EP 3 - Ashley

Transcript

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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 A few months ago, we heard from a woman named Ashley.

Speaker 1 When our team first met Ashley, she was working as a correctional caseworker in a prison and was pursuing her master's degree in forensic psychology.

Speaker 22 I'm very in tune with people's emotions and how people are feeling. I love people.
I will go above and beyond to help somebody in need.

Speaker 1 Ashley's a sensitive person, and the betrayal she experienced was so intense, it nearly broke her.

Speaker 1 It's a twisted story of theft, deception, and even threats from a Mexican drug cartel.

Speaker 22 I was sitting there thinking, who did I marry?

Speaker 22 Am I sleeping next to somebody who would murder people for a cartel?

Speaker 1 When we first spoke with her, I was surprised how flatly she describes what she went through. It was was almost like she was divorced from emotion.
So we asked her about that directly.

Speaker 22 If I let myself get emotional about it, I am in danger of getting back to that dark place that I don't want to find myself in.

Speaker 22 I know it's not a healthy coping mechanism, but like I disassociate from it.

Speaker 1 When Ashley was 26, she was working as a mental health case manager. It's her passion.
Her life was on track. She was proud to be living alone in her first apartment.

Speaker 1 She even worked a second job as a swim coach to make extra money. But there was one big thing she still wanted in her life.
Love.

Speaker 1 She'd had a string of bad boyfriends and was looking for someone stable. Someone she could build a life with.

Speaker 22 I was using all the dating apps like Tinder,

Speaker 22 all that fun stuff.

Speaker 1 That's what a new guy started at Ashley's job. Jake.
He was confident and smart. She was immediately drawn to him.
Not necessarily romantically, but just as a person.

Speaker 22 Jake had really long black hair down to the middle of his back and kind of looked like somebody that was like in a band or something.

Speaker 22 Not the type of guy I would date.

Speaker 1 The two shared the same work schedule and soon became fast friends.

Speaker 1 Jake even teased her about being on dating apps.

Speaker 22 I'd come into work and share my dating experiences on these apps.

Speaker 22 It started off by him kind of joking about the types of guys that I would go out on dates with, what they did as a profession or like their screen names or whatever on the dating apps.

Speaker 1 One day, Jake came into the office with bad news. He told Ashley that over the weekend, he found out that his wife Amber was cheating on him.

Speaker 22 He wasn't going to tolerate cheating and so he kicked her out of the house, changed all the locks and they were going to get a divorce.

Speaker 1 Ashley was sympathetic, especially because the couple had a three-year-old daughter together.

Speaker 22 One day he left from work early because he had this lawyer appointment and he was going to go file for divorce.

Speaker 22 He thought it was best to separate and raise their child together, but separate.

Speaker 1 A few weeks later, Jake asked Ashley to hang out after work. She expected something casual, like beer and wings, but Jake had other plans.

Speaker 22 He showed up at my apartment and he bought me this huge bouquet of flowers and they were just gorgeous. Pinks and orange and just really pretty flowers.

Speaker 1 To Ashley's surprise, it was a date. When they went to dinner that night, Jake showed her a different side of him.
He was a gentleman.

Speaker 22 He was such an upgrade to what I was used to. He just seemed very honest, which was a breath of fresh air to me because I came from relationships where there was a lot of lying and hiding and secrets.

Speaker 22 He seemed just to be upfront and honest about everything.

Speaker 22 And I was like, this is a nice change of pace.

Speaker 1 Jake was also thoughtful.

Speaker 1 He would walk into work in the morning with her favorite coffee in his hand. That was just the beginning of Jake's generosity.

Speaker 22 He would randomly buy me like designer purses or jewelry just because

Speaker 22 he was just like, I saw this and I thought of you and I thought you'd like it, so I bought it for you, which, you know, I've never had someone do that for me before.

Speaker 1 It was romantic. They started having date nights every Thursday and Saturday.
They were the highlights of her week.

Speaker 1 Around that same time, Jake was settling his divorce and finalizing the sale of his house.

Speaker 22 He was like, I sold the house, but I have to be out in a week. I don't have anywhere to go.
And I'm like, well,

Speaker 22 you can move in with me.

Speaker 1 Even though Ashley and Jake had had only been dating a few months, she didn't want someone she cared about to struggle. Plus, she saw a future with this guy.
So, Jake moved in.

Speaker 1 Ashley's only concern was how his three-year-old daughter would handle the change. She knew how much his only child meant to him.

