Crystal | Betrayal Weekly

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Speaker 12 This is Bowen Yang from Los Culture Resist with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang.

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Speaker 1 Hi, everyone. It's Andrea Gunning.

Speaker 1 Before we start this episode, I want to let you know that we will be talking explicitly about the realities of domestic violence and sexual assault. So please be mindful with this episode.

Speaker 16 I came up with my plan, which was:

Speaker 16 I'm gonna buy a gun.

Speaker 16 That's my way out.

Speaker 16 I still remember walking into this gun store

Speaker 16 thinking that I cannot believe this is my life.

Speaker 16 I can't believe this is my life.

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 16 i have a thick skin You're not going to be able to offend me. I don't ever give off a vibe of it's okay to mess with me.

Speaker 1 That's Crystal Harris. Her story is one of an intimate and personal betrayal, but it's also a story of an institutional one.

Speaker 1 Crystal grew up in the 70s in Southern California, which at the time was all orange groves.

Speaker 16 We lived out in the middle of nowhere, and my parents were hippies.

Speaker 1 From an early age, Crystal was confident.

Speaker 16 I have pictured myself as an adult since I was little.

Speaker 1 I mean, five years old.

Speaker 16 And the vision that always came to me was

Speaker 16 a, quote, businesswoman. You know, I saw myself with a briefcase and high heels.

Speaker 1 She's always been the kind of person who visualizes what she wants and makes it happen.

Speaker 16 I had my life all planned out.

Speaker 16 Just as I saw myself as a businesswoman, I also saw myself as a wife and mother.

Speaker 16 My plan was to graduate at 21. Hopefully I would have met my husband at some point in college and we would get married around 23 after I started my career.

Speaker 16 And then I wanted to have kids when I was 30. That was my plan.

Speaker 1 Crystal's parents divorced when she was eight and she moved in with her dad.

Speaker 16 I saw my mom after the divorce. She didn't really have a profession.
She had married my dad when she was 18 and she never never went to school. And so she had to like scramble a little bit.

Speaker 16 And it made me realize I would never want to be left in that position where

Speaker 16 I

Speaker 16 had to rely on someone else for my financial security.

Speaker 16 So I entered my high school and college years thinking, I've got to have a skill. I've got to know how to do something.

Speaker 1 It was a formative lesson for Crystal.

Speaker 16 I was 16 years old and I said, I'm going to be a financial advisor.

Speaker 16 And so once I graduated from high school, I got accepted to college and chose finance as my major and was off from there.

Speaker 1 During her last summer of college, Crystal was at home in Southern California, working as a server at a restaurant. One day, a new guy showed up at work.

Speaker 16 There was this buzz in the restaurant one day. Everyone kept going, oh my gosh, Sean is back.
Sean is here. Have you seen Sean? And I was like, who's Sean?

Speaker 16 I finally see him over at the bar and

Speaker 16 I was just blown over. I thought he was gorgeous.
He was so good looking. He was strong, tan and blonde and muscular.

Speaker 1 Sean quickly became one of her favorite co-workers.

Speaker 16 I was a waitress. He was a busboy.

Speaker 16 And like if I was just standing at a table with a cup or a plate in my hand, he'd come up and take it from me. He would never let me walk all the way to the dishwasher.

Speaker 16 He was her type, and he caught her attention.

Speaker 1 An all-American boy and a former college athlete.

Speaker 16 He attended a private college, and he was on their baseball team. He was the pitcher.
And I was impressed. And then I learned that he was a math major.

Speaker 16 And I was impressed by that too, because I thought, well, you can't fudge it on being a math major.

Speaker 16 I respected it.

Speaker 1 Crystal and Sean spent the whole summer flirting.

Speaker 16 One night we all decided to go out after work.

Speaker 16 We had been dancing all night and we had been hanging out with our other friends from work and we were kind of bar hopping.

Speaker 16 And there's a little bench outside and we were sitting on it and he just kissed me.

Speaker 16 That led into

Speaker 16 us having this really cute, fun,

Speaker 16 almost magical relationship that first year.

Speaker 1 Crystal still had a year of college left. She drove the hour home every weekend to spend time with Sean.

Speaker 16 I would race down after school on Friday and it would just be like,

Speaker 16 oh my God, I missed you. It felt like every weekend was a vacation.

Speaker 1 Every time she was around Sean, I was totally smitten.

Speaker 16 He was different.

Speaker 16 I had never dated anybody that I thought was smarter than me, but I thought he was smarter than me.

Speaker 1 After she graduated from college, Crystal turned her attention to her next goal, getting a job. She'd gotten her degree in finance and she wanted to be a financial advisor.

Speaker 16 I really worked hard at getting my foot in the door somewhere. I interviewed everywhere, all the major firms on Wall Street.

Speaker 1 Then, she found a firm who gave her a chance, but she would have to work for it.

Speaker 16 They said, if you can open 25 accounts and bring in $500,000 in assets, then we'll put you into our actual training program. And I said, okay, fair enough.
I worked my ass off

Speaker 16 and I was able to get that done within four months. And so I got hired.

Speaker 1 The firm had a branch in her and Sean's town. But before she started working there, they sent her to New York City for a training program.

