Transcript of Sound Familiar? | EP 5

Good people, what's up? What's up? It's Questlove. So recently I had the incredible opportunity to have a real conversation with actress and producer Jamie Lee Curtis. From Routines to Recovery, True Lies, and a certain Jermaine Jackson music video, Jamie's real and raw, and it's something I really admire about her.

I am so happy that I'm the head bitch in charge at 67, that I have the perspective that I have at my age to really be able to to put all of this into context.

Listen to The Questlove Show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

In the middle of the night, Saskia awoke in a haze. Her husband Mike was on his laptop. What was on his screen would change Saskia's life forever.

I said, I need you to tell me exactly what you're doing. And immediately, the mask came off.

You're supposed to be safe. That's your home. That's your husband.

Listen to Betrayal Season 5 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Nancy Glass, host of The Burden of Guilt Season 2 podcast. This is a story about a horrendous lie that destroyed two families. Late one night, Bobby Gumpwright became the victim of a random crime. The perpetrator was sentenced to 99 years until a confession changed everything.

I was a monster.

Listen to Burden of Guilt Season 2 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Clayton Eckard. In 2022, I was the lead of ABC's The Bachelor.

But here's the thing— Bachelor fans hated him.

If I could press a button and rewind it all, I would.

That's when his life took a disturbing turn. A one-night stand would end in a courtroom.

The media is here. This case has gone viral.

The dating contract.

Agree to date me, but I'm also suing you.

This is unlike anything I've ever seen before.

I'm Stephanie Young. Listen to Love Trapped on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. After Laura was barred from speaking with Clayton, she became hyperactive online. She began repeatedly reaching out to online content creators like Dave Neal to refute their claims. Around this time, Dave got an interesting email from a Howard University student.

It is basically a press release that is titled "Unpacking Racial Insensitivity" by somebody named Chase J. Jones. This whole unpacking of racial insensitivity is Clayton dancing on TikTok to a song where the song had the N-word.

It seemed like Clayton couldn't catch a break. Dave tried to reach out to Chase J. Jones to talk on the phone.

Crickets. I hear nothing. And I'm going, you know, I can't report this story if I can't even confirm who this person is.

But Chase kept following up, asking Dave to cover the story. The fact that Chase wouldn't get on the phone raised alarm bells for Dave. He and his audience began to suspect that maybe Chase J. Jones didn't exist at all.

Chase J. Jones became the most interesting, like, Loch Ness Monster, a Bigfoot if you will, a mystery.

Dave started to wonder if the Howard University student emailing him was actually who he said he was. I'm Stephanie Young, and this is Love Trapped.

There's no way out, you'd better believe.

I'll be raising holy hell, my love, if you ever, ever, ever, ever try to leave. On November 2nd, 2023, a judge granted Clayton Eckert an injunction against harassment. You heard those proceedings on the last episode. That meant Laura was legally prohibited from speaking to Clayton. For Clayton, the legal barrier worked. The messages finally stopped, but the silence was an illusion. Laura had found a new focus.

Laura then started harassing journalists who were telling this story.

She contacted me within the first video or two where I started to doubt her story.

"I'm sending you this email because I'm required to give you 30 days to retract your false statements before I sue for defamation." She reports my video and it gets taken down.

By filing to establish paternity in the courts and by going to the tabloids, Laura had opened the door to public commentary. After her restraining order hearing was livestreamed, everyone online knew her name. She couldn't hide. Clips from the hearings were going viral. Dave Neal started getting more frequent emails from Laura. She was not happy.

It's hard to explain to somebody how the hairs on your neck immediately go up when you see you get an email from Laura Owens.

Dave had been covering Laura and Clayton's story nearly every day since it first broke. His audience were the ones who first discovered her name and inconsistencies in the evidence she provided. Dave became a lightning rod, a target of Laura's rage.

I was threatened nearly immediately by Laura that she was going to sue the hell out of me if I cover this.

Laura might have seen Dave as the instigator of the doubt and criticism she was experiencing, but the truth was the story had taken on a life of its own. It basically took over The Bachelor Reddit, so much so that a new sub was established, r/LauraOwens.

This one was dedicated to Laura Owens and things we found out about her and about her past.

This is a woman who goes by the online username Schnitzel Ninja.

Thought it sounded funny and never really anticipated it was going to be as popular as it is.

She's not a content creator. She's a mom with a job that has nothing to do with being online, and she's a casual fan of The Bachelor. Back in 2023, she had a habit of scrolling through Bachelor news.

I was very much like a lurker online until that r/LauraOwens sub was created. That's when I really started interacting. We're all doing all of this research on her, but like, there's always another thing to uncover. There's always another thing we found.

She got sucked into the story, and I can relate. Today, Schnitzel Ninja is a central figure in the online community. We're not going to use her real name because of Laura.

She's intimidating and doesn't shy away from threats.

Schnitzel Ninja stumbled into the story by accident. In September 2023, she was browsing the Bachelor Reddit when she came across Laura's post, the one where Laura said she was the anonymous woman in the Clayton Eckard paternity scandal. She believed Laura. Because who would lie about something like that?

I remember commenting on the post something like, I'm really sorry this is happening to you. I really hope Clayton steps up and gives you the support you're looking for. I was just taking it at face value, and it sounded like it could be legit.

She later deleted that comment.

It quickly became clear to me, at least, that Laura was, like, maybe lying about some things. And so I decided to start doing some research.

At the time, Laura herself was active on Reddit, posting comments like this one, which will be read by a voice actor.

I don't have any desire for Clayton to co-parent anymore. I want full custody. I have very clearly stated I do not want a relationship with Clayton.

The replies were brutal. Some were downright cruel, and a few crossed the line.

You just did this for attention and to distract from the paternity results showing no baby. You need to stop abusing the legal system and get help.

