Transcript of Behind Betrayal with ABCNews Studios

This is an iHeart podcast.

I just normally do straight stand up, but this is a bit different.

What do you get when a true crime producer walks into a comedy club? A new podcast called Wisecrack, where a comedian finds himself at the center of a chilling true crime story.

Does anyone know what show they've come to see? It's a story. It's about the scariest night of my life.

This is Wisecrack, available now. Listen to Wisecrack on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

In the 1980s, modeling wasn't just a dream, it was a battlefield.

It's a freaking war zone. These people are animals.

The Model wars podcast peels back the glossy cover and reveals a high stakes game where survival meant more than beauty. Hosted by me, Vanessa Grigoriadis, this is the untold story of an industry built on ruthless ambition. Listen to Model wars, the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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 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@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 Tide, 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.

Hey, Betrayal fans, I have exciting news to share. Season three of Betrayal is now a docuseries on Hulu. It's the gripping story of Stacy 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 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, Andreas, Nice to see you. I'm Mike Kelly. I lead the team here at ABC News Studios.

And Andrea, I'm Muriel Pearson. I'm the executive producer in the ABC News studio side who's been working valiantly with John on this. This amazing series.

So, yeah, thank you for all you do. I hear your names all the time. Obviously, I'm super involved in the creative and, like, everything that goes in on the podcast, but I'm mostly on set and doing, like, interviews for the TV show, so I don't get a lot of the posts and, like, so I don't really get to see you guys. So 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.

So I'm so curious. I mean, I obviously love Betrayal. I'm Betrayal all the way. But where did the initial idea to turn the podcast into. Into the docu series come from? Like, how did that start?

Well, we have a small team of people focused on developing new ideas, and they're, like, constantly scouring the marketplace for IP that resonates with audiences. And so it didn't take a lot of investigating for them to find Betrayal podcasts because it was so huge out of the gate, right? Big, gigantic hit. And then around that time that our team sort of found Betrayal. As fans, I think the Glass team came and had a general introduction with us, and we quickly decided there's. There's a real partnership to be had here. And so, you know, after a bunch of conversation, 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. Right? 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. And if it's true crime, you need kind of the police force, the investigative team, to help bring that side of the story to life, too. You know, 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. So it's all those different pieces have to 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'm going to actually speak specifically to betrayal, Drea, because there is no question that this topic we instantly recognized would have an incredible resonance with our audience. You know, a lot of the people who are in our audience, I mean, 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 is the most intimate thing that you could possibly imagine is incredibly appealing to that audience. Because, you know, 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, I mean, 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 kind of comfort that 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 that it speaks to the type of feedback that we get both on the podcast side and on the television side from, you know, listeners, from viewers who. They see themselves in these people, they see the parallels. And that relatability obviously goes a long way, but it's also. It's really refreshing. And this is one of the reasons why we love you guys as partners is the understanding and acknowledgment 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 kind of want to latch into. And having all those ingredients to come together in something that someone will watch for three consecutive episodes is not an easy task. And it's been a lot of fun. It's Been a big challenge, but I think we've learned a lot about, you know, what are. 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 with 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 built, especially in season three, with what Justin meant for Stacy 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. 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 kind of fairy tale 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, you know, I. 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, you know, that's just. That is the storyline that has been so effective with this and powerful because you totally buy into that. And 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 Studios, but betrayal is so emblematic of that, is we want to find first person narratives, right? These are mostly women in the case of betrayal, telling their own story from their own perspective, right? And that's what we strive in, in everything that we do. Like, either we have the victim or we have the perpetrator in first person. And hopefully we have both, right? So we can tell a really nuanced, complex story. And in every season of Betrayal, we've been able to do that. And I think that's part of the reason why these have been so successful.