Speaker 22 I love kids. I'm good with kids, but I don't have any children.
I didn't know how that was going to work or how he was going to explain to her, you know, that, oh, I'm living living with her now.

Speaker 1 Ashley knew she wanted kids of her own one day and was willing to make room for Jake and his daughter. She offered to set up a bed for her in the living room, but his daughter never came to stay.

Speaker 1 His ex-wife, Amber, wasn't happy about Jake's new relationship.

Speaker 22 Amber did not trust me. Amber did not want me around their daughter.
And

Speaker 22 he said that she was keeping her and breaking the custody order that they had.

Speaker 1 Ashley didn't want to get involved in the custody battle.

Speaker 1 Despite the stress of the divorce, living together was surprisingly easy. The couple would go to work together, come home at night to make dinner, and then snuggle on the couch to watch movies.

Speaker 1 It was simple. He made her happy.

Speaker 22 I could have the worst day ever, and he always found a way to make me laugh.

Speaker 1 After about a year together, Jake took her on a trip to visit Kentucky, where Ashley used to live. She was delighted by the gesture.

Speaker 1 She took him around to all of her old haunts, and he was genuinely interested in getting to know the places she loved.

Speaker 1 That night, he gave her another gift.

Speaker 22 We were getting ready to go to sleep, and he

Speaker 22 slid over a box and just tapped me on the shoulder and made that little like

Speaker 22 noise.

Speaker 22 I was like, what is this? And he was like, well, open it.

Speaker 22 And it was

Speaker 22 a ring.

Speaker 22 And I was like, are you asking me to marry you? And he was like, well, duh.

Speaker 1 Ashley admits the proposal was underwhelming. But she didn't care.

Speaker 22 I loved him. And I

Speaker 22 wanted to marry him, so

Speaker 22 the proposal and how it was done at that point didn't matter. I just wanted to move forward and start building a life with this person.

Speaker 1 Jake found an elopement package, a weekend getaway, at a bed and breakfast. Most of the day was a blur for Ashley, except for the vows the couple had written for each other.

Speaker 1 She remembers that moment clearly.

Speaker 22 Mine were all about how I promised to love him and be the best wife I could be. And his joking about how we met at work and how this friendship ended up becoming what it is today.

Speaker 22 The very last line of his vows, he used the song Africa by Toto about how it's gonna take a lot to drag me away from you.

Speaker 22 At the time, I was like, oh, that's sweet.

Speaker 22 But looking back now, I'm like, hmm, it's an interesting way to end your vows.

Speaker 1 Interesting.

Speaker 1 Perhaps more like foreshadowing.

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Speaker 2 It starts like any other night: the glass of red, the cozy blanket, then the drop.

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Speaker 24 A decade ago, I was on the trail of one of the country's most elusive serial killers. But it wasn't until 2023 when he was finally caught.
The answers were there, hidden in plain sight.

Speaker 24 So why did it take so long to catch him? I'm Josh Zeman, and this is Monster, Hunting the Long Island Serial Killer, the investigation into the most notorious killer in New York, since the son of Sam.

Speaker 24 Available now. Listen for free on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 23 I'm Cheryl McCollum, host of the podcast Zone 7. Zone 7 ain't a place.
It's a way of life. I've worked hundreds of cold cases you've heard of and thousands you haven't.

Speaker 23 We started this podcast to teach the importance of teamwork in solving these crazy crimes.

Speaker 23 Come join us in learning from detectives, prosecutors, authors, canine handlers, forensic experts, and most importantly, victims' family members.

Speaker 23 Listen to Zone 7 with Cheryl McCollum on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcast.

Speaker 1 After a year of dating, Ashley and Jake had tied the knot in a simple elopement ceremony. As she said in her vows, she promised to be the best wife she could be.

Speaker 1 That meant making the marriage work, even in the hard times, just like her parents had.

Speaker 22 My parents were never divorced. I grew up with my parents together.
And I wanted to have one and only one marriage, just like my parents.

Speaker 1 But early on, the couple had a few fights. Fights where she saw a new side of Jake.
There's one specific night that Ashley says she'll never forget. She'd been working her second job as a swim coach.

Speaker 1 That night, she stayed a half hour late to hang out with the other coaches. When she got back to the apartment and unlocked the door, Jake was sitting there, glaring at her.