First you try to baby trap him, now it's his fault he got too stoned to consent? If he was too stoned to consent, why did you give him a blowjob? Laura was clapping back in the comments. Here are some of her replies: You're wrong.

Thanks for the sarcasm though. He gave me a gummy when I got to his house, which he would admit, so not sure how that would make me "baby trapping" him. We consensually did stuff when we were both under the influence.

Eventually, someone reported the subreddit and it was banned. Users like Schnitzel Ninja were still active on YouTube. But Laura began reporting YouTube videos and sending threats of legal action to the people who posted them.

Laura was reporting people's videos, reporting this, reporting that, trying to have this removed from the internet.

The thing is, Laura's case was in the public record. She couldn't stop people from commenting about it and sharing their opinion. But she had an incentive to try. Here's Dave Neal.

If she could keep people from being able to share these documents, she could keep her lie up.

At this point, citizen sleuths like Schnitzel Ninja were personally invested in exposing the truth. From her perspective, Laura was repeatedly misusing public funds, like the police and court system.

It's a public court hearing, and I was just like, don't do it if you don't want it on the internet.

So she requested a physical copy of Clayton's injunction against harassment hearing.

I found out you could request these videos. I enlisted my husband and kind of had to tell him I was following this crazy case online.

The DVD arrived in the mail a few weeks later. Schnitzel Ninja posted the video on YouTube. Someone reported the video, making a privacy complaint. According to YouTube policy, only two people would have been able to file that complaint: Laura or Clayton. And Clayton says it wasn't him. But Schnitzel Ninja was able to repost the video since the hearing was a matter of public record.

So that's how it got started.

For Schnitzel Ninja and dozens of others, following this story became like a full-time job. Laura was extremely upset about what people online were saying about her. She saw Dave Neal as kind of a ringleader. At this point, he'd received dozens of personal emails from Laura. Including a cease and desist and an attempt to get a restraining order. Dave had never experienced anything like this before.

I was stuck. I was, for better or for worse, bonded to this lady in a way that I became the bad guy to her. And by the way, I'm not trying to convince anybody. Go out there, get on Google, come back to me. I'll see you in a couple days.

Dave's full-time job was covering Bachelor and pop culture news. Once Laura began singling him out, I was like, you came into my business.

Like, I do this for a living. Buckle up, we will make as many videos as it takes to get this thing right. Justice doesn't always play out unless the public demands it.

Laura sent a threatening email to a group of podcasters saying, if you decide to cover the story with just Dave's point of view, My intent is to sue for defamation. Laura also said in this email that she would be extremely appreciative if you would not cover this topic at all, and that if you do, you allow me to give my side of the story. Here's the thing: numerous podcasters and creators have told me they gave her the opportunity to come on their shows, and she declined every single time. At the time I'm recording this, She has not agreed to an interview with me either. Here's Dave's perspective on why she refused to talk on the record with people who were questioning her.

She wanted a story out of it, but she didn't want to deal with the ramifications of being cross-examined.

Because Laura was reporting so many videos on YouTube, Dave Neal moved the bulk of his conversation about Laura to Patreon. It's a private community and subscription-based platform for creators. And it felt like a safer place to talk about Laura because she was so litigious.

People wanted to be in there in like a sort of safe space in a private community to discuss this.

That's when Dave started getting those emails we mentioned at the start of this episode, the ones from Chase J. Jones. Clayton got wind of it.

Apparently the Black university student that was upset that I posted a dance video that had the N-word in it, but I didn't sing it. He had reached out to, like, Dave Neal and a couple other outlets.

Back in 2023, there was a viral TikTok trend where people would dance to a catchy song and add these animated penguins, making it look like they were doing a choreographed dance with them.

I post on TikTok, I was dancing with these, like, penguins.

Clayton didn't sing the lyrics, The song just played in the background while he danced.

I didn't say it. And I danced to a lot of rap songs, so, yeah.

To Dave, the video Chase J. Jones was pointing out seemed like a nothing burger.

So I decide not to report on it. I said, I'm not going to report on this press release that's clearly trying to slam Clayton for something that's kind of a little bit of a push.

Chase had also posted a blog about this on Medium. A few days later, Dave got another email from Chase explaining why he should be covering this story. Dave decided to Google Chase's name.

So we look into Chase J. Jones. They've got like a bio on Medium and on YouTube, and they say they went to Howard, which is a historical Black college.

Dave wanted to verify that Chase was who he said he was. So he replied to the email and asked Chase to jump on a call.

Crickets. I hear nothing. I'm going, you know, I can't report this story if I can't even confirm who this person is.

Several days later, Dave got another email, but this time it was from Patreon, the private online community for his audience.

Chase J. Jones became a $5 member. Thank you so much.

Dave started talking to his audience about the emails he'd received from Chase J. Jones, and they developed a theory. What if Chase was actually Laura pretending to be a Howard University student?

Everyone's fascinated about Chase J. Jones because if it's possible that Laura is faking a Black man, this is insanity. I mean, it's absolute insanity.

At the time, Laura had already taken legal action against Dave, so he had an active court case and the ability to subpoena Chase J. Jones. And that's exactly what he did.

Chase J. Jones tries to quash the subpoena, which means they went through the California legal system to try to quash a subpoena. And all my lawyer was saying is, just get on the phone with us, just confirm your identity, and this all goes away. So we pursued Chase J. Jones as far as we legally could, knowing there was no one on the end of the phone call.

Dave was having a hard time proving that this might be Laura.

Until one night. I have some audience members who cracked the case.

When Chase emailed Dave, he included the video of Clayton dancing with the penguins.

Chase J. Jones ripped that from Clayton's TikTok and put it on YouTube, probably so Clayton wouldn't delete it. Well, whoops. I know a little thing about YouTube. It's owned by Google. And when you have a password for YouTube, there is that two-factor authentication.

