[soft music]
- Deb finally found
her soulmate.
[applause]
BILL:
Jeff checked all the boxes,
we thought.
[suspenseful music]
- He was not who
he said he was.
DEB: I wasn't prepared.
This is all very strange.
- The magnitude of it
absolutely blows her mind.
- We'd been together 16 years.
REPORTER: The biggest news
story in Canada
is unfolding before
our eyes in Oklahoma.
[dramatic music]
- I don't understand that
level of deceit or betrayal.
There were times that I felt
my life was in danger.
- Could he be violent?
- Could he k*ll her?
- It's crazier than she
could have ever imagined.
[match strikes, hisses]
- Who is this man
I'm married to?
[ominous music]
♪ ♪
ANDREA: I'm Andrea Gunning,
and this is Betrayal,
a show about the people
we trust the most
and the deceptions
that change everything.
Today we meet Deb Proctor.
Was it hard to reconcile
the man you thought
you married with the man
you discovered him to be?
- It was probably one
of the harshest lessons
that a woman could learn.
But it can happen
to any of us,
especially with
my life history.
- Right.
[upbeat music]
♪ ♪
DEB: My growing-up years
were spent in Oklahoma.
My family is part
of the Cherokee tribe.
My Cherokee heritage
is very important.
♪ ♪
When I was 10, my younger
brother Curtis was born.
CURTIS: Deborah has
always referred to me
as her "little brother."
And so there has
always been that--
that protective dynamic.
- And everybody knew her dad,
Goodlow Proctor.
TOMMYE: Her father was
an alcoholic.
And I think there were
some trials with that.
[tense music]
♪ ♪
DEB: When my father was
a child,
his father was m*rder*d
in front of him.
♪ ♪
His throat was slit over
a bottle of corn whiskey.
I would say that my father had
a lot of unresolved trauma.
And, um, it spilled over
onto us.
♪ ♪
- It kind of made us
grow up a lot quicker.
- Around 1969, Deb's family
moved to the town of Tahlequah.
[soothing music]
♪ ♪
RAY: It is a friendly
little town.
It's in the northeast corner
of Oklahoma.
We're at the foothills
of, uh, the Ozark Mountains.
TOMMYE: Most everybody
knows everybody.
It's a great place to live.
DEB: I was a young teenager
then.
And so it allowed me
a little more freedom.
I met Doug, I think,
when I was 15.
And for my 16th birthday,
he gave me a ring
and asked me to marry him.
We had a big church wedding.
He was 21.
I was 17.
And then three days later,
I started school
to be a nurse.
♪ ♪
Doug and I ended up
having two children.
TOMMYE: I did like Doug.
But I think Deb just wanted
more for her life,
and Doug was happy to settle.
So I think that
they just grew apart.
DEB: We divorced in 1987.
And that's when I would say
I really found myself
enjoying my single life.
[gentle music]
- But by 1997, Deb is 41
and she's looking
to find a partner.
- She said,
there's this new thing
where you can go
on the internet,
and, you know,
you can meet people.
DEB: And in '98, I made
a profile on dating sites.
[upbeat music]
I met a couple of fellas,
played some golf,
had a couple cups of coffee.
But it was Jeff's profile who
really caught my attention.
He just seemed like
such a successful guy.
He was a project manager, and
he was in Lexington, Kentucky.
Some of his hobbies included
golf and music,
which just lined up
with mine amazingly.
I was very interested.
- They had a really
beautiful courtship.
They shared pictures
back and forth.
And they really got
to know each other.
DEB: He always seemed to be
excited to hear my voice.
He was just a real upbeat guy,
had done a lot
of fascinating things.
And I just thought he was
just the neatest thing.
CARLA: When she started
talking about meeting
Jeff on the internet--
well, I'm older than dirt.
I was just really concerned
about her doing it.
And then her
description of him,
she compared him
to that movie star,
Tom Berenger.
- With her dealing
with him online,
he checked every box,
we thought.
PATTY: He was a family guy--
BILL: Loved animals.
