If I Don’t Hear Back | EP 3

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When you think of a paternity scandal, this is probably what comes to mind.

Sir, you are not the father.

Men have a millennia old reputation for refusing parental responsibilities.

It can destroy families and alter the course of lives.

As Mori Povic proved, a paternity test is the ultimate dramatic reveal.

It's a definitive answer, a yes or no.

But what happened to Clayton Eckerd? Isn't that simple?

I said, okay, hey, we got to do the paternity test. That's coming up.

And then she's making excuses and was like, I don't think I really need to do this.

I already know you're the father. I haven't been with anybody else. So I'm not going to do it.

I'm not going to waste my money. I'll just wait until the due date.

I'm Stephanie Young and this is Love Trap.

On May 20th, 2023, Clayton invited a woman named Laura Owens over to his house.

They'd been flirting over text.

According to Clayton, they had oral sex that night, not penetrative sex.

Then, just 11 days later, Laura had news. She was pregnant. And she was sure the baby was his.

I was having a hard time believing it because we didn't have sex. So I wanted her to take a test

in front of me so that I could see it with my own eyes. Laura came over to his place to take

another pregnancy test. It was positive. I had my hand pressing against my forehead,

elbows on the countertop. I'm leaning over the sink and I'm just in disbelief.

And she's just like, how are you feeling? She starts rubbing my back. I'm like, is this real?

And in a moment, I was like, she is pregnant.

On one hand, Clayton believed his own eyes. He believed to the proof he was now seeing right in

front of him. And I'm like, I'm sorry. She's like, for what? I said, for not believing you.

I thought you were lying. On the other hand, Laura had been behaving erratically since their hook-up.

So much so that he decided to block her phone number. But now she was in his house.

Positive pregnancy test in hand. And she was distraught. We sat down on my couch and talked for

probably an hour and a half, two hours. And I was reassuring her the entire time.

It was almost reflexive to comfort her and tell her it was going to be okay. But something about

Laura felt off. It felt a little bit forced or it felt a little bit like it was a production.

And there was an element of insincereity.

Nevertheless, he told Laura he would unblock her number and they would figure it out.

After a few hours, she left. When he shut the door behind her,

reality sunk back in. There was no way she could be pregnant. He replayed the night of the hook-up

in his memory. And his mind went to extreme places. She'd run to the bathroom right after the

blowjob. What had happened behind that bathroom door? Was there some way she could have

impregnated herself? I was 99.9% sure she wasn't pregnant. Unfortunately, for me, there was a

0.1% chance of doubt that I was like, maybe she got it there and quick enough time when she went

the bathroom. Maybe she had a syringe on hand that I was unaware of. There's a small chance. I

don't believe it, but I can't fully rule it out. Then he got an email. It was from Laura.

Don't bother reading this if you don't want to have the dating conversation. Her emails are

being read by a voice actor. If you don't want to try things, that's fine. But if I'm alone either

way, the abortion is off the table. I strongly believe that regardless of your feelings for me,

it's unfair to the child to not be exposed to both parents. The messages were bizarre and they

kept coming. You act like it would be a punishment to date me, but I bring a lot to the table.

My exact thought was either I'm dealing with the craziest woman I've ever met or I'm dealing

with someone that's telling the truth. And there's really no in between. Clayton's plan was to figure

it out on his own before anyone online got wind of the situation. He was a public figure.

This could be a huge reputational blow. If this girl goes to the media, it's just going to be a pain

in the ass because we have to wait on the paternity test, which is going to take some time. It's

something that I'm going to be fighting uphill battle on. He started frantically googling.

Maybe this was a misunderstanding. Maybe there was another explanation. She had mentioned that she had

epilepsy. And so I just had this feeling of you need to google epilepsy medications and see

if there's any correlation between epilepsy meds and HCG, which is the pregnancy hormone.

And I googled that and sure enough, there was a correlation where certain medications could cause

elevated levels of HCG. When I saw that, that was the bingo. This is what's going on.