That means if you were to try to enter the password, it would send you a password code if you type in the last 4 digits of the account holder's cell phone number. Dave Neal had Laura's number because she'd been contacting him for months.

Well, believe it or not, if you type in Laura Owens' last 4 digits of her cell phone number and try try to do two-factor authentication, what pops up on Chase J. Jones' YouTube channel is it says, we've sent the code to this cell phone number. If you try any other number— we tried hundreds— if you tried any other cell phone number, it says, eh, wrong code.

On his own show, Dave created a video linking Laura to the phone number used to establish the Chase J. Jones YouTube account. Dave believes Laura fabricated this persona, a Black journalism student, to try to cancel Clayton Eckert. Laura appeared consumed by a singular, relentless ambition: the total dismantling of Clayton's reputation. She was also trying to convince the public that she was the victim in this case. According to Laura, people like Dave Neal were cyberbullying her. In December 2023, Laura posted this video on her Facebook, and just a forewarning, it's a rough listen.

Dave has made more than 50 videos and more like podcast content than I could possibly count talking about me. He specializes in Bachelor content, but what he's talking about has nothing to do with The Bachelor.

She sounds like she's crying, but when you watch the video, you can see that there are no tears coming out of her eyes.

Dave— I've begged him to stop talking about me. I've threatened him with defamation lawsuits. Nothing stops him, and he keeps teasing that he's going to talk about another event where it gets crazier, as he says.

Around this time, Laura made another police report.

Scottsdale Police, how can I help you? Can I think report, um, a violation of a protective order? Is the person on premise right now? No. Okay, and then, um, how was the order violated? Um, so it was violated online. The person's not supposed to try to find my location, and they reached out to somebody I'd been dating and posted a lot of false information about me online.

You probably assume she's talking about Clayton, or maybe even Dave Neal, but she's not.

And who's the person that you have the violation against? His name is Greg Gillespie.

Good people, what's up, what's up? It's Questlove. So recently I had the incredible opportunity to have a real conversation with actress and producer Jamie Lee Curtis ahead of the release of her new thriller series Scarpetta. I can honestly say I've never done an interview like that before. You know, at one point I shut my laptop down and we just started chatting as old friends. Recent Oscar recipient So we have some commonality there. I predicted that, by the way.

And you said these words to me: dust off your mantle.

Yes.

And I looked at you and I said, what? And you said, dust off your mantle. And then I left and that was it. And then when all of that happened, I remember the next morning, I think I wanted to, like, write you and go, How did you know?

Listen to The Questlove Show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

In the middle of the night, Saskia awoke in a haze. Her husband Mike was on his laptop. What was on his screen would change Saskia's life forever.

I said, I need you to tell me exactly exactly what you're doing. And immediately, the mask came off.

You're supposed to be safe. That's your home. That's your husband.

To keep this secret for so many years, he's like a seasoned pro.

This is a story about the end of a marriage, but it's also the story of one woman who was done living in the dark.

You're a dangerous person who preys on vulnerable and trusting people. You're a predator, Michael Levin Goodman.

Listen to Betrayal Season 5 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Nancy Glass, host of The Burden of Guilt Season 2 podcast. This is a story about a horrendous lie that destroyed two families. Late one night, Bobby Gumpwright became the victim of a random crime.

He pulls the gun, tells me to lie down on the ground.

He identified Jermaine Hudson as the perpetrator. Jermaine was sentenced to 99 years.

I'm like, Lord, this can't be real. I thought it was a mistaken identity.

The best lie is partial truth.

For 22 years, only 2 people knew the truth until a confession changed everything.

I was a monster.

Listen to Burden of Guilt Season 2 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Clayton Eckard, and in 2022, I was the lead of ABC's The Bachelor.

Unfortunately, it didn't go according to plan. he became the first Bachelor to ever have his final rose rejected. The internet turned on him.

If I could press a button and rewind it all, I would.

But what happened to Clayton after the show made even bigger headlines. It began as a one-night stand and ended in a courtroom with Clayton at the center of a very strange paternity scandal.

The media is here. This case has gone viral.

The dating contract.

Agree to date me. But I'm also suing you.

Police search warrant.

This is unlike anything I've ever seen before.

I'm Stephanie Young. This is Love Trapped. This season, an epic battle of he said, she said and the search for accountability in a sea of lies.

I have done nothing except get pregnant by the Bachelor.

Listen to Love Trapped on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 2 years before Laura Owens met Clayton Eckert, she was swiping through dating apps. That's where she met a 35-year-old Scottsdale man named Greg Gillespie.

According to court documents, Greg and Laura met on a dating app. And I think they were hanging out for a few days, not more than a week.

That's attorney Greg Woodnick. We're calling him by his last name, Woodnick, to avoid confusion. Woodnick's been practicing law in Arizona for 25 years. His law firm represented Clayton. But if you recall, when Clayton first approached him, Woodnick was hesitant to take on another case involving Laura Owens.

I was remembering what had happened with Greg I was remembering what I had learned at that point, and I didn't really want to get involved with her again.

We're going to take a detour to tell you about Greg Gillespie. What you're about to hear will sound very similar to Clayton's story, but it happened 2 years prior.

Greg was not a celebrity. Greg was just a regular commercial lighting sales guy.

Greg himself isn't ready to share his story publicly. I spoke with him late last year, and he told me he won't be willing to talk until Laura is behind bars. I understand his concerns, and I think you will too after you hear his story.

I remember thinking during Greg's case that this would eventually be a Lifetime television movie because it was so bizarre. What we didn't know is kind of astounding. I mean, we knew half of 1% of the story back then.

For now, we'll be telling Greg's story by relying on public records and his lawyer Woodnick, who worked on the case for years.

He said that after Greg met Laura on a dating app, they had hung out just a few times And Greg knew really quickly that he was not interested in pursuing a relationship with Laura.