PATTY: Loved golf.
I mean, he was almost
a scratch golfer.
We were kind of
intimidated, actually,
when we heard about him.
- He played football at
Ohio State under Woody Hayes.
- He used to be
a NASCAR driver,
dated Miss America,
just a lot of things.
- It was just always
fishy-sounding, everything.
- But she was just so happy.
[upbeat music]
♪ ♪
- Jeff had shared with Deb
that he was born in Alaska
and then moved to Canada.
DEB: He said his dad
was a pharmacist
and that he was a U.S. citizen
but also Canadian.
- Jeff said that he had
lived in New Orleans.
And his ex-wife,
who he had a son with,
named Jeff,
were still there.
- He shared that his dad
was a very violent man.
His dad had k*lled
the family poodle
in front of his mom
and his sister.
[tense music]
ANDREA: Both Deb and Jeff
survived
hardships in childhood.
And they bonded over
that shared trauma,
and it really
accelerated the intensity
of their relationship.
[propellers whirring]
They had been talking
for months.
And they finally decided that
they were going to meet
in person.
So Jeff decided to fly
from Kentucky to Oklahoma.
- When I went to pick
Jeff up at the airport,
I was so excited.
ANDREA: Deb felt like
she found her soulmate,
and he had finally arrived.
[bright music]
♪ ♪
DEB: When he got off the plane,
his eyes just sparkled.
He had a big grin.
ANDREA: She was really happy.
And Deb gave him a gift,
and it was a golden feather.
DEB: He had sent me a song
by Robbie Robertson,
a "Golden Feather."
[Robbie Robertson's
"Golden Feather"]
- ♪ It means you'll never ♪
♪ Lose your way back home ♪
ANDREA: And it meant that
Jeff could always
find his way back home to Deb.
DEB: And it was such
a meaningful,
heartfelt gift from me.
But, you know, he said,
oh, I like--
you know, he liked it.
- But then he blurted
out something that
Deb never expected to hear.
[tense music]
DEB: He said, well,
you're gonna marry me, right?
We are getting married, right?
I remember pausing
at the time and saying,
this seems so intense.
It was one of
the first red flags.
I didn't recognize it.
But there would be
so many more.
♪ ♪
[tense music]
♪ ♪
ANDREA: After talking on
the phone for months,
finally Jeff flew to Oklahoma
to meet Deb in person.
And when he got off the plane,
Deb said he seemed
a little bit nervous,
a little shaky.
And then out of nowhere,
he blurted out a proposal
of sorts.
- I was just totally surprised.
But I tried to be
understanding.
- They were able to get past
the awkward marriage proposal
and actually spend
time together.
[bright music]
DEB: He was very attentive.
We just talked and talked, and
we went out to the golf course.
He met a number of my friends.
- This sounds terrible, but he
doesn't look like Tom Berenger.
[laughs]
But he was extremely nice.
- I think we were
instantly friends
'cause he was just
that friendly.
And he treated her
like a princess.
- Soon the couple started
talking about their future
and Jeff moving in with Deb.
- It was fast.
BILL: And Deb was so smart
that we just figured
she did her research
before you have a guy
come up here who's gonna stay.
- It was one of those
whirlwind kind of things.
- So we were skeptical,
I mean, to say the least.
[pensive music]
♪ ♪
- Once Jeff settled in,
the next step was for him
to find a job in Oklahoma.
- She wasn't worried about
him finding employment
because he was a plumber.
CARLA: He told us that he was
a mechanical engineer,
but he worked for a plumber.
And I remember thinking,
are mechanical engineers,
is that basically what they do,
is work for a plumber?
I mean,
I knew that
something wasn't right.
- We kinda picked up that
he just full of bull.
Deb is very open-hearted,
and I think she fell in love
with what Jeff claimed to be.
But to see those two together,
they were always smiling
and happy.
- Just seemed like
this was the one.
[gentle music]
ANDREA: Deb and Jeff decided
to get married in the Ozarks
two years from the day
they first met.
