Transcript of Behind Betrayal with ABCNews Studios

This is an iHeart podcast.

Big news. Betrayal is having our first ever live show, and it'll be at sea. This October 10th through 15th, join me and the Betrayal team for a live taping of the show on the True Crime podcast Cruise with Virgin Voyages. It's five nights of connection, true crime, and community, all on a luxurious, adults-only ship. It's going to be great. And the thing I'm most excited about is the to meet some of you. Book your spot now and come sleuth at sea with me at virginvoyages. Com/truecrime.

Liz went from being interested in true crime to living true crime. My husband said, Your dad's been killed. This is Hands Tied, a true crime podcast, Exploring the murder of Jim Melgar. I was just completely in shock. Liz's father murdered, and her mother found locked in a closet, her hands and feet bound. It didn't feel real at all. More than a decade on, she's still searching for answers. We're still fighting. Listen to Hands Tied on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

It was an unimaginable crime.

It's four consecutive live terms for Brian Kauberger, who killed the four University of Idaho students.

Nearly 30 months of silence until...

Bomshell development, Brian Kauberger has agreed to plea guilty.

No trial, no testimony.

The defense are on a sinking ship.

This isn't the justice you wanted.

But this is justice.

Listen to season three of the Idaho Massacre on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hi, everyone. I'm Andrea Gunning, host of Betrayal, and I'm I'm excited to bring you a brand new season of Betrayal Weekly. I'm also excited to tell you that you can now get access to all episodes of Betrayal Season 1, 2, 3, and Betrayal Weekly, and every single episode of Betrayal Season 4 ad-free. And one week early through the iHeartTrueCrise+ subscription, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Plus, you'll get access to other chartopping true crime shows you love, like The Real Killer, The Girlfriends, American Homicide, Therein'Gone, South Street, Burden of Guilt, murder on Songbird Road, the Idaho Massacre, paper ghosts, and more. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts, search for iHeartTrueCrime Plus, and subscribe today. Hey, Betrayal fans. I have exciting news to share. Season 3 of Betrayal is now a docuseries on Hulu. It's the gripping story of Stacey Tyler and the doctor who betrayed them. See the voices you've come to know in Betrayal Under His Eye, streaming now on Hulu. Now, here's a discussion with the people who made that happen.

Hey, everyone. I'm back today with John Hirsch, the executive producer and director of Betrayal, the docuseries.

Hi, Dre. Thanks so much. It's Great to be back here with your audience. I'm really excited about today's episode because we have two of our amazing colleagues from ABC News Studio here with us, Muriel Pearson and Mike Kelly. Hi, guys. But why don't you to go ahead and introduce yourselves to our audience and also to the host of Betrayal, Andrea Gunning. I know.

It's so nice to meet you guys.

Hey, Andrea. It's nice to see you. I'm Mike Kelly. I lead the team here at ABC News Studio.

And Andrea I'm Muriel Pearson. I'm the executive producer on the ABC News Studio side. He's been working valiantly with John on this amazing series.

Yeah, thank you for all you do. I hear your names all the time. Obviously, I'm I'm super involved in the creative and everything that goes in on the podcast, but I'm mostly on set and doing interviews for the TV show, so I don't get a lot of the posts, so I don't really get to see you guys. It's really nice to spend this time, and I really am appreciative. I have a ton of questions because we've never really chatted before. If you guys don't mind, I would love to just dive in.

Let's jump in.

I'm so curious. I mean, I obviously love Betrayal. I'm Betrayal all the way. But where did the initial idea idea to turn the podcast into the docuseries come from? How did that start?

We have a small team of people focused on developing new ideas, and they're constantly scouring the marketplace for IP that resonates with audiences. It didn't take a lot of investigating for them to find Betrayal podcast, but it was so huge out of the gate. Big, gigantic hit. Then around that time that our team found Betrayal as fans, I think the Glass team came and had a general introduction with us. We quickly decided there's a real partnership to be had here. After a bunch of conversations, we decided to say, Yeah, let's adapt this into a television program.

How do you guys know when a podcast has the potential to be a successful TV series?

I think if a podcast is successful in its own right, it's obvious that there's interest in the story. But not every podcast automatically lends itself to visual or television adaptation. To be successful on TV, just like a podcast, you need an amazing story, first and foremost, but you also need characters that are visually compelling. You need an archive to bring the history and the background of the story to life. If it's true crime, you need the police force, the investigative team, to help bring that side of the story to life, too. Sometimes people are only willing to participate in the audio format, and they're not willing to appear on camera, so you have to have that piece, too. It's all those different pieces have come together to turn a really successful audio story into great television. There's probably other things that Muriel or John could add.