The court documents state the two had a first date, which Greg described as a fairly normal experience. The next day, they went on a second date. Then Laura went back to Greg's place, and they had sex.

My understanding was that the sexual intercourse that they had was safer.

By safer, he means that Laura told Greg she was on birth control. They also used a condom. This next bit is graphic but relevant. The court documents state that when they had sex, Greg pulled the condom off and ejaculated on Laura's back.

I wasn't there, but I read the investigative report. Greg went to grab a towel, which he said only took a few seconds, apparently in the bathroom. And when he got back, Laura was clean and said she'd already taken care of it. Greg thought it was strange.

He ended up hanging out with her one more time. But shortly after that, he met up with her to tell her that he wasn't interested in continuing a relationship. The whole fling only lasted a couple of days.

It was like a short-term fling thing. It certainly wasn't a relationship.

This is where the story begins to sound eerily similar to Clayton's experience. After Greg told Laura he wasn't interested in her, she started texting him excessively. He told her if she didn't stop, he would block her. Then around 2 weeks after he'd called it off, Laura sent him a picture of a positive pregnancy test. Unlike Clayton, there was more of a real possibility possibility she could be pregnant, because in this case there was actually penetrative sex. Woodnick told me that Greg had no interest in having a child with Laura.

Laura said she would have an abortion if they could date long-term and eventually have children together the, uh, the right way. Sound familiar?

It's almost the exact same playbook she used with Clayton. But Greg's story has a few key differences, and they're disturbing. Just a warning to listeners here, we're going to recount Laura's story of taking abortion pills. According to court documents, Laura obtained abortion pills from a telehealth clinic on July 21st. They sent her detailed instructions on how to take the pills. It's a two-step process. You swallow the first pill, and then 6 to 48 hours later, you take the second dose. That second dose is supposed to absorb vaginally or between your gums and cheek.

My recollection is that Laura claimed she took the first dose on July 28th and the second dose the next day, July 29th. But then there was a text, I remember, to her telehealth provider It was always telehealth, indicating that she didn't take the second dose correctly or something like that.

In records with her telehealth doctor, Laura seemed confused about when and how to take the second dose. She says she waited a few days to take it, but finally did. Then, Laura claimed she saw a doctor who said the development of the fetus may have stopped, but it was still uncertain. There aren't any public records of this doctor visit, That claim raised alarm bells for Woodnick.

It seemed absolutely ridiculous at the time. And internally in my office, remember, this was just dealing with this particular situation. It seemed totally bullshit. But in hindsight, when you look back at these dates and the timelines that are kind of timestamped there, it's even more incredible. It's weird what we didn't know. And now looking back how bizarre that data set actually it was.

The text messages between Laura and Greg about this topic became heated and emotionally charged. Here are some of Laura's texts, read by a voice actor.

I don't want a child on my own. It probably sounds crazy considering only 4 dates together, but I can see us having a kid in a few years. I felt something so special with you. I am the one taking the pills. Not you. So I have made the final decision. Wow, I chose you, not the kid. I'm not changing my mind. I want to get this done and have a great and normal relationship and encourage each other to crush it at work, not fight on the phone.

Then on August 6th, 2021, Laura sends Greg an ultrasound along with an absolute bombshell. We obtained a copy of this message from a court document.

Looks like you're gonna be a dad to one or two babies. Was sick enough to go to the clinic this afternoon and had to get an ultrasound to make sure I wasn't having an ectopic pregnancy. I wasn't.

She sent this message after she told Greg she took the abortion pills.

I found out that I've been pregnant with twins. Looks like one of them passed or isn't doing well, probably because of the medicine I took. I had the option of a surgical abortion and elected not to.

This is when we started to realize that things were really off the rails. Her claims baffled really basic concepts of science and biology.

If I'm going through this on my own, I will let God decide if he wants both, one, or none to be born. And the kid or kids would deserve to know their father's side of the family. I'm giving you one more shot to admit you were overwhelmed and panicked. Otherwise, you're not getting any input going forward. Your behavior is appalling, coercing me to get an abortion for your own personal agenda, and I will escalate this if I don't hear back from you.

Again, what Greg experienced is strikingly similar to Clayton's story. Down to the specific language in Laura's messages.

She has a tendency to have conditions and expectations that aren't normal in regular communication. If you don't respond to me by tomorrow, I will assume the answer is yes. If you don't X, then I will assume Y and proceed that way.

Laura's text to Greg continued, I talked to a lawyer who told me I can have a court order to establish paternity at 8 weeks and get child support from that point on, which is 25% of your income, even if you're making less than me.

Stephanie, I've been a lawyer for 25-plus years. I'm a former adjunct law professor. I taught family law trial skills. That's not the law in Arizona.

You would not get custody given all you have written about aborting the pregnancy. If you also had manipulated me to take abortion pills that resulted in the deformity or death of the second fetus, I would also pursue any and all legal action for that. If you're going to stick with manipulation, lies, and ghosting, you are not who I thought you were and would deserve it.

Laura said some unbelievably bizarre things and had some very interesting legal theories. I have no idea what she's talking about.

One of those claims was abortion coercion. This will come back again later.

I'd never even heard of abortion coercion until she put it in writing and sent it to Greg. But the claim that if Greg caused one of her pregnancies to be deformed, that it was somehow his fault, is probably legally flawed. You should probably talk to a civil attorney about that. But also, it's missing a condition precedent, the condition precedent being being pregnant.

Like with Clayton, Laura's texts to Greg oscillate between claims of abuse and bids to rekindle the relationship. Laura's text is read by a voice actor.

I still want to believe that you are the guy who wanted a fresh start with me. I told you early on that you didn't need to be with me and that I would make the decision on my own with my own timeline. 'But you insisted that you wanted to be with me and do this the right way in the future, which I believed. This is your last chance to show me that you weren't coercing me to have an abortion under false pretenses.' I can't speak for Greg, but I'd imagine anyone receiving that text message would be in total shock.

