EP 21 - Audrey
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This is Holly Frey from Stuff You Missed in History Class. The national sales event is on at your Toyota dealer, making now the perfect time to get a great deal on a dependable new SUV, like an adventure-ready RAV4. Available with all-wheel drive, your new RAV4 is built for performance on any terrain. Or

check out a stylish and comfortable Highlander with seating for up to eight passengers and available panoramic moonroof. You can sit back and enjoy the wide open views with the whole family. Check out more national sales event deals when you visit buyatoyota.com. Toyota, let's go places. From Audio Up, the creators of Stephen King's Strawberry Spring comes The Unborn, a shocking true story. My baby's flying!

One woman, two lives, and a secret she would kill to protect. She went crazy, shot and killed all her farm animals, slaughtered them in front of the kids, tried to burn her house down. Listen to The Unborn on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A lot of people tell me that they just can't believe it. They're just like, your own mom did this to you? Or is it your stepmom? They'll question me for a second.

Are you really talking about your own mother? I'm Andrea Gunning, and this is Betrayal, a show about the people we trust the most and the deceptions that change everything. Sometimes we hear a story and think, how could anyone do that to another person, much less to someone they love? And worst of all, it often seems to happen to people like Audrey Thompson. People around me know me to be a little too nice sometimes.

I'm one of those people pleaser kind of people. Audrey grew up in rural Indiana. The big city to me when I was growing up was Kokomo, you know, 25 minutes north. She spent her entire life in the small town of Tipton, Indiana. Population, 5,000. When we asked her how she would describe it, she said one word, corn.

So if you like that kind of scenery of just growing up seeing corn and beans, it'd be perfect for you. Starting at age five, her mom entered her in beauty pageants. A lot of pageants. I have like 30 trophies of like first place and second place and then runner up and all that stuff. Her mom worked as a hairdresser. So for every pageant, she dolled Audrey up herself. My dad videotaped it.

Quite a few times in the hotel room, I was getting ready, getting my makeup done, getting my hair done. I was always told not to move because you mess up your hair, you mess up your dress. Her mom would douse her in hairspray while Audrey waited in the wings for her turn on stage. And I remember I was blinded by so many lights going out there and did exactly what my mom told me to do.

And when she was done with her routine... I would almost run offstage. Even though she won lots of trophies, pageants weren't Audrey's thing. They were her mom's dream. I think it was more that she wanted to do it. She really liked getting us completely dolled up and doing that part of it. When she was nine, her parents divorced and the pageants slowed down. Audrey felt caught in the middle of her parents' messy separation.

Her dad stopped coming around, so it was just Audrey, her older sister, and her mom. Their house became a revolving door of her mom's boyfriends and her sister's friends. And left alone with these adults, something horrible happened to Audrey. When she was 12, she was raped by an 18-year-old, and she became pregnant. When her mom found out, she wanted it taken care of, so she made an appointment at a health clinic. Audrey was in middle school.

It was one of the hardest days of her life. There was protesters, I remember, on both sides of the sidewalk when I was walking in. And then coming back out, I dropped my knees. I was in so much pain. And it wasn't physical pain. It was emotional pain. It took everything I had to get out of there and through those protesters to get to the car.

Because of her age, the clinic had to report the case. And ultimately, the perpetrator went to prison for his crime. But within her family, Audrey was shamed for what happened to her. It got put on me that I did something wrong and I was more of an out-of-control kid is how it got described. Teenage years with her mom were difficult. She walked on eggshells all the time trying not to set her mom off.

She tried to focus on getting good grades and staying out of trouble. So no one had a reason to blame her for anything. With so much bottled up inside of her, she turned to drugs in her early 20s. Then she met Zach. This is how she describes him. I want to use the word smooth because he was very calm and collected and confident. Like he was a talker.

He always had a positive spin. He could talk you into anything. He was so persuasive. It was ridiculous. Their relationship was intense, fast-paced, and passionate. I moved in with him pretty quick. Her life was feeling more complete. She stopped using drugs, and that's when Audrey found out she was expecting their first baby, a daughter.

