transcript
Speaker 1:
[00:02] Saskia was days away from her wedding. She thought she was ready to marry Mike, her partner and best friend of five years. But then, a few nights before their wedding, she saw something.
Speaker 2:
[00:14] I remember we were in bed. I can't tell you what was happening before, after, but it was literally like a snapshot in time.
Speaker 1:
[00:24] In the middle of the night, she opened her eyes, disoriented, exhausted. Mike was wide awake, on his laptop, and on his screen, she could see two people.
Speaker 2:
[00:39] And I didn't know if it was like a movie or whether he knew them. And I remember being really confused and saying like, what's going on?
Speaker 1:
[00:50] She couldn't make sense of what she was seeing, but it felt wrong. She didn't know, couldn't know, that she was getting a glimpse of the real Mike. The one who only came out at night.
Speaker 2:
[01:02] And he said, oh, say hi.
Speaker 1:
[01:18] I'm Andrea Gunning, and this is Betrayal, Season Five, Episode Two, In Sickness and In Health. We're going to return to that night a few days before the wedding, when Saskia saw something on Mike's computer. But to understand what was going on there and all that came next, we need to go back in time, because this wasn't a random crime, and Saskia wasn't a random victim. She believes Mike chose her for a reason. The key to understanding this story is understanding Saskia herself, the strong parts of her and the vulnerable parts too. So let's return to the beginning. Saskia grew up in a suburb of DC, where she still lives today. In many ways, she had a great childhood. At times, it sounded to me like something out of a 70s TV show. She's always been an animal lover. And growing up, her cat would walk her and her friends to school.
Speaker 2:
[02:24] We'd be like, go home, Chong, go home.
Speaker 1:
[02:27] Her cats came with the names Cheech and Chong. Her friend Megan remembers those walks and that cat very well.
Speaker 3:
[02:34] He would just come behind us, walk us to school. And when we got to the crosswalk, he would go his merry way. I have no idea. Like, who knows where he went?
Speaker 1:
[02:44] They were Latchki kids living the quintessential suburban life. Saskia's older sister has lots of happy memories of playing with Saskia and their two brothers. Here's Marisa.
Speaker 4:
[02:56] We would go down to the creek behind our house and we had a huge fort there. And we would just spend a lot of time traveling the creek and looking for crayfish.
Speaker 1:
[03:07] But these joyful moments were only part of the story.
Speaker 4:
[03:11] I think that our childhood was this odd combination of idyllic and traumatic, and traumatic to nobody's fault. You know, our parents did their very best. They were amazing people, but they had a lot of challenges. Sometime in his 30s, my dad had what we term his breakdown.
Speaker 1:
[03:34] Their dad was a smart guy. He went to Stanford undergrad in Georgetown Law. He loved musicals and museums, and before his breakdown, he was a constant source of conversation and laughter. But that version of their father feels like a distant memory, because after his breakdown, he was just a very fragile, mentally ill person.
Speaker 4:
[03:57] Sometimes.
Speaker 1:
[03:59] There were times when their dad seemed stable, but then he'd enter a period where he'd lose touch with reality.
Speaker 4:
[04:06] He would be hospitalized, and then he would be good for a while, but, you know, he never returned to his baseline. The man that my mother married and the person that he wanted to become, I think I've always been aware that something was shattered, you know, and that he couldn't be that anymore.
Speaker 1:
[04:28] Saskia was just a baby when her dad got sick. For her whole childhood, he was on disability and in and out of the hospital. Her mom had to focus on managing her husband's care and keeping the family afloat financially. As the youngest of four, Saskia was often forgotten.
Speaker 2:
[04:46] Whom didn't feel like a place that I was even really wanted. I don't think I got a hug from either of my parents, and I don't think I got an I love you from my mom until I started giving them out when I was in college as well. I definitely wish I had a closer relationship with my parents at a younger age. I think it would have fared me well to have felt like I was important. But my friends gave me that.
Speaker 1:
[05:14] She and her friends spent a lot of time unsupervised. Here's Saskia's friend, Megan, again.
Speaker 3:
[05:20] Nowadays, kids would just be on their phones for five hours, but back then there was nothing to do. So we grew up drinking. My mom was not a drinker, but she kept this boxed wine in the fridge. I mean, we would drink boxed wine at 10 in my mom's house.
Speaker 1:
[05:39] By 13, they were getting drunk all the time.