Speaker 22 And he was like,

Speaker 22 Where were you and i was like i was talking to the coaches we were having a good time and he was like that is not okay for you to be coming home a half an hour late and not be notifying me of this

Speaker 22 and i'm like i'm sorry it's only a half an hour ashley didn't like the behavior and knew he was overreacting

Speaker 1 But at the same time, she thought,

Speaker 22 well, maybe that's just a way that he is trying to be protective of me and like showing me that he cares where I'm at and he's worried about me.

Speaker 1 Jake was always a bit worried about Ashley. She struggled with depression and anxiety.
And Jake fixated on that.

Speaker 22 I've had bouts of depression and anxiety throughout my whole life.

Speaker 22 He kept telling me over and over and over, I need to not work,

Speaker 22 that I need to focus on getting better with my mental health.

Speaker 22 He told me that he thought I should pursue Social Security disability.

Speaker 22 And how can you expect to go to work and handle all the stress when you can't handle stressors in our marriage and in our life?

Speaker 22 You take naps and you rest and you go to therapy and work on your mental health and I'll do everything else in life for you.

Speaker 22 It just made me become more and more dependent on him.

Speaker 1 Ashley eventually stopped working and started collecting disability. With less income, the couple moved into Ashley's mom's house to save money.

Speaker 1 But during the move, Ashley realized she couldn't find one of her most treasured possessions.

Speaker 22 My dad gave me his military Colt 45 gun before he died. That That was one of my dad's favorite things he had.

Speaker 22 You know, I was crying and I was like, I don't know where it is.

Speaker 1 She started to worry that one of her ex-boyfriends could have stolen the gun. Jake was trying to calm her down.
He said, if any of her exes had stolen the gun, he could get it back for her.

Speaker 1 He took a deep breath and confessed that he had connections.

Speaker 22 And I'm like, what do you mean you have connections?

Speaker 22 And then he told me that for

Speaker 22 several years,

Speaker 22 he has been involved with a local gang that worked for one of the Mexican cartels.

Speaker 22 The Sinaloa cartel.

Speaker 1 Cartel? Her husband involved in a Mexican drug cartel?

Speaker 1 This was news to Ashley. Shocking and terrifying information.

Speaker 1 Even though Ashley is now detached from what happened to her, she was certainly not so calm about it in that moment. This was a huge deal.

Speaker 1 She couldn't believe this revelation was just coming out now, after they were married. She asked how exactly he was connected to the cartel.

Speaker 1 He said that his job was to be, quote, a problem solver.

Speaker 22 And of course, I had to ask what that meant.

Speaker 22 And

Speaker 22 then then he told me how he would murder people for

Speaker 22 whoever told him to.

Speaker 22 I asked him how many people he had, quote, taken care of. And he told me he was like at 19.

Speaker 22 And it's not personal. It's business.

Speaker 22 I was sitting there thinking, who did I marry?

Speaker 22 Am I sleeping next to somebody who would murder people for a cartel?

Speaker 1 Ashley stayed awake that night, trying to understand what this meant for her and Jake's future. Could he really be a hitman for the cartel?

Speaker 22 Every question that I had, he had reasons for it, or he connected the dots for me that weren't making sense.

Speaker 22 He

Speaker 22 backed up a lot of stuff.

Speaker 22 He would show me emails. He'd show me text messages with conversations with people.

Speaker 1 What was even more disturbing was that he was simply unfazed by the gravity of this.

Speaker 1 Jake acted as if it were just a simple little secret.

Speaker 22 You should feel privileged that I even let you in on this part of my life. I've never told anybody else that I was involved in this stuff and you know more about this than anybody else.

Speaker 1 Ashley was scared and felt completely trapped. Jake expressed that he was too.

Speaker 22 He explained to me how he was trying to get out and they weren't going to let him out.

Speaker 1 These guys were serious and they weren't afraid to hurt families.

Speaker 22 Some of the stories about how, you know, people ended up missing were scary because he would explain that they will make it look like an accident.

Speaker 22 or you will just disappear and never be heard from again.

Speaker 22 By him telling me about the cartels? Was that

Speaker 22 putting me in danger by knowing that information?

Speaker 1 In fact, Jake said they were both in danger.

Speaker 1 Shortly after that night, he told Ashley he broke ties with the cartel, making the two of them a target. Now, they needed to go on the run and hide out.

Speaker 22 The higher-ups in the cartel told him, If you come back to the area, you're going to be dead. We're going to get you.