She and Zach bought a little house and were able to pay for the whole thing in cash. The house was on a lake, and Audrey's mom owned a condo across from them. In the evenings, they'd take her mom's boat out on the water. It was fun. We could take the boat out and we could go real slow on the edge and look at all the nice houses and listen to music and

We found a spot called Party Cove where we would stop and dock and let my daughter play in the sand. She loved her little house on the lake, and it was in a good school district. We were wanting to use that house as a starter home just to keep my daughter there in that school district. And then when the time came, the plan was to move from there.

Now that Audrey had a kid of her own, she and her mom grew closer. They spoke every day. Her mom became her confidant. We were calling each other every day, left and right, talking about things. I mean, I talked to her about majority of things, and I did always take her advice.

Audrey had thought Zach was going to be the one, but as their relationship progressed, she saw he wasn't much more than a smooth talker. He had gotten me an engagement ring, and I said yes to him at the time, but nothing was ever going to come of it. Zach lacked follow-through, and she confided in her mom about the evolving issues in her relationship.

Things like this. Zach was a good guy. Like he wanted the house and he wanted to be with me. But he just had a lot of extracurricular activities that did not include me. Even though we lived together, it was almost like we lived separate lives.

Despite their challenges, they had a second child together, a son. With their house already paid off, Audrey was able to stay at home and be a full-time mom. We played doctor, we did all kinds of crafts, and I wanted to be there for them. I really didn't have that myself, and I wanted more for my kids emotionally.

She was putting her all into being a parent. But life with Zach wasn't turning out to be what she wanted. And she felt stuck. I just could not separate myself and take the kids away. I didn't want to give up my home. I wanted things to work. It's always that hope. Zach's family had some money, and they helped support them. His grandma and mom were...

giving him money. I mean, they gave him thousands of dollars at a time. Audrey's mom didn't have much money, but she provided in other ways. She actually was a good grandmother. To help me not be so overwhelmed, she would take my daughter on a lot of days, and we were close. Closer than I think we were before because of all the struggles that she knew I was going through with Zach.

I just kept confiding in her. I talked to her about everything and I told her everything. At the end of a hard day, being on the boat with her mom and her two kids was her happy place. There's a lot of times where we go over there and get on the boat and just spend the day away from the house and away from the drama. Things were good with her mom.

But sometimes, her mom would make odd remarks about how good-looking Zach was. And strangest of all, This is not funny to me, but she would always make jokes that my daughter was actually her baby with Zach. She was always uncomfortable when her mom made comments like that. But Audrey just tried to ignore it. She needed her mom's support.

One night, Audrey and Zach went on a much-needed date together. We hadn't had one in over a month, and I was pretty strapped to the house all the time, so I really was looking forward to it. It was our date night. It was supposed to be our time to reconnect. I wanted it to be a good night, but it didn't work out that way.

In the quiet town of Avella, Pennsylvania, Jared and Christy Akron seemed to have it all. A whirlwind romance, a new home and twins on the way. What no one knew was that Christy was hiding a secret so shocking it would tear their world apart. 911 response, what's your emergency? My baby's sleeping!

One woman, two lives, and the truth more terrifying than anyone could imagine. They had her as one of the suspects, but they could never prove it. You're going to go to jail if you don't come with us right now. Throughout this whole thing, I kept telling myself, nobody's that crazy. Uncover the chilling mystery that will leave you questioning everything. A story of the lengths we go to protect our darkest secrets. She went batshit crazy, shot and killed all her farm animals.

Slaughtered them in front of the kids. Tried to burn their house down. Audio Up presents The Unborn on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We want to speak out, we want to raise awareness, and we want this to stop. Wow, very powerful.

I'm Ellie Flynn and I'm an investigative journalist. When a group of models from the UK wanted my help, I went on a journey deep into the heart of the adult entertainment industry. I really wanted to be a playboy model. Lingerie, topless. I said, yes, please. Because at the centre of this murky world is an alleged predator.