Yeah, we always look at it as we want the audience to, you know, be along for the ride. The good, the good, the bad, the ugly, all those things. But. But most importantly, we look at how we're going to tease the. The turn, and then when we get to the turn, we want to make sure that the audience really is rooting for our main character. And it's easy to root for Stacy when you. When you learn about her backstory and you understand all the things that she went through with her first marriage, being a single mom, you know, the. Some of the struggles that she went through. And then meeting this, you know, this rising, you know, star in the medical field in Justin Rutherford and kind of, you know, having that fairy tale, you know, it's not that we want to just pull the rug out from, from, from under the audience, but we really want them to feel what Stacy felt and in this case, also what her children, Tyler and Michaela felt, and the way that their world had grown into something, you know, that they could be proud of, that they felt so great about.

And then it's. It makes it all that much more devastating when the. The truth starts to come out about what Justin was doing. And then obviously, in this story, there are multiple, multiple layers to the way those terrible truths, you know, roll out. Because, I mean, it's such a sinister story when. When you step back and look at the whole thing, it's. It's really, really devastating.

There isn't a single woman on this earth that can't listen to Stacy. 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 just. 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, Stacy and Tyler's story has difficult themes, and we. You usually don't see them addressed on tv. It could be taboo. Some people shy away from it. What made you guys feel comfortable at ABC News studios to go forward with Stacy and Tyler's story? Were there any concerns, goals that you guys had?

You know, there are always concerns when you pull, as you say, out of the. Out of a place where you've been before. I mean, we've been we have the familiar terror territory is just love betrayed. But I think that. But by being presented with a new story that brought it so much deeper into a family's betrayal. Right. 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, you know, 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, Drea, 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 and.

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. And I think having those first person accounts in this circumstance with these difficult stories is really important.

Yeah. I remember, Andrea, a conversation that you and I had before you even went into production on the podcast of season three of just how to get into the very difficult nature of this topic and, and kind of 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. And when I started, 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 than any of us would ever think, it started to become a little less scary and a little less daunting of how we would do 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 gonna 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.

My name is Ed. Everyone say hello Ed.

Hello Ed.

I'm from a very rural background myself. My dad is a farmer and my mom is a cousin. So like, it's not like.

What do you get when a true crime producer walks into a comedy club? I know it sounds like the start of a bad joke, but that really was my reality nine years ago.

I just normally do straight stand up, but this is a bit different.

On stage stood a comedian with a story that no one expected to hear.

On 22 July 2015, 23 year old man had killed his family. And then he came to my house.

So what do you get when a true crime producer walks into a comedy club? A new podcast called Wisecrack where stand up comedy and murder take center stage. Available now. Listen to Wisecrack on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

Power struggles, shady money, drugs, violence and broken promises.

It's a freaking war zone. These people are animals. There's no integrity, there's no loyalty. That's all gone.

In the 1980s, modeling wasn't just a dream, it was a battlefield.

Book, book, book my deals. Let's get models in, let's get them out.

And the models themselves, they, they carried scars that never fully healed till this day.

Honestly, if I see a measuring tape, I freak out.

The Model wars podcast peels back the glossy cover and reveals a high stakes game where survival meant more than beauty. Hosted by me, Vanessa Gregoriadis, this is the untold story of an industry built on ruthless ambition. Listen to Model wars on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

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 chance to meet some of you. Book your spot now and come sleuth at sea with me@virgin voyages.com truecrime hey.

It'S your favorite Jersey girl, Gia Giudice. Welcome to Casual Chaos where I share my story. This week I'm sitting down with Vanderpump Rules star Sheena Shay. I don't really talk to either of them, if I'm being honest. There will be an occasional text one way or the other from me to Ariana, maybe a happy birthday from Ariana to me. I think the last time I talked to Tom it was like, congrats on America's Got Talent. This is a combo you don't want to miss. Listen to casual chaos on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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? You know, obviously this season involves a story that is make some people recoil. And as a producer, I leaned in, you guys leaned in, you know, are you seeing a change in, you know, the weather here with audiences appetite for.