Speaker 1 Sean and Crystal had been dating for two years, and Sean visited her in New York when he could.

Speaker 16 We would do New York for the weekend as tourists. At some point,

Speaker 16 we were up at the top of the Statue of Liberty, like in the Crown,

Speaker 16 and that's where he proposed to me.

Speaker 16 I quickly said yes, and I can remember saying,

Speaker 16 we can get married when? Like next week? Or a year? He said, whatever you want.

Speaker 1 She planned their wedding in six months. Everything was falling into place.

Speaker 16 I felt totally sure. I love him.
He loves me. We're starting life together.
And I was really in a happy place in my life.

Speaker 1 Her wedding day was picture perfect.

Speaker 16 It was

Speaker 16 lovely, beautiful. I was happy to be married, but it just, it felt like, of course I'm getting married.
Like, this is what I do. It's my plan.
This is the day that's supposed to come. It's here.

Speaker 16 Let's do it.

Speaker 1 Next on the list.

Speaker 16 We got married in January and by that June, we purchased our first condo. It started us like building our life.

Speaker 1 Sean's dad owned a used car dealership in town and he got a job working there. But Sean's career would be temporary.
Early on, the couple made an agreement.

Speaker 1 When they were ready to start a family, Crystal would be the breadwinner and Sean would stay at home with the kids.

Speaker 16 Neither of us believed in daycare. So

Speaker 16 he had always said he'd be happy to stay home with them. And I just thought to myself, wow, great.

Speaker 16 That lets me have my career, but I could still have kids.

Speaker 1 Knowing Sean would be a stay-at-home dad when the time came allowed Crystal to focus on building her career.

Speaker 16 The stock market opens at 6.30 a.m. West Coast time.

Speaker 16 It was was my job to manage people's portfolios, to figure out what a client needed, what their goals were, what their risk tolerance was, and invest appropriately. You either make it or you don't.

Speaker 16 And so I always liked that aspect, that the sky was the limit.

Speaker 1 Her husband supported her career wholeheartedly.

Speaker 16 Sean,

Speaker 16 literally from the time we first met, he seemed so proud to be with me. He just loved that I was ambitious and that I knew where I was going.

Speaker 16 I'd close some new account and I'd come home and he would be just as happy as I was. We would totally celebrate together.

Speaker 1 They were a regular couple in their 20s, spending weekends with friends.

Speaker 1 They even joined a rec softball team together, which was especially fun because Sean could show off his college baseball skills.

Speaker 16 We played every Wednesday night, and then we would always go for pizza and beer after.

Speaker 16 It gave me a chance to watch him be amazing because he really was athletically amazing. He could run faster than any other man.
He could hit the ball further. I was like, wow.

Speaker 16 I know he loved me, and I loved him very much.

Speaker 16 That was the base of everything.

Speaker 1 At home, he was affectionate, doting. And for a while, things were really great.

Speaker 1 Living together, she began to notice they had two different approaches to conflict.

Speaker 16 I'm the type of person, if I'm mad at you, I will tell you right now. But one minute later, I'm fine.
It's out. It's over.

Speaker 16 But Sean would do things where, let's say he got off work at six. He wouldn't come home until like nine or ten or whatever.

Speaker 16 And he'd finally just like stroll through the door and I'd go, what the hell? Why are you late?

Speaker 16 And he would be like, well, do you remember last Wednesday when you said such and such to me? Well, I've been really mad about that.

Speaker 1 Crystal had never seen someone hold onto resentment the way that Sean did.

Speaker 1 Two years into the marriage, one of their cars broke down. So for a week, Crystal and Sean had to share a car.
They both needed it to get to work. Crystal started her job at 6.30 in the morning.

Speaker 1 She would take a break around 8.30 to pick Sean up and take him to his job at the dealership. Within just a few days, the car became a source of tension.

Speaker 16 Every day, he'd say, come pick me up, let's say 8.45.

Speaker 16 And I would get there and he would still be in bed or

Speaker 16 still in the shower, whatever it was. He was nowhere near ready every day.

Speaker 16 And I had had it. I was pissed.
I didn't like how he was just so dismissive of my time.

Speaker 1 But one day, the fight over the car became something different.

Speaker 16 We got in a big fight over it.

Speaker 16 Eventually, we get in the car and I'm driving him to work.

Speaker 16 and we're still fighting. He's in the passenger seat.

Speaker 16 Next thing I know, he took his left hand, it was in a fist, and just sort of balked me in my eye, on my cheek.

Speaker 16 And I just

Speaker 16 was reeling.

Speaker 16 I pulled the car over

Speaker 16 and I'm trying to get my head together, trying to figure out what just happened. I had never been hit before by a man in my life.

Speaker 16 I just remember thinking, get him to work, and then you're on your own. You've got the car, you've got the safety of the office.
Don't provoke him anymore. I just shut my mouth, not fighting anymore.

Speaker 1 She had an instinctual reaction, which was to stay calm and get him out of her car.

Speaker 1 Once she was alone, she knew what she had to do.

Speaker 16 Get back to the office, call the police, call an attorney, call my mom.

Speaker 16 This is huge, and my marriage is over. That is what I did.

Speaker 16 I told everybody, and I hired a divorce attorney and filed a police report.

