief, you know, those loss and sadness and missing a person.

Speaker 14 But the other side of it is relief.

Speaker 1 Dealing with this complicated grief and trauma made it hard for Jan to connect with people who could possibly understand what she'd gone through.

Speaker 1 But eventually, she found community in other homicide survivors.

Speaker 14 A homicide survivor is

Speaker 14 someone who is grieving over the homicide of a loved one.

Speaker 14 It's somebody who's left with the aftermath of murder. And the reason we don't know of that term is I don't think it's projected much in true crime.

Speaker 14 The focus is on the perpetrator and the deed, a little bit on the victim, and we're in the background and nobody cares.

Speaker 14 I mean, it's like they think if we get the perpetrator convicted, that that's the end of the story. And I'm like, oh,

Speaker 14 if you only knew.

Speaker 1 Knowing people who shared even parts of her own experience gave her a deep sense of belonging.

Speaker 14 Now I hold that as near and dear to my heart.

Speaker 14 The people I have met, the stories I have heard. It's so healing.
It was like the missing piece.

Speaker 1 Supporting and advocating for homicide survivors has become Jan's mission in life.

Speaker 1 We end all of our episodes with the same question.

Speaker 1 Why do you want to tell your story?

Speaker 14 If you think about most movies dealing with homicide, the family of the victim is either never shown or they're grieving in the corner wringing their hands and that's the end of them.

Speaker 14 There's not any curiosity about it. And the fact of the matter is, anybody listening could be a part of our club.

Speaker 14 Homicide cuts across all racial lines, age, economic, geographic, you name it.

Speaker 14 Nobody is immune.

Speaker 14 And if anything's going to change, we have to put our story out there.

Speaker 14 Somebody's got to do it.

Speaker 1 If you would like to reach out to the betrayal team, email us at betrayalpod at gmail.com. That's betrayalpod at gmail.com.
And be sure to follow us on Instagram at betrayalpod.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 The show is executive produced by Nancy Glass and Jennifer Faison. Hosted and produced by me, Andrea Gunning.

Speaker 1 This episode was written and produced by Caitlin Golden and Monique Laborde with additional production by Ben Fetterman. Associate producers are Kristen Mel Curie and Caitlin Golden.

Speaker 1 Our iHeart team is Allie Perry and Jessica Kreincheck. Audio editing and mixing by Matt Delvecchio.
Additional editing support from Tanner Robbins. Betrayals theme composed by Oliver Baines.

Speaker 1 Music library provided by MIBE Music. And for more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 25 I'm Cheryl McCollum, host of the podcast Zone 7. Zone 7 ain't a place.
It's a way of life. Now, this ain't just any old podcast, honey.

Speaker 25 We're going to be talking to family members of victims, detectives, prosecutors, and some nationally recognized experts that I have called on over the years to help me work these difficult cases.

Speaker 25 I've worked hundreds of cold cases you've heard of and thousands you haven't. We started this podcast to teach the importance of teamwork in solving these crazy crimes.

Speaker 25 Come join us in learning from detectives, prosecutors, authors, canine handlers, forensic experts, and most importantly, victims' family members. Come be a part of My Zone 7 while building yours.

Speaker 25 Listen to Zone 7 with Cheryl McCollum on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcast.

Speaker 26 A new true crime podcast from Tenderfoot TV in the city of Mons in Belgium. Women began to go missing.

Speaker 26 It was only after their dismembered remains began turning up in various places that residents realized a sadistic serial killer was lurking among them. The murders have never been solved.

Speaker 26 Three decades later, we've unearthed new evidence. Le Monstre, Season 2, is available now.
Listen for free on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 20 Hi, listeners. I'm M.

Speaker 22 William Phelps, host of Paper Ghosts, the Texas Teen Murders podcast. And I'm excited to share Paper Ghosts, the Texas Teen Murder Story with you.

Speaker 22 And want to let you know that you can get access to all episodes of Paper Ghosts and every single episode of Paper Ghosts 100% ad-free with an iHeart True Crime Plus subscription available exclusively on Apple Podcasts.

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Search for iHeartTrue Crime Plus and subscribe today.

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Speaker 1 This is an iHeart podcast.