You know who he is because of his pattern of behavior. He's just spinning the web for you to get trapped in it. He's everywhere and has been everywhere. It's so much worse and so much more widespread than I had anticipated. Together, we're going to expose him and the rotten industry he works in. It's not just me. We're an army in comparison to him. Listen to The Bunny Trap on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Welcome to the Criminalia Podcast. I'm Maria Tremarcki. And I'm Holly Frey. Together, we invite you into the dark and winding corridors of historical true crime. Each season, we explore a new theme, everything from poisoners and pirates to art thieves and snake oil products and those who made and sold them. We uncover the stories and secrets of some of history's most compelling criminal figures, including a man who built a submarine as a getaway vehicle. Yep.

That's a fact. We also look at what kinds of societal forces were at play at the time of the crime, from legal injustices to the ethics of body snatching, to see what, if anything, might look different through today's perspective. And be sure to tune in at the end of each episode as we indulge in custom-made cocktails and mocktails inspired by the stories. There's one for every story we tell.

Listen to Criminalia on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. One night in 2014, Audrey and her fiancé Zach had a night out together. Audrey had been looking forward to it. Her daughter, who was five, was staying with Audrey's mom, and her son, who was one, was with Zach's mom. And then we left Kokomo, going out on Highway 26, and he was driving to...

I remember looking down at my phone, and next thing I know, I look up and I see headlights. Zach had crossed into oncoming traffic. We hit head-on with another minivan. I went through our windshield and went through theirs, and I landed on their dash with my head, is what I was told. The next thing I remembered was waking up at Methodist,

like five days later. Audrey had barely survived a head-on collision. She was in a medically induced coma for days as surgeons attempted life-saving procedures. In addition to dozens of broken bones, she had severe internal injuries. When she woke up, she couldn't move. I remember they had strapped me down to the bed because everything was so broken that me moving around at all was causing more damage.

If she couldn't move, she assumed Zach couldn't either. She didn't know where he was. Maybe he was in another hospital room.

They wouldn't tell me what happened to Zach. Nobody had told me that he died instantly until two weeks later. Zach died, and it felt like a part of me died too. She found out that there was already a funeral. Zach's mom came to visit her in the hospital and showed her a picture of their five-year-old daughter standing in front of Zach's casket. Which I couldn't understand that picture for the life of me.

Audrey couldn't fully process the gravity of it. She was still fighting for her own life. In the first month of recovery, she was in the ICU and was in and out of the operating room. They ended up doing 22 surgeries. My tailbone was so crushed, they replaced it with a screw. And it ended up being 15 pounds of plates and screws. 15 pounds of plates and screws.

She had also sustained a traumatic brain injury and a brain bleed. Because of this, her cognition was slowed. Combined with IV pain medications, she says those first few weeks in the hospital were a blur. I have flashes of what I remember. She has a memory of her mom sitting at her bedside right after she woke up. One of the first conversations I'd had with her after I woke up was about power of attorney.

I had never even really heard about power of attorney. Like, I think I'd heard the word one other time. While Audrey was still strapped to a hospital bed and in a daze, her mom explained the power of attorney paperwork. She told me that I needed to sign so if something happens to me, she'll have control over my house and my kids. Audrey had more major surgeries coming up, and her brain bleed still wasn't under control.

There was a very real possibility that something could happen to her on the operating table. If it did, someone needed to be there for the kids. She was the best option. She was the only option. She was the only person I had to trust. I said, okay, and I signed it.

This was one of the only times she remembers her mom coming to the hospital. After this, her mom's visits became less and less frequent. That meant Audrey rarely saw her daughter. She said it was really far away and it was expensive to drive up there all the time. The hospital was a 35-minute drive from her mom's place. Zach's mom stopped coming to the hospital too. So that meant she also rarely saw her son.

They didn't give Audrey a straight answer, but she wasn't concerned. This was all temporary.

It wasn't supposed to be a permanent situation. It was just supposed to be until I was healed and able to, you know, stand up out of a wheelchair and take care of them. Physical recovery became her only priority because that meant she could reunite with her kids again.

Recovery was hard. I was in so many pieces that when I started to learn how to walk again, I could only take steps that were inches apart. After months in the hospital, she was moved to an inpatient rehabilitation center where she went to physical therapy every day. She would need years of therapy if she'd be able to walk again. Until then, she would need to use a wheelchair.