Well, I would actually speak specifically to Betrayal, Dreya, because there is no question that this topic we instantly recognized would have an incredible resonance with our audience. A lot of the people who are in our audience, we look at the demos, and it's a predominantly female audience. And this idea of trust broken, of double lives, of a betrayal of what there's a most intimate thing that you could possibly imagine, is incredibly appealing to that audience. Because people look at these stories and they try and see parallels with their own lives. And I think, particularly with Betrayal, and you know this because of the podcast, people have resonance with this because this has happened to them. And the many, many women that you guys have profiled and the ones that we've profiled here, the response that we get is that emotional response to how do other people respond to this thing that, honestly, they sometimes think they're all alone in, that they alone have been betrayed, and that there's a comfort in knowing that you're not alone and to share that experience. So we knew that from the beginning with Betrayal, that it would be successful.

Yeah, that really speaks to the community that's developed over the last several years as betrayals become bigger and bigger. And it speaks to the type of feedback that we get both on the podcast side and on the television side from listeners, from viewers. They see themselves in these people. They see the parallels, and that relatability obviously goes a long way. But it's also really refreshing. This is one of the reasons why we love you guys as partners is the understanding and acknowledgement of the challenges of taking a podcast and turning it into a television show, that willingness of participants, the archive that needs to be strong, the investigative beats that true crime fans want to latch into. Having all those ingredients to come together in something that someone will watch for three consecutive episodes. It's not an easy task. It's been a lot of fun. It's been a big challenge. But I think we've learned a lot about what all those ingredients are and how they need to mesh together for these stories to really work.

There aren't betrayals with strangers. This is a thing that's intimate, that happens between people that you love and care about, the people that are closest to you. And so when we're looking at stories for the podcast, it's about the betrayal, but it's equally about the love story. And what you guys do so well on the TV side, and it's something that I often forget, and it's usually the most shocking part when I'm watching it, is seeing the love story unfold visually. Because it's one thing to hear it, but with the archival and how you guys build, especially in season three, with what Justin meant for Stacey and her life and what she was able to provide her kids and that she had made it. I mean, it was so well done.

I mean, John and Matt have been real masters at creating that feeling of intimacy in the edit. I mean, it all comes down to the beginning in the archive. I mean, I just think, John, you guys have done an incredible job in just making the fairytale that we all dream of, that you want that happily ever after, that you want to find the perfect man. And that's what makes the betrayal so terrible is to see these women finding in very different ways, whether it's first love Or I went through a few people, it didn't work out, and here was the guy who changed my life, who made me feel great about myself. And that is the storyline that has been effective with this and powerful because you totally buy into that. It's a betrayal because it's the thing that you wanted most and that you felt that you were safe. Stacey felt she was safe for the first time, and she was never in more peril.

One of the things we really focus on in everything that we do at ABC News Studio, but Betrayal is so emblematic of that, is we want to find first-person narratives. These are mostly women, in the case of Betrayal, telling their own story from their own perspective. That's what we strive in everything that we do. Either we have the victim or we have the perpetrator in first person, and hopefully we have both, so we can tell a really nuanced, complex story. Every season of Betrayal, we've been able to do that. I think that's part of the reason why these have been so successful.

We always look at it as we want the audience to be along for the ride, the good, the bad, the ugly, all those things. But most importantly, we look at how we're going to tease the turn. Then when we get to the turn, we want to make sure that the really is rooting for our main character. It's easy to root for Stacey. When you learn about her backstory and you understand all the things that she went through with her first marriage, being a single mom, some of the struggles that she went through, and then meeting this rising star in the medical field in Justin Rutherford and having that fairy tale. It's not that we want to just pull the rug out from under the audience, but we really want them to feel what Stacey felt, and in this case, also what her children Tyler and Mikaela, felt and the way that their world had grown into something that they could be proud of, that they felt so great about. And then it makes it all that much more devastating when the truth starts to come out about what Justin was doing. And then obviously in this story, there are multiple layers to the way those terrible truths roll out, because it's such a sinister story when you step back and look at the whole thing, it's really, really devastating.

There isn't a single woman on this Earth that can't listen to Stacey. And when she's expressing in episode one how she feels about herself and her body that doesn't relate. It doesn't matter who you are, where you're from, what you look like. That is so relatable. And I remember seeing it for the first time and just crying. And you guys You immediately have the audience buy in in that moment. It's like that's the emotional access with the audience of I feel that, too, and I'm connecting to Stacey. So that was incredible. Obviously, in season three, Stacey and Tyler Tyler's Story has difficult themes, and you usually don't see them addressed on TV. It could be taboo. Some people will shy away from it. What made you guys feel comfortable at ABC News Studio to go forward with Stacey and Tyler's story? Were there any concerns, goals that you guys had?