Stories like these, we definitely see it in my other life before I was with ABC News studios, 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 only almost chart it to 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, right? That it was a story about the perpetrator, that it was a story about the howdunit who done it, you know, how was he caught. But that journey of the person, you know, who was who, for whom all these terrible things was perpetrated, that was not something that was front and center until somewhat more recently. I mean, with stories like Gilgo beach, right. And that kind of story has kind of 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 kind of 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 having being a veteran of True crime, it used to be investigative beats. Investigative beats, investigative beats. And that's. 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 sort of a shying away from those types of stories. But, Mike, I think you hit the nail on the head. It's about great first person storytelling. And we've talked about the intimacy, we've talked about being along for that ride. And 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. And certainly they have been in the first three seasons of Betrayal. And 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? Like has been the directive for so long in True Crime.

And it's. And it's. Frankly, I. I think it's a little tired. And I. And 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. This. 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 kind of phenomenally amazing and human.

He deeply loves his mother and he loves his family as a family guy. And he would have. I mean, 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. That's how much he loved her. You know, 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 just. 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. On podcasts, you know, in your mind, you start thinking, oh, this person must look like this.

And I was just talking to my mom about this morning. Like, literally, she was, like, blown away. Yeah, but I mean.

I mean, I'm, like, 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, you know, whatever it is. But, I mean, I think it's fascinating. But I don't know. I mean, I. I think that however they. They look, and sometimes I think that people lose a little bit by seeing too much. Right. But in this case, the. The person, the people that they were, the personalities they were kind of let all of that, once you're introduced to it, fall by the wayside. Right.

And I think there's a magic in, like, converting the audio. As an audience member, it's just in your imagination, right, what these people look like to then see them for real. These are real people experiencing real emotions. And, like, it's just a different kind of empathy, I think, that the audience has for these characters. And 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.

You know, 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, you know, the technique, the technique of it, the television technique of it. And, you know, there are many ways that you could approach this, but I think John and I really came to a center of wanting the recreation to be as realistic as possible, which meant simple things like, you know, using natural light, letting the cameras move more like the eye would take you, rather than, you know, 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 that would visually match with that. And we talked a lot about it. We really did. And John was sending me, you know, 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 the sort of 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 dreamlike space where it didn't felt necessarily as raw or as real. And I think adding in a lot more handheld camera movement and just sort of 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. Some BTS photos of how many lights it takes to make it look like it's natural light, you know, because it's. Every light in the truck comes out to get that look. But it's fun, and it's. It's a fun challenge for. For the team and for me. I mean, my. My recreations team is amazing, and it's. It's a group of people that I've worked with a lot on various different things, and we have. We have a lot of different techniques that we like, but it was nice to kind of 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 recreate for what's coming next. You know, 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 can raise me.

You know, 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 that experience. You know, I think people can be because they are so overcome by shame that they go into themselves because they cannot bear, you know, the fear of sharing that experience. And 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.

Yeah, I agree with Muriel. I mean, 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's been through, to just, you know, see. See that resilience, see that strength, and see the Fact that, like, 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. And when I say that, I say it with, in the back of my mind, knowing Anthony Edwards, experience that he shared on the podcast and he shares in the show with us, having gone through something similar to what Tyler went through and holding onto it for decades. And here's, you know, here is, here's for all intents and purposes, a kid, a 19 year old kid who had the strength to come forward. Well, 16 when he came forward. It's. 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 questions for me and John, but you guys are brilliant and so well spoken and I'm just grateful 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 loved seeing you in the field. And we hope we'll see a lot more. More of it.

Thank you.

I just normally do straight stand up, but this is a bit different.

What do you get when a true crime producer walks into a comedy club? Answer a new podcast called Wisecrack, where a comedian finds himself at the center of a chilling true crime story.

Does anyone know what show they've come to see? It's a story. It's about the scariest night of my life.

This is Wisecrack, available now. Listen to Wisecrack on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

In the 1980s, modeling wasn't just a dream, it was a battlefield.

It's a freaking war zone. These people are animals.

The Model podcast peels back the glossy cover and reveals a high stakes game where survival meant more than beauty. Hosted by me, Vanessa Gregoriadas, this is the untold story of an industry built on ruthless ambition. Listen to Model wars on the I Heart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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 chance to meet some of you. Book your spot now and come sleuth at sea with me@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.

This is an iHeart podcast.