Speaker 3:
[05:43] We just sat on my floor, got hammered, walked around at the park. That's what we did, like, all the time growing up, from a very young age. Binge drinking every weekend. That was our culture. And we thought Saskia was lucky because her parents would go away, the older siblings would be in charge, and there would be parties all the time. So we partied at Sasa's house a lot.
Speaker 1:
[06:13] By the way, Saskia's friends and family often call her Sauce. You'll hear both names throughout the season. Sauce has always struggled with anxiety and depression. And when she was a kid, she learned that drinking could be an escape.
Speaker 2:
[06:28] Since I had been introduced to it at such a young age, it was the thing that I knew that helped me. It helped me cope with a lot of things that I hadn't dealt with yet, like stuff from my childhood. And it still stayed my coping mechanism for a long time.
Speaker 1:
[06:44] As the friends entered high school then college, drinking became their main activity. Here's Megan.
Speaker 3:
[06:51] We were way worse when we were older. Because we got more money. Everyone, all of us, were in the tank. Every weekend, we did the same thing over and over. Just wash, rinse, repeat.
Speaker 1:
[07:04] Still, Saskia knew when the partying needed to take a backseat. Like when her friend Heather had a baby with a guy who became abusive. They were young, only 21. But Saskia skipped parties with their other friends to show up for Heather. Here's how Heather remembers it.
Speaker 5:
[07:22] Our other friends were out like partying and going to bars. Saskia always stayed by me and checked on me, still hung out with me, came over to help me with the baby. She was just the most solid friend I had.
Speaker 1:
[07:35] That's just who Saskia is. Deeply loyal and deeply empathetic. She's the kind of friend who was only ever a phone call away. It's that caring nature that led her to become a social worker.
Speaker 2:
[07:48] I've always been interested in how, you know, the mind works, and I've always had a lot of empathy for people who struggle with mental health, probably because my dad's own mental health struggles, my own mental health struggles.
Speaker 1:
[08:02] For 17 years, Saskia worked in Child Protective Services, or CPS. She did physical abuse and neglect investigations. Then she transitioned to supporting teens in the foster care system. Many of these kids never had adults looking out for them, or people they could count on. While working at CPS, Saskia became friends with Rob. He's an attorney who worked with kids in the system. Rob wanted to participate in this series because he has a lot to say about Saskia's character.
Speaker 6:
[08:33] Nobody that I have worked with in 27 plus years has done what Saskia has done, has been the social worker for these teens in care. With such optimism and joy and encouragement as Saskia.
Speaker 1:
[08:56] Rob's wife Colleen saw that same spark in her. Colleen was also a social worker with CPS. She remembers the first time she met Saskia at a team training during an icebreaker.
Speaker 7:
[09:09] No one was responding when asked for volunteers and Saskia was just like, okay, and like jumped in and was just fun. And energetic.
Speaker 1:
[09:19] Colleen can still picture Saskia's smile that day. Saskia has always been someone who brings light to dark situations. But at home, she struggled. The love and care she so easily gave to other people, she wasn't getting from her first husband, Chris. When that marriage began to fall apart, she turned to Rob and Colleen.
Speaker 6:
[09:43] This period of time was definitely the first time that I saw Saskia as not a bubbly, joyful person. She had gotten quieter. She did share with me that she had been drinking more, and she was concerned about that.
Speaker 2:
[10:03] I did drink a lot because I felt so lonely. I felt neglected.
Speaker 1:
[10:13] Saskia told us there were nights during that marriage where she'd take it too far, blackout. From her sister, Marisa's perspective, Chris wasn't helping.
Speaker 4:
[10:23] In her first marriage, they party too much. There was a lot of drinking and kind of over the top behavior.
Speaker 1:
[10:32] When Saskia finally ended things with Chris, it felt like a new beginning.
Speaker 2:
[10:37] I was confident in knowing that that was the right thing to do. I had wrapped my head around, this is not the person that I need to put all my energy into anymore, and that felt like a relief.
Speaker 1:
[10:51] She started to really work on herself.
Speaker 2:
[10:54] I went to therapy, did talk about some of the issues with childhood, worked through some past relationship tendencies.
Speaker 1:
[11:03] She'd never been in a stable, loving relationship, or had one modeled for her. As you heard in episode one, she gravitated towards bad boys and big personalities, chaos.
Speaker 2:
[11:17] And Mike felt the opposite of that.
Speaker 1:
[11:21] When she met her new boyfriend, Mike Levengood, she could tell right away, this guy was her chance to build something different, something real.