There are always concerns when you pull, as you say, out of a place where you've been before. The familiar terror A territory is just love betrayed. But I think that by being presented with a new story, they brought it so much deeper into a family's betrayal. It's not just between a man and a woman. It's between a woman and her son and a stepson and her stepfather. We just saw that the possibility of the depths, the emotional depths of that and the exploration of what that can do to a family and on the other side of it, how a family survives it, was very interesting. And, I mean, John and I talked about this a lot. I mean, it's story arc is one thing about just what happened. Emotional story arc is something else. And again, I think that is something really unique, Draya, to your podcast. It gives you an opportunity to go into an emotional storytelling story arc, where you understand what the high point was, how you get to the low point, right? Because it's not all at once. You can't really totally believe, right, that this is happening to you, except that it is, and how you emerge on the other side.

It's a real story of self-redemption and family redemption that we found so intriguing and so important, again, because it is something that we think that our audience experiences universally.

We want to be sensitive and careful with victims' stories, too, and how they want to tell their own story, as I said before. In this case, Stacey is telling from her own perspective, and Tyler is, too. I think having those first-person accounts in this circumstance with these difficult stories. It's really important.

Yeah, I remember, Andrea, a conversation that you and I had before you even went into production on the podcast of Season 3 of just how to get into the very difficult nature of this topic and when and how to reveal certain aspects of it because you have so many layers to it, as I mentioned. I just remember feeling like, yes, these are challenges, but they're also opportunities because you don't see these types of stories on television very often. When you shared with me some of the facts and figures of people who've been through what Tyler went through and how much more common it is that any of us would ever think, it started to become a little less scary and a little less daunting of how we would this. And then I think the growth that Tyler has shown, even from the early days of production on the podcast to where he is now. And I think for people who tune into the podcast and then watch the show, they're going to see this kid, 19, 20 years old now, who is just so incredibly strong and has shown so much resilience. And it's a credit to his mom.

It's a credit to his entire family. But it's really unique.

Big news. Betrayal is having our first ever live show, and it'll be at sea. This October 10th through 15th, join me and the Betrayal team for a live taping of the show on the True Crime podcast Cruise with Virgin Voyages. It's five nights of connection, true crime, and community, all on a luxurious, adult-only ship. It's going to be great. And the thing I'm most excited about is the chance to meet some of you. Book your spot now and come sleath at sea with me at virginvoyages. Com/truecrime.

It was an unimaginable crime.

It's four consecutive live terms for Brian Kauberger, who killed the four University of Idaho students.

The defense are on a sinking ship.

It was clear at that point he was out of options.

Nearly 30 months of silence until trial.

Bomshell development, Brian Kauberger appearing set to accept a plea deal just five weeks before his quadruple murder trial was set to start.

No trial, no testimony.

He has pleaded guilty to five criminal counts, one of burglary and four counts of murder.

In this final season, we return to Moscow with interviews from those still searching for answers.

Why did the prosecution take this? They were holding all the cars.

How on earth could you make a deal?

What message does that send?

Listen to season three of the Idaho Massacre on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Liz went from being interested in true crime to living true crime. My husband comes back outside, and he's shaking, and he just looks like he's seeing a ghost, and he's just in shock. And he said, Your dad's been killed. This is Hands Tied, a true crime podcast, Exploring the murder of Jim Melgar. Liz's mom had just been found shut in a closet. Her hands and feet tied up, shouting for help. I was just completely in shock. Her dad had been stabbed to death. It didn't feel real at all. For more than a decade, Liz has been trying to figure out what happened. There's a lot of guilt, I think, pushing me, and I just don't want answers. Listen to Hands Tied on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hi, everyone. I'm Andrea Gunning, host of Betrayal, and I'm I'm excited to bring you a brand new season of Betrayal Weekly. I'm also excited to tell you that you can now get access to all episodes of Betrayal Season 1, 2, 3, and Betrayal Weekly, and every single episode of Betrayal Season 4 ad-free. And one week early through the iHeartTrueCrise+ subscription, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Plus, you'll get access to other chartopping true crime shows you love, like The Real Killer, The Girlfriends, American Homicide, ThereinGone, South Street, Burden of Guilt, murder on Songbird Road, the Idaho Massacre, paper ghosts, and more. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts, search for iHeartTrueCrime Plus, and subscribe today.