Eight months after the accident, she was finally discharged from the inpatient rehab. She barely remembers the day she was discharged. She was so delirious. But she kept a diary at the time, which she referred back to during our interview. All that was written was how I felt like my mom was so upset that I was getting to come home.

I emphasized that she was being oddly mean to me about going home. Audrey had left the house eight months ago to go on a date with Zach, and now she was coming home to an empty house. Zach was gone, and the kids were with their grandmothers. She couldn't even bring herself to go into the kids' bedroom. It was hard to look at everyone's pictures. I had to set things out of sight.

She was left there all alone. It was eerily quiet. You're used to having your kids running through the house and making noise and commotion and all kinds, but it was just so quiet all the time. I'd hear sounds and think I'd hear the kids running up and down the hall or something. The only person who was calling and checking on her was her friend Josh. He was the reason that I got my prescriptions.

He was a great, great friend. And I think mainly he did it because he knew that nobody was coming to help me. Audrey's mom would call or text every few weeks. She was the keeper of the one thing Audrey wanted the most, her kids. The dates in my diaries are so sporadic. It seems like I only got to see the kids once every other month.

Audrey knew she wasn't recovered enough to take care of her kids. She was using all of her strength just to take care of herself. I knew it was in the best interest of my kids to be with their grandparents at that time. I had hoped that things would get better and back to normal as much as possible. But after a few months at home, her recovery wasn't going as planned.

Every day, she felt a searing pain in her abdomen. It feels like a heart attack up under your rib cage. Finally, she got a diagnosis. The trauma from the car accident had damaged her pancreas and caused pancreatitis. It's a rare and excruciating complication that's difficult to treat.

During this time, she tried reaching out to her mom for support and to visit with her daughter. She didn't exactly reply to a lot of the texts that I sent. And there was a lot of texts in there about how much I missed my daughter, how much I wanted to see her, how was she. And then there would be a big gap of time in between her replying to me.

Audrey's recovery went from bad to worse when she had a seizure. I had never had a seizure ever in my life. And I remember trying to get up and I remember hurting just so bad. She'd broken her hip in multiple places and was bleeding internally. She had to call an ambulance. So they did emergency surgery that same evening.

The emergency surgery was unsuccessful. She would need a hip replacement, which meant another long hospital stay. It was the last place she wanted to be. She wanted to be home. I have it written down in my diary. I said, you know, I had lost everything. I was separated from the kids. And I said, but at least I still have my house.

After the hip replacement surgery, she was finally discharged from the hospital. Again. Her mom hadn't picked up the phone, so her dad was the one who brought her home. And there was an eviction paper on my front door. I think I sat there for a minute and stared at the paper. The eviction paper had been there for a while, and I had three days to get everything that I wanted to keep back.

out of the house. Audrey didn't know what was going on and why there would be an eviction notice. She and Zach had paid for the house in cash years ago. My dad was pacing around calling my mom names. She couldn't effing do that. How the should she ever do that? You're effing mom. And then he left. Confused, Audrey started calling her mom, who was technically still her power of attorney.

She wouldn't pick up the phone, so it was all through text. Through text, her mom explained that she had to sell Audrey's house. She was telling me that she was doing it so I could have a fresh start, that she was going to sell the house and give me the money from it so I could get something that would be more manageable.

Audrey was relieved that her mom had an explanation and a plan. She really needed the help. But the one thing Audrey didn't understand was how her mom had actually sold the house, especially without Audrey's knowledge. So she went to her mailbox, which was overflowing with letters she received while she was in the hospital. That's when she saw the proof of what her mom had done. She hired a lawyer.

And they drew up paperwork that said I sold her my house for a dollar, signed by power of attorney. Her mom reassured her that this was all in Audrey's best interest. And Audrey believed her. But there was a wrinkle. As a reminder, Audrey and Zach owned their home outright. And her kids would have the right to inherit that property. So how had her mom signed away their rights? That's when Audrey discovered...

Right after the accident, while Audrey was still fighting for her life in the hospital, her mom had petitioned the courts for permanent guardianship. Audrey never knew she did this.