Maybe she's not lying. She's just not aware that her medications are causing this. And so it's a false

positive. Clayton told me he emailed Laura to let her know this could be a possibility.

And less than two hours later, Laura responded. She said she placed a quick call to her doctor.

And her doctor told her that it's extremely rare to happen at all. And if that were to happen,

it would be when someone just started it. Laura was adamant that it wasn't a false positive.

She really was pregnant. And it was his. She told him multiple times that she hadn't been with anyone

else in over a year. At this point, Clayton is desperate for concrete answers. First,

he just needed proof of pregnancy. And the easiest way to get that is with an ultrasound at the

doctor's office. We talked about doing an ultrasound so that I could get visual proof that she was

in fact pregnant. Laura made an appointment for an ultrasound. But right before the day came,

she canceled it. Her sister couldn't make it. And Laura wanted her there. That was the first

cancellation. And then she's like, are we scheduled for this date? I've seen these messages.

Clayton was trying his best to be as flexible with the doctor's appointment as possible.

If she was pregnant, this was the only way he could get the confirmation he needed.

But Laura changed her mind again and said she didn't want him at the doctor's appointment.

My pushback was, okay, well, I'll FaceTime you from the doctor's office.

Then, Laura threw a grenade, something that caught Clayton off guard and changed the tone of their

entire conversation. She ended up saying, hey, I'm scared for my safety. I'm going to reschedule it,

but I don't want you showing up and potentially harming me. Clayton couldn't believe what she was saying.

And he was offended. He was only asking for transparency and real answers. Just a few days before,

Laura said she wanted him to be involved. I'm like, are you kidding me? I've never

once threatened you. Now you're trying to say that your friend might get physical in a doctor's office

of all places. In general, I've never put my hands on a woman, but I was like,

now you're basically stating you're fearful for your safety.

It was a red flag, but Clayton was committed to getting an answer from a doctor. That was the

right next step. Then it was, no, I don't want you to know like when I'm going at all,

so then again, it was just excuse after excuse, and it was like, I need some type of proof,

and she just wouldn't oblige to anything that I said.

The harder he pushed for proof, the more volatile Laura became.

You have no idea what was going on behind the scenes, and I have all of the receipts to prove it.

The back and forth about the ultrasound was only the tip of the iceberg. After she told Clayton

she was pregnant, Laura sent him a lot of mixed messages about keeping the baby.

Most of them were emails actually. This went on for four months.

I decided to take a page out of Clayton's book and asked him if he could show them to me in person.

A few days later, I flew to Arizona and was back at Clayton's house.

I want to talk about where we left off with this story.

You've kind of told me that there was a lot going on from June to, let's say, September of that year.

Can you show me what you're talking about?

Oh, yeah. Look, I have it all stored here on a drive called the L.O. file for Laura Owens.

Any time that I've spoken with Laura is all right here.

There is a folder pretty much for every single day from June all the way through like the end of October.

I cannot stress enough how many messages are in these folders.

There are hundreds. Having the receipts is an understatement.

Some days there were ten messages. Some days there was just one.

There was probably less than five times where like there was a day or two where she didn't send

anything. But those days were far and few in between.

The messages unsettled him so much that he started cataloging them.

Here are a few subject lines from those early emails.

June 25th went to the abortion clinic. Important.

June 28th, having the baby if I don't hear back tonight, July 1st, the final opportunity to

consider abortion. The messages would come in. I would screenshot them. I would put that

day's date and then I'd put it in the folder. I put my own responses just so I could have

a full track record because I felt I need to have evidence of all of our communications because

who knows what she's going to eventually accuse me of.

How are you handling that and how is your mental health doing at this time where you

trying to work? How do you even go about your day and if these keep flooding in?

