EP 24 - Deb

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Speaker 7 Ah,

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Speaker 7 It was a profound

Speaker 7 moment. It's the duality of, oh my God,

Speaker 7 what in the world?

Speaker 7 Who is this cruel?

Speaker 7 Who can pull this off?

Speaker 7 Whose friends pull it off?

Speaker 7 How do you fabricate the details like that?

Speaker 19 I'm Andrea Gunning, and this is Betrayal, a show about the people we trust the most and the deceptions that change everything.

Speaker 7 My real name is Deborah, but typically everyone calls me Deb.

Speaker 19 Deb Proctor grew up on the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma. She recently retired from her role as the senior director of her tribe's domestic violence program.

Speaker 19 And before that, she spent her entire career as a nurse.

Speaker 7 After being an REN for, well, now it's been 48 and a half years.

Speaker 19 Like a lot of people in the medical profession, profession, she developed a keen sense for when someone is lying.

Speaker 7 When you mention bullshit detectors, I can spot them a football field away or further.

Speaker 19 Deb is Cherokee and proud of her Native American heritage.

Speaker 7 My grandmother, who lived until she was 99 years old, she is actually our family's original Enrolly, which means she is on the Dawes Roll.

Speaker 19 The Dawes Roll was a list compiled by the U.S. government in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
It named about 100,000 Native Americans who were allotted land.

Speaker 7 Which was pretty unusual to have an original Rowly in your life for most of it.

Speaker 19 Growing up, Deb's grandmother was a constant presence and a source of inspiration.

Speaker 7 I think I got a lot of my proctor

Speaker 7 will and strength and courage from her.

Speaker 7 She was born before statehood and she was still stacking her own wood when she was in her early 90s. She was a survivor of many, many situations in her life.

Speaker 19 Her grandmother experienced a lot of violence firsthand. Deb's father did too.
As a child, his own father was murdered in front of him.

Speaker 7 Those life events are what gives the background and the experience to what we would call call intergenerational trauma or historical trauma?

Speaker 19 She saw the impact of that on her family. There was alcoholism and emotional turmoil.
And when she was young, Deb struggled to process it.

Speaker 7 When you're a very sensitive nature child,

Speaker 7 your little heart's open and you're intuitive.

Speaker 7 You pick up that energy.

Speaker 19 From a young age, she experienced violence and abuse herself.

Speaker 7 The violence I experienced, I truly in my heart know that it's as a result

Speaker 7 of those that could not heal.

Speaker 19 Deb believes her father's unresolved trauma led him to become a civil servant.

Speaker 7 He taught me a lot about community service. He would be in his vehicle driving through the rural areas seeing what the natives needed.

Speaker 7 And ultimately, he was a councilman for her tribe served many many years

Speaker 7 deb grew up quickly in more ways than one in fact on her 16th birthday her high school boyfriend surprised her they had a birthday party for me and he asked me to marry him and i accepted that was the day i turned 16.

Speaker 19 But her engagement didn't distract her from prioritizing education. Her father insisted that she earn an advanced degree.

Speaker 7 He was the one in the family who said you must have an education. And so at age 17, I did start college and I finished at 19 with my first RN degree.
That was as a result of my dad pushing me.

Speaker 19 Before she even had a chance to know herself, she was married and working as a full-time nurse.

Speaker 7 I mean, I'm running the hospital as a baby nurse. I'd probably turn 20, maybe 21 by then.

Speaker 7 It was tough, but I spent a good part of my energy on trying to achieve perfection.

Speaker 19 Deb and her husband shared a very similar upbringing.

Speaker 7 He came from a violent background, very similar to mine. And so we just went together like peanut butter and jelly.

Speaker 19 They had two sons together. But a few years into marriage, her husband's behavior became a problem.

Speaker 7 He

Speaker 7 struggled with drugs and drinking, and he had violent tendencies. It was really hard.

Speaker 19 She eventually left her husband and resolved to end the cycle of violence to make a safe and stable environment for her and her two sons.

Speaker 7 And so for many years, I remained single and just spent time with myself and the boys. And so for the next few years after we divorced, I sought to understand.

Speaker 7 I bought books. I joined book clubs.
Anything on self-understanding.

Speaker 19 She started going to therapy and joined support groups for families impacted by alcoholism. She was creating a better life for herself and for her sons.

Speaker 19 When her sons became teenagers, she looked around and realized, I did want a partner in life.

