Phantom Menace | EP 1 | The Confidante

Andrea Gunning (0:00)

Hi, it's Andrea Gunning, and I'm excited to be back with Season 6 of Betrayal. If you listen to Betrayal Weekly, I hope you'll stick around for our full season of Carl's story. It'll be told over the course of 10 episodes, with a new one dropping every Thursday. Whether you've been a fan since Season 1, you're a Betrayal Weekly listener, or you're brand new to our show. Thanks for being here. Now, on to the episode.

We all have a person in our lives that we trust with anything, a partner, a parent, a sibling, a friend. I'm thinking right now about my best friend, Teresa. We have been each other's person since ninth grade. She's been with me through the best moments in my life and the difficult ones. She knows my secrets. She sat on the phone with me for hours when I've been nursing a broken heart. We became adults together. We've cheered each other on in our careers and celebrated our successes. For years, we shared a place at the Jersey Shore, where we'd end each day with a beach walk and a glass of wine. Every one of us needs a person like that, a confidant, someone you can be vulnerable with and also share uncontrollable laughter with, someone you trust beyond reproach.

Now, imagine that person isn't who you think they are.

Imagine that every secret you've shared was in stored in confidence. It was collected, cataloged, saved for later. The audio we're about to play was caught on a security camera.

SPEAKER_2 (1:38)

I acted totally nice, like sociopathically, and I like completely like put on the act, and I was just like, they don't deserve to be happy.

Andrea Gunning (1:47)

The man you just heard, he'd been plotting for years against someone who trusted him more than anyone. Then he was unknowingly caught on tape, admitting to it all.

SPEAKER_2 (1:59)

I'm not pleading guilty, as for fucking sure.

Andrea Gunning (2:03)

This confession is almost five hours long, and it contains some of the most sinister details I've ever heard. Not just about the crimes he'd committed, but about his darkest fantasies, and the people he was willing to discard to get what he wanted.

SPEAKER_2 (2:21)

Like if I could have kept doing shit, I would have like put Vizee in his fucking stir fry. Wait, what does that do? It kills you.

Do you want me to just tell you the whole story?

Andrea Gunning (2:46)

I'm Andrea Gunning, and this is Betrayal Season 6, Episode 1, Phantom Menace.

For five seasons, we've explored betrayal inside marriages. We've shared stories about families of all kinds and complex relationships with parents, kids and colleagues. But then, we heard this story, and our interest was piqued.

So, we decided to take a trip out near Chicago, to Kenosha, Wisconsin. It's home to one of the men at the center of this story, Carl Bryan.

I was excited to meet him. From our calls in the months leading up to the trip, I knew we had a lot in common. For both diehard sports fans, the two of us spoke for hours about teams we ride hard for. For Carl, that's the Cubs and the Packers. For me, the Eagles. And for both 90s kids with an appreciation for metal music. We spent an entire breakfast talking about Judas Priest and Ozfest. I'm sorry, I'm just really loving that we are working with someone that is around my same age. We also talk about ourselves in a similar way.

Carl Bryan (4:02)

I'm a nerd. I'm such a nerd.

Andrea Gunning (4:04)

Beyond his teams and his bands, Carl has one fandom that always comes first.

Carl Bryan (4:10)

I'm a walking encyclopedia of Star Wars knowledge. I mean, you'll never find a better person to have on their trivia team for Star Wars. That's just about as far as that knowledge will take me, unfortunately.

Andrea Gunning (4:27)

Hearing Carl's big laugh, you'd have no idea what he's been through. He's a survivor.

Carl Bryan (4:35)

There is no easy way to articulate what it feels like to realize that someone you once trusted was secretly behind the very horror you were trying to escape.

Andrea Gunning (4:45)

That was Carl just one year ago in a courtroom, holding back tears, trying to get someone he once loved sent to prison.

Carl Bryan (4:54)

I couldn't understand how someone could be so calculated, so cruel, and so relentless, but he knew exactly what he was doing and he never once stopped. He weaponized my past to gain control over me.

Andrea Gunning (5:09)

To understand this crime, you need to understand Carl's past. So let's go back to the early 2000s, when Carl was a teenager.