I couldn't help but read them because I had to extract information from them to understand

where she was going with her next move. But it was tough because yeah, I'd be at work and I couldn't

help but like check my email every hour. It says if someone tells you that I'm going to send you

a message with test results in the next 24 hours, I'm not sure when it'll come in. But yeah,

we can all relate to that. Just waiting, looking at your messages being like, when's this coming

through and the second you hear the ding, you're like, oh my gosh, this is it. That's how I felt

all the time because it was just like, when's this next message coming and how serious is it going

to be? Clayton was on edge. It wasn't just about whether or not she was pregnant. He'd just gone

through the hardest year of his life and felt like the media was hungry for any scandal around him.

This would deliver it on a silver platter and Laura seemed to know that. She even told Clayton that

when she was at his apartment to take the pregnancy test that she'd recorded the entire conversation.

She had her phone in her purse and it was recording the entire time. She mentioned that to me as

like a threat to say that she was going to go public. Clayton did not want any kind of press about

the situation. He decided he could handle it himself. The week stragged into months. The whole time,

Clayton felt like he was trying to quietly diffuse a bomb. Were you fighting this battle alone?

Like at this point had you told anyone in your life what was going on?

I really truly was waking up every day dealing with this and having nobody to help me through

because I was ashamed. I saw the emotions that I elicited from my family following the whole

bachelor experience and they are the ones that I would bring it to. I took a show that was

my mom's favorite and turned it into a show that she despised, a show that made her sick to her

stomach no matter how much I wanted to have support in the scenario. To me it would have felt selfish

to bring them back in. It became clear that these emails had a strong effect on Clayton

and that I'd be at his place for a week if I tried to read every email in one sitting.

He was kind enough to share the file with me so I could go through each email carefully.

I took the L.O. file home with me to start combing through it myself.

Some of these emails have never been made public before.

That's the thing with Laura's. I kept just getting more intense with every single email.

Later these messages would be introduced as evidence in court.

Here's Laura Owens herself. During a court deposition, reading one of the emails she sent Clayton.

Messages like this stopped me in my tracks. I didn't know what I'd gotten myself into

but I knew I had to keep going.

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You know what I could really go for right now? Literally anything that comes in a McDonald's

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cannot be combined with any other offer. When I started reading the screenshots of messages

between Clayton and Laura, I was dumbfounded. After I spent weeks going through each and every

message, I decided to meet Clayton again to discuss them. Like I said, some of these have never

been made public before. She kept saying in these emails that she has proven time and time again

that she's pregnant. She has showed you so much proof. She has sent a drop box link.

Can you tell me what that proof actually was? That was the thing. I've sent you all this proof.

I'm like, what proof? You've sent me a doctor's note. You've sent me a pregnancy test. I'm like,

I think you're trying to convince me you've proven me. You have these hard facts, which you don't.

You keep saying you've shown all the proof, but there's nothing here. It's all just your words.

My sister called me at eight weeks pregnant to tell me she was pregnant with a photo of an

ultrasound on FaceTime. I mean, it was so simple to prove it, which is concerning that she wouldn't

just send you an ultrasound because you were begging for proofs in these emails.

I mean, look, I really did want just something. I was like, either show me something or show me

nothing. I'm tired of playing the games. I'm tired of playing like, well, I will if this. I'm like,

no, no, no, if this then statements. Just do it or don't. That's where I was. It really

should be super simple. Your doctor that you just saw should be able to take a phone call with me

right now. If I'm the actual father, then it's my right to be able to have this conversation.

He's right. And he brings up another important point about if he's actually the father,

we'll get to that in a minute. As far as I can see in all their messages, the proof Laura was

sending him was mostly in the form of photos and a few videos of herself, like this one,

where she's standing in her brawn underwear showing her protruded stomach to the camera.

I am just trying to show you that I am pregnant and I wanted to do this on video

so that you didn't think that I was photoshopping anything in.

The video is over four minutes long. She turns from side to side to show him her stomach.

Here's the tour. You can see my front. You can see the line there that women get, that pregnant

woman get. I'm starting to get. You can see from here. I have a stomach, right?