CURTIS:
It was very beautiful.
It was outside.
It was hilly, green.
- We wanted to just have
a really small ceremony.
- It was intimate,
and they were surrounded
by family and friends.
[applause]
- Deb was really happy.
[laughter]
- Deb couldn't wait to share
the rest of her life with Jeff.
- Every year we'd go
on these golf trips.
[lively music]
DEB: For me, it was nice
that I had a partner now
to travel and play.
BILL: We went, I think,
with four other couples.
And we have a money game.
And it's serious.
♪ ♪
None of us played
with Jeff until we
actually went on that trip.
- Jeff said, well, I don't have
my golf clubs because
I left them in the last place
I was renting,
and they just got rid of them.
- I played in the group
with them.
And we would finish a hole.
What'd you have, Jeff?
♪ ♪
And he would say,
I had a 5, or I had a 4.
He had a 7 or an 8.
He went out of bounds.
He couldn't keep his score.
♪ ♪
- He was terrible.
And Debbie had
the blinders on.
I don't know
if she could see that.
PATTY: She said, well,
these aren't his clubs,
and he hasn't played
in a couple years.
BILL: But we knew, in our
minds, he was never gonna be
in our group that we play with,
you know.
- Deb didn't know Jeff had
cheated the entire time.
RAY: Who wants to rain
on her parade?
If she's happy,
I'm happy, you know?
And that's kind of the way we,
as a group, seen that.
I can't say that there wasn't
whispers after they left.
DEB: It felt like everybody
gave us the cold shoulder.
And I didn't understand it.
These were my friends.
They were my good friends.
It hurt.
ANDREA: Deb tried to put
the golf trip behind her,
hoping that her friends
would get over it.
[soft dramatic music]
- At that point in our lives,
we had a lot on our plate.
I was working in hospice,
so I was always 24/7.
You know, I carried the load.
RAY: Jeff floated around
a lot going from job to job.
There was been a few times,
you know,
Jeff got fired or Jeff quit.
BILL: Deb mentioned
a couple of times that
she had found somebody
that he could work for.
But he was better than that.
It was always something.
DEB: By this time,
it had been about two years
that we'd been married.
And I thought, I don't
understand this difficulty
in trying to find employment.
And so I would
level up my efforts,
edit resumes,
and do different things.
And actually,
that's the time I discovered
he was in the Vietnam w*r.
I saw it on a resume
that he had.
And I was just shocked.
He said, oh, it's just
that I don't talk about it.
And I said,
well, I think you better
because this doesn't feel
right that you withheld this.
So that's when he began to tell
me about his w*r experiences.
[tense music]
♪ ♪
- Jeff said
he was special forces,
and even the CIA didn't
even know who he was.
- He said
he's a trained k*ller.
And so he has
to register his hands--
- As lethal weapons.
- Yeah, they're lethal weapons.
- He said that he was captured.
[g*nshots]
BILL: He said, "I was
a prisoner of w*r in Vietnam."
They beat the bottom of my feet
with bamboo sticks
until they swole up,
and they never went down.
♪ ♪
DEB: Ultimately, he said
that he was still able
to somehow find his way back
to American forces.
I was just kind of horrified.
And so I felt
really bad for Jeff.
♪ ♪
ANDREA: The story he told
Deb was incredible.
But why was it a secret?
DEB: This is a significant
event in someone's life.
What else have you not told me?
♪ ♪
[intriguing music]
ANDREA: Deb is starting
to process
the revelation that
Jeff had been in Vietnam.
- At the time, I remember
that I was really upset
that he had withheld that
information.
- Deb told me that she's really
worried about his mental health
at this point.
And so she was thrilled
when they were invited
to Canada to go to
Jeff's mother's 80th birthday.
[upbeat music]
♪ ♪
DEB: I was just thrilled
to meet his family
because I didn't know
that I would ever have
an opportunity to do that.
Jeff and I had been together
by this time, five years.
- This was a big deal.
DEB: I just had a great time.
I met his mother
and other family members.