Woodnick remembers being baffled by Laura's mixed messages.

My recollection was that she relayed that she was pregnant, and then the story eventually morphed into it was twins, and then it eventually morphed into here's the ultrasound.

Greg decided to do a quick reverse image search on the ultrasound, and he got a hit. The image Laura sent him appeared to be from a 2015 blog post, a blog completely unrelated to Laura Owens. Greg felt like this was proof that she was lying about the pregnancy. So he called Laura. In Arizona, you can record one side of a conversation and share it if it's a matter of public interest. I want to play you some of that real phone call between Greg Gillespie and Laura Owens.

So your pills didn't work?

I didn't say my pills didn't work. I got an ultrasound today.

I know, but they didn't work.

Did you not see that the other thing is like the tiniest thing you've ever seen? It clearly stopped the growth in that.

Wait, what thing? That's not a child. There's no twins in this picture.

Yeah, there are. Do you— do you want me to zoom in on it for you?

Yeah, I don't know. There's no twins in this photo.

Yeah, there is.

Where? No, I know how to read ultrasounds.

This is a single baby.

You know how to read ultrasounds?

Yeah.

Greg confronted her with the blog post he'd found. To him, it seemed obvious that Laura had taken a screenshot of this image and photoshopped it. He got heated.

Why didn't you answer the question about the photo online?

I did. What did you want me to say?

Why is it your photo?

It's not my photo.

Wait, Didn't you find it peculiar how similar it looks?

No, I don't find anything peculiar with an ultrasound photo.

They all look the same.

They do?

All ultrasounds look virtually the same. I don't find anything weird with that.

It's not true that all ultrasounds look the same. Greg sent the two images to his attorney, Woodnick, who asked an OB/GYN to review them.

And he goes, they're the same image. And that's all I needed at that point. I felt pretty confident that the images that Greg received were fake.

Greg blocked Laura across every platform— phone, email, and social media. But according to court filings, Laura wouldn't stop. She allegedly used apps to generate new numbers to reach him. On August 11th, she took it a step further. And filed a civil lawsuit against Greg. She was seeking $45,000 in damages. This is the point in the story where Greg retained Woodnick.

Her big allegation was that he coerced her to having an abortion. And that was the nexus of the civil lawsuit she filed.

I asked him to give me a legal definition of abortion coercion.

I think it means someone forcing a woman to make a choice with their body that is not their choice. So I think it means that she was claiming that Greg made her terminate the pregnancy. I've been a practicing lawyer at that point for well over 20 years. I'd never even heard of this.

Woodnick manages a family and criminal law practice in Phoenix. I asked around, and he's sort of a go-to for cases involving complex child custody. Child abuse and neglect. While paternity cases are common, cases like Laura's are not. At first, Woodnick wasn't sure if he wanted to take on Greg's case. He and his firm regularly provide pro bono work for Planned Parenthood.

I'm very proud of the work that I've done and the commitment my office has to Planned Parenthood, and I truly believe all Healthcare decisions regarding a woman and their pregnancy are theirs to make.

But Woodnick took the time to read over Greg's documents. Immediately, Laura's messages stood out to him.

I saw the communication related to it, and it was bafflingly bizarre. A lot of, like, transactional, negotiated communications. It's the kind of thing where Laura would send text after text after text, and Greg wouldn't respond. Respond. She would send emails like, I'm having the baby if you don't call me. That's weird.

The day after Laura filed the civil lawsuit against Greg, he filed for an order of protection against her. I got a copy of Greg's filing. It paints a clear and unsettling picture of what he was going through. Here's what he told the courts, read by a voice actor.

She continued to harass me via text messages, through 14 different email accounts, and iMessages, all of which I've since blocked. She threatened to reach out to my family, located them on public records, reached out to my mother, threatened to expose me on her self-help podcast. Laura Owens has shown up to my home 2 times after being asked not to come there. She now is reaching out, making threats of lawsuits to my work email address. She's contacted the HR department in my company to confirm my email address and is threatening my career and reputation at my place of work as of yesterday and today. She is showing no sign of stopping. The defendant is stating that she is in love with me after 3 dates, roughly 2 hours each date, and is promising to have an abortion and dismiss pressing charges if I commit to loving her, marrying her, and starting a family with her within the next 2 years. I'm scared for my reputation and safety, and it's time to serve her a legal order of protection.

The judge granted Greg's order of protection ex parte, which means it gets issued right away without the other person being heard. But in Arizona, a protective order isn't effective until it's been served. Authorities tried to serve Laura and failed each time. All the while, Laura kept flooding Greg's inbox with lengthy emails, and she was escalating her claims against him. Some of the messages she sent to Greg were later included in a Maricopa County investigative report. We've had them read by a voice actor.

I have been advised to file criminal charges against you for fraud, where I can easily establish my case. All I want is what you told me you wanted if I got an abortion: a real, genuine relationship where even though we have no idea if it works in the end or not, we really try.

It's emotional whiplash. She was constantly bombarding Greg with texts and emails.

I think I have found representation for the case and am waiting to make a decision until or if I hear back from you. My hesitancy in hiring him is that he would want to talk about this to the media because he thinks it would be a landmark case. You weren't the first guy to coerce a girl into an abortion, and he thinks there should be legal consequences for men who do that to prevent it from happening. I wanted to ask you one more time if you wanted to date. If that were the case, I would also keep my promise to you and not have the child. I obviously would drop the lawsuit. If I don't get an apology and you don't show that you meant what you said about wanting a relationship with me, I will not be having a surgical abortion and will be filing for punitive damages for $75,000.

Some of these lines sound exactly like the ones she would later write to Clayton. Woodnick was disturbed by the similarities in the messages.