Speaker 1 The impact of the stress and terror began taking a toll on Ashley.

Speaker 22 I wasn't eating. I wasn't sleeping.
I lost quite a bit of weight. I was not able to sleep unless I was medicated.

Speaker 1 They hid out in hotels for a few weeks. Eventually, Jake deemed it safe enough to return.
Ashley felt safer with him than without him. So they moved back in with Ashley's family.

Speaker 1 It wasn't long until another issue surfaced.

Speaker 1 Ashley's mother and grandfather apparently had their identities stolen. Their bank accounts were being hacked.

Speaker 22 My mother would literally get a paycheck deposited on Friday and then on Saturday go to buy something and her bank account was overdrawn because someone hacked her bank account.

Speaker 1 Every few weeks, her mother and grandfather would notice a security breach. Just when it was solved, another one would arise.

Speaker 1 Both Ashley and Jake threw themselves into helping her family triage the problem.

Speaker 22 Jake was really attentive to my mom and my grandpa, always sitting down with them at the kitchen table, calling the banks.

Speaker 22 That became his sole focus was helping my mom and my grandpa fix their bank accounts.

Speaker 1 It went on like this for six overwhelming months.

Speaker 1 In the back of her mind, Ashley feared that the missing money could have something to do with the cartel, but she didn't want to burden her mom with the truth about Jake. So she kept it all inside.

Speaker 1 One day, her grandpa got his bank statement and noticed something particularly concerning.

Speaker 22 $20,000 was missing from his savings account. He called the banks.
You know, they said for them to

Speaker 22 have it insured and covered and put back into his account that he has to do a police report.

Speaker 22 So my grandpa grandpa went and did a police report. And our local police said, it looks like the money was being taken out of an ATM.

Speaker 22 So, we'll pull the footage from that and see what's going on.

Speaker 1 The family didn't hear anything from the police for a few weeks until one night.

Speaker 22 Our bedroom door gets bust down.

Speaker 22 Police are pointing guns at both me and him, telling us, put our hands up.

Speaker 22 They asked if his name was Jacob Levin, and he said yes. They told him, like, stand up and face the wall, and put your hands behind your head.

Speaker 22 I'm trying to talk to the cop and I'm going, what's going on? What, like, what happened? And he said, well, ma'am, I'm going to let you know.

Speaker 22 We have evidence that Jake was the one stealing the money from your grandfather's bank account.

Speaker 1 It didn't add up.

Speaker 1 Jake had been the one going out of his way to help her grandfather sort through this whole financial mess.

Speaker 1 The only explanation she could think of is that this was all happening because Jake had left the cartel.

Speaker 1 In order to steal from her grandfather, He had to be desperate to come up with cash quickly. And that meant she and her family could be in danger.
So she pawned her valuables and paid his bail.

Speaker 1 She took him straight to a hotel where they could talk in private. And he confessed.

Speaker 22 He explained to me that he had received a message from one of these people in the cartel, and they were threatening me and my mom and my grandfather.

Speaker 22 And if he didn't come up with some form of payment, they were going to harm us.

Speaker 22 They

Speaker 22 knew where we were living and they were driving past our house. So

Speaker 22 he said that he was concerned for our safety and my family's safety.

Speaker 1 He also explained why he'd kept the whole scheme a secret.

Speaker 22 He told me that he didn't want to add more stress and worry to me because I was always kind of worried and stressed out about things going on in our marriage, our finances, people in the cartel after us.

Speaker 22 And he told me he didn't want to add more to my plate.

Speaker 1 Right then, she wanted to walk out. The fear for her safety and her family's safety was overwhelming.
But more powerful than fear was a deep insecurity.

Speaker 22 I was brought up with the like, never give up on something, try your hardest to make anything work attitude.

Speaker 22 I just just didn't want to fail, and I thought that if I washed my hands of him in the whole marriage,

Speaker 22 I was

Speaker 22 failing.

Speaker 1 Their relationship was hanging on by a thread. Things were so tumultuous that Ashley picked up and left the hotel to spend the night at her mom's house.

Speaker 1 When she went back to the hotel the next morning, she found Jake missing, along with a few other important things.

Speaker 22 He had cleared out all of his things in the hotel, including a lot of my things that he took. Three of those things were three of my guns that I had in the hotel, and they were registered to me.

Speaker 1 The guns were gone, and so was Jake.

Speaker 1 He wasn't answering her phone calls. The hours turned into days.
That's when she and her family started looking for their valuables, and they found even more things missing.