This video came in response to Clayton again asking for proof of her pregnancy.

At this point, he'd been asking for over a month. Hope you realize this is all real.

The pictures and videos weren't the medical confirmation Clayton wanted,

but they did make him question his own certainty.

Every time I would see a physical image, it would just like cycle back to maybe there is some truth to this.

At first, Laura said she would give him any of the medical confirmation and to say in the decision

making, if he did something she wanted. This one is highlighted and flagged in this folder.

I want you to read the highlighted part starting at the bold.

Oh my gosh, yeah. I would like to get together tomorrow night to talk and explore intimacy.

It's time for you to make an effort if that is something we are considering.

Obviously, I would love to have sex in the future and feel like I am the safest person you could

have sex with since I'm pregnant. But if you really think that like you said yesterday, my goal

was to date and get pregnant during this time, we can absolutely hold off on it. However,

it occurred to me that you might believe me more about paternity if you were inside of me and

felt how tight I would be after not having sex in more than a year. Maybe then you'd believe

I hadn't been sleeping around. And again, you wouldn't be doing me any big favor.

Having sex with me is a privilege and not something I have done for a long time.

There's a lot to unpack. Oh yeah, I mean, oh man, I remember that when that message came through.

I had a moment during this conversation with Clayton where I really couldn't believe this was my job.

And this is what I was talking to the former bachelor about.

It's also interesting, too, where she says it also occurred to me that if you felt how tight I was,

if you were inside of me, to me that signifying that she's saying you hadn't been inside of me before.

That was her admitting it. Yeah, absolutely. She said so much so many times. She started to

basically trip over her own story. And that was a moment where I go, well, you just admitted

to not ever having sex with me because you're saying if only I felt how tight you were at

meaning I haven't felt it yet. Were you breeding the whole thing? This one is pages long.

Yeah, I did read every single line because again, I'm now reading into the mind of somebody to

try to understand where my out is. She forecast a lot of times. These were things where I was looking at

every sentence being like, where is she going? And can I get ahead of it before she gets there?

But that wasn't always possible because Laura threw some curveballs.

There is a dating contract that was sent to me by Laura.

Can you, what does go back? What's a dating contract? Well, it was new to me. I've never signed one

before. This was something she wanted you to sign. Yes. Yes, an official document that she wanted me

to sign. It was written in a formal format. And it said that if you date me for one week,

then I will have an abortion. But if you don't date me, then I'm having the kid.

This dating contract has a 16 point list of demands. And while it looks like a formal legal

document and attempts to use formal legal jargon, it includes highly unusual stipulations like this

one, read by a voice actor. For a period of one week while determining the best course of action

for their pregnancy, party A and party B will exclusively explore a relationship with intention,

meaning with the goal of it turning into something long-lasting and meaningful.

And there is no obligation for the relationship to work out beyond the one week.

However, if it is apparent that the agreement was entered into for the wrong reasons,

evidenced by abuse of any kind, verbal, emotional, or physical, it is null and void.

I'm like, I can't believe I'm reading this. Is there any validity to this?

Again, it's like you're seeing something for the very first time and you're in disbelief that it's

actually something that you're reading. Laura sent this dating contract after she told Clayton

she was too scared of him to tell him when the ultrasound appointment was. There's no clear

logic to her requests. It's chaos. In the dating contract, she even offered to compensate Clayton

with $100,000 if he's proven not to be the father of her twins. As I read through the emails I

realized, at a certain point, Laura isn't even talking about a baby anymore. For his part,

Clayton is just trying to get the messages to stop. He replied to Laura's dating contract

with a contract of his own, one where he's trying to get her to cease all communication.

And you said, this is what I'm willing to offer you since I want to give you grace and an

opportunity to let this all go away. And you said, I really think you need to consider this document.