Speaker 16 I did everything I ever said I would do if a man hit me.

Speaker 16 When Crystal got home that day, he had broken the whole sliding glass door.

Speaker 1 But Sean wasn't home. He'd been arrested for assaulting Crystal.
She wanted to be far away from him.

Speaker 16 And I got a restraining order. By the end of that day, he was not allowed to come in the house.

Speaker 1 They were separated for some time. About a month or so went by.
Then Crystal got a call from Sean's dad.

Speaker 16 I respected his dad very much, and he was telling me how devastated Sean is, and how this was such a huge wake-up call for him. He knows he did wrong.

Speaker 16 His dad kept saying, you know, you're a part of this family. We love you.

Speaker 16 Sean's already going to anger management classes. I remember thinking, that's great that they have such a thing.

Speaker 16 It was court ordered and it just seemed official.

Speaker 1 This was 1998 when court ordered anger management was still new.

Speaker 1 This was Crystal's first time learning about it, and she was relieved to hear he was getting help. Despite what Sean had done, anger management sounded like it was just what he needed.

Speaker 16 I really thought that could be the key to us getting back together.

Speaker 1 After talking to his dad, she was open to hearing Sean out. She wanted his apology.

Speaker 16 I was willing to talk to him on the phone. I was trying to get a sense of if he understood how bad what he did was.

Speaker 16 He really seemed like he was sorry and he did wrong.

Speaker 16 I thought, I love him. He loves me.
I love him. All he needs is a little bit of help to figure out why he did that and we can still have our life together.

Speaker 1 But she wanted to let him know he'd messed up and he would be held accountable for what he'd done.

Speaker 16 I slowly let him back in the house. It took two or three months.
We had our divorce proceeding and everything. I dropped everything.

Speaker 16 Except what I did not drop was the actual police charge. He did it.
He hit me. And it was important to me that that stand.

Speaker 16 So he was prosecuted and pled guilty. And that did go on his record.

Speaker 1 And the consequences he faced were long-lasting.

Speaker 16 He was on probation for three years.

Speaker 16 And

Speaker 16 I felt sufficiently satisfied that he was getting that help he needed and that we were going to be okay.

Speaker 1 That moment in the car felt like an outlier in their otherwise steady relationship.

Speaker 16 There's not like an infidelity issue. There was not even a jealousy issue.
I thought that was good. We never fought about money.
He was not a drinker, never took drugs, didn't smoke.

Speaker 16 And I just thought that's a great foundation for a good marriage. And we loved each other.

Speaker 1 Over the next three years, they slowly rebuilt trust. Crystal felt grounded in her relationship with Sean.

Speaker 16 I just remember thinking, we should start thinking about having kids. And it was part of my plan anyway.

Speaker 16 So the following January of 2002, I went off the pill and we started trying to have a baby. And

Speaker 16 I got pregnant immediately.

Speaker 1 Crystal was thrilled.

Speaker 16 I couldn't wait for Sean to get home and tell him in person. Like I call him immediately and I'm like, I am pregnant.
He was happy. He was so happy.

Speaker 1 Sean and Crystal found out that they were going to have a boy. They felt really connected through her entire pregnancy.

Speaker 16 He's treated me great. It was a very sweet time in our relationship.

Speaker 1 And in 2002, their son was born.

Speaker 16 Sean was there. He was crying and loving and proud of me and cheerleading and being perfect.

Speaker 1 Their son became their whole world. That's when Sean quit his job and like the couple had planned, became a stay-at-home

Speaker 16 He was home with the baby and I was on maternity leave for like four months and then I went back.

Speaker 16 I thought our plan was working out pretty well.

Speaker 1 But once he quit working, something changed in Sean.

Speaker 16 The whole thing about putting me in my place and the passive aggressiveness and that kind of stuff seemed to pick up a lot.

Speaker 16 When Sean and I would fight, it would be bigger. Things would escalate further than they ever had.

Speaker 16 It just got to a different level after our first son was born.

Speaker 1 Like one time, a fight got so intense that Crystal had to escape to her neighbor's house.

Speaker 16 And he followed me. He comes in there.
He grabs me. He opens their fridge and takes milk out of the fridge and just pours it all over me right in front of them.

Speaker 1 He had humiliated her in front of her friends and he didn't care. Crystal felt exposed because, up until this point, she had been living with Sean's escalation in private.

Speaker 16 After I took Sean back, I never told

Speaker 16 anyone in my family that my life was anything but perfect. Part of it was not even just protecting Sean, it was protecting my own ego.

Speaker 1 Crystal wouldn't dare engage Sean after an explosive fight. She'd wait for him to cool down, but sometimes that would take days or weeks.

Speaker 16 I wasn't happy,

Speaker 16 but I felt like I could tolerate a lot to keep my family together for my kids. Like, I could put up with the bullshit.

Speaker 1 Incidents like this started happening more frequently. And oftentimes, Crystal would get the police involved to help de-escalate the situation.

Speaker 16 Never did I get physically assaulted. It was just like more scary stuff.
And I called the police a number number of times.

Speaker 1 Things went on like this for two years.

Speaker 16 And then Sean's dad got lung cancer and died a month before our second child was born.