Speaker 7 You know, someone to enjoy life that I meant something to, that I mattered to.

Speaker 19 She was 41 and felt ready to explore a new partnership. So she made an online dating profile.
This was 1997, back when online dating was a novel concept.

Speaker 7 Yeah, this ain't bumble. This ain't, yeah, this is none of that stuff.

Speaker 19 One man piqued her interest. His name was Jeff Walton.

Speaker 7 His profile was just romantic.

Speaker 7 It was something like, I'm looking for my Guinevere.

Speaker 19 Jeff said he wanted to treat his next partner like a queen. Deb wrote him an email.
He lived a couple states away in Kentucky. But their conversation flowed easily.

Speaker 19 And Deb quickly discovered they shared the same interests. They both loved golf.
And Jeff wanted to hear more about Deb's Cherokee culture.

Speaker 7 You know, the music, a spiritual journey. He loved the Native American spiritual practices.
And when I talked to him, I was was just smitten with him.

Speaker 19 She looked forward to his phone calls and emails.

Speaker 7 I saved all of that. I printed everything.
I had a huge three-inch purple binder with all of our exchanges.

Speaker 19 As they got closer, she got to know more about his backstory.

Speaker 7 He was born in Alaska and moved to Canada.

Speaker 19 He was a dual citizen of Canada and the United States. And he had a complicated relationship with his biological family.

Speaker 7 He didn't know his real dad.

Speaker 7 His stepdad

Speaker 7 was very violent and he would share stories like, you know, his stepdad murdered the family poodle in front of his sister and his mom and him. And I mean, it was horrible stories.

Speaker 19 Deb had seen her share of violence as well. She understood what it was like, so they bonded over their difficult childhoods.
Jeff's family was still in Canada, but they'd fallen out of touch.

Speaker 19 He moved to New Orleans as a young man, and along the way, he picked up the accent.

Speaker 7 So when he would talk to me on the phone, he would have that, you know, dialect.

Speaker 7 He would say, hello, Darling. And

Speaker 7 yeah, I can't do it, but it was definitely New Orleans.

Speaker 19 Jeff's ex-wife and adult son still lived in New Orleans. But after his divorce, he'd taken a job in Kentucky.

Speaker 7 He was a project manager for a big construction company that, you know, worked on Toyota plants, that worked on the University of Kentucky, that had done all this great work.

Speaker 19 Jeff was the kind of person who'd lived a million lives in one.

Speaker 7 He just fascinated me. He was a pilot and played football for Woody Hayes at Ohio State and was

Speaker 7 phenomenal.

Speaker 19 Depp could really see herself with this guy.

Speaker 7 We're going to embark upon this journey together. We love music.
We love golf. We're both seekers.

Speaker 7 I just was so excited about meeting this man.

Speaker 19 After a year of talking, they decided to finally meet each other in person. Jeff flew to Oklahoma.
When he arrived at the airport, she was waiting for him with a gift.

Speaker 7 I'd had a traditional hearer, a medicine man, man, gone to him and asked him to bead a feather.

Speaker 7 There was a song by Robbie Robertson, and the name of it was Golden Feather, Give My Love a Golden Feather. And if you would look it up, it's so that I never lose my way home.

Speaker 7 And I thought, what a beautiful expression of love for this new man in my life to give him a feather because he loves that Native American song so much.

Speaker 7 So I met him at the plane with that and I said, here's so you can always find your way home.

Speaker 19 And Jeff had come with a surprise of his own.

Speaker 7 As soon as he got off the plane and he was walking toward me, it seemed like his voice was shaking.

Speaker 7 And he said, you will marry me, won't you? You're going to marry me, right? You are marrying me, right?

Speaker 19 That was Jeff's marriage proposal. proposal.

Speaker 7 And I was like, well, of course, of course, yes.

Speaker 19 The weekend could not have gone better. Jeff wanted to get to know her world.

Speaker 7 You know, I drove around showing the rural area, my history, some of the culture, where I worked. We went out to my golf course.
I introduced him to a lot of my friends, met the family.

Speaker 7 It was just a really good weekend. I just loved him.
Just loved him.

Speaker 19 They started making arrangements for him to move to Oklahoma.

Speaker 7 And I'm a planner and an organizer in every aspect of my life. So, shoot, the next thing you know, I'm getting busy.
I'm helping him find jobs. He's getting his resume.