And what's in your document is also very professional party A, party B. Yeah, I used to

her language. And basically, you have a couple of terms and stipulations on there,

but all you wanted her to do was sign that. And you said that upon signature, you see

communication and that you'll keep everything confidential indefinitely. All text, phone calls,

images, emails that have been exchanged between both parties as long as it's signed. Did she

sign that? No. No, that was her out. That was her out. I was willing to bury all of it up until

that point. All of the emotional abuse, all of the manipulation, all of the time wasted,

I was willing to bury it all in that moment. And I was giving her an out where I was telling her,

look, you've messed up. Okay, you've taken this act too far. And I already have enough grounds to

sue you or at least like get you into some trouble. But yet, I'm willing to drop it all and just act

like it never happened. So just sign this please. Like, I really don't want to have to take this

thing further. Can we just be done? The answer was no. Clayton didn't know it at the time,

but this nightmare was only just beginning. He says one of the most uncomfortable parts

was when Laura used an abortion as a bargaining chip. It just was so frustrating because I had told her,

I don't want to have a child with you. So put two and two together. It's pretty obvious what my

stance on this is, take the pills. And that's it. I just told her one time over. And then it was

like, well, I'll take them. Well, man, I'm not going to. Well, if we do this, maybe I will now. I

have them again. I threw them away. Now I have them back. Oh, just kind of threw them away. Oh,

now I have them back. And I'll say it was really, really frustrating at that point. I was already

like, it just very anxious and stressed. Like, I'm not playing the game with you.

He started to notice patterns in her behavior. I mean, there's empty threats. There's also the theme

of like no response, equaling a response. That was another one that surfaced multiple times.

Like that subject line that says, if I don't hear back, I'm having the baby. Yes. There's one

right there. And that also feeds into the deadline theme, which is another thing that she would

also constantly do is like, here's this date. If I don't hear back from you by then,

then this will happen. And as time went on, it's like, things would escalate.

He says he felt trapped. If he did respond, he would be re-engaging with someone who was

increasingly erratic. But if he didn't respond, then he'd be missing some fabricated deadline she'd

just set. In the back of his mind was that 0.01% chance. That question about what Laura had been

doing in the bathroom right after their hookup. The almost impossible chance that she was really

pregnant with his baby or pregnant by someone else and trying to pin it on him.

Something we haven't talked about yet is the constant legal threats,

ultimatums, and handcrafted legal documents Laura was sending him.

The documents look official, but they're not. To double down on this,

she sent Clayton a PDF of an attorney's fee agreement she'd paid. She added, quote,

money truly isn't an object for me. That scared Clayton because for him,

money didn't grow on trees. And the legal threats kept coming. She even alleged consulting a

business lawyer for what happened with Clayton and the investment properties he showed her.

Her email started coming with threats of police action or legal action. In one email,

she demands Clayton respond within the hour to avoid her filing a police report against him.

Then she claims she's going to go to the police to report him for domestic violence.

I need to say, Clayton vehemently denies that he was ever physically abusive. In fact,

he says he hadn't seen her in person since she came to his place to take the pregnancy test.

I asked him about this threat directly. I want to know more about this threat to report you for

domestic violence. You weren't seeing her in person, so where did this even come from?

I believe she was claiming it was emotional abuse. She obviously never put my hands on her.

So she was like, yeah, I'm going to file this and it's like, there's no way for what?

There's really nothing I've done. There's even a legal waiver at the bottom of an email stating,

if after proof of opening is obtained, I choose not to respond to this email,

I am confirming that its content is true. This includes my acknowledgement of paternity.

How would she have proof of the email being open? She put mail trackers with read receipts on all

of her emails. I didn't know that until later on and I'm like, damn it, she has a read receipt on

that's why. Then on August 1st, after almost two months of back and forth, Laura went all in.

She filed a petition to establish paternity in the Maricopa County Superior Court.

That filing made their dispute a matter of the public record.