Speaker 2:
[11:31] He felt stable, and he felt safe, and he felt loving, and he felt caring, and he felt like a partner, and I felt like, okay, I'm doing things differently this time.
Speaker 1:
[11:45] Everyone in her life could see this was a positive change for Saskia. Here's her sister, Marisa.
Speaker 4:
[11:51] I've always viewed her as my baby sister, as a very strong person, but somebody who's vulnerable. And he gave her a sense of stability. He would keep routines. He worked out. He made food that was healthy. He drank, but it didn't seem like he drank to excess. He was solid.
Speaker 1:
[12:12] Saskia's friend, Heather, thought so too.
Speaker 5:
[12:14] Mike just seemed calm, put together, just chill. And at the time, I thought that was so good and what Saskia really needed.
Speaker 1:
[12:25] From day one, Saskia's friends and family made it known that they liked Mike. The encouragement went a long way.
Speaker 2:
[12:34] They thought he was great and stable and good for me. He really cared about me. I finally met someone who I was in a healthy relationship with.
Speaker 1:
[12:49] It didn't take long for Mike to become her confidant. He showed a genuine interest in getting to know the real her, even the fragile parts. Early on, Saskia opened up about her dad's mental illness and how it impacted her childhood. She talked about her own struggles with anxiety and depression and how after her first marriage, she felt broken.
Speaker 2:
[13:12] He found me at a very vulnerable place and I really needed somebody to help me. Someone to show me real love and affection and time and all the things that I didn't get from my childhood or from my first marriage. Mike gave me all those things.
Speaker 1:
[13:31] Mike was there for her through it all. If you can remember, Mike was her rock in the divorce and he supported her as she carried her sister's baby, giving her nightly massages and talking through any challenges in the process. With Mike by her side, this pregnancy was one of the happiest, healthiest times in her life.
Speaker 2:
[13:53] And that all changed after I had the baby.
Speaker 1:
[13:59] She had been with Mike for four years at that point, four great years. But just after Saskia gave birth to her sister's son, it was like the other shoe dropped. It began one morning when she had trouble getting out of bed.
Speaker 2:
[14:15] It was like I was under quicksand or something. I wasn't totally conscious. I couldn't wake up. I couldn't walk. I just felt like there were weights on my body and I just needed to sleep many more hours even though I thought I had been sleeping all night.
Speaker 1:
[14:33] She had never experienced anything like this before. And quickly, this feeling became a regular occurrence. She had had anxiety and depression her whole life.
Speaker 2:
[14:44] But I have never struggled that bad with my mental health. I have never felt like such trash about myself. I'd be in a conversation and I'd have to like just get out of there. Like everything just felt so overwhelming. I was literally just trying to survive and get to the next day, and then the next day, and the next day.
Speaker 1:
[15:06] She became haunted by insomnia. She'd experienced it before but never this bad. She was going days without sleeping.
Speaker 2:
[15:15] I felt like if I can't sleep, how am I supposed to take care of the kids? How am I supposed to get to work the next day? It was awful.
Speaker 1:
[15:22] Her doctors prescribed pills to help her sleep, but nothing seemed to work.
Speaker 2:
[15:27] The only thing that made me feel better was alcohol, to be honest with you, and now I realize that contributed, but it was survival to me at the time. I just felt like I was fighting all the time just to stay alive.
Speaker 1:
[15:44] What she was experiencing was severe, so much so that it began impacting her ability to do her job.
Speaker 2:
[15:51] I had a friend at work who let me use her office just to go in and cry when my anxiety became so much.
Speaker 1:
[15:58] After consulting with her doctors, she decided to take time off. She started taking medical leave here and there. Sometimes there'd be months when she couldn't go into the office.
Speaker 2:
[16:09] My coworkers had to take on more cases these teenagers that I was really close with and really depended on me had to get switched to other workers. I felt like I was letting down my kids, letting down everybody at work.
Speaker 1:
[16:25] No matter how sick she got, Mike stood by her. He encouraged her to try new meds and new treatments, anything to help her feel better. He also made sure she was taking care of herself in other ways.
Speaker 2:
[16:39] If I needed to sleep in, if I wasn't feeling well, he could take the kids to their sporting events, and he would always make dinner every night. It left me able to do the things that were helpful to me.
Speaker 1:
[16:57] She felt unbelievably grateful for him. They weren't even married, and he was there for her as a real partner.
Speaker 2:
[17:06] It felt like he was helping me, and I'm losing it. That's what it felt like. I was struggling so much, and I just wanted to survive and get through.