Speaker 16 And it sent Sean

Speaker 16 into

Speaker 16 deep, deep depression.

Speaker 16 He was

Speaker 16 playing video games all night. And then he would sleep all day, even though he's the one home with the kids.

Speaker 1 Crystal was doing everything she could to hold their family together, but it was getting harder.

Speaker 16 As time went on,

Speaker 16 I would throw out the divorce word pretty often just because I would say, I can't live like this. My intention in doing that was to hopefully have him go, well, oh my gosh, I don't want to lose her.

Speaker 16 I better straighten up.

Speaker 1 Crystal was still in love with Sean. She wanted to fight for their family and hoped that things could be different.
And she held on to that hope for five years.

Speaker 16 Shit was happening more and more and more.

Speaker 16 And

Speaker 16 finally, it gets to the point early fall of 2007, something happened. We got in a fight.

Speaker 1 After the altercation, Sean left the house. He didn't come back for days.
Crystal had no idea where he was or what would happen next.

Speaker 1 Eventually, he showed back up.

Speaker 16 And when he came back in the house, he was different.

Speaker 16 So calm. It was like he had been meditating on this whole new plan to keep me in line.
He came in with intent.

Speaker 16 He tells me that he is sick of me calling the police on him.

Speaker 16 He is sick of me threatening to divorce him.

Speaker 16 And that is all ending now. That's never going to happen again.
And if I ever do it again, he's gonna kill me.

Speaker 1 He was serious, and it was terrifying.

Speaker 16 I believed him.

Speaker 16 I had never felt so helpless in my life.

Speaker 16 Usually, I could come up with a plan. I had no plan.
That decisive,

Speaker 16 planned-out person who's got her act together found herself in a box.

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Speaker 1 After Sean lost his father, he mentally started to unravel, worse than before. Verbal abuse was a constant in the Harris household.

Speaker 16 When things escalated, Crystal would often call the cops.

Speaker 1 But after one particularly explosive altercation, Sean left the house. And after a few days, Sean came back with a clear message.
He was in control. And if she challenged him, he he would kill her.

Speaker 16 I remember just trying to play it cool at first,

Speaker 16 thinking maybe he's still really mad.

Speaker 16 But whenever I went to revisit it days later, weeks later, months later, and just say, like, you didn't mean that. You're just mad.
He would double down on it and say, no, that is what I mean.

Speaker 1 So Crystal fell in line.

Speaker 1 She avoided doing anything that could upset him.

Speaker 16 I thought I'm going to be be so nice to him. If I'm so nice to him, how could he be mean to me?

Speaker 16 But then he said, the meaner I act to you, the nicer you act to me.

Speaker 1 Anything she did to try and regain control backfired. She needed support.

Speaker 16 For the first time in my life, I start going to church because I am out of answers. I have no plan.
I feel helpless.

Speaker 1 Crystal leaned on the church and its community. There, she felt less alone.

Speaker 1 A few months later, the church was hosting an Easter egg hunt. Crystal wanted to take her sons.
They were five and two at the time.

Speaker 16 I begged Sean to go to this thing with me. It's like the kids will have so much fun.
Do it for them.

Speaker 16 And he did not want to go. He finally super begrudgingly agreed to come.

Speaker 1 The whole time, Sean was miserable. He would wander off or snap at her.
What was supposed to be a fun holiday event ended up being really stressful.

Speaker 1 After the event, Crystal and Sean were pulling out of the church parking lot. Crystal sat in the passenger seat, exhausted, with the two boys in the back.

Speaker 16 Sean is starting to like flip off these cars and stuff. And I'm like, oh my God, I'm so embarrassed because these are people I go to church with.

Speaker 16 I just said, Sean, do not flip these people off.

Speaker 16 And I had a snow cone in my hand and I was looking out the passenger window.

Speaker 16 Next thing I know, the whole thing just explodes because Sean's hand has come across and whacked it out of my face and hit my face a little bit too.

Speaker 16 And then he takes his finger and he puts it right in the soft part of my throat, like right in the front. And he just starts pushing really hard.

Speaker 16 And I'm trying to back up, but I'm crying crying and I'm yelling, and I'm telling him to stop. And my son is diagonal from me, and my other son's behind me.

Speaker 16 And hearing all this, the oldest one, he's telling his daddy to stop.

Speaker 16 Nothing had ever happened in front of the kids before. And I just realized at that moment how delusional I had been thinking that I could keep any of this under control.

Speaker 1 She needed to get out, but she was afraid for her life. And now she was afraid for her kids' lives.
In that moment, Crystal made a decision.

Speaker 16 I'm going to buy a gun. That's my way out.
To get out of this marriage and stay alive, because I knew he would come after me.

Speaker 16 Let's say I called the police that moment, like that night. I truly believed that he would just be out the next day and come and kill me.

Speaker 16 I felt like I could not make any moves for safety until I had that gun. It just felt like a lifeline to me.

Speaker 1 Crystal wasted no time.

Speaker 16 I went that very same night. I still remember walking into this gun store thinking that I cannot believe this is my life.

Speaker 16 I can't believe this is my life.

Speaker 1 In California, there's a 10-day waiting period between purchasing a gun and taking possession of it. So for Crystal, it was just a matter of getting through those next 10 days.