She never even received a notice about the hearing while she was in the hospital. When she didn't show up to the hearing, her mom was granted permanent guardianship. And as permanent guardian, she would have access to signing off their rights to the house. That could be why she wanted guardianship. Because guardianship would mean she could sell the house on the open market and keep the profits for herself.

While I was in the hospital, nobody brought me any kind of court summons. All of my mail was going to my house, and it was in my mailbox. Nobody was bringing me my mail, and my mom, I think, knew that. Audrey had three days to vacate the house and find a new place to live, all while she was severely injured. But her mom wasn't answering the phone. So once again, she called her friend Josh.

So he came over and he took my appliances out of my house and everything that he could fit in his garage. It was horrible to have to put my things into, you know, his garage and then realize that's all I have left. She texted her mom asking about the money from the house sale. If she was going to give Audrey a fresh start, this was the moment. Her mom didn't reply, so she turned to her social worker.

I didn't have my home to go to. They had to find a place, and what they found was a nursing home. She stayed there for months, still hoping her mom would help her get back on her feet. I just kept thinking that maybe, maybe she has something else planned for me. Maybe she...

is going to set aside some money from selling the house or something, and it's going to help me in the long run. You know, trying to justify what was happening. I had texted my mom quite a bit, constantly asking what her plan was, and she didn't acknowledge the question. Was the support her mom promised ever coming? She began questioning her mom's intentions.

It took me such a long time to swallow the fact that she actually took my house. It didn't seem like it was real. I couldn't comprehend how my own mom could do that to me. When her friend Josh came to the nursing home, he was horrified at the conditions. He offered to move her into his bare bedroom. I felt grateful, you know, for at least having her.

Now with a stable home and the help of a friend, Audrey was strong enough to make a plan. She wanted to know how exactly her mom had sold the house. And most of all, she wanted her kids back.

At this point in her recovery, she knew she would need a lot of help taking care of the kids. She needed help herself. But the way her mom had gone about taking custody of her daughter didn't seem right. Neither her mom or Zach's mom were bringing the kids over to visit.

As Audrey began looking into her mom's actions, she found that she wasn't the first one to question her mom's behavior. A judge had actually held a hearing about it, a hearing that Audrey never knew about. A judge had been suspicious that she was abusing her power of attorney and made her go to court for it.

While I was still in the hospital, that court date happened. And because I didn't show up for that court date of them being suspicious of her activity, they sided with her and her explanation. Audrey didn't know exactly what her mom said in that hearing. But whatever it was, it was enough to convince the judge. It also convinced extended family members. It had even convinced Audrey for months.

Initially, that's why she was doing it, was to give me a fresh start and to help me because my taxes were due on the house, which they weren't. But it was like she told everybody so many lies. We all believed her. Finally, it all clicked for Audrey. Her mom just wanted the money from the house sale. Audrey believes her mom thought she was going to die in the hospital. And when she didn't, her mom still acted as if she had.

Audrey didn't just feel that way about her mom. She felt that way about Zach's mom as well. I feel in a way betrayed by everybody that has been in my life since this accident. They treated me like I died and they were just dividing my things up between them all.

In the quiet town of Avella, Pennsylvania, Jared and Christy Akron seemed to have it all. A whirlwind romance, a new home and twins on the way. What no one knew was that Christy was hiding a secret so shocking it would tear their world apart. 911 response, what's your emergency? My baby's bleeding.

One woman, two lives, and the truth more terrifying than anyone could imagine. They had her as one of the suspects, but they could never prove it. You're going to go to jail if you don't come with us right now. Throughout this whole thing, I kept telling myself, nobody's that crazy. Uncover the chilling mystery that will leave you questioning everything. A story of the lengths we go to protect our darkest secrets. She went batshit crazy, shot and killed all her farm animals.

Slaughtered them in front of the kids. Tried to burn their house down. Audio Up presents The Unborn on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We want to speak out, we want to raise awareness, and we want this to stop. Wow, very powerful.

I'm Ellie Flynn and I'm an investigative journalist. When a group of models from the UK wanted my help, I went on a journey deep into the heart of the adult entertainment industry. I really wanted to be a playboy model. Lingerie, topless. I said, yes, please. Because at the centre of this murky world is an alleged predator.