We just talked
and played some games.
It was a cheerful time,
and they just seemed
so happy to see him
and that he had someone
in his life.
It was a great trip.
ANDREA: It was a validating
experience for her,
and their relationship
felt really strong.
Then things took a turn
for the worse.
DEB: One day Jeff was playing
golf at our course here.
And Bill noticed that
he was sitting under a tree.
[suspenseful music]
BILL: He wasn't moving.
I said, are you all right?
And he goes, I--I don't know.
He was obviously out of it.
So I called Deb and said,
Jeff's in trouble.
DEB: So I brought him into
the emergency room.
And he was having
a heart attack,
what we would refer to
as the widowmaker.
But they were able
to do a cath and stent him.
He was lucky.
♪ ♪
- He wasn't the healthiest man.
He smoked like a freight train,
and he drank,
and he ate what he wanted
when he wanted.
- Jeff was declining in health,
and that caused
some medical expenses.
- He was unable to work
and was filing for disability.
CURTIS: She's the only
source of income.
Things were tough for them.
- In the meantime,
I had discovered
he had a significant
amount of back taxes.
RAY: Deb would express
that, you know,
the financial burden was huge
and that it put her basically
behind the wheel,
trying to keep things
paid up and done.
DEB: At the time,
I did not have
really good health coverage.
And he needed
a number of procedures.
And I said to him,
you're gonna have to go
to the VA for health care.
We can't keep this up.
We owe thousands
and thousands of dollars.
And I'll never forget.
I looked up at him, and he
said, I'm not going to the VA.
And I said, but you've got to.
We're broke.
[tense music]
TOMMYE: She thought it was
weird because, logically,
you've got to go get
free health care.
BILL: She said Jeff did
such dastardly things
for the government in Vietnam
that, when he came home,
they erased his
military record.
- He says, I will not even be
on a list anywhere at the VA.
So I'm not going.
♪ ♪
ANDREA: Up until this point,
Deb believed Jeff.
She trusted him.
But now she knew
something was wrong.
- A thought came to me like,
this is all very strange.
♪ ♪
And I remember thinking,
I wonder if I could
find a private investigator.
This doesn't make sense.
[pensive music]
- But she couldn't afford it.
DEB: And I guess
I tucked it away,
like with--with other questions
I must have had.
- She said, every time
that I would question him
about anything,
he always had an answer for it.
He always had a reason
that seemed plausible.
And so she would accept that.
TOMMYE: When someone's telling
you all the time,
you're mistaken,
and you love them,
you tend to want
to believe them.
- Jeff was supposed to be
Deb's safe space, her escape.
But he wasn't that anymore.
Things felt crazy
and out of control.
[dramatic music]
DEB: I just remember
starting to drink heavily.
It quit my brain
from being confused.
♪ ♪
And so as soon as
I would get off work,
I would start drinking.
♪ ♪
- It became a real problem.
She couldn't stop.
♪ ♪
DEB: One day we were in
a golf tournament,
and our tee time
was at 8:00 a.m.
And I'd been up
all night drinking.
[tense music]
I couldn't quit
shaking long enough
to get the tee in the ground.
♪ ♪
And it was at that moment
in time that I said,
I don't know what's
happening with my life,
but it's not healthy,
and I need help.
♪ ♪
[ominous music]
♪ ♪
ANDREA: Deb decides that she
needs to go to a 30-day rehab.
And it's there where she
gets clarity on her life.
DEB:
Best decision I ever made.
They brought in
a trauma therapist.
And as I began to kind of
be more conscious again,
I began to question,
really question,
how did I get here?
This is not me.
Who is this man
I'm married to?
[suspenseful music]
[intriguing music]
♪ ♪
ANDREA: Deb gets out
of the treatment center,
and she's trying to figure out
how to navigate life
with sobriety.
Then, 14 years
into the marriage,
Jeff has a stroke.
And she has to shift
her whole focus
to take care of him again.
DEB:
I'm a compassionate person.
I just focused on trying
to get him the best care
because I couldn't be home
during the day.