Speaker 1 Once she did pick up the gun, she would take her and her boys and leave Sean forever. But within a few days, Sean started threatening her again.

Speaker 1 She wanted evidence of the threats and violence against her in case she would ever need it in court. This was 2008, before iPhones were mainstream.
Crystal had to be resourceful.

Speaker 16 I thought, I'm going to need proof this is happening to me. So I decided I was going to get a tape recorder.

Speaker 1 As a note for listeners, Crystal is about to describe an instance of graphic domestic violence. If you'd prefer not to hear this, you can fast forward three and a half minutes.

Speaker 16 And so we get to Friday, and I get home from work, and he immediately says to me, I can't stand to be around you. Either you need to leave or I do.

Speaker 16 I still had my high heels on and my business suit and my nylons and everything. And I just was like, okay, fine.

Speaker 1 Crystal decided to give Sean some space. She went up to her bedroom.
She'd stay out of his way for the rest of the night.

Speaker 16 I had just gotten in bed. And next thing I know, he comes strolling in the room and wants to have sex.
And I said, no,

Speaker 16 no, we're not having sex.

Speaker 16 And he starts in on me like,

Speaker 16 well, we are married, aren't we?

Speaker 16 And then he starts saying, this is not up for negotiation.

Speaker 16 I can remember

Speaker 16 a flood of adrenaline going through my body like, oh my God, what is happening?

Speaker 16 I'm not able to talk my way out of it.

Speaker 16 He's 220 pounds. I was 120 pounds.
I couldn't hurt him if I tried, whereas he could kill me.

Speaker 16 And as I realized I'm not getting out of this, I remembered I've got that tape recorder nearby. I couldn't physically stop this from happening, but I could at least have proof that it was happening.

Speaker 16 And so I started begging him to let me just go to the bathroom. And it took me a little bit, but he finally let me go to the bathroom.

Speaker 16 And as I came out of the bathroom, I stopped at my underwear drawer and acted like I was getting something out. And I hit that play and record button.
And then I closed the drawer.

Speaker 16 And then I decided to just try and act like maybe you didn't mean what you were saying before.

Speaker 16 I'm going to go check on the kids. Like I was just trying to get out of there, like put this off in some way, shape, or form.
And he got super mad that I didn't come back to the bed.

Speaker 16 Then I tried to leave and he jumped over the bed and grabbed me by the arm and whomped me upside the head and started choking me and

Speaker 16 pulled me back to the bed.

Speaker 1 He raped her that night.

Speaker 16 When he's finished, I'm thinking he's maybe gonna feel bad. I don't know.

Speaker 16 I'm walking to the bathroom to clean up and get a hold of myself and I'm still reeling from what happened, but I said something like, I can't believe you just fucking raped your own wife.

Speaker 16 He comes into the bathroom and he hits me again upside the head and he's like, don't fucking lie to me. I kept saying, okay, I'm sorry.
I was confused. Okay.
And he's like, you're not confused.

Speaker 16 I'm going to carve that on your head when I dump your fucking body in a ditch.

Speaker 16 And

Speaker 16 he even starts to taunt me about calling the police. He's like, are you going to call the police? Go ahead.
I wish you would. Please do.
Give me a reason.

Speaker 1 Later that night, she checked the tape recorder to see if it had captured anything.

Speaker 16 The audio quality was shit, but it was there. Not only did it catch the rape on tape, it caught his death threat, but caught everything.

Speaker 16 I kept it like it was the most precious jewel ever. I didn't leave it anywhere in the house.
It would go with me wherever I went.

Speaker 1 Now Crystal had proof. This was a serious escalation in violence.
Wednesday was five days away, and that's when she could pick up her gun. In the meantime, she was trying to lay low and survive.

Speaker 16 I'm just going to be super nice to him

Speaker 16 and just get to Wednesday. The next day, I take the kids to Legoland.
That day was fine. I had no interaction with Sean.

Speaker 16 Sunday, I took the kids to where my mom lived and visited with her. And that was the first time I told anyone what happened

Speaker 16 because

Speaker 16 now I have a plan. Like now I can tell her, this is what's been happening to me.
But don't worry, I've got it under control. And so,

Speaker 16 of course,

Speaker 16 she didn't want me to go home to him that day, but I said, I have to. I just have to play along until I get this gun on Wednesday.
And she agreed.

Speaker 1 She went back home and went to work on Monday. The day passed without much interaction between her and Sean.

Speaker 1 I want to mention here again that Crystal is going to describe a final escalation in violence. If you'd prefer not to hear this, you can fast forward a minute and a half.

Speaker 16 Tuesday, I had a long day just in the office, and when I got home at like 6-6:30, he

Speaker 16 just started in on me immediately. Like, where have you been all day? What have you been doing? And he tells me that he was tracking my phone that day and that I'm a fucking fucking liar.

Speaker 16 And he just put his hands around my neck

Speaker 16 and he started choking me

Speaker 16 so hard and so long and he would not let go.

Speaker 16 I kept having this thought process in my head like, is he trying to kill me? Is he gonna accidentally kill me? Either way, I'm dead. And his eyes were black.
He did not care at all what I was saying.