Speaker 7 And of course, we're still using faxes then. And he would send things, and I would write cover letters for him to help him get relocated.

Speaker 19 A few months later, Jeff moved in.

Speaker 19 They spent the next year planning a small family wedding in the Ozarks.

Speaker 7 We married on April 23rd, 2000.

Speaker 19 It was the anniversary of the day they met in person. Deb's youngest son walked her down the aisle, and Jeff's son, little Jeff, flew in to support his dad.
It was a true merging of their lives.

Speaker 7 I really thought it was

Speaker 7 meant to be.

Speaker 19 They planned their first trip together as newlyweds, a golf trip with Deb's group of friends. Deb had been golfing for her entire life.
Every year, she and her friends traveled the country to play.

Speaker 19 Jeff was eager to join. He'd been an avid golfer when he was younger, but he hadn't played in years.

Speaker 7 So he lost his golf clubs. Well, heck, you know, I got to go buying golf clubs, you know, because he's got to have golf clubs if we're going to play.

Speaker 7 So then he needed lessons because he just hadn't got to play in a while, he said, needed to brush up.

Speaker 7 But on their first golf trip with her friends, once we got all the scores in and everything, the winner was him.

Speaker 7 And I was like, well, golly, great job.

Speaker 19 But Deb's friends were standoffish with Jeff about his win.

Speaker 7 And one of her friends was quick to point out, A real golfer is not going to leave their clubs behind.

Speaker 7 It doesn't make sense.

Speaker 19 Her friends had never acted like this before. She didn't know what happened, and neither did Jeff.
But after that, they weren't invited on any more golf trips.

Speaker 7 I felt like everybody was mistreating him.

Speaker 19 A year into their marriage, Jeff was still struggling to find the right job in Oklahoma. One day, when Deb was helping him with an application, well, I found an old resume.

Speaker 7 And on this particular resume, it says Vietnam veteran. I was like, my God.

Speaker 19 He'd never told her he was a veteran, but Deb had a lot of experience with the VA.

Speaker 19 While getting her advanced nursing degree, she worked on a program at the VA that specifically studied Vietnam veterans with PTSD.

Speaker 7 I'm like, you never told me you were a veteran. You never told me you were in the Vietnam War.

Speaker 7 That is a significant event in life.

Speaker 7 I was flabbergasted. It had never come up.

Speaker 7 And he said, well, I don't like to talk about it, Deb. I use it on my resumes because, you know, that ought to tell you something.

Speaker 7 I was like, but you should have told me. I should never have found out here.

Speaker 19 Deb felt like he needed to talk about it, even if he didn't want to. She'd had first-hand experience with veterans and PTSD.

Speaker 7 And so over the course of time,

Speaker 7 he began to tell me what happened. It was an elaborate story, intricate details.

Speaker 19 As an 18-year-old, he'd been in the special forces in Vietnam. One night, he caught his senior officers using drugs.
Fearing he would turn them in, the officers allowed Jeff to be captured.

Speaker 19 He was held as a prisoner of war, and for months, he was tortured.

Speaker 7 And they busted his feet with the butt of a gun so that he couldn't walk.

Speaker 7 But he got out, he escaped, and he made it back to the U.S.

Speaker 7 forces by following the path of a stream.

Speaker 7 And it was so difficult because his feet were busted up.

Speaker 19 He was taken to a veterans hospital.

Speaker 7 He had to have metal put in his feet because they were broken.

Speaker 7 And if we flew anywhere, it would trigger the metal alarms as you go in.

Speaker 19 He recovered physically and was discharged. But psychologically, he was scarred.

Speaker 7 The trauma was so bad, he said it was just so awful that sometimes he would just get in a closet and he would just hide.

Speaker 19 Deb was worried about his mental health, especially because his support system was thin. He was in a new place and wasn't in touch with his biological family.

Speaker 19 So Deb was happy when his siblings reached out to reconnect. They invited him back to Canada.

Speaker 7 His siblings had said that his mother's 80th birthday party was coming up and they wanted him to come. And he talked to me about it and I said, well, we've got to.

Speaker 7 I've never met any of your family and absolutely.

Speaker 19 A few months later, they flew to Alberta to meet his family. They hadn't seen Jeff in decades.
They were elated to welcome him home. And Deb never thought she'd get the chance to meet his siblings.

Speaker 7 I finally got to meet his family. I was just so excited to be there and to meet them.
And, you know,

Speaker 7 at one of the brothers' houses, we might play games and just chat and get to know each other.