Speaker 1:
[17:22] He continued to write her love letters, letting her know he wasn't going anywhere. Here's an excerpt from one of those letters, read by a voice actor.
Speaker 8:
[17:31] I wish I could just take away all your worry and give you the peace of mind that you deserve. Now that we have each other, there is nothing we can't handle together.
Speaker 1:
[17:43] It was in the middle of her decline that Mike proposed to her. His timing made the gesture even more significant to Saskia. He wanted to spend a life with her, even when she was at her lowest. That meant the world. She didn't know what she'd do without him. When Mike suddenly wanted to move up the wedding, it was confusing to her. But she went along with it.
Speaker 2:
[18:08] Him wanting to have the wedding quickly felt strange, but I had no reason to doubt his intentions.
Speaker 1:
[18:18] He loved her, and she only saw the best in him. Until that night just before the wedding, when Saskia awoke to find Mike on his laptop. She saw two bodies on the screen. Something was off, but she wasn't in a state to understand any of the details.
Speaker 2:
[18:37] I was in like a twilight or in a fog.
Speaker 1:
[18:42] Remember, Saskia was taking meds to manage her mental health and insomnia, and she was so desperate for a good night's sleep that she'd often drink on top of her meds.
Speaker 2:
[18:53] If we're drinking and I take my medication at night, I'm not gonna be waking up.
Speaker 1:
[18:59] This moment with the computer, it was confusing and concerning. But the next morning, I didn't really remember it.
Speaker 2:
[19:07] I didn't process it. I didn't know what it meant.
Speaker 1:
[19:11] When she woke up, she only had a blurry image of what she'd seen, and a quiet feeling of unease. She was about to marry this man. Was there something he was hiding from her?
Speaker 2:
[19:25] I was freaked out and talked to Heather about it.
Speaker 1:
[19:28] Saskia drove to her friend Heather's house to pick up favors for her wedding. Right away, Heather could tell Saskia was upset. Heather brought her into her living room, and Saskia explained what little she remembered. With so few details, Heather didn't see cause for alarm. Here's Heather.
Speaker 5:
[19:49] I took it as like he was probably just watching porn and testing the waters. And I said, you know, maybe he thought you'd be into it. I definitely minimized it and did not think anything of it.
Speaker 1:
[20:04] That is, until the day she found out what Mike had done.
Speaker 5:
[20:08] And I was like, holy shit. Knowing what I know now, I should have been like, get out.
Speaker 1:
[20:44] Just before their wedding, Saskia caught Mike looking at something on his computer. It was the middle of the night after he thought Saskia had gone to sleep. Saskia saw two people on the screen. What they were doing, what Mike was doing, she didn't know. She had taken sleeping meds and drank alcohol the night before, which clouded her memory. With her friend's reassurance, Saskia pushed the incident out of her mind and went ahead with the wedding.
Speaker 2:
[21:14] There was so much evidence that he was well-intentioned. He was a great husband, a great guy. He was part of my family. We had a combined little Brady bunch.
Speaker 1:
[21:30] It was one weird moment in five years of a great relationship. Plus, she didn't even know if she'd really seen anything. She wasn't going to let that get in the way of getting married. And maybe her gut feeling was just her nerves. The wedding day was beautiful, but it also came with a lot of difficulty. On what should have been the happiest day of her life, Saskia was falling apart. She felt like she had to take medication just to remain stable.
Speaker 2:
[22:05] It sucks when you feel like you just have to get through your wedding. I don't think I was ever present in any of those moments because I was struggling so bad. I was just trying to get through to happier times because I thought that I should be happy.
Speaker 1:
[22:22] It didn't make sense. She had a great job, great kids, and now a great husband.
Speaker 2:
[22:28] And I didn't understand it because I'm like, I have this guy who's so in love with me and has my back, but yet I feel so much pressure to hold it together.
Speaker 1:
[22:38] After the wedding, she thought she'd feel some relief. But the more she held on, the sicker she got. And now it wasn't only her mental health that was taking a hit. She was physically ill too.
Speaker 2:
[22:52] I just felt paralyzed.
Speaker 1:
[22:54] We asked her to describe what that was like in her body.
Speaker 2:
[22:58] You can't open your eyes fully. You can't wake up. And if you do try to get up, you're going to pass out. I remember getting out of bed and I went in the shower. I kind of felt like I was underwater or something. I felt such a heaviness. You know, you see dots, I started to feel dots and I sat down with the shower still on and like reached up, pushed the shower off, crawled back to my bed. I mean, I must have slept for another six hours or something.