Speaker 16 Nothing I said mattered.

Speaker 1 He raped Crystal again. This time, he was even more violent than before.

Speaker 16 He finally finishes, and I just remember getting up

Speaker 16 completely naked and just walking like a zombie almost to the bathroom and just getting in the shower and

Speaker 16 crying like the most I've ever cried in my life because I just couldn't believe all this happened to me.

Speaker 16 I also had like a complete revelation,

Speaker 16 which was:

Speaker 16 I'm not gonna die if I leave.

Speaker 16 I'm gonna die if I stay.

Speaker 1 Crystal was right to believe that her situation was life-threatening.

Speaker 1 A report from the Journal of Emergency Medicine in 2008 shows that that strangulation is one of the strongest predictors of future lethal violence.

Speaker 1 Victims who have been strangled by a partner are 750% more likely to be killed by that same partner. Crystal was violated, almost died.
Sean seemed unbothered.

Speaker 1 As if it was any other night, he logged on to play video games with his friends.

Speaker 16 Sean was playing this online role-playing game called World of of Warcraft.

Speaker 1 He always played on the third floor wearing headphones. So Crystal hoped he wouldn't be able to hear what she was doing.

Speaker 16 He thought I was going to bed like normal. I put pillows in the bed.
Then I just walked out the front door.

Speaker 16 I went all the way out of our gate and I hid in some bushes and I called 911.

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Speaker 1 After surviving multiple violent attacks at the hands of her husband, Sean, Crystal knew she needed to act quickly.

Speaker 1 That night, while Sean played video games, Crystal snuck out of the house, hid in some bushes in her neighborhood, and called 911.

Speaker 16 I had left the door unlocked and I gave him permission to go in

Speaker 16 and I told them where he was.

Speaker 16 And

Speaker 16 they just went up there to the third floor and arrested him.

Speaker 1 Crystal called the police at 9 p.m., but her night wouldn't end until noon the next day.

Speaker 16 I was with the police and we were waiting on search warrants and we were getting the kids out to my parents. I had to go to the hospital that night for a sexual assault rape test.

Speaker 1 After finishing the medical exam and filing a police report, Crystal's attention turned to her kids. They'd been home during both attacks, but they were in their bedrooms.

Speaker 1 Crystal was confident that they hadn't seen or heard the attacks, but they had been in the car a week earlier after the Easter egg hunt.

Speaker 16 Immediately, when I'm back with them,

Speaker 16 I tell them the truth.

Speaker 16 Because here's the thing. My son, who saw Sean hit that snow cone out of my face and kind of choke me, kept saying, are you going to do something? We need to call the police.

Speaker 16 but i kept telling him like mommy has it under control so

Speaker 16 this is now like a week and a half after that and now his dad's in jail and i just linked him i just said remember when daddy hurt mommy he's in jail he hurt mommy and it just made complete sense to him he was like okay yeah he shouldn't have hurt you

Speaker 1 Then Crystal had to tell the rest of her family and close friends what she had been through.

Speaker 16 My dad was just devastated.

Speaker 16 Everyone just couldn't believe the way that my life had been for so long.

Speaker 1 With Sean in jail, Crystal felt relieved, but she was surprised to find that there was another emotion, grief.

Speaker 16 I made vows to this man. I spent my whole adult life with him.
I made children with him. I actually mourned for quite a long time after he was arrested the life I thought I was gonna have with him.

Speaker 1 In order to cope, Crystal threw herself into work.

Speaker 16 Work was keeping me sane, and things were so crazy every day at work.

Speaker 1 Crystal had always been the breadwinner in her marriage with Sean. She managed the family's finances.
So when Sean's bail was posted, Crystal was the one in control.

Speaker 16 When they first arrested him, I canceled all of his credit cards. So it made made whatever was in his wallet not work.

Speaker 16 Because I thought his bail would probably be like 25 grand or 10 grand or something.

Speaker 16 He had like a million 350 bail. I felt safe with that.

Speaker 1 Sean's criminal trial took multiple years.

Speaker 16 The worst thing that happened during those two and a half years is Sean finally did make bail.

Speaker 16 He's living with his mom. He becomes a cab driver.

Speaker 1 While they waited for the criminal trial, Crystal and Sean were duking it out in family court, negotiating custody of the kids. And on top of that, Sean was demanding money.

Speaker 16 Sean wanted spousal support, and we haven't had the criminal trial yet. And so

Speaker 16 my word is the only evidence in the case at that point in family court. The judge rules that yes, there was domestic violence and rape in this case.
That's just one factor though.

Speaker 16 And the bigger factor is that I'm the breadwinner and it would be sexist if I don't order some spousal support for the husband.

Speaker 16 I was just so outraged. I remember leaving court that day.
Sean passed me in the car and had a number one sign, like, he's the winner. He rubbed it in my face.

Speaker 16 He would like laugh when we got out of the courtroom. And I kept saying, he's a violent rapist.

Speaker 1 According to the family court judge, Crystal would have to pay the man that raped her, violated her, the man that almost killed her.

Speaker 1 At the next hearing, the judge ruled on how much Crystal would pay Sean in spousal support.