Speaker 19 Deb fit right in.

Speaker 7 We didn't have any serious, meaningful conversations about

Speaker 7 life or anything.

Speaker 7 We were just doing a friendly, cordial, meet the family thing. He was upbeat.
Everyone was upbeat. It was a good trip.

Speaker 19 It was a good trip. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
Deb didn't know it at the time, but everyone there was in on a secret. Everyone except for her, her husband Jeff,

Speaker 19 wasn't who he said he was.

Speaker 19 In fact, everyone in his family knew Jeff by a different name.

Speaker 7 Come to to find out, he met his siblings at the door and told him, I'm going by Jeff Walton now. I'll tell you later.

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Speaker 19 Deb and her husband went to Canada to reconnect with his estranged family. And to her surprise, the trip was a success.
Meeting his family brought the two of them closer.

Speaker 19 But one day after they returned from their trip, Jeff collapsed on the golf course.

Speaker 7 And a friend of ours found him sitting up against a tree and

Speaker 7 wanted him to let him take him into the hospital. And he said, no, just take me to my car.

Speaker 7 And so he did that. He got in his car and he drove home.

Speaker 19 Deb met him at their house and forced him to go to the hospital. Jeff had suffered a major heart attack.
It would require ongoing care. But Jeff still hadn't nailed down a steady job.

Speaker 19 So the couple needed help covering his medical expenses. Deb had worked at the VA years ago and insisted it was their best resource.

Speaker 7 And he absolutely said, I will not go. I don't trust the government.
I'm not going.

Speaker 7 And

Speaker 7 I said, well, that's bullshit. We're going broke.
We've got to get your health care.

Speaker 19 That's when Jeff explained. The VA? We didn't take him.

Speaker 7 He said, they don't even have a list of me because I was dishonorably discharged because I reported the officers.

Speaker 7 They won't even have me on the, well, anything to do with the VA. And I said, that's bullshit.
You were a soldier. You were captured.
And he said, I won't go.

Speaker 7 He got up and he never talked about it again.

Speaker 7 In that moment, I was like, that is weird.

Speaker 19 His explanation just didn't add up. Deb even considered hiring someone to look into Jeff's background.

Speaker 7 I wonder if I need to get a private investigator or something.

Speaker 7 And I logged on to the internet. And then I was like, God, I don't have any money to get a private detective.

Speaker 19 She didn't have the money or the time to hire a PI. Shortly after Jeff's heart attack, he had a stroke.
Then his memory began to falter. All the while, he was refusing to go to the VA.

Speaker 19 It financially strained the family, and Deb was at a loss.

Speaker 7 I had begun to say, I do not know what is wrong with my life. How am I going to get this guy health care?

Speaker 7 He's got to have health care.

Speaker 19 Deb was his primary caretaker on top of her full-time nursing job. It was overwhelming.

Speaker 7 I began to drink, and then I drank heavily, and then it was uncontrollably.

Speaker 19 Alcohol became an escape from her marriage and its problems.

Speaker 7 When I started drinking, I didn't have to be confused anymore because my brain was numb.

Speaker 19 Deb had spent so many many years taking care of other people that she neglected herself.

Speaker 7 I was the person that was going to Al-Anon from the mid-80s, taking family, taking co-workers, taking friends to AANA, rehab.

Speaker 7 I was taking everybody to get help.

Speaker 7 But myself had, I guess, reached just a hard stop where I couldn't deal with it.

Speaker 19 Deb had just turned 50 and had been with Jeff for a decade, but life with him was becoming harder year after year.

Speaker 19 At first, he failed to bring in a steady income. Then, when he became sick, he refused resources for affordable health care.
Deb turned to booze for the stress.

Speaker 19 But one day, after a long night of drinking, she found herself too shaky to put the golf ball on the tee. She checked herself into a 30-day rehab.

Speaker 7 Best move I ever made. I'm not going to tell you it was pretty.
It was ugly. But there's always been a driving force within me to rise above.

Speaker 19 Being alone in rehab gave her a lot of clarity. And with that clarity came questions, specifically about Jeff.
When she left rehab, she looked at Jeff's behavior with a new set of eyes.

Speaker 7 I began to really

Speaker 7 observe

Speaker 7 he was strange.

Speaker 7 Something was

Speaker 7 not right.

Speaker 7 Not right.