This was the very thing Clayton had been trying desperately to avoid. He felt like the bomb was

about to detonate in his hands. At that point, I was like, damn it, how do I respond? I don't know,

I don't know how to go to court and respond to this. So I ended up calling a family law

company that I googled and I said, look, I just need you to like help me file this on my behalf.

So I paid like $500 for an hour and they gave me the response and then I carried that to the

court house and submitted it. Clayton submitted his response to her petition to establish paternity

a few weeks later, stating Laura was making up the entire claim. I decided in that moment to just

go with it and I figured, hey, like, show me the evidence. Why can't you show me that you're pregnant?

It still felt like a gamble, but Clayton decided to take the chance and say on the record

that he believed Laura was fabricating the pregnancy. I said, hey, I'm going to put all my chips

on black and if I am right, then great. If I'm wrong, then I will actively destroy my own

reputation. After months, he hadn't seen any medical proof. He was done giving her any benefit

of the doubt and he adopted a new tactic. I was just now trying to play her game better than she

was playing it. That turned out to be a grave miscalculation because Laura was always one step ahead.

She said something along the lines of, hey, just so you know, the twin gene runs in my family.

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assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis,

not someone else's. Go to public.com slash podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer

your portfolio. That's public.com slash podcast. Paid for by public investing, brokerage services

by open to the public investing ink, member Finra and SIPC. Advisory services by public advisors LLC,

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informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures

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After two months of back and forth with Laura Owens, Clayton opened the door to a police

officer. He'd been served. It was a paternity claim filed by Laura. But at this point, Clayton

hadn't seen any medical proof of the pregnancy. He was done humoring her.

I decided to reach out to family law attorneys in Arizona to understand the legal process for

establishing paternity there. They told me and I was surprised by this. You don't have to provide

medical proof of a pregnancy to file a paternity claim. In Arizona, the only requirement is

signing an affidavit stating that you're pregnant. Paternity is then proved either by agreement

of the parties or by DNA confirmation. But in the legal system, it is generally the burden of

the father to take the lead and establish paternity so that rights can be confirmed.

Some men will file that action during a pregnancy, but it usually happens after birth.

In this case, Laura signed the affidavit asserting she was pregnant. She began taking measures

to legally establish the pregnancy and the baby's father while she was still in the first trimester.

It's usually never done that way. Before this point, Clayton had been more concerned about

finding out if she was really pregnant. But now, he was legally and financially

implicated in a paternity claim. So that brought up a new question. If she was pregnant,

was he the father? Then Laura doubled down, literally. She said something along the lines

if she has the twin gene in her family. So I knew again, she always would prep something.

I think she warms you up to the idea of it. So she warmed me up to the idea of the twins,

where she said, hey, just so you know, the twin gene runs in my family.

Clayton had a hunch about what Laura was going to say next. Within a few weeks,

she followed through and told them she was not only pregnant. She was pregnant with twins.

I think part of it was overwhelmed, right? Like to scare a man and to be like, oh, hey,

by the way, it's not just one, it's two. That's double the responsibility, but that wasn't the fear

for me. I'm like, the whole fear behind this is first up, I don't believe you. But if by chance,

you actually got pregnant. I'm not afraid of how many kids. I'm afraid of you.

Clayton wanted to take the paternity test right away, so he could prove that he wasn't the father.

So as she states there's twins, she's like, there's not any testing facility that will test on

twins. I've looked and they won't do it because there's potential for the children to have separate

fathers. I'm like, you can't be serious. It's true that a lot of prenatal paternity testing

companies won't test when there's twins. There's a remote possibility of two fathers.

By this point, Clayton found it difficult to believe anything Laura said. And he wasn't about to

just take her word for it. So I Google it. I basically typed in like paternity testing for twins.

And boom, Ravgen pops up and I reached out to him and they said, yeah, yeah, we test on twins.

And I said, what about the chance if there's like two separate fathers, they go, yeah,

that hard there ever happens. They're like, and we can basically compare the DNA that we get and

it's really easy to match it to yours if it is yours indeed. So Clayton messaged Laura to tell her

the good news. And she sends back like, that's incredible. That's awesome. I would love to schedule it.