I like to see someone who's been through what he's been through and under the stress and the pressure and the emotional turmoil that he's been through to come out and be as strong and as resilient as he is now, it almost like it flipped in my mind from being like, Oh, man, this is scary. This is going to be hard to tell to, you know what? Let's lean into our strengths here. We've got an incredibly strong character here.

I'm curious what you guys are seeing on your side about the audience. Do you feel like the audience is changing? Are they becoming more empathetic? Are they becoming more open to discussing tougher topics? Obviously, this season involves a story that makes some people recoil. And as a producer, I leaned in. You guys leaned in. Are you seeing a change in the weather here with audiences' appetite for stories like these?

We definitely see it. In my other life, before I was with ABC News Studio, I was with 2020. So I was deeply into the true crime world. And here's what's interesting. I would say, I mean, you could almost chart it within the last five years, maybe a little bit more. People really were less interested in the straight storyline and more interested in the emotional experience. They really did not like the way that there was a much more old fashioned, however you're going to term it, way of looking at the victim as the victim. That it was a story about the perpetrator, that it was a story about the how done it, who done it, how was he caught? But that journey of the person for whom all these terrible things were perpetrated, that was not something that was front and center until somewhat more recently. I mean, with stories like Gilgo Beach, right? And that story has risen in popularity because it offers a different bandwidth than just crime. It gives it more complexity because you are exploring, again, an emotional journey. And I think it's fascinating. I think it's partially actually an age thing.

I think younger viewers have more interest in a different storytelling. And maybe it's made all of us better storytellers.

I love this shift that we're in the middle of right now, because being a veteran of true crime, it used to be investigative beats, investigative beats, investigative beats. If you didn't have enough of those, and if they weren't deep enough, and if they didn't drive the entire narrative, then there was a shying away from those types of stories. Mike, I think you hit the nail on the head. It's about great first-person storytelling. We've talked about the intimacy, we've talked about being along for that ride. I think if you've got a great story, you've got a great storyteller, and you've got all these other elements we've talked to, the investigative beats of how the legal side of it unfolded almost become way less important. I mean, they do become way less important. Certainly, they have been in the first three seasons of Betrayal. For As a producer, it's been really fun and refreshing to work that way and not be constantly thinking about, Okay, do we have X number of investigative beats per act? It has been the directive for so long in true crime, and Frankly, I think it's a little tired. I think, yes, the audience is getting younger, but they're also getting more open-minded to being in these more intimate spaces as opposed to just like, Let's follow good police work.

I mean, in Betrayal, you know this better than anyone, Drea, because you have talked to them. You talk about the love story, but there's a love story going on between Tyler and his mother. I mean, there's a totally different aspect of it, right? Where he makes choices that he might not have made for her, and she feels what she feels because of where she's put him. And how they work that out together because they love each other is something phenomenally amazing and human.

He deeply loves his mother, and he loves his family as a family guy. And he would have, he says it himself, he would have gone to the grave with this information because he didn't want her to lose what she lost. That's how much he loved her. And a huge part of our show is not just showing these people's wounded parts, the victim, right? It's about showing them as fully formed human beings and the love there that's in the family, and they love that existed there. I'm interested to ask you guys. I mean, I think I spoke to it a little while ago about... I have my answer, but how did the visual aspect of TV open up this story for you guys even more?

Wow, that is so complicated because I was actually going to ask you another question, which is like, because some of these stories have been on podcast. In your mind, you start thinking, Oh, this person must look like this.

I was just talking to my mom about this this morning.

Like, literally, She was blown away.

Yeah.

But I'm curious because they have created this physical ethos around these people, which may be quite different. They may not be brunette. They may not be whatever it is. But I think it's fascinating. But I don't know. I think that however they look, and sometimes I think that people lose a little bit by seeing too much. But in this case, the people that they were, the personalities that they were, let all of that, once you're introduced to it, fall by the wayside.

I think there's a magic in converting the audio as an audience member, it's just in your imagination, what these people look like, to then see them for real. These are real people experiencing real emotions. It's just a different empathy, I think, that the audience has for these characters. When something works in both mediums, it's just an absolute home run, I think, to be able to get it right on both platforms.

One note about the television part of it. John and I... John, you really have been the most amazing partner. I mean, we have had many nerdy conversations about the technique of it, the television technique of it. And there are many ways that you could approach this, but I think John and really came to a center of wanting the recreation to be as realistic as possible, which meant simple things like using natural light, letting the cameras move more like the eye would take you rather than setting the cameras on pedestals and having this more stately lit feel. I mean, we really wanted to match the rawness of the emotions with something would visually match with that. And we talked a lot about it. We really did. John was sending me samples while he was in the field. I just thought it was great. I mean, it was a wonderful collaboration and developing that look for it.