I remember when the communication started coming in from Clayton and his dialog with Laura. And I remember looking at the communications, wondering if they were identical. I mean, it was very eerily similar.

But there are some features of Greg's experience that don't quite line up with Clayton's. Like this one letter Laura sent Greg. She told him it was from a lawyer who'd reviewed her case.

It was a letter on email letterhead from a very reputable lawyer in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Greg shared it with Woodnick. Here's his recollection of what the letter said.

Laura, we've reviewed your case. This is the best abortion coercion case we've ever seen, and kind of implied that the case was worth a lot and she needed to sue and go after Greg. Obviously, that caused me to raise my eyebrows. I mean, it caused me to do some research. So we did some digging into those communications. And when she was attaching letters from her lawyer, I was like, wait a minute, if she's represented by a lawyer, I need to be communicating with the lawyer. So I did what I would train any associate or what I'm supposed to do ethically. I reached out to the lawyer themselves. And you'll be surprised to find out that they said they were not representing her.

Woodnick wanted to be clear. He does not believe the lawyer whose name is on this letter is the one who authored it.

First, he said he didn't represent her. Second, they weren't licensed in Arizona. It was absolutely an Arizona case. And it didn't read like a lawyer wrote it, certainly not a lawyer with the gravity that the lawyer that she claimed was representing her had. And again, we didn't get this communication from the law firm. So I'm not blaming them at all. I actually believe they didn't know. I think I alerted them to it.

Because the protective order could never be successfully served, Laura was legally allowed to continue contacting Greg. He wasn't responding anymore. But that didn't deter her. She contacted important people in Greg's life, like his boss. Those messages were later included in that same investigative report we discussed earlier, which is how we got a copy of them. Here's an email she sent his employer, read by a voice actor.

Hi, I filed a civil lawsuit against a salesman at your Scottsdale location, Greg Gillespie, and wondered if I could confidentially confirm the dates that he was out on COVID leave in July and August. The illness is unrelated to the case, but my father is going through radiation for cancer right now and is having COVID symptoms. I am helping to care for him and wondered if I may have been asymptomatic after being in close contact with him and then transmitted into my dad. I would really appreciate your not involving him, and if I could just have help in tracing back how he had been exposed, I think it had to be through me, although at this point I'm testing negative. Thanks, Laura.

Laura was about to take it a step further. On November 12th, 2021, Laura filed an order of protection against Greg Gillespie, citing that he had been hacking her computer, social media, and even her podcast's website.

Laura claims or implies that Greg is some sort of master IT hacker I don't know where the hell she's getting that from, Stephanie. There's nothing that I've ever seen in any document or record that remotely comports with that.

In her filing, Laura claims that Greg is a manipulative and dangerous person who has been incessantly harassing her. It reads, quote, he will not stop until he has ruined my life, my podcast, and causes serious mental and/or physical harm to me. The same day, a judge heard Laura's protective order case over Zoom.

I'm going to call Laura Owens and Gregory Gillespie, FN-2021-004799. Ms. Owens, are you on the line?

Yes, I am.

Do you solemnly swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?

I do, Your Honor.

The judge seemed to remember Laura.

You've been in front of me before on this case. These allegations, I remember them. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You're the one who's friends with the attorney in California.

Yes.

Yeah. Okay. Well, all right.

If the judge's voice sounds familiar to you, it's the same judge you heard in the last episode granting Laura's order of protection against Clayton. The one about the selfie of Laura that had become a Halloween costume meme. But her hearing against Greg 2 years prior was much more serious.

You say Mr. Gillespie put his hands on your throat. Uh, when did that happen?

That actually happened on our first date.

All right, and you've only known him since like June or something, right?

Correct.

Okay, we had a conversation the other day, and I, I want to start out by saying that everything that we say in our hearing today is something that will be recorded, and Mr. Gillespie and his attorneys can get copies of it. You're aware of that, right?

Yes.

Okay, I will grant your order of protection.

Thank you so much, Your Honor.

Greg was served with that order of protection 3 days later. Laura has since renewed the order twice, as recently as December of 2024. Greg has yet to contest it, but he still has the opportunity to contest it in the future and end up back in court with Laura Owens. By December of 2021, Laura's civil case against Greg was still in the court system. And Woodnick was repeatedly asking about the status of Laura's pregnancy.

We kind of lost track of the lie of the pregnancy. The story wasn't about a pregnancy, it was about this coercion thing. As soon as she filed this lawsuit claiming abortion coercion, it was almost like the lore of where she was even pregnant kind of was gone. Now we were dealing with whatever she was claiming Greg had done to her, because now she was a victim, obviously a victim of a guy who wanted nothing to do with her. A guy who was like, "Leave me alone." A guy who was like, "Quit calling my employer." A guy who was like, "I don't ever wanna see you again." After that, Greg stopped hearing from Laura about the pregnancy.

He never saw verified medical records confirming a miscarriage. There are also no birth records, no death certificates, nothing. But that isn't the end of the story. There was one more very serious allegation that Laura levied against Greg Gillespie. This time, it wasn't just against him. It was against him and his attorney, Greg Woodnick.

I was going to answer every fucking question the police or the FBI had because I had nothing to do with this.

Good people, what's up, what's up? It's Questlove. So recently I had the incredible opportunity to have a real conversation with actress and producer Jamie Lee Curtis ahead of the release of her new thriller series, Scarpetta. I can honestly say I've never done an interview like that before. You know, at one point I shut my laptop down and we just started chatting as old friends. Recent Oscar recipient, So we have some commonality there. I predicted that, by the way.

And you said these words to me: dust off your mantle.

Yes.

And I looked at you and I said, what? And you said, dust off your mantle. And then I left and that was it. And then when all of that happened, I remember the next morning, I think I wanted to, like, write you and go, How did you know?