You know who he is because of his pattern of behavior. He's just spinning the web for you to get trapped in it. He's everywhere and has been everywhere. It's so much worse and so much more widespread than I had anticipated. Together, we're going to expose him and the rotten industry he works in. It's not just me. We're an army in comparison to him. Listen to The Bunny Trap on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Welcome to the Criminalia Podcast. I'm Maria Tremarcki. And I'm Holly Frey. Together, we invite you into the dark and winding corridors of historical true crime. Each season, we explore a new theme, everything from poisoners and pirates to art thieves and snake oil products and those who made and sold them. We uncover the stories and secrets of some of history's most compelling criminal figures, including a man who built a submarine as a getaway vehicle. Yep.

That's a fact. We also look at what kinds of societal forces were at play at the time of the crime, from legal injustices to the ethics of body snatching, to see what, if anything, might look different through today's perspective. And be sure to tune in at the end of each episode as we indulge in custom-made cocktails and mocktails inspired by the stories. There's one for every story we tell.

Listen to Criminalia on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. After almost dying in a car crash, Audrey made it out of the hospital to find an eviction notice on her front door. Her mother had used her power of attorney to sell Audrey's home to herself for a dollar. All of this happened while Audrey was in the middle of an intense physical recovery.

Audrey knew she was going to need a lot of help, but now she no longer had her home, her partner Zach, or custody of her kids. I can totally understand wanting to help someone in that situation and having to say that, yeah, I do need guardianship of your kids so I can take care of them if something happens, but you're supposed to protect that person. You're not supposed to

sign everything over to yourself because I have control. You don't do that. After taking control of Audrey's house, her mom sold it on the open market. She made a $67,000 profit. And she explained to Audrey that she'd used the money to help her get back on her feet. But here's the thing. Audrey never saw a dime of it. The promises her mom made were all empty. Your house is kind of like your happy place, like your safe place, you know?

And the last person you think that is going to take it from you is your own parents. A lot of people tell me that they just can't believe it. They're just like, your own mom did this to you? Like, is it your stepmom? Like, they'll question me for a second and be like, are you really talking about your own mother? Yes. Yes, I am. When we first heard Audrey's story, we were also in disbelief.

We had a lot of questions. Could this really happen? There were so many points of failure. Where was the hospital social work staff? How could the courts make these decisions without testimony from Audrey herself? It seemed inconceivable. So we did an investigation of our own. Remember the hearing Audrey mentioned where a judge questioned her mom's power of attorney?

Well, we got a recording of the hearing from the court reporter's office. And what's revealed is interesting. Audrey's mom tells a different story than the one Audrey told us. So we're going to break down what was said in that hearing point by point.

In the hearing, her mom is questioned by her own attorney in front of a judge. She says that she and her daughter had reached a, quote, agreement, that Audrey had agreed to sell the house to her mother for a dollar. No, no, no, no, no. Why would I want to give her my house and then have to live in it under her? Her mom continues. She claims to the judge that this agreement was done for a reason. The house was in foreclosure.

But Audrey told us that she and Zach owned the home outright, that they paid for it in cash in 2011. So we pulled the property records and it showed that the house was purchased outright in 2011. Like Audrey said, we found no evidence that the house was in foreclosure. Audrey's mom also said that there were back taxes and a year of lot rent due on the property. We asked Audrey about all these claims. It was not behind at all.

There's no way that it would have been overdue. It's just a big lie. We looked extensively for any tax warrants or liens against Audrey at this time, and we couldn't find anything. We even called the property association that managed her neighborhood. The lot fees are just $20 a month now. And even though she admitted to missing payments while she was in the hospital, we found no records of them filing liens or taking legal action against her.

Her mom also claimed that Audrey's house was essentially unfit to be lived in. One example she gave the judge was that the smoke detectors were not functioning. Audrey said that, yes, Zach took down the smoke detectors to change the batteries, but had not gotten around to putting them back up before he died. When she got home from the accident, the smoke detectors were the last thing on her mind. I was sitting in a wheelchair in pieces. I could barely move.

If my mom was so much a caring person, I would think if she noticed that, that she would go ahead and put a battery in it and put it up for me since I can't reach it. I mean, come on, if you're concerned, let's do something about it, right? But the most striking detail about this specific hearing, there were no exhibits or documentation presented to the judge, or at least not that was on the court record.