- Deb notices that Jeff is
struggling with memory loss.
So she has this idea
that he should
write down his life story.
Maybe it will help him
put pieces of his life
back together and also
put pieces together
for her about his past.
DEB: And so I would check with
him when I would come home.
And I would say, tell me
about your story today.
What did you get done?
Oh, just didn't
feel like it today.
ANDREA: Jeff never did it.
He blamed the memory loss
on his stroke.
But the doctor said that
where the stroke happened
didn't impact memory,
and that maybe
he's experiencing
early signs of dementia.
DEB: I was concerned that
he might hurt himself
or us or the home.
PATTY: Debbie got him
into a program,
like a day program,
where he would go,
and he would have meals,
and he was looked after.
ANDREA: After a few months
in the program,
Deb got a call from the
facility that Jeff was missing.
♪ ♪
DEB: Ultimately,
the police located him
at a bank here in Tahlequah.
[soft dramatic music]
ANDREA:
He seemed really confused.
And Deb realizes maybe
the memory loss
is worse than she thought.
DEB: Something had shifted.
I kept thinking,
this is really strange.
[tense music]
But at that point,
none of us understood
what was really behind Jeff.
♪ ♪
And then,
less than a month later,
I received a call.
[phone rings]
It was August 1, 2014,
shortly after 8:00 a.m.
It was an officer from Canada,
from the Ontario Provincial
Police Department.
He said he was doing
research in a cold case
from 30 years ago.
He was looking for a man
named Ron Stan.
[pensive music]
He said, in the '70s,
Ron Stan had gone missing.
And it was thought
that he had perished.
♪ ♪
But he said,
we have reason to believe
that he is not deceased.
And we tracked him down
through you on social media.
- And then the bombshell hit.
[dramatic music]
- He said we think that your
husband is not Jeff Walton.
He's Ron Stan.
♪ ♪
RAY: They said he turned out
to be this guy
who had another family.
CURTIS: He had committed some
kind of criminal activity.
And then come to find out,
he faked his own death.
- Inside, I am just
completely at a standstill.
I said, nothing you're
saying is making sense.
He said, well, I really just
need to talk to Jeff Walton.
I said, look, you know,
he's in a facility right now.
And I remember just
hanging up the phone.
I was just almost speechless,
stunned, shocked.
And then,
it starts just whirling.
No. No.
Everyone calls him Jeff.
His mother called him Jeff.
His family, his best friends,
everyone calls him Jeff.
What are these officers
talking about?
[suspenseful music]
And I'll never forget.
I looked up, and a nurse
friend was at my door.
And she said, my gosh, Deb,
he's probably
in witness protection,
and you probably just blew it.
And both of your lives
are in danger.
♪ ♪
[dramatic music]
- Deb receives a call
from the Canadian police,
and the officer said that
maybe her husband, Jeff,
is actually Ron Stan.
DEB: By this time,
we'd been together 16 years.
A nurse friend said,
you have got to get
into the Marshal Service.
We've got to get some help.
- Deb wanted to know
if this was real
and if Jeff could be
in witness protection.
- My name is Shawnna Roach.
I'm with the Cherokee Nation
Marshal Service.
Deb came to the office,
and I told her, you know,
we'll get this figured out.
So I reached out to Canada.
They told me that they had
brought up a cold case
from around 40 years ago.
[pensive music]
They had actually started
doing facial recognition.
And lo and behold, they found
his face on Facebook.
They told me that's
when we realized, hey,
he's still possibly alive.
So I went to the
Tsa-La-Gi housing home.
And I said, listen,
I just need to confirm
you are a U.S. citizen,
and I need
your birth certificate.
[tense music]
And he looked at me,
and he goes,
I don't have it.
I don't know where that's at.
And I said, well, that's OK.
I will request for a copy.
At that point,
he just looked at me,
and he smiled so big.
And he goes,
you got me, didn't you?
And I said, yeah.
♪ ♪
- He admitted, I am Ron Stan.