You might be able to guess what happens next. And then she goes, you know, I don't think I really

need to do this. I already know you're the father. I haven't been with anybody else. So I'm not

into it. I'm not going to waste my money. I've seen these email exchanges about the paternity test.

Clayton offers to pay for the whole thing himself. Then the emails get messy. It's a constant

back and forth about who was scheduling or canceling the appointments with Ravgen. Eventually,

they both took the test, but we'll dive into those details later. The whole time, Laura was

sending Clayton a barrage of messages. As I searched through the messages from August,

I discovered an alarming pattern. Between August 12th and August 16th, Laura contacted Clayton via

text using 12 different phone numbers, generating a new one each time he blocked her. And whenever

Laura was blocked via text, she would start sending emails, like this one, where she brought up

something Clayton really wants to go on dancing with the stars. He takes hip-hop dance classes

and told Laura about his passion for dance in their early text messages, which is what makes

this email from Laura stand out. It's read by a voice actor. My dad's old entertainment agent

lawyer who I've known since I was little and who still has big clients came to town on Friday

from New York City to see him one last time. Without my permission, my dad told him that I was pregnant

and that you were the father of the kid. Apparently, they called to do some checking on you and said

they found out there were rumors about you possibly being on dancing with the stars, which I didn't

know about, but I'm guessing you did. My dad's agent lawyer told me that even if I didn't say anything

to the press, that ABC would find out about the paternity papers being filed with the court,

as part of their due diligence since their filing is public record. And given the circumstances,

it would almost certainly ruin your chance of being on the show.

Okay, so let's talk about this. I know one of your dreams is to go on dancing with the stars.

Were you actually in talks to go on the show? Not even close. When that came through that email,

I remember just laughing and being like, okay, now you're just making stuff up.

Laura followed up with a copy of a letter she planned to send to the dancing with the

stars PR team. She told Clayton, you need to devote time getting ready to have twins instead of

focusing on a dance show. Ultimately, I remember thinking I haven't heard anything from ABC,

but if this were to be true, I would at least think they'd reach out to get my side of the story.

At that time, Clayton didn't want any media outlet reaching out to him to ask about Laura Owens.

He just wanted her to go away. And the good news was the story hadn't hit the press yet,

even though Laura had filed for paternity and named Clayton as the father. It was a relief

because he was trying to spare his family from another public embarrassment.

But the people he was most worried would find out his mom and dad had started getting strange

emails of their own. They were from someone named Laura Owens. She probably emailed me 15 or 20 times.

That's Clayton's dad, Brian. I'm like, this is strange.

Clayton wanted to handle this situation on his own. But by finding his parents' emails online and

contacting them directly, Laura forced his hand. After I had been holding off on telling my

parents I had no choice but then to bring it to light. At first, Clayton's parents were

alarmed by the emails. My parents early on weren't certain if it was true or not as well, right? So

they start then talking to me about like, well, if this is real, then you need to be a man and

step up and take accountability for your actions. Clayton explained to them what was really going on.

He didn't believe Laura could possibly be pregnant with his babies. Then Laura reached out to

his mom, Kelly. She tried to Facebook friend me. And of course, I didn't accept, but you know how

you can message. And it was almost identical to what she had emailed. And she was just trying to

convince me that Clayton really is the father. And she needs help raising these kids. And yeah,

I was just unbelievable. His parents never responded to Laura's messages.

All the times they were, she was trying to influence us to make us get involved with them and tell

them what to do. And like, he's a grown man and do what her daily wants. They knew their son was

an honest person. I've never doubted him because he's always told the truth. My thought was,

I believe you. And I believe everything he says. He's always been very honest and very transparent.

So I didn't doubt my son. When I talked to his mom, Kelly, she told me something that still

sticks with me. When she first heard about Laura and the pregnancy, she felt a rush of joy.