So from what we can hear, the only evidence that was offered was Audrey's mom's word. And it seems like the judge took it at face value. Here's one reason that he might have been so quick to dismiss Audrey. Her mom started the hearing by telling the judge that Audrey had a history of drug use. In fact, that's the very first thing she said about her daughter in the hearing. Audrey was up front with us about having used drugs in her 20s. She'd been open with her mom about it too.

But she says that after the accident, the only drugs she took were the ones she was prescribed. Unfortunately, yes, I did go through 20-some surgeries there in the beginning, and I was very medicated. There's reasons why I didn't have my kids. I knew that. But the fact that it's when I was in recovery in my own home that it's being used against me

I shouldn't lose my house while I'm recovering. That's not supposed to happen. When we looked into Audrey's background, we found no evidence of drug offenses from this time. And we talked to Josh, who confirmed that Audrey was taking her pain medication. In doing all of this reporting, there were moments where we tried to see things from Audrey's mom's point of view to find evidence that could explain her mom's motivation.

After all, Audrey did need someone to take care of her kids four years after the accident. Audrey's the first one to admit that. But that doesn't explain why her mom requested permanent guardianship just months after the accident. It doesn't explain why she hadn't been bringing the kids to visit Audrey. And it doesn't explain why she told a judge that the home was in foreclosure when it wasn't.

At the end of the hearing, Audrey's mom tells the judge she'll use the money from the house sale to set up a trust for Audrey's daughter and to buy the two of them a larger home. And it seems like that's exactly what Audrey's mom did. We're not disputing that Audrey's daughter deserves financial support, but it's clear that at the time of this hearing, Audrey's mom was not planning on giving any of the money to Audrey for the fresh start she promised.

Audrey didn't know it at the time, but for those two years she was recovering after the accident, she could have revoked her mom's power of attorney. I didn't know that I even had the power to change it. If I had known that I could have cut her off a long time ago, I would have.

Once she learned that she could write a letter to the courts to dissolve the power of attorney, she did it right away. But it was already too late. She had already taken the house at that point. And the permanent guardianship had already been granted. Those two years where Audrey was recovering and believing her mom, that was a crucial time. And it's something that Audrey looks back on with anger. She just kept making it sound as if

She, you know, was going to give me a fresh start. It was more or less just the by-herself time. It was to keep me from asking so many questions. And it worked. I believed her. I was holding on to that hope because without it, I think I would have gone crazy. She wanted to take her mom to court, but she couldn't afford a lawyer. There was no way for me to hire a lawyer. I had absolutely nothing.

So there was a lot of struggle trying to survive. She was selling her remaining belongings just to be able to afford her medicine. She applied for disability, but it hadn't been approved yet. Even pro bono legal assistance was literally inaccessible. She was still using a wheelchair during this time. You go to the courthouse and you wait in line on the second floor of the courthouse. And at the time...

It was so hard for me to get around, and I didn't have anybody to take me. So I did everything from the house that I could. It took four years for Audrey to officially get on disability benefits, which for her was $800 a month, by the way. And she put that money straight into legal action against her mom. When I finally got my disability...

Then, Audrey says she filed a petition to get her daughter back, but the motion was dismissed. It cost me $2,000 just to hear that statement.

We reached out to the lawyer who represented Audrey in this case, but he declined to comment. In researching this story, we reached out to multiple Indiana family attorneys. One of them underscored that this is a lower income area, and without the means, it can be very hard to get the representation you need to advocate for yourself. Between the legal process and the cost of it, Audrey was despondent. I think my mind basically shut down. I started to

So she focused on what she could control, which was her health and recovery. It took four years to be able to walk again. And she took her physical recovery to another level, going to the gym every day and building up her strength. If you looked at her today, you wouldn't know what she's been through. She's incredibly fit and strikingly beautiful. She's been through a lot.

Even though she went through hell, she keeps herself put together. I go to the gym a lot. I exercise more than anybody I know, but it's kind of because I have to. It's not exactly have to, but I know that I need to because of all the different plates and everything in me. If I don't keep those muscles strong around that titanium, I don't have a chance.