- He didn't act like
it bothered him one bit.
♪ ♪
DEB: I just questioned myself,
who am I?
I don't understand that level
of deceit or betrayal.
♪ ♪
CURTIS: When Deb called me
to tell me
this whole situation was
a complete con,
there was a physical reaction
I had that truly was shock.
This is unreal.
This can't be happening.
This can't be happening.
This can't be happening.
- I just remember her saying
he's not who he said he was.
And I thought in
the back of my head,
I'm glad you know that now.
ANDREA:
This was incomprehensible.
The man she's known
for 16 years
is a complete stranger.
She doesn't know
what he's capable of,
and she's afraid to go home.
And so she comes up
with a plan.
[suspenseful music]
DEB: I got an appointment
with a divorce attorney.
We went to the bank, anything
I had to do to protect myself.
But emotionally, I was numb.
In 30, 40 days,
the divorce was final.
- And then the story blew up.
REPORTER 2: Cold case rises
from the ashes
after a man thought dead
is found alive and well
near Tahlequah.
REPORTER: The biggest news
story in Canada
is unfolding before our eyes
in Oklahoma.
- Everybody in town
was talking about it.
SHAWNNA: It was just hard
to believe that it actually
happened in Tahlequah.
- I've known him for a while,
but I don't really,
I guess, know him.
- This one goes into the
strange-but-true file for sure.
♪ ♪
- And then Debbie was being
bombarded by the media.
- This is where Walton and
his wife of 14 years live.
- Sometimes I couldn't go home.
I remember reporters
being on my doorstep.
[knocking]
People would leave notes,
phone calls constant.
- This mystery that's making
headlines around the globe.
♪ ♪
DEB: I had no peace at all.
ANDREA: Deb's world is
spinning out of control,
and she's just trying
to get by any way she can.
But Jeff was really
loving the attention.
In fact, he gave a tell-all
interview to the Toronto Star.
And Deb realizes there's a
lot more about his double life
that she didn't know about.
[intriguing music]
His first wife was
Gail Stan in Canada.
They had two sons together,
Jamie and Jeff.
- He taught at a college.
- He had been seeing some
girls at the college.
And one of the girls'
mothers got involved
and was gonna get ugly.
He'd heard that he was getting
ready to get in trouble,
and maybe filing some charges.
- He basically just
destroyed his life up there.
ANDREA: According to the
interview in the Toronto Star,
he comes up with a plan
to escape his life in Canada.
He sells his car.
He pockets $3,000 in cash.
[tense music]
TOMMYE: And then he started
a fire in his own barn
and disappeared in the night
and left his wife
and two children.
[dramatic music]
- The barn went up
with the animals in it.
♪ ♪
How tragic to witness
your husband or your dad
burning up in a fire
and being powerless?
[flames crackling]
♪ ♪
[stirring music]
ANDREA: Deb's dealing with
the fallout from Jeff's past.
The magnitude of it
absolutely blows her mind.
♪ ♪
- He had faked his death
in Canada.
He had burned his
own barn down.
[siren wailing]
- It was a big, big, big fire.
- Everybody's running around,
wondering where Ron was.
- The fire chief told us
that there was
possibly somebody in the barn.
And we searched and searched.
♪ ♪
- At that time,
they just assumed that
he died in the fire.
DEB: I couldn't imagine
how much pain
that family of his experienced.
I was just sick at heart.
I had no idea
they even existed.
[dramatic music]
ANDREA: Ron Stan took a bus
to New Orleans,
and he tried to find a woman
with money, and he did.
[tense music]
DEB: Within a year,
he married Rose Ann Walton.
And they had a son,
little Jeff.
SHAWNNA: He even named that son
after the one in Canada.
I guess that's one way
you don't get confused.
He was using a bogus
Social Security number
from a deceased female
out of Oklahoma
and was receiving
Oklahoma benefits.
♪ ♪
DEB: That's how he worked
in the decades
when he came
to the United States.
But I'm unclear as to exactly
how he got his Social Security.