Speaker 19 She wasn't ready to leave the marriage. Her focus was on her new sobriety.
But she did come up with a plan. To get some answers out of Jeff, she gave him an assignment.

Speaker 7 And I began to say to him, Jeff, every day while I'm at work, I want you to work on your life story because I don't understand it. You told me you were born in Alaska and you moved to Canada.

Speaker 7 But I don't know where you even went to school. I don't even know when you moved to Canada.
If something happens, I'm going to be honest with you, I can't even write an obituary.

Speaker 19 She thought it would be a good exercise for both of them, and she hoped it could help her understand why he was the way he was.

Speaker 7 And so every day I would come home and I would go, well, share your story with me. Well, I couldn't work on it today.

Speaker 19 After his stroke, Jeff's memory was worse than ever.

Speaker 7 He began to claim that he just didn't have much of a memory, but the neurologist at the time of his stroke had already advised me that the stroke was not going to impact his memory.

Speaker 7 Then he wanted me to get him checked for possible early dementia.

Speaker 19 He needed more care than she could provide at home. So she applied for him to be in a funded outpatient care facility.
And he was accepted.

Speaker 7 It's a wonderful program that where you stay in your home, but they basically have a center that's open during the day and there's activities and transportation, there's clinic on site, everything that you could need.

Speaker 7 And if you need something outside, they'll take you.

Speaker 19 He started going to the center every day.

Speaker 19 That was until.

Speaker 7 The program called me and they said, have you talked to Jeff? Because nobody can find him. He's gone.

Speaker 19 Deb was at work. She didn't know where he was.
With his memory issues, she worried he could have gotten lost. So they called the police.

Speaker 7 Come to find out he had left the group and the care team to go to the bank.

Speaker 19 When Deb got there, Jeff seemed confused about what was happening. The whole situation confirmed that he really needed this facility.
His memory must be worse than she thought.

Speaker 19 But shortly after Jeff's incident at the bank, Deb received another phone call.

Speaker 19 Only this one would change her life forever.

Speaker 7 It was a number I didn't recognize and I typically didn't pick those up in my office.

Speaker 19 It was an international call, but Deb had a strange feeling. When she picked up, there was a police officer on the other line.

Speaker 7 And I was like, what is this about?

Speaker 19 The officer was Canadian and he was investigating a cold case from 30 years ago.

Speaker 7 That's when he began to say that they were looking for Ron Stan and they had believed that they've tracked him down through social media.

Speaker 19 But Deb didn't know a Ron Stan.

Speaker 19 The officer continued, explaining that Canadian police had been looking for a man named Ron Stan for over 30 years. He disappeared during a fire.

Speaker 7 There was a fire

Speaker 7 in his barn at night, and initially he was presumed to have been in that fire, and he had left a wife, an infant, and another child.

Speaker 19 Deb's blood ran cold. She knew what the officer was about to say before he said it.
The man she was married to, who she knew as Jeff Walton, was actually the complete fraud.

Speaker 7 He was Ron Stan who was this missing person.

Speaker 19 Here's the thing about Ron Stan. He was originally declared dead.
But in reality, he'd been on the run ever since that barn fire.

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Speaker 19 Eleven years into her marriage, Deb Proctor got a phone call out of the blue from a Canadian police officer.

Speaker 19 They were looking for Ron Stan, a Canadian man who'd been missing and later declared dead after an arson fire in 1977.

Speaker 19 And they believed they'd found him in the United States. He was hiding out in a rural part of the Cherokee Nation using the name Jeff Walton.

Speaker 7 When the police explained this to Deb, initially, I thought it was perhaps just a cruel joke.

Speaker 19 So she asked the officer for proof, for details.

Speaker 7 The more I pushed for

Speaker 7 dates, times, names, locations,

Speaker 7 the more I realized, oh,

Speaker 7 ugh.

Speaker 19 She didn't say much on the phone. She just listened, writing down everything the police told her.

Speaker 7 Every detail, dates, times, information, I still have that notepad.

Speaker 19 Canadian officials wanted to speak to Jeff, or Ron, directly. Deb explained that he was in a care facility during the day because of his memory problems.

Speaker 19 She confirmed their home address, thanked the officer, and hung up the phone in disbelief.

Speaker 7 I was sitting there when there was a nurse that looked at me from the office door and she said, are you okay?

Speaker 7 I remember saying, I don't know. I've just had the most bizarre phone call.