Listen to The Questlove Show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

In the middle of the night, Saskia awoke in a haze. Her husband Mike was on his laptop. What was on his screen would change Saskia's life forever.

I said, I need you to tell me tell me exactly what you're doing. And immediately, the mask came off.

You're supposed to be safe. That's your home. That's your husband.

To keep this secret for so many years, he's like a seasoned pro.

This is a story about the end of a marriage, but it's also the story of what of one woman who was done living in the dark.

You're a dangerous person who preys on vulnerable and trusting people. You're a predator, Michael Levin Good.

Listen to Betrayal Season 5 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Nancy Glass, host of The Burden of Guilt Season 2 podcast. This is a story about a horrendous lie that destroyed between the two families. Late one night, Bobby Gumpwright became the victim of a random crime.

He pulls the gun, tells me to lie down on the ground.

He identified Jermaine Hudson as the perpetrator. Jermaine was sentenced to 99 years.

I'm like, Lord, this can't be real. I thought it was a mistaken identity.

The best lie is partial truth.

For 22 years, only 2 people knew the truth until a confession changed everything.

I was a monster.

Listen to Burden of Guilt Season 2 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Clayton Eckard, and in 2022, I was the lead of ABC's The Bachelor.

Unfortunately Unfortunately, it didn't go according to plan. He became the first Bachelor to ever have his final rose rejected. The internet turned on him.

"If I could press a button and rewind it all, I would." But what happened to Clayton after the show made even bigger headlines.

It began as a one-night stand and ended in a courtroom, with Clayton at the center of a very strange paternity scandal.

"The media is here.

This case has gone viral." "The dating contract." Agree to date me, but I'm also suing you.

Police search warrant.

This is unlike anything I've ever seen before.

I'm Stephanie Young. This is Love Trapped. This season, an epic battle of he said, she said, and the search for accountability in a sea of lies.

I have done nothing except get pregnant by the Bachelor.

Listen to Love Trapped on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In 2022, Woodnick was preparing to defend his client Greg Gillespie in a strange case. It was an abortion coercion claim brought by Laura Owens. For Woodnick, the case was already outside of his normal scope of practice. Then something happened that had never occurred before in Woodnick's 25-year legal career.

Maybe 2 or 3 days before the hearing, I get an email from Judge Bakus's judicial assistant, and the email is not addressed to me. It is addressed to Laura, and I'm on the CC being copied back. And the email accused Greg and I of somehow being complicit in Laura's rape.

When Woodnick first told me about this, I was shaken. After months of reporting on Laura Owens, I thought I had a sense of her pattern of behavior, but this accusation was as serious as it gets. Woodnick is adamant that he never conspired with his client to have Laura raped.

To see my name associated with it really was troubling. Troubling is probably an understatement. As much as I knew that it was complete fucking bullshit, I mean, I'm not a rapist. Not only was it not true, I had no idea what the hell she was talking about. But it was a little bit frightening because she said it with a pretty good command of vocabulary that the FBI and the police were involved.

Woodnick found out about Laura's allegation because of an email she sent to the judge in the case. That email is now part of the public record, and we've had it read by a voice actor.

I hate to email you again, but there is a major issue with the defendant, Mr. Gregory Gillespie, and his attorney, Mr. Greg Woodnick, that needs to be brought to Judge Baccus's attention privately before she rules on the motion to extend filed by my now former attorney. On March 4th, 2022, I was drugged, violently assaulted, and raped. I have strong reasons to believe that both the defendant and his counsel were involved, and there is a pending FBI investigation regarding the incident. To my knowledge, neither the defendant nor his counsel are aware that they are being looked into. I was worried that submitting a motion ex parte could accidentally be publicly e-filed and accessed by them. Which would pose a threat to my safety. I apologize for sending an email, but I could not think of any other way to alert Judge Bakkus about this without giving the other side confidential information about what has transpired.

While Laura is adamant in her email to the judge, it seems like she never reported this alleged rape to the police. For Woodnick, the accusation was still devastating. It made him even more sure Greg was telling the truth.

Listen, I mean, I don't know that in my career that I'm going to meet someone who's got such an interesting relationship with the truth as Laura Owens does. That may never happen again.

After Woodnick read Laura's accusation, he immediately went into action, assembling a group of his most trusted colleagues.

I got my I'm fortunate. I've got 7 lawyers in my team and some really experienced, wonderful lawyers who are family to me and work with me.

One of the people with him was his colleague, Deandra Arena. Here's what Deandra thought of Laura's accusation.

She has a tendency to throw these random, very concerning red herrings out there to detract or deflect from what maybe is going on at the time. So I think it could have been a tactical move. I think she certainly did not want Greg Woodnick on this case anymore. I think she certainly did not want to deal with my office anymore. And what better way to do it than make probably the most horrific allegation you can about an individual?

DeAndra saw how the accusation cut deep, professionally and personally.

I was awful. I mean, this is the most egregious of allegations. Like, I would much rather have my father, brother, any male loved one be accused of murder.

She helped Woodnick figure out what to do next.

I think he just went into a more logical mindset of this is someone who has fabricated a lot. So I guess I shouldn't be surprised by this. And then how do we deal with it?

Woodnick has a wife and two teenage kids who were in high school at the time. So after talking with his firm, he called a family meeting.

And, uh, we don't do serious family meetings. We are not a serious family. So I brought the boys in, I sat them down, I said, "Hey guys, you need to understand that in a case, I was accused of being involved in a woman's rape." I want you guys to know that it's not true. I know you know it's not true. I want you to hear from me that it's not true. But if you come home and the police are here, that I've got it under control. If the police show up, we had a game plan. This fucking pisses me off. We spent the next 2 days contacting the local police and the FBI.

Woodnick wanted to get ahead of it. He had nothing to hide.