As for a fresh start, well, she did it all on her own financially. She accepted that her house was gone, but she couldn't give up on her kids. As the years passed, she held out hope that something would change, and she worked hard to regain her strength in case that day ever came. And finally, it did, or at least for her and her son.

Zach's mom had guardianship of Audrey's son, and in 2019, she made the decision to return him to Audrey without lawyers or a custody hearing. May 22nd, 2019, we signed the papers to terminate the guardianship. And this was after trying to persuade her of what was happening and that he needed to be with me. It was a long road to get to that point.

When the accident happened, her son was one, and now he was six. The last time he was with me, he was a baby. He lost five years of that time being with me. We were both so happy that it finally was happening. It was such a good day.

At this point, her daughter was 10 and still living with her mom. And her mom wasn't interested in giving up custody. Audrey's only seen her mom once or twice since she got out of the hospital. Coming face to face with my mom, it takes everything I have to keep my cool. I want to say so much to her.

but I know how she argues too. And she will not admit fault. It just seems like I'm talking to a wall. Worst of all, Audrey believes her mom told her daughter a different story. She hasn't admitted to my daughter what actually happened. She told my daughter over the years that my health was so bad that I couldn't take care of her and made it seem as if

I didn't want her. She's rebuilt her life with her son. But to this day, her mom maintains full custody of her daughter. She's now 15. All the things that you strive to get in life, having a home and having kids and having that family, it just felt ripped out from under me. That time you can't get back. And when it's your daughter, some things to me are unforgivable.

Even after the physical trauma she sustained, she says losing her kids was the most painful of all. The physical pain and all the physical things I went through just don't even compare to the emotional part. She wants to be the mom that she didn't have, a mom that shows her son unconditional love and support.

Every single day, I tell him I am proud of him and that I love him and that he is important because I don't want to pass on the cycle of it. With her son back in her life, Audrey decided to do something for herself. She wanted to continue her education. I wanted to go back to IU. I

to finish my psychology degree. It was what I started a long time ago and I went back because I wanted to make a better future. I wanted to see if I could do something with my life.

Because of her traumatic brain injury, learning was a challenge. So even though she wasn't able to complete her degree, she met a community of people who believed her and helped her write down her story. After hearing it, everybody would tell me their eyeballs would be this big. And they'd be like, you need to write that down. You need to write a book. This is what your future is. They just kept telling me that you just need to put it in a book. And I took their advice.

Her book is called Rebuilt, and she self-published it. Writing has been healing, but it's also been a way for Audrey to document everything she's been through from her point of view. She hopes that someday her daughter will read it and understand. I want and need her to know

the details of what happened. I want her to be able to read it for herself and to be able to come home, to be able to spend her days here with us where she should be. To me, we're still a family and that would be my dream for both of my kids to be home. We end all of our weekly episodes with the same question.

Why did you choose to tell your story? I truly feel there needs to be a different form of protection in hospitals where people are signing papers that are signing their children over or their house over or any kind of assets when someone is injured. There needs to be better advocates because if your own mother can get away with it,

I think anybody could. On the next episode of Betrayal. I put my mom's phone number in my phone and I put the phone to my chest and I keep my finger on the call button. And I can't stop these thoughts. I don't know how else to explain it. It was just like somebody was whispering in my ear, telling me something bad was about to happen to me.

If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal team or want to tell us your betrayal story, email us at BetrayalPod at gmail.com. That's Betrayal, P-O-D, at gmail.com. We're grateful for your support. One way to show support is by subscribing to our show on Apple Podcasts. And don't forget to rate and review Betrayal. Five-star reviews go a long way. A big thank you to all of our listeners.

Betrayal is a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is executive produced by Nancy Glass and Jennifer Faison. Hosted and produced by me, Andrea Gunning. Written and produced by Monique Laborde. Also produced by Ben Fetterman. Reporting done by Caitlin Golden. Associate producers are Caitlin Golden and Kristen Mulcahy. Our iHeart team is Allie Perry and Jessica Kreincheck. Audio editing and mixing by Matt Dalvecchio.

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