Speaker 22 The weapons missing kind of prompted everybody in the house to start looking at our valuables.

Speaker 22 That is when my mother noticed that her wedding band and engagement ring set were missing,

Speaker 22 as well as my grandmother's wedding ring and engagement band.

Speaker 22 I was upset about the weapons, but the wedding ring sets from both my mom and my grandmothers was the ultimate betrayal to me.

Speaker 22 Those did mean so much to me and my family, especially because

Speaker 22 my

Speaker 22 father meant the world to me,

Speaker 22 and

Speaker 22 my dad has since passed, and

Speaker 22 those things are things that can't be replaced. So

Speaker 22 it hurt real bad.

Speaker 1 The wedding rings were the final straw for Ashley. She knew immediately that her husband had stolen them.

Speaker 22 At that point, I knew I meant nothing to him.

Speaker 22 I could not fathom how somebody could take something that meant so much to somebody and take it to a pawn shop and pawn it for however much money he got for it.

Speaker 22 To him, it was just things.

Speaker 22 But to me and my family, those things are priceless.

Speaker 22 And at that point,

Speaker 22 I knew that I was just

Speaker 17 a thing to him.

Speaker 1 She and her family made a list of the missing items and took it to the police.

Speaker 1 At that breaking point, Ashley decided to start researching her husband's legal record.

Speaker 1 She saw the recent theft charges, some small claims court records, and then she clicked on a document about his divorce from his first wife.

Speaker 22 And one thing I noticed was the time frame of it. Jake had told me that he filed for divorce in 2017.

Speaker 22 This wasn't filed until 2021.

Speaker 22 Jake had told me that he was the one that filed for divorce.

Speaker 22 This was showing that Amber was the petitioner and Jake was the respondent.

Speaker 22 So I read more

Speaker 22 and then I read that the case was dismissed.

Speaker 1 Ashley needed answers. So she decided to go to the one person who would have them, Jake's ex-wife, Amber.

Speaker 1 A A few years ago, Amber had messaged Ashley on Facebook. Instead of reading the message, Ashley had just deleted it and blocked his ex.

Speaker 22 I went back on Facebook.

Speaker 22 I unblocked her and I asked her if she would be willing to talk to me because I have some questions about her and Jake's marriage.

Speaker 1 Amber replied a few days later and what she said changed everything.

Speaker 22 As far as I knew, Jake and her only had one child together, and one of the first things she said to me was,

Speaker 22 You do realize that Jake has five kids.

Speaker 2 It starts like any other night. The glass of red, the cozy blanket, then the drop.

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Speaker 24 So why did it take so long to catch him? I'm Josh Zeman, and this is Monster: Hunting the Long Island Serial Killer. The investigation into the most notorious killer in New York since the son of Sam.

It's a way of life. I've worked hundreds of cold cases you've heard of and thousands you haven't.

Speaker 23 We started this podcast to teach the importance of teamwork in solving these crazy crimes.

Speaker 23 Come join us in learning from detectives, prosecutors, authors, canine handlers, forensic experts, and most importantly, victims' family members.

Speaker 23 Listen to zone 7 with Cheryl McCollum on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcast.

Speaker 25 In 1997, in Belgium, 37 female body parts placed in 15 trash bags were found at dump sites with evocative names like The Path of Worry, Dump Road, and Fear Creek.

Speaker 27 Investigators made a new discovery yesterday afternoon of the torso of a woman. Investigators Investigators believe it is the work of a serial killer.

Speaker 25 Despite a sprawling investigation, including assistance from the American FBI, the murders have never been solved.

Speaker 26 Three decades later, we've unearthed new evidence and new suspects.

Speaker 29 We felt like we were in the presence of someone who was going to the grave with nightmarish secrets.

Speaker 25 From Tenderfoot TV and iHeart Podcasts, this is Le Mansre Season 2, The Butcher of Moss, available now. Listen for free on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 1 Ashley learned that her husband didn't just have one daughter, like he said. He had four other small children.
Four children he pretended didn't exist.

Speaker 1 And Amber had a lot more to say. The story Jake had told about his ex-wife cheating on him, Amber says that never happened.
She had divorced him after he disappeared suddenly.

Speaker 1 Their divorce wasn't finalized until 2021.

Speaker 1 But Ashley had married Jake in 2018.

Speaker 1 Was their marriage even valid? She went to a divorce attorney to find out.