Even though it wasn't ideal circumstances, this would be her first grandchild. Her first thought

was that she and her husband would relocate to Arizona to help take care of the baby.

I've spent hours reading through the hundreds of emails from Laura to Clayton.

They're contradictory. They're chaotic. Sometimes they're scary. But most striking of all,

they're not really about the babies. I didn't even live through it and I felt emotionally and

physically exhausted, just reading them. I can't even imagine what Clayton was feeling,

being on the receiving end of this fire hose. The truth was, Laura couldn't keep avoiding the

paternity test forever. And by mid-September, she was running out of options. At this point,

she'd be almost four months along. Of course, she knows that her game is basically coming to an end

because she can't prove that I'm the father because I'm not. She realizes at this point she's

losing the battle. Again, he was wrong because he wasn't accounting for the narrative war that was

about to start when the story finally hit the news. I literally find out about these things.

They get published. When you cover this, you know, you have thousands of people that are tuning in

for news of bachelor or pop culture. So if there's a big story, it's in my inbox.

That's Dave Neal. He's a comedian who hosts a daily podcast about pop culture and the bachelor.

When Dave got the tip about this story, initially, I'm bummed out. If this is true, I go,

oh, please don't let this be true. I have vouched for Clayton. He was kind of edited to be this villain.

I never believed him to be. Dave was about to become a major player in this twisted tale.

I didn't want it to be true, but I went into it going. I have to take these claims seriously

for the sake of my audience. Dave was part of a whole ecosystem of bachelor content creators.

People he's known for years, like reality Steve. Immediately Dave Neal and I contacted each other.

We were like, oh my gosh, this is crazy. It turns out they weren't the only ones in the press

who'd been alerted about a paternity case against Clayton Eckerd. On September 18th, 2023,

would have been a private crisis suddenly became a public disaster. And we begin tonight with the

paternity case involving a former bachelor contestant following the Clayton Eckerd Claytgate paternity

scandal. Eckerd, the star of season 26 of the bachelor shared intimate moments with Laura Owen.

The subject of the email I've seen by the US son is as follows, threats, intimidation, verbal abuse,

endangerment, and extortion from Clayton. Eckerd says the two did not have sexual intercourse.

We're going to pick up with the story right now.

Coming up on the next episode, Clayton is determined to get answers.

So I was just scrolling through my Instagram DMs and all of a sudden I see this message from a

woman named Ashley that said, hey, you need to look into this court case. You're not the only one.

To read verified copies of some of the emails mentioned in this episode, go to our Instagram

at Glass Podcasts. Thank you so much for listening. Please be sure to follow Love Trapped on Apple

Podcasts, the iHeart Radio app, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. And please leave

us a review. A five star rating helps others find this show. We're grateful for your support.

If you would like to reach out to the Love Trapped team, email us at lovetrappedpod at gmail.com.

That's Love Trapped, P-O-D, at gmail.com. Love Trapped is a production of Glass Podcasts,

a division of Glass Entertainment Group in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. This show was

executive produced by Nancy Glass, Andrea Gunning, and Ben Federman.

Written, produced, and hosted by me, Stephanie Young. Our story editor is Monique LeBord.

Additional production support from Sydney Gladoo and Todd Gans.

Our production manager is Kristen Melcuri. For iHeart Podcasts, Allie Perry was our executive producer.

Audio editing and mastering by Anna McLean and Matt Delvecchio. Additional editing support by

Zach Proto. Thank you to our voice actor, Leslie Tolly. This podcast was developed in collaboration

with Danny Passman and Lev Abramoff at CrybabyMedia. The Love Trapped theme is composed by Oliver Baines.

Music library provided by Mybe Music. A special thanks to Carrie Lieberman, Will Pearson,

Jessica Crinecheck, Allie Cantor, and the entire iHeart Podcast team. And for more podcasts from iHeart,

visit the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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