Speaker 7 So I went to talk to my director of nursing and she said, get out of here. What in the world?

Speaker 19 She debated whether this phone call was real. If the person on the phone was even a police officer.
A co-worker who was afraid for Deb suggested another possibility.

Speaker 7 He probably is in witness protection and you just blew it. So you're probably not safe, nor is he.

Speaker 7 And they said, we'll go with you to the Cherokee Nation Marshals and we will get to the bottom of this.

Speaker 19 So Deb went straight there. She wanted to know if the call she'd received was real.
or if Jeff could be in witness protection. An investigator took Deb's concerns seriously and started making calls.

Speaker 7 I gave her the cell number, the badge number, and everything from the officer that called.

Speaker 7 And she did call and she confirmed every last detail.

Speaker 19 She verified that Jeff Walton didn't exist. Her husband of 11 years was a missing person, a man named Ronald Stan.

Speaker 19 who'd faked his death in an arson fire and had been on the run for 30 years.

Speaker 7 I was just heart sick, gut sick, heart sick. My whole body responded and all I could think of was, who are you? How could you do this?

Speaker 19 When Ronald Stan disappeared from his farm in rural Ontario in 1977, he abandoned his wife and two young sons. In order to escape, he had lit his barn on fire.
killing all the animals.

Speaker 19 His family watched the blaze helpless, fearing that Ron was trapped trapped inside.

Speaker 7 That poor wife and those two sons that he walked away from in this barn far in the middle of the night.

Speaker 7 What horror, what pain, what trauma that they must have endured thinking that they were watching him burn up in front of their eyes.

Speaker 19 Why he'd faked his death, Deb wouldn't find out until much later.

Speaker 19 In that moment, she just knew she couldn't go home. Not to the house she shared with him.
He was a criminal, a fraud, a total stranger.

Speaker 19 So the Cherokee Marshals helped her come up with an immediate plan.

Speaker 7 Go to an attorney, go to the bank, and get protection. So that's what I did.

Speaker 19 She made an appointment with the divorce attorney for the following day, and a friend offered to let Deb stay at her place while she figured out her next move.

Speaker 7 I just was in a state of

Speaker 7 robot, just trying to put one foot in front of the other

Speaker 7 and then formulate a plan on how to tell the family.

Speaker 19 She met with her sons to break the news, and with all of their support, she called Jeff's son, the one he'd had in America, after he went on the run.

Speaker 19 After all, he was the only child Deb knew about.

Speaker 7 I loved that boy. He was my son, too, you know.
He was was a third son. So my heart hurt for him just like it did for my boys to tell him.

Speaker 19 Everyone in the family called him Little Jeff. He was named after his father, or rather, his father's alias.

Speaker 7 And his response was, you know, silent initially, as you can imagine, and then just struggling.

Speaker 7 We both needed some time to just deal.

Speaker 19 The one person she didn't want to speak with was Jeff.

Speaker 7 I really did not have any communication with him whatsoever.

Speaker 7 I just had nothing to say.

Speaker 19 When the authorities finally got a hold of Jeff, they questioned him and asked to see his proof of identity.

Speaker 7 He admitted to everything.

Speaker 19 In fact, he seemed amused. He made a joke to police officers.
asking what took them so long.

Speaker 19 Because the arson had happened so long ago, the statute of limitations limitations had expired in Canada, and authorities in the U.S. couldn't charge him either.

Speaker 7 There was no charges to be made here. You know, he's a scam.

Speaker 7 But there's no charges that I could file.

Speaker 19 The only legal action Deb could take was filing for divorce.

Speaker 7 The domestic violence service of the tribe helped me and just took the papers.

Speaker 7 And when they served in the papers, he just signed it. He didn't even question it.

Speaker 19 The news caught wind of the story, and it was a media frenzy.

Speaker 7 Media showed up from Canada, from Oklahoma, from the UK. I just didn't have any peace.
I could rarely go home. My phone rang constantly.
I was just completely overwhelmed.

Speaker 19 Deb's niece drafted a statement to send to the press on her behalf, and Deb kept tabs on the news. That's how she learned Jeff's real life story, the one he claimed he couldn't remember.

Speaker 19 A journalist with the Toronto Star had been reporting on it. Through their investigation, they uncovered a possible motivation for why he faked his death.

Speaker 7 Evidently, he was messing with young college girls and he was getting ready to get in trouble.

