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Crime Story Episode 64: Sarah Treleaven

Host: Kathleen Goldhar

SOUNDCLIP

SPEAKER 1: So initially, what I knew is that there was a young woman who had some abandonment issues.

SPEAKER 2: She told me that, you know, generally that she didn't have family or friends to support her.

SPEAKER 3: We know now that she changed the details of her stories to kind of match with the personalities and backgrounds of the doors that she's working with.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Over two years, Braun conned more than 50 birth workers into thinking that she was pregnant. She'd take them on wild, unpredictable rides through complicated traumatic pregnancies that turned out to be totally fictional. In her new podcast, The Con: Kaitlyn's Baby, Sarah Treleaven tries to figure out what could possibly lead someone to do something like this. And Kaitlyn's Baby is one of the most confounding and intensely complicated stories that I've ever worked on. Yes, I worked really closely with Sarah on this podcast, and it was a truly wild ride. I'm Kathleen Goldhar, and this is Crime Story.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Sarah, welcome back to the show.

SARAH TRELEAVEN: Thank you for having me.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: I mean, both of us through this entire process kept saying: How is this happening? And you and I both have a lot of experience working with stories that are pretty wild. [SARAH TRELEAVEN: Yes.] Where would you rate this story and sort of your, with all of your experience, how did you feel about this story?

SARAH TRELEAVEN: I mean, this is a truly wild story. I mean, I have been in this world for almost two years, and it is still unfolding, and it still blows my mind. I mean, I don't think of myself as a particularly naive person. I have covered a lot of very strange, very asocial individuals and phenomena. And I am still surprised by the depths of depravity associated with this story. And I'm still really hung up on some of the key questions we set out to answer on this podcast.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Yeah. So, let's start to unpack that. Kaitlyn Braun. Who's Kaitlyn Braun? Let's start there. Obviously, we got to start with her.

SARAH TRELEAVEN: I mean, that is so, that'll, that answer will take up the next half an hour.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Yeah.

SARAH TRELEAVEN: Braun is a now 26-year-old woman. She is somebody who has a veneer of respectability on first blush. She really lived a double life where by day, she was a young professional and she had a circle of friends. But essentially, her hobby was fabricating whole worlds, luring in unsuspecting individuals, and then destroying them. And how she did that was she fabricated pregnancies over and over and over again. And people often find it hard to locate the harm in that narrative. You know, so she lied to you about being pregnant. What's the big deal? But Kaitlyn didn't just lie to people about being pregnant. She would take them through an escalating series of crises. Like, can I kind of give you an example?

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Yeah, please. Let's go.

SARAH TRELEAVEN: So, one of the cases that we explore in the podcast is the story of Amy and Katie, these two doulas who work together. So, Amy and Katie are two doulas in southern Ontario. Like many of the victims associated with this story, they're birth workers. They're not medical professionals. They're people who provide support to pregnant people, mostly emotional and educational support. And one of them got an Instagram message from Kaitlyn Braun and she said, "I'm in this terrible situation. I am pregnant as the result of a sexual assault. My entire family has abandoned me because they judge me for wanting to keep the baby. They judge me for being assaulted. I'm also queer and they've judged me and rejected me for that. And I have just learned that the baby is stillborn. And I'm all on my own. I have no one. And I'm hoping you can help me." This narrative, of course, was very carefully crafted to lure in people who, by nature, by profession, are oriented around caring for others. And so, these doulas working together said, "Of course we'll help you. Of course we'll support you, of course, we'll be what you need in this time of urgent crisis." And this was, this was during COVID. So, a lot of people don't understand, too, that this was all taking place over the phone because, again, it was, it was COVID. It was when people were incredibly accustomed to working online. Health care professionals went online. It was