Speaker 16 Sean normally would have been awarded maybe $3,000 a month. But because of the domestic violence finding in this case, the judge said, I'll knock that down to $1,000 a month.

Speaker 16 And I remember someone saying, what is that, the rape discount?

Speaker 16 And not only did I have to pay him spousal support, I also was ordered to pay half of his attorney's fees, another $47,000.

Speaker 1 Crystal knew this wasn't right. Survivors shouldn't be forced to pay their abusers.

Speaker 16 Around that same time, I had happened to see a date line where a woman in California was ordered to pay spousal support to the man who was convicted of attempting to murder her.

Speaker 1 This woman had to pay the man that wanted her dead. But instead of accepting the ruling, she had worked to change the law in California.

Speaker 1 Crystal thought that survivors of spousal rape deserved the same protections, and it got her thinking.

Speaker 16 The next time she was in court, I can remember saying to the judge, I said, if you order me to pay this, I am gonna get the law changed. And he was like, you're gonna change the law?

Speaker 1 When Crystal sets her mind to something, she gets it done. She got to work right away.

Speaker 16 I went to my local assemblyman,

Speaker 16 and when I went into the office, I said, I'm a constituent of yours.

Speaker 16 And I just told them what happened.

Speaker 1 After hearing Crystal's story, her local representatives agreed the law needed to be changed to better protect survivors.

Speaker 1 They began the process of writing a bill and sharing Crystal's story with other California lawmakers.

Speaker 16 Every single person that we talked about it to would just be horrified and stunned to find out that this could even happen to someone, that they could be forced to pay their own rapist spousal support.

Speaker 1 The bill quickly gained traction.

Speaker 16 Almost immediately, there was like 20 different lawmakers that had their name on this bill. The district attorney also agreed that this law should be changed and volunteered to write the law.

Speaker 16 The fact that the district attorney wrote the law, and it was backed by the entire California District Attorneys Association, lended us a huge amount of weight.

Speaker 1 But the process of introducing the new bill and changing California law would take time.

Speaker 1 While Crystal and Sean's family court case dragged on, Sean's criminal trial finally began. Crystal gathered all the evidence she had, including the tape recording of Sean's violent attack.

Speaker 16 I don't know what I expected. I kind of maybe

Speaker 16 expected just to go in and be like, here's the tape and ask me whatever you want and just have them believe me.

Speaker 1 During the trial, Crystal discovered a horrible truth.

Speaker 16 When you are a rape victim, you are on trial too.

Speaker 16 You're cross-examined and every move you made, every decision you made is scrutinized as much as his.

Speaker 1 Crystal thought the trial would be quick because she had a recording of the attack and on that tape, Sean could be heard making explicit threats against her life.

Speaker 1 The recording was played in her trial.

Speaker 16 The fact that I taped what happened to me just for that same reason where I'm thinking, God, how is anybody going to believe this? It just was like, wow.

Speaker 16 In 2008,

Speaker 16 it was just not done.

Speaker 16 Nowadays, everybody tapes everything.

Speaker 1 As for Sean's legal defense,

Speaker 16 what's the only defense you can come up with if there's an audio tape?

Speaker 16 Oh, we were role-playing, of course. You know, that's his defense that he goes with.
Their defense was so insulting to me.

Speaker 1 Sean was facing three very serious charges. He was charged with forced-oral copulation, spousal rape, and sodomy.

Speaker 1 When the verdict finally came down, the jury only found him guilty on one of those three charges.

Speaker 16 The jury convicted him of the forced-oral copulation, which is on tape.

Speaker 1 But the jury was deadlocked on the two other charges. sodomy by force and forcible spousal rape.
Even though those acts were caught on tape too, the jury wasn't fully convinced.

Speaker 1 So the court ultimately dismissed the charges.

Speaker 16 I was mad. I was mad at that verdict.

Speaker 1 It raises the question, if Crystal hadn't recorded the attacks, would there have been a trial at all? Because she was married to her rapist, Crystal felt like the courts treated her case differently.

Speaker 1 After the verdict, he was sentenced to six years for the crime.

Speaker 16 And I remember thinking, what am I going to do when he gets out? Because like it all starts again. My fear of him killing me, my worry for my kids, everything.
It just will begin again.

Speaker 1 She started thinking of ways she could protect herself when that day came.

Speaker 16 And so I got a security protection trained German shepherd. He

Speaker 16 was amazing. That moment on, I knew I was safe.
Like between all the other stuff I had, but the dog, like I knew Sean couldn't be hiding in my house.

Speaker 16 It finally gave me peace of mind.

Speaker 1 Sean would be locked up for five years. While he was still behind bars, she worked hard to change the law so she wouldn't have to pay him spousal support once he got out.

Speaker 1 In 2012, after a year of lobbying, California passed a bill which introduced exceptions to spousal support payments in cases of spousal rape.

Speaker 1 The bill protects spousal rape victims whose abusers have been convicted in criminal court from being financially obligated to their attackers.

Speaker 1 Crystal was instrumental in getting this legislation passed. She told her story again and again to help lawmakers understand.

Speaker 16 If they can't put a face to the bill, it doesn't mean anything for some reason. Like you can't just introduce this in theory.
Like this could happen. No, you have to be like, no, it happened to her.