Speaker 1:
[23:33] She had that same feeling the morning of her kid's picture day.
Speaker 2:
[23:37] When I remember waking up and again feeling like I was underwater, but trying to make my way to my kid's rooms, which was down a hallway, and I ended up passing out and I had hit my head against something.
Speaker 1:
[23:54] She was bleeding so bad, she had to get staples in her head. Whatever was wrong with her, it was getting worse. Other strange symptoms kept popping up.
Speaker 2:
[24:05] I was picking my skin so bad that I had people at work telling me, like, why are you picking your face? I could hear my stomach gurgling all the time, like making loud noises and just I always had so much nervous energy.
Speaker 1:
[24:22] People at work were taking notice. Here's Vera, one of her co-workers from Child Protective Services.
Speaker 9:
[24:29] She was fidgety, she was anxious, she looked nervous, she lost weight, she kept picking her hair. You could see that she was dealing with something.
Speaker 1:
[24:38] Over the two years this had been going on, Saskia did all that she could to get well. She changed her diet, got an exercise routine, tried tons of different medications. She saw specialists and sought out experimental treatments.
Speaker 2:
[24:54] But nothing was helping me.
Speaker 1:
[24:57] Saskia's sister, Marisa, was especially worried. This process of tweaking meds was a familiar one. One she'd been helping their dad navigate for years.
Speaker 4:
[25:08] People don't understand the medication process is, especially if you're severely mentally ill, it's not a quick fix. You don't go and get the Zoloft and you're better the next day. It's a constant process of tweaking, adding, minusing, changing, which takes months. And it winds up being a cocktail of then you have symptoms and side effects. Okay, let's use this to address the insomnia because this medication is working, but now you can't sleep. Okay, let's try that come back in a month.
Speaker 1:
[25:42] As time went on, Saskia grew more and more desperate for answers. Anything that would bring her back to herself.
Speaker 2:
[25:51] I thought I was hanging on by a thread, like my sanity and using prescription drugs and alcohol and whatever else to try to hold on long enough that I could get better.
Speaker 1:
[26:07] It got to the point that Saskia checked herself into the hospital twice.
Speaker 2:
[26:14] They just adjusted my medications and I felt more hopeful and I felt healthier. My sleep got a little bit better.
Speaker 1:
[26:21] Everyone saw Saskia's improvement, including Mike. He wrote her a card in the hospital, encouraging her to keep going.
Speaker 8:
[26:30] I am so proud of you for fighting so hard. It can't be easy for you, but I'm here for you 1000%. Remember the good times. They will come back. Just remember that you are never alone.
Speaker 2:
[26:44] It felt like just what I needed.
Speaker 1:
[26:47] After a few days in the hospital, she would feel better. It was as if a fog had lifted.
Speaker 2:
[26:52] I would start to do better and get out and have some hope, and I would quickly, like, decompensate again.
Speaker 1:
[27:00] As they watched Saskia's ups and downs, Marisa and Mike were at a loss. Saskia seemed to be going down a similar road to her dad. Here's Marisa.
Speaker 4:
[27:11] My dad got to a point where we couldn't get him back to baseline, but I spent a good portion of my adult life trying to help him find quality of life. We didn't want Saskia to lose her baseline. We wanted her to have her life, and so it's like that seems to be slipping away. There was a lot of talking with Mike about how to fix this. What should we do? Go to the doctor. Let's try this. Let's try that. That's kind of where we were at in that phase, hoping it was not just what was going to be, and trying to fix it, but not understanding why it had gotten more intense and like why she was struggling so much.
Speaker 1:
[27:54] That first year after their wedding was one of the hardest for everyone, and it only grew harder when Saskia and Marisa lost their mom.
Speaker 4:
[28:05] She had had a massive stroke and was completely unexpected, and we all met at the hospital. My dad was in a mental hospital at the time in Baltimore, and we wanted to go get him when we pulled the tube so that we could all be together and say goodbye.
Speaker 1:
[28:25] Saskia's sister, brothers, and dad all spent the night around the hospital bed. But because of her health, Saskia had to miss her mother's last moments.
Speaker 4:
[28:35] Saskia wanted to, but she could not risk that night of sleep. One night of no sleep would have been devastating for her, and I understood that because that's the level of what she was going through.
Speaker 2:
[28:46] I just couldn't handle it, and it makes me sad that I couldn't have been present for that.