Well, I appreciate that little extra push that you guys gave us. I think in the first two seasons, we were, with the recreations, a little bit more in that dream-like space where it felt It didn't felt necessarily as raw or as real. I think adding in a lot more handheld camera movement and just making sure that we paid a lot of attention to little things with our angles. But the audience would be amazed, and maybe we'll show some BTS photos of how many lights it takes to make it look like it's natural light. Because it's every light in the truck comes out to get that look. But it's fun, and it's a fun challenge for the team. For me, my recreation team is amazing, and it's a group of people that I've with a lot on various different things, and we have a lot of different techniques that we like. But it was nice to be like, okay, well, here's what we did on season two that we liked. Here's what we think we could do better, and take that feedback and apply it to what we did in season three. And now it's like, I can't wait to do this next batch of recrees for what's coming next.

Just keep making it feel more raw and more real and more connected to the audience.

I have one final question. What do you guys want audiences to take away from season three?

Anybody.

I'm just going to go back to what I said earlier. I mean, at the risk of repeating myself, I want people to know that they're not alone, that it is a universal experience what they're seeing. And I also think that Tyler, the strength of what Tyler brings to it, many, many strengths, is not to be afraid of that experience. I think people can be because they are so overcome by shame that they go into themselves because they cannot bear the fear of sharing that experience. I do hope that people see this and realize that they should be a little less fearless, be courageous like Tyler, and realize they're not alone. Yeah, it's beautiful.

Can't say any better than that.

I know. I'm like, I don't think I have a better takeaway. You just crushed.

I agree with Muriel. I think there's a real opportunity here for anybody who sees this who might be going through something similar to what Tyler has gone through and what the family has been through to just see that resilience, see that strength, and see the fact that by sharing and by digging in and acknowledging what's happened to you and the control that you can take of your life and how much power you really do have when you're feeling powerless, I hope that it inspires people. When I say I say it in the back of my mind, knowing Anthony Edwards' experience that he shared on the podcast that he shares in the show with us, having gone through something similar to what Tyler went through and holding on to it for decades. Here's, for all intents, a person who's a kid, a 19-year-old kid who had the strength to come forward. Well, 16 when he came forward. It's really remarkable. It's unbelievable.

Well, I tackled everything I wanted to chat with you guys about. I don't know if you guys have any for me and John, but you guys are brilliant and so well-spoken, and I'm just grateful for everything. Truly grateful.

It's been amazing working with this whole entire team, and we have many big plans to come between ABC News Studios and the Glass team, and so looking forward to telling the audience more about that in the future, too.

Dre, you're an amazing host. I mean, seeing you in the field with the families, you brought out the best in them. You really did. I mean, I really love seeing you in the field, and I hope we'll see a lot more of it. Thank you.

Big news. Betrayal is having our first ever live show, and it'll be at sea. This October 10th third through 15th, join me and the Betrayal team for a live taping of the show on the True Crime podcast Cruise with Virgin Voyages. It's five nights of connection, true crime, and community, all on a luxurious adult-only ship. It's going to be great. And the thing I'm most excited about is the chance to meet some of you. Book your spot now and come sleuth at sea with me at virginvoyages. Com/truecrime.

Liz went from being interested in true crime to living true crime. My husband said, Your dad's been killed. This is Hands Tied, a true crime podcast, Exploring the murder of Jim Melgar. I was just completely in shock. Liz's father murdered, and her mother found locked in a closet, her hands and feet bound. It didn't feel real at all. More than a decade on, she's still searching for answers. We're still fighting. Listen to Hands Tied on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

It was an unimaginable crime.

It's four consecutive live terms for Brian Kauberger who killed a four University of Idaho students.

Nearly 30 months of silence until...

Bomshell development, Brian Kauberger has agreed to plea guilty.

No trial, no testimony.

The defense are on a sinking ship.

This isn't the justice you wanted, but this is justice.

Listen to season three of the Idaho Massacre on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hi, everyone. I'm Andrea Gunning, host of Betrayal, and I'm excited to bring you a brand new season of Betrayal Weekly. I'm also excited to tell you that you can now get access to all episodes of Betrayal Season one, two, three, and Betrayal Weekly and every single episode of Betrayal Season 4 ad-free, and one week early through the iHeartTrueCrime+ subscription, available exclusively on Apple podcasts. Plus, you'll get access to other chartopping true crime shows you love, like The Real Killer, The Girlfriends, American Homicide, ThereinGone, South Street, Burden of Guilt, murder on Songbird Road, The Idaho Massacre, Paper Ghost, and more. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts, search for iHeartTrueCrime Plus, and subscribe today.

Is an iHeart podcast.