Speaker 19 At the time of the arson, Ron was working at a college in Canada. He was having a relationship with a local girl who was much younger.

Speaker 19 The day he went missing, it seemed this information was about to be revealed. It's not clear how old the girl was, but the threat of being discovered prompted him to go on the run for three decades.

Speaker 19 Deb also learned how he pulled it off.

Speaker 7 When he left Canada in the fire and came to New Orleans, he said, I've got to find a woman with money.

Speaker 19 He did. In fact, he had two other marriages he'd never told Deb about.
And after he found a woman with money, he needed papers to validate his new identity.

Speaker 7 He got a social security from somebody that had died in the 70s, a girl. So he took over her social security.

Speaker 19 He used his stolen identity to find work and even collect Social Security benefits.

Speaker 7 That's how he worked in the decades that he came to the United States. He used this Social Security and false name.
I don't know how anybody pulls this off. It's so elaborate.

Speaker 19 When the story broke, Jeff himself spoke to the media about how and why he faked his death, and he seemed to revel in it.

Speaker 7 He sought that attention. He wanted to be a star.

Speaker 19 He said he chose the name Jeff because it was the name of his infant son he abandoned in Canada. And the last name Walton was inspired by the TV show The Waltons.

Speaker 19 It sounded like a classic American last name. As for the documents he used to marry Deb, they appeared to be forged.

Speaker 7 I had seen his birth certificate and I still have it.

Speaker 7 But when you look,

Speaker 7 there are things that have been changed.

Speaker 19 Like the arson, too much time had passed for him to be charged in the U.S. with identity fraud.
And what about his elaborate stories, like being a prisoner of war in Vietnam?

Speaker 7 It's all made up.

Speaker 19 That's why he was so resistant to using the VA. He never fought in the Vietnam War.
He wasn't even an American citizen. The POW story?

Speaker 19 Well, he ripped those details straight out of a movie called Platoon, starring Charlie Sheen, and his football career at Ohio State with Woody Hayes.

Speaker 7 There was never anybody that played football for Woody Hayes by his name.

Speaker 7 Ever.

Speaker 19 Deb was left wondering if anything he'd ever told her was true. Today, she doubts if he'd even even swung a golf club before she met him.

Speaker 19 After all his lies were exposed, one of Deb's friends finally came clean about something.

Speaker 19 Remember the golf trip where Deb's friends iced them out? Well, back then, the group had discovered that he cheated all day.

Speaker 7 He never counts his strokes, and when he was out of bounds, he never counted it.

Speaker 19 He cheated and basically stole a pot of money from Deb's friends. That's why they were never invited to play with the group again.

Speaker 19 Even his memory issues were a lie. When he talked to the press after the fact, he seemed to remember every detail just fine.

Speaker 19 So, what was really going on that day when he went missing from the facility and was found at the bank? Deb suspects he was planning an escape.

Speaker 19 She also wonders if he targeted her because she lives in a rural part of the Cherokee Nation.

Speaker 7 It's very possible because, look, this this is rural. This is a dead-end road.
Maybe he did think, hey, I can get out in the woods in rural Oklahoma and continue to hide.

Speaker 19 One of the most baffling aspects of his deception is that visit to Canada a few years into their marriage. Back then, the reunion seemed completely normal.

Speaker 19 But behind the scenes, Jeff had asked all of his family members to use his new name instead of calling him Ron. They said they were so happy to see him again that they obliged.

Speaker 7 They did it because they'd lost him once and they didn't want to lose him again.

Speaker 7 I think they were just so happy to have him back in their lives.

Speaker 19 There's clearly so much more to his family dynamics than she'll ever know. It still doesn't sit right with her.

Speaker 7 What makes it okay that you support this kind of deception?

Speaker 19 In the beginning, she didn't even know how to refer to him, what name to call him by, whether to call him Ron or Jeff.

Speaker 7 But I had a really dear friend. She nicknamed him Ref.

Speaker 7 And so for a while, when I referred to him, it was Ref. But now I usually just say Jeff.

Speaker 19 In the weeks after his double life was revealed, Deb was emotionally destroyed. It all happened in her first year of sobriety.
Jeff moved back to New Orleans with his son.

Speaker 19 And Deb was left alone in the house they shared.

Speaker 7 I just remember it was a profound moment. It's the duality of, oh my God,

Speaker 7 what in the world?