He and Rose Ann were married
for around 15, 16 years.
And then they got a divorce.
- And turns out
that Jeff, or Ron,
had two wives in New Orleans.
Wife number three
was Holly Kelley.
- And I--I was just shocked.
I just, I didn't know all the
details of the number of wives.
ANDREA: But that marriage ended
sometime in the '90s.
So Deb was his fourth wife.
DEB: Jeff reported that
he chose Jeff Walton because
it seemed like a wholesome
name from a show
at the time, The Waltons.
- It's good to
have you home, son.
- Good to be home, Daddy.
- And then Jeff was one of
his sons that he left behind.
- He was none of the things
he said he was.
He, of course,
never played golf.
He had never been
in the military.
- The Vietnam w*r story was
exactly the storyline
from a movie, Platoon.
- Death?
What you all know about death?
- The craziest part about
the details of everything
coming out is that, when Jeff
did all of these interviews,
Deb realizes that his memory
seemed to be just fine,
and she thinks that
he never had dementia.
- It's just one big lie.
ANDREA: Deb suspects that
the day that he went missing
and was found
at a nearby bank,
that was him actually
planning an escape.
♪ ♪
TOMMYE: Part of the problem
that I couldn't come
to terms with,
if they declared
him dead in Canada,
how did he get
to go back to Canada
and everybody called him Jeff?
[intriguing music]
- He had actually pulled
friends and family aside
and said, don't call me Ron.
I'm going by Jeff Walton now.
CARLA: And nobody said
a word to her.
Nobody said a word.
- For Deb, it felt like,
was everyone in on the con?
Even in Jeff's mom's obituary,
it lists Jeff as
a surviving son, not Ron.
♪ ♪
The statute of limitations
had run out
on Jeff's crimes in Canada.
And he wasn't being prosecuted
for anything in the U.S.
DEB: So I had to talk
to his son, little Jeff,
and tell him.
We ultimately made plans that
he would come and get his dad
and take him back
to New Orleans.
He took his clothes
and some belongings.
And, you know,
I kept everything else,
including any debt we had.
The State of Oklahoma
did contact him
and wanted a repayment
for all the funds
he'd used for the nursing
facility here in Tahlequah.
ANDREA: Jeff refused to take
accountability for anything,
and he starts
lashing out at Deb.
[tense music]
- There were times that I felt
my life was in danger.
PATTY: Our friends had
suggested that she get a g*n
because he wasn't anything
what he said he was.
She was worried that, you know,
he might be vindictive,
and he might try to hurt her.
CURTIS: I didn't know what
he was capable of because,
at this point,
everything I knew about him,
I didn't trust anymore.
Jeff had no conscience,
basically,
which is one of the reasons
that I thought,
could he be violent
and hurt Deb?
Could he k*ll her?
DEB: Jeff never apologized,
never apologized.
And, um, I never saw
him again.
[gentle music]
After a number of years,
I got a call from Little Jeff.
He shared that his dad passed.
And it really felt like
my chest became lighter.
I don't have to
be afraid anymore.
It's over.
♪ ♪
Because of the life I led,
I've had a front row seat
to the effects of trauma.
Initially, what I learned
was to hate.
And I carried it with me
most of my life.
But I just made a decision.
I learned to love, you know,
and show others it can be done.
ANDREA: With clarity
actually came healing.
Have you been able
to trust again?
- Yes. I am thankful that
all these many years later,
I found an amazing man.
And that's Richard,
whom I'm married to.
TOMMYE: He's lived in Tahlequah
all his life.
So everything he says is true.
And we all know it.
DEB: He is the love of my life.
And if I hadn't have
done the work,
I don't think I would
have recognized that.
- Since all of this
has happened,
Deb has remained sober, and
she's an advocate for victims
of domestic violence.
DEB: We, as a society,
not a lot of people wanna
put the time in to heal,
but it has to be done.
If I had not been
betrayed at this level,
I don't know that I would
have healed to this level.
And man, is it a great life
on the other side of it.
♪ ♪
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