Speaker 1:
[28:53] Saskia's friends knew what a devastating loss this was, and at such a vulnerable time. So they came together to show their love for Saskia and to grieve with her. Her friend Bridgette organized a dinner at Saskia's house.
Speaker 10:
[29:08] Saskia's mom, Erna, used to make lasagna. So I made a lasagna dinner, and I came over, and we were all going to have drinks and just hang out family time. And we had some drinks, and everyone's fine. And not too long after, Saskia was all of a sudden incoherent. It was odd, because it happened so fast, and I was like, wow, like, would she go do shots in the kitchen? Like, what's going on? To the point where she couldn't talk, she couldn't walk, she couldn't stand up.
Speaker 1:
[29:37] Bridgette had seen Saskia get drunk many times before. They'd been best friends since grade school. This was something else. Bridgette thought she should go lie down.
Speaker 10:
[29:49] I walked her up the steps. She's falling against the wall. I got her into her bed.
Speaker 1:
[29:55] Her body was limp, but her eyes were wide open. And Saskia has no memory of any of this.
Speaker 2:
[30:03] I don't remember Bridgette bringing me to the room. I don't remember her being next to me in the bed. I don't remember talking to her.
Speaker 1:
[30:10] But the moment is seared into Bridgette's mind.
Speaker 10:
[30:13] I just laid down next to her, and I remember it so vividly. Her whole body is so tense. And I just remember stroking her arm and just giving her affirmations like I would do to my son. And I was just like, you're safe, you're loved, you're surrounded by family. And I just kept repeating that. And I could feel her tenseness. And she was just out, and I was just heartbroken for her.
Speaker 1:
[30:38] Everyone was heartbroken and worried. But on that day, in the thick of everything else Saskia was going through, any reaction would have been appropriate.
Speaker 10:
[30:50] As observers, we kind of chalked it up to, she just drank too much because she was so sad because she lost her mom. That combined with whatever medication she's prescribed, like not going too well.
Speaker 1:
[31:03] Marisa had never seen anything like it.
Speaker 4:
[31:06] We were all incredibly concerned about what was going on. Does she need to go to the hospital? This is not normal. Mike was the calming, reassuring force who said, no, I've got her. I'll take care of her. Don't worry. She'll just go to sleep. I'm gonna wake up in the morning and I'll let you know how she is.
Speaker 1:
[31:32] But Bridgette would never forget how Saskia felt in her arms, the tension in her body as she went to sleep.
Speaker 10:
[31:40] That's your home. That's your husband. You're supposed to be safe. It's like she subconsciously knew something was gonna happen.
Speaker 1:
[32:11] Saskia's friends watched helplessly as her health declined. She was no longer the silly bubbly sauce they'd grown up with. She struggled just to get through the day. She hit a new low at her mom's celebration of life, when all of a sudden, she was blackout drunk. But this night wasn't a one-off. Incidents like this kept happening. It wasn't like when they were younger, when Saskia or another friend would take things too far to party.
Speaker 5:
[32:40] Heather says, This seemed to be after a normal couple of drinks, and it happened so frequently.
Speaker 1:
[32:49] Bridget remembers another hard day around the same time. It was Saskia's son's eighth birthday party. It was at a climb zone, and Saskia was determined to make it a special day. Here's Bridget.
Speaker 10:
[33:02] She had made all these cute hors d'oeuvres for all the kids, and she printed out these little things, and she tied it to it. She was so proud of these goody bags, and she was so proud of, like, he was gonna do what he wanted to do, and he was super excited about it. And I'm on my way to the party, and I'm calling her, and she's not answering. And I'm like, that's odd.
Speaker 1:
[33:23] Bridget tried Mike. He was in the car with the kids.
Speaker 10:
[33:27] He was like, yeah, I'm on my way. We're gonna be a little bit late, but I couldn't get Saskia awake. And I was like, what do you mean you couldn't get her awake? She was so looking forward to this party. I don't understand it. How could she have slept to this? She was so excited.
Speaker 1:
[33:44] The party went smoothly thanks to Mike and Saskia's friends. But Saskia's absence put a dark cloud over the whole event. Afterwards, Bridget got a text from Mike.
Speaker 10:
[33:55] He was like, thanks again for helping today with the candle and other stuff. And I said, anytime you guys are family, is Saskia okay? And he said, yes, she thinks she took more sleeping pills accidentally last night. So she was completely zonked out, but is awake and okay now.
Speaker 1:
[34:11] Megan, Saskia's sister-in-law, felt frustrated by this explanation.