Speaker 7 Along with

Speaker 7 you have to live. You have to deal with this and go on.

Speaker 7 And I remember just laying in the floor, just face down

Speaker 7 and just sobbing. and saying, my god, how does another human do this to a human in the guise of love?

Speaker 19 In that moment, she couldn't get up. It felt like her world had ended.

Speaker 7 I just had so much pain and confusion.

Speaker 7 I got on my knees. I leaned into a chair and I just kept praying and asking for help.
And just if you can get me on my feet, I will go forward. I will.
Keep my sobriety.

Speaker 7 I promise. I promise.
I made a commitment to live life, to help others, to be the best person I can, to be loving, kind.

Speaker 7 I mean, those were the things I'd always been, but I was not going to let this make me harsh and hateful.

Speaker 19 In the throes of despair, she gained vivid clarity.

Speaker 7 You know, we often talk of spiritual awakenings.

Speaker 7 I feel like I've had a few in my life, but that was profound, profound.

Speaker 7 And when I stood up, you know, I was still crying, but I wasn't suffering as much. I didn't feel the pain as deep at the betrayal or shock.

Speaker 7 And I knew that when I stood up, that it was something greater than me.

Speaker 7 It said, get up. You got work to do.
Go on.

Speaker 19 She got up that day. And she's stayed on her feet ever since.

Speaker 7 I made a commitment to do that in that moment. And I've never turned back and I've never tried to rewrite the story

Speaker 7 and I don't want to live in bitterness.

Speaker 7 I still wanted to be open-hearted and help others.

Speaker 7 And that's what set the tone for the gears to where we are today.

Speaker 19 She's now 11 years sober.

Speaker 7 I maintained sobriety.

Speaker 7 I was dedicated to my meetings and I was dedicated to the spiritual journey and dealing with my loss and grief and shock.

Speaker 19 She took on a leadership role in her tribe as director of a program providing resources and support to victims of domestic violence.

Speaker 7 I would say you've still got to stay

Speaker 7 working on your emotional health because it's a tough service. What I know for sure is that we can't help others adequately or appropriately if we haven't began our own work to heal.

Speaker 7 I feel like I'm more effective in these last years because of all the work I've done.

Speaker 19 In 2019, she got a call from Jeff's son. Jeff had passed away.

Speaker 7 It was a sense of relief.

Speaker 7 But also all the emotions that flood into that moment, you just have to hold them.

Speaker 19 In the last few years, her life has taken an unexpected turn.

Speaker 7 I just recently married on September 7th, and I never saw it coming. Both of us are nevers.
And it was the most beautiful wedding outdoors, overlooking the lake.

Speaker 7 It was just beautiful, romantic, just wonderful.

Speaker 19 After all, she did make a commitment to being open-hearted. Her new husband meets her at her level.
and he's put in the work too.

Speaker 7 He is also sober, him 40-something years.

Speaker 7 Both of us love golf. Both of us love music.
It's just a blessing for us both. We feel so grateful.
Well, it's too bad we're meeting each other at 70 and 67, but here we are.

Speaker 19 We end all of our weekly episodes with the same question.

Speaker 19 Why did you want to share your story?

Speaker 7 If my story could help others identify lies from their partner earlier, that's one part.

Speaker 7 The real part is we can heal

Speaker 7 and we can have a good life and we can live well. The trauma and the pain and the suffering and the sorrow, we have the potential to just be an amazing human on the other side.

Speaker 7 Leave your heart open. Love others.
Help others. Learn boundaries.
Set limits.

Speaker 19 On the next episode of Betrayal.

Speaker 1 My mom was the first one to be like,

Speaker 1 Does this seem off at all to you?

Speaker 1 It was really the first time someone like said something that made me think,

Speaker 1 what do you mean off?

Speaker 1 Like I had never considered doubting it.

Speaker 19 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 betrayal, p-od at gmail.com.
We're grateful for your support.

Speaker 19 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 19 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 19 Hosted and produced by me, Andrea Gunning. Written and produced by Monique Laborde.
Also produced by Ben Fetterman. Associate producers are Kristen Mel Curie and Caitlin Golden.

Speaker 19 Our iHeart team is Allie Perry and Jessica Kreincheck. Audio editing and mixing by Matt Delvecchio.
Additional editing support from Tanner Robbins. Betrayal's theme composed by Oliver Baines.

Speaker 19 Music library provided by MIBE Music. And for more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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