I contacted the FBI, Stephanie. I contacted multiple police departments. Not a soul knew what Laura was even talking about. No one even said, "Oh, yes, there's an open investigation." I mean, nothing. They had no idea what I was talking about. I don't even think there was ever a police report involving it, 'cause no one has ever contacted me this many years later. It was all, in my opinion, a lie. So yeah, this one pisses me off pretty good. This one pisses me off pretty good.

I've spent hundreds of hours researching this case, and honestly, it takes a lot to shock me at this point. But sitting in Woodnick's office, listening to him tell me this story, I actually started to tear up. I believe Woodnick when he says he wasn't involved in any criminal conspiracy to have Laura raped. Even after all these years, Laura's allegation is still an emotional topic. It's deeply personal for him. Woodnick's colleagues urged him to leave Greg's case and find a replacement. Here's DeAndra.

You have to take a step back and consider Is this worth it anymore? I mean, I went to law school for 3 years. I put my blood, sweat, and tears into this career. And to have someone just so cavalierly throw that out there in an email, like, maybe we need to remove ourselves from this situation because this is a very dangerous person.

Ultimately, Woodnick stepped away from the case.

Greg and I had a financially part ways at some point. It's just the nature of the beast. But he and I have stayed close. He's a great guy. We ended up handing it off to a dear colleague of mine, a guy I really like, a great lawyer who helped resolve it for Greg.

It took years for the abortion coercion case to finally get dismissed. And in the end, nothing came of Laura's rape allegation against Greg and Wudnick. No charges and no further documentation in the public record. I asked Woodnick if he considers himself another victim of Laura Owens.

I think people have suggested that I'm a victim in this too. It was never about me being a victim. The victims are these guys. I'm just a lawyer, a lawyer who's doing his job, and I think we did a pretty okay job.

2 years later, Woodnick would read about a former Bachelor contestant involved in a bizarre paternity case. Woodnick immediately recognized the pattern. This was Laura Owens. And when Clayton supporters raised the funds for him to retain counsel, Woodnick would hesitate for just a moment.

Was I not happy with what Laura said about me? Absolutely. Was that in my head? I'm sure it was somewhere in my head, but it certainly wasn't my dominant thought process.

To Woodnick, Clayton's case represented something bigger. This was a pattern. And maybe Clayton could be the one to finally bring this to an end.

The fact that so many people's lives had been attempted to be destroyed by Laura was a big deal. And Clayton, this guy who was already in the spotlight because of his role on The Bachelor, he was kind of the torchbearer to make sure that justice was served.

That's how Woodnick and DeAndra found themselves back in the courtroom with Laura Owens.

I was going to make sure I did everything I could do, that my team did everything we could do to make sure we got justice for Clayton.

Coming up on the next episode of Love Trapped.

I'm going to remind you again that you're not really supposed to be dishonest in depositions.

I'm well aware.

I thought maybe she had actually successfully trapped me by incriminating herself.

I did not send this ultrasound video.

This is the greatest programming in the history of YouTube.

This is why you do it live.

I've never seen anything like it, ever.

I need to hold this woman accountable.

This isn't about her, it's about the people that she's victimized.

Try to leave. Thank you so much for listening. Please be sure to follow Love Trapped on Apple Podcasts, the iHeartRadio app, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. And please leave us a review. A 5-star rating helps others find this show. We're grateful for your support. If you would like to reach out to the Love Trapped team, email us at lovetrappedpod@gmail.com. That's lovetrappedpod@gmail.com. Love Trapped is a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group, in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. This show was executive produced by Nancy Glass, Andrea Gunning, and Ben Federman, written, produced, and hosted by me, Stephanie Young. Our story editor is Monique Laborde. Producer on this episode is Sydney Gladue. Additional production support from Todd Ganz. Our production manager is Kristin Malkieri. For iHeartPodcasts, Ally Perry was our executive producer. Audio editing and mastering by Anna McClain. Additional editing support by Zach Proto and Matt Del Vecchio. Thank you to our voice actors in this episode. Leslie Tolley, Kristen Melchiori, Todd Ganz, and Trey Morgan. This podcast was developed in collaboration with Danny Passman and Lev Abramov at Crybaby Media. The Love Trapped theme is composed by Oliver Baines. Music library provided by Mibemusic.

A special thanks to Carrie Lieberman, Will Pearson, Jessica Kreinczek, Allie Kanter, and the entire iHeart Podcast team. And for more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Good people, what's up, what's up? It's Questlove. So recently I had the incredible opportunity to have a real conversation with actress and producer Jamie Lee Curtis. From Routines to Recovery, True Lies, and a certain Jermaine Jackson music video, Jamie's real and raw, and it's something I really admire about her.

I am so happy that I'm the head bitch in charge at 67, that I have the perspective that I have at my age to really be able to put all of this into context.

Listen to The Questlove Show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

In the middle of the night, Saskia awoke in a haze. Her husband Mike was on his laptop. What was on his screen would change Saskia's life forever.

I said, I need you to tell me exactly what you're doing. And immediately, the mask came off.

You're supposed to be safe. That's your home. That's your husband.

Listen to Betrayal Season 5 on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Nancy Glass, host of the Burden of Guilt Season 2 podcast. This is a story about a horrendous lie that destroyed two families. Late one night, Bobby Gumpwright became the victim of a random crime. The perpetrator was sentenced to 99 years until a confession changed everything.

I was a monster.

Listen to Burden of Guilt Season 2 on the iHeartRadio app. Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Clayton Eckard. In 2022, I was the lead of ABC's The Bachelor.

But here's the thing— Bachelor fans hated him.

If I could press a button and rewind it all, I would.

That's when his life took a disturbing turn. A one-night stand would end in a courtroom.

The media is here. This case has gone viral.

The dating contract Agree to date me, but I'm also suing you.

This is unlike anything I've ever seen before.

I'm Stephanie Young. Listen to Love Trapped on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.