Speaker 16 And she's sitting right here at the end of it all. I'm so proud of what I've done and what I've been able to get done.

Speaker 1 But the story doesn't end there. Six years after Sean's release, Crystal got a call from the district attorney's office.

Speaker 16 The deputy district attorney was sort of like, I'm so sorry to bother you. I know this might be upsetting, but I wanted to let you know that Sean Harris has been arrested.

Speaker 1 After Sean got out of prison, he was arrested for raping another woman. and sexually abusing that woman's underage daughter.

Speaker 1 Crystal felt like she'd been telling the courts for years about how dangerous Sean was. She was enraged that it took him harming two other people for his violence to be taken seriously.

Speaker 16 He is a fucking criminal rapist, and he did it to someone else.

Speaker 16 But here's the thing: when Sean was arrested in 2021 again for the same crime and charged with five felonies in that case, this time He was sentenced to 100 years to life because the conviction in my case was in the record.

Speaker 16 It all counts.

Speaker 1 If Crystal hadn't pressed charges or hadn't documented his crimes, Sean's sentence could have been much lighter.

Speaker 16 You have to get it on the record. Abusers, they don't stop.
They're going to keep doing it and they're going to get worse, they're going to escalate and they're going to get caught.

Speaker 16 And you need to have it on the record all along the way so that they can finally get what they deserve, like Sean finally has, and he's sentenced to 100 years to life.

Speaker 1 That sentence gave Crystal a sense of relief to live the rest of her life without fear.

Speaker 16 I'm not sure I would be where I am mentally today without that, because there's just this level of, I would never,

Speaker 16 ever have let my guard down if he was out, ever. And that's just a hard way to live.

Speaker 1 Crystal never expected to become an advocate for survivors of spousal rape and domestic violence.

Speaker 16 At this age of 53,

Speaker 16 I just have a compassion that I didn't have when I was young. Life is hard.
I've learned like everybody has something. And it's shocking how many people have this,

Speaker 16 have domestic violence or some aspect of domestic violence in their life.

Speaker 1 After she left Sean, she needed a break. She wanted to prioritize herself and her kids.
So she decided not to think about dating until her kids were at least 18.

Speaker 16 I ended up going 12 years without dating.

Speaker 16 In 2020, I let myself go on a dating app for the first time and I met an amazing man.

Speaker 16 We're married today,

Speaker 16 and he could not be a better

Speaker 16 person.

Speaker 1 In the past few years, Crystal has been thriving. She and her husband live together on a beautiful hillside in Southern California.

Speaker 16 We've got 10 acres and built a custom house. We can see all the way to the ocean, all the city lights below.
It's amazing.

Speaker 16 I feel like the life I have today is everything I sacrificed and planned for years ago.

Speaker 1 We end every episode with the same question. Why do you want to share your story?

Speaker 16 I loved him.

Speaker 16 I wanted everything with him. And the fact that that same man

Speaker 16 is the one who made me

Speaker 16 so afraid for my life,

Speaker 16 that's the betrayal.

Speaker 16 I feel like women are not that well served by the common advice that's given of just get out.

Speaker 16 I feel like that's too simplistic.

Speaker 16 You have to have

Speaker 16 a shield of some sort when you get out, and that shield is documentation.

Speaker 16 You have to think like a chessboard. Think all the way to the end.

Speaker 16 I just feel like women need to hear that. They're not told that by the official sources because it's a little bit counter to safety sometimes.

Speaker 16 You could get hurt doing the recording, you could get hurt by staying long enough to get the documentation, and it's like not the legal thing to say. But I'm just telling you, that's what you need.

Speaker 16 If you are victimized the way that I was, and the way that so many people are, you should not be the one who is living in fear.

Speaker 1 On the next episode of Betrayal Weekly,

Speaker 22 we pull out of our house.

Speaker 10 We get about two blocks from the old house, and he looks at me and he says, I think I'm getting ready to be arrested.

Speaker 22 Within seconds of that coming out of his mouth, the squad car lit us up and pulled us over.

Speaker 1 If you would like to reach out to the betrayal team or want to tell us your betrayal story, email us at betrayalpod at gmail.com. That's betrayalpod at gmail.com.

Speaker 1 Or follow us on Instagram at betrayalpod. You can also connect with me on Instagram at it's Andrea Gunning.

Speaker 1 To access our newsletter, view additional content, and connect with the betrayal community, join our substack at betrayal.substack.com. We're grateful for your support.

Speaker 1 One way to show support is by subscribing to our show on Apple Podcasts. And don't forget to rate and review Betrayal.
Five-star reviews go a long way. A big thank you to all of our listeners.

Speaker 1 Betrayal is a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is executive produced by Nancy Glass and Jennifer Faison.

Speaker 1 Hosted and produced by me, Andrea Gunning.

Speaker 1 This episode was written and produced by Olivia Hewitt and Monique Laborde, with additional production from Ben Fetterman.

Speaker 1 Casting support from Curry Richmond. Our iHeart team is Allie Perry and Jessica Kreinchek.

Speaker 1 Audio editing and mixing by Matt Delvecchio. Additional audio editing by Tanner Robbins.
Betrayals theme composed by Oliver Baines. Music library provided by MIBE Music.

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

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