Speaker 22 The lawyer had explained to me that...

Speaker 22 Well, no, according to the date on my marriage certificate and the date of Amber's dissolution of marriage, my marriage, in fact, was never legal to begin with.

Speaker 22 Her term was, it was null and void from its inception.

Speaker 1 Everything was crashing down around Ashley when she got a phone call from the detective working on Jake's case.

Speaker 22 And he said,

Speaker 22 I have some news for you. You might want to sit down.

Speaker 22 I'm like, I just found out my marriage was never real. The man I married

Speaker 22 had a wife and five children that I didn't even know about. Some of the children

Speaker 22 stole from my family.

Speaker 1 You know,

Speaker 22 what else could there be?

Speaker 1 The police explained they had just arrested Jake again.

Speaker 1 And this time, he was living with his new fiancée.

Speaker 22 I'm like, excuse me, fiancé?

Speaker 22 And he said, yeah, Jake was living with a woman. She had children.
And this woman and him had plans about a week prior to him getting arrested to

Speaker 22 fly to Las Vegas and get married in Las Vegas.

Speaker 1 The police searched Jake's phone. where they found even more troubling details.

Speaker 22 He told this woman that he did have five children, but his five children all died in,

Speaker 22 I think it was like an automobile accident, like a car crash. And I do believe that Amber was a part of that crash as well.

Speaker 1 He told his new fiancé that he wanted to be a stepdad to her kids because his own had all died.

Speaker 1 Jake had been in jail for a few days when Ashley got a call.

Speaker 22 They called from like an 800 number and I didn't know who it was but I answered the phone and as soon as I heard you were getting a collect call from an inmate at county jail that wave of dread came over me.

Speaker 22 My heart sank. My stomach like went into my throat.

Speaker 22 You have that decision to accept the call.

Speaker 22 or not accept the call.

Speaker 1 She knew she needed to confront him about his lies.

Speaker 22 As much as I did not want to talk to him, I had to ask him questions.

Speaker 22 And I know if I didn't accept that call, that I wouldn't have another chance to ask him directly those questions.

Speaker 1 So she summoned all of her courage and accepted the call.

Speaker 22 And I said,

Speaker 22 You have five children. You never told me you had five children.
You told me you had one.

Speaker 22 And his response was, quote, it is what it is.

Speaker 22 I said,

Speaker 22 you were never divorced from Amber.

Speaker 22 And he goes, that's news to me.

Speaker 22 And I was like, you know, our marriage was not like a marriage.

Speaker 22 We were never legally married. And he again said, that's news to me.

Speaker 1 Before Ashley hung up, he asked if they had a future together.

Speaker 22 I'm pretty happy with myself that I was very firm and bold and said, absolutely not.

Speaker 22 No, we do not have a future together.

Speaker 17 So

Speaker 22 that was probably the moment where the healing began. That was like the final cut of the cord.

Speaker 1 After that final phone call, Ashley began accepting the extent of his lies.

Speaker 22 I don't know who this person is. I don't know who he ever was.

Speaker 22 And quite honestly, there's nothing I can believe that he ever told me outside of the fact that here's his name and his birthday because I have his birth certificate.

Speaker 1 Was he actually a problem solver for the cartel? Or was that a lie too?

Speaker 22 Now that I'm out of the situation and completely removed and I can see the whole picture for what it is. I do not believe any of the cartel stuff was real.

Speaker 22 I believe that was like a scare tactic to just keep me worried, keep me on edge, like a diversion. Pay attention to the cartel stuff, but don't look at what I'm doing.

Speaker 1 Scare tactic is an understatement. Lying about being a hitman for the cartel?

Speaker 1 It's a lie that created a baseline of terror in her everyday life.

Speaker 1 A lie that allowed him to justify years of deception, anger, and theft. A lie that made dozens of smaller lies seem more plausible.

Speaker 1 Jake's been in county jail for nearly two years, awaiting trial on charges of theft, fraud, theft of a firearm, and defamation with intent to defraud.

Speaker 1 Ashley submitted a victim impact statement to the court. where she recounted the emotional and financial damage he caused her and her family.

Speaker 1 The police weren't able to recover the stolen items from Ashley's family, the priceless family heirlooms. Ashley doesn't know if she'll ever see them again.
She's learning to make peace with that.

Speaker 22 This situation led me to realize: out of all the stuff he has taken from me and my family, I'm not going to let him

Speaker 22 take something else from me.