Speaker 3:
[34:17] At the time, we were all kind of like, pissed. Like, what are you doing? This is your son. And you can't come to his birthday party at one o'clock in the afternoon or whatever it was, you know? It's like, you can't just like muster up enough energy to like get there. Nope.
Speaker 1:
[34:33] To this day, this is one of the most difficult moments for Saskia to look back on.
Speaker 2:
[34:39] I was so excited for the birthday party. Sorry. And then in the morning, I couldn't get up. And it broke my heart. I felt so guilty about it. I just wanted to be a good mom and a good wife and my kids remember those things. Like my son knows I didn't go to his birthday party that year.
Speaker 1:
[35:06] And ate her up inside. Still does. And in moments like this, she was all the more indebted to Mike. He helped her get the care she needed, supported her as she took more time off work. And on top of all that, he was stepping up as a dad, driving her kids to school, scheduling their activities and cleaning the house. He was showing up for her family in ways she couldn't.
Speaker 2:
[35:30] It would make me rely on him more, because I just felt worse about myself. And then I would just rely on him more. I'm so lucky to like have this guy, even though I'm losing it. And even though I have these mental health problems and I'm drinking too much, and, you know, it made me hold on harder.
Speaker 1:
[35:54] His support became more and more important. Nearly three years into her medical crisis, Saskia was no closer to a solution. One morning in 2018, she found herself on the bathroom floor.
Speaker 2:
[36:08] I just remember waking up to him in a frenzied voice, like, get up, get up. And I remember opening my eyes, and I was on the cold floor, and there were two perfect lines of blood. And I was just like, so in like a twilight, right? Like, so kind of out of it.
Speaker 1:
[36:26] Mike was terrified. She must have fallen. With his help, she slowly stood up.
Speaker 2:
[36:32] I remember looking in the mirror and seeing my eye. It was swollen shut and completely closed.
Speaker 1:
[36:42] It was the day of her high school reunion. All of her friends were ready to go. Saskia texted them she wouldn't be able to make it. She sent Bridget a photo.
Speaker 10:
[36:53] She had the darkest black eye and she was like, I'm not showing up. Looking like this, she wouldn't be able to explain it. She didn't even understand it. She was walking to the bathroom and she face planted because her body couldn't hold it. She didn't understand why she couldn't control herself and why these things are happening.
Speaker 1:
[37:14] Some of her friends like Heather tied the incident to her drinking or the way alcohol interacted with her meds.
Speaker 5:
[37:22] I thought she probably got drunk and fell.
Speaker 1:
[37:24] Whether it was the alcohol or her medications causing the change, Saskia was growing more difficult to be around. She was increasingly erratic.
Speaker 5:
[37:33] She was just so paranoid and accusing us of doing things behind her back, saying things behind her back, and the only thing we were doing behind her back was talking about how worried we were about her and what was going on.
Speaker 1:
[37:47] Saskia knew her friends were worried, but she also felt judged.
Speaker 2:
[37:52] That was going crazy, and I was an embarrassment. I was isolating myself and my friends thinking that they didn't have the best intentions for me, and I worried that I would be that failure, like my dad was believed to be.
Speaker 1:
[38:10] Her dad couldn't outrun his mental health struggles, and maybe Saskia was destined for the same. As Saskia pushed her friends away, they knew she'd always have Mike. So as they became more and more concerned, they went to him. They tried to get him to talk to Saskia about her drinking and her meds. Every time he assured them, he had everything under control.
Speaker 5:
[38:37] As Heather recalls, he seemed like everything was fine.
Speaker 1:
[38:42] Then came October 27th, 2018. It had been two years since Saskia and Mike's wedding, three years since her health took a turn for the worse.
Speaker 2:
[38:53] My friend Allison was having a Halloween party, and my sister was nice enough to have the kids for a sleepover over her house.
Speaker 1:
[39:02] Allison's house was done up for the occasion. There were themed snacks, a photo wall, and everyone went all out with their costumes.
Speaker 2:
[39:10] I was a cowgirl, and Mike was a cowboy, pretty generic, but I still had some remnants of a black eye, and, you know, a lot of people asked me about it, and I kind of just said, I don't know how, but I think that I fell and I'm okay.
Speaker 1:
[39:30] After her last fall, everyone was on high alert around Saskia, and before long, that concern seemed justified.
Speaker 3:
[39:39] According to Megan, Sask was wasted again, and I say again, because at that point, it was a real recurrence. By that time, she was getting in the tank all the time.
Speaker 1:
[39:53] Bridget tried to get Mike's help.