Speaker 22 That includes my outlook on the world, my outlook on men. Like, I don't hate men and think all men are liars and cheaters because of what happened to me.

Speaker 1 She's putting her life back together. She just finished her master's degree in forensic psychology, and today she's a correctional caseworker in a prison.

Speaker 1 It's work that brings purpose and meaning to her life.

Speaker 22 I go to work every day, and I deal with

Speaker 22 incarcerated individuals who

Speaker 22 have victims, have hurt people, and I

Speaker 22 being a victim myself don't let that affect how I treat any of my clients.

Speaker 22 I believe that they

Speaker 22 can find redemption. I do think that people can change

Speaker 22 and

Speaker 22 A part of my job is to help them

Speaker 22 find that way so that they can redeem themselves and get out and find a way to live a happy, successful life that won't have them end up back in prison.

Speaker 1 Incredibly, she even believes that Jake has potential to find redemption if he just takes accountability for his crimes and the harm he caused.

Speaker 1 And there's one silver lining in this terrible situation.

Speaker 22 I never had to get a divorce because I never had a legal marriage.

Speaker 1 Ashley is focusing on moving forward, going to therapy and putting the pieces of her life back together.

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

Speaker 1 Why did you want to tell your story?

Speaker 22 I

Speaker 22 want people to know that something like this can happen to other people. And hopefully somebody

Speaker 22 hears my story and either makes them take a second look in a situation that they're in, or if somebody else is in a similar situation, they don't feel alone.

Speaker 22 Because one thing that really helped me when I was going through this was hearing similar stories. It made me feel like

Speaker 22 it's not me.

Speaker 22 This happens to other people.

Speaker 22 And

Speaker 22 there is a light at the end of the tunnel because if other people have gone through the same things I went through, then it's possible that I can also find that happiness and clarity.

Speaker 1 On the next episode of Betrayal,

Speaker 24 I remember her entering the Nikki waiting room, first off with no baby, and she just had this look on her face.

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 Also, please be sure to follow us at Glass Podcasts on Instagram for all betrayal content, news, and updates. 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 was executive produced by Nancy Glass and Jennifer Faison.

Speaker 1 Hosted and produced by me, Andrea Gunning. Written and produced by Monique Laborde.
Also produced by Ben Fetterman. Associate producers are Kristen Malkuri and Grace Bollinger.

Speaker 1 Our iHeart team is Allie Perry and Jessica Kreinchek.

Speaker 1 Audio Editing and Mixing by Matt Delvecchio. Betrayals theme composed by Oliver Baines.
Music library provided by My Music.

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

Speaker 24 So why did it take so long to catch him? I'm Josh Zeman, and this is Monster, Hunting the Long Island Serial Killer, the investigation into the most notorious killer in New York, since the son of Sam.

Speaker 30 Season one of Crying Wolf is here. We're thrilled to keep sharing these jaw-dropping stories with you.
And now, there's even more to discover.

Speaker 30 With an iHeart TrueCrime Plus subscription, only on Apple Podcasts, you'll unlock 100% ad-free listening on Crying Wolf and other fan favorites like Atlanta Monster, What Happened to Sandy Beale, and Sympathy Paints.

Speaker 17 Don't wait.

Speaker 30 New episodes are ready for you now. Open Apple Podcasts, search iHeartTrueCrime Plus, and subscribe today.

Speaker 20 Hi listeners, I'm M.

Speaker 31 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 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.

Speaker 31 Plus, you'll get access to all episodes of Paper Ghosts, the Texas Teen Murders, one week ahead of everyone else, available only to iHeart True Crime Plus subscribers.

Speaker 28 You'll get access to other chart-topping true crime shows you love, like Betrayal, The Girlfriends, The Turning, River Road, Pikedon Massacre, Murder Homes, Unrestorable, Camp Shame, and more.

Speaker 28 So don't wait.

Speaker 31 Head to Apple Podcasts.

Speaker 32 Search for iHeart True Crime Plus and subscribe today.

It's a way of life. Now this ain't just any old podcast, honey.

Speaker 23 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 23 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 23 Come join us in learning from detectives, prosecutors, authors, canine handlers, forensic experts, and most importantly, victims' family members. Come be a part of MyZone 7 while building yours.

Speaker 23 Listen to Zone 7 with Cheryl McCollum on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcast.

Speaker 1 This is an iHeart podcast.