Speaker 10:
[39:55] I was like, you know, Saskia seems pretty messed up. I just grabbed her a water, and he was like, no, she's fine. And it was a very abnormal response, because anyone who has to deal with somebody who's drunk, you're not going to be like, no, she's fine. So I was very shocked that he just downplayed it.
Speaker 1:
[40:13] Heather couldn't understand how Mike could be so calm.
Speaker 5:
[40:17] Even when some of our friends approached him with concerns, he was like, she's fine.
Speaker 1:
[40:23] Eventually, Mike did get Saskia to leave. It was late, and when they got home, Mike went right to the bedroom. Saskia took a moment downstairs to eat and take her nighttime meds.
Speaker 2:
[40:35] Which I always did, so that I could sleep through the night.
Speaker 1:
[40:38] Then she went up to their room. Mike was already in bed.
Speaker 2:
[40:42] He was facing his nightstand, and I wasn't sure if he was sleeping or not. So I went and put my arm around him, and we started making out. And I remember him telling me that he was going to use the bathroom and to hold on. A lot of time passed, and I'm sitting there thinking, what is going on? And then I guess I fell asleep. Next thing I remember, I kind of opened my eyes and looked up. And I saw him laying like opposite from me.
Speaker 1:
[41:19] Her eyes fluttered open. She didn't know how much time had passed. But Mike was awake. He was lying with his head at the end of the bed. He wasn't looking at Saskia. He was on his laptop.
Speaker 2:
[41:34] The open screen was facing me. I saw what looked like a mostly naked back and butt with some light blue underpants on.
Speaker 1:
[41:45] But just as quickly as she opened her eyes, she was getting sucked back into the darkness. The drugs, the alcohol rushed in like a riptide, pulling her back into the depths. She had been here once before, a few nights before her wedding. But this time, she held on to the light. She needed to remember. So she focused on the glow of the screen.
Speaker 2:
[42:12] I told myself, this is really important, and I need to remember anything that I can. And trust me, I was feeling pretty out of it. I don't know how I was able to do this, but I remember looking, and I saw the name Chatterbait, and then I remember seeing 1,600 followers. I didn't know what that meant, but I just knew, just remember these things, these are significant, and I passed back out. The next morning, I woke up, and I remembered.
Speaker 1:
[42:53] Somehow, despite the meds in her system, she was able to hold onto that image of the person in their underwear, and those words, Chatterbait, 1,600 followers.
Speaker 2:
[43:07] But I had no idea until I confronted him later in the day, the depth of what he was doing. I said, I need you to tell me exactly what you're doing, and I'm not going to tell the police if you totally come clean, and you tell me what has been going on. So I asked him to show me the website, and he opened it on the laptop, and the picture was there. It was the picture from the night before. I was like, that's my underwear. I realized, I was like, that's my underwear. I said, is that me? He said, yes, that's you. He said, I guess we're both a little bit crazy.
Speaker 7:
[43:58] On the next episode of Betrayal, she let out this blood-curdling scream and ran down the hall. Then the sheriffs came sprinting. They didn't know what had happened. They just heard this scream and came sprinting down after her. She was just in shock, like, what is going on?
Speaker 1:
[44:27] For resources on sexual violence, visit rainn.org/betrayal. That's r-a-i-n-n dot org slash Betrayal. You can also get free confidential 24-7 support through Rainn's National Sexual Assault Hotline. Just text HOPE to 64673, or call 1-800-656-HOPE. You are not alone. If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal Team or wanna tell us your story, email us at BetrayalPod at gmail.com. That is Betrayal, P-O-D, at gmail.com. Or follow us on Instagram, at BetrayalPod. To access additional content and to connect with the Betrayal community, join our Substack at betrayal.substack.com. We are grateful for your support. One way to show support is by subscribing to our show on Apple Podcasts. 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 the 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 Caitlin Golden. Our supervising producer is Carrie Hartman. Our story editor is Monique Laborde. Also produced by Ben Fetterman. Associate producers are Olivia Hewitt and Leah Jablow. Production management by Kristen Malkyrie. Additional support by Curry Richmond. Our iHeart team is Allie Perry and Jessica Kreincheck. Voice acting by Steve Lilinski. Audio editing by Tanner Robbins with additional editing and mixing by Matt Dalvecchio. Special thanks to Saskia, her friends, and family. And special thanks to Will Pearson and Kerry Lieberman. Betrayal's theme is composed by Oliver Baines. Music library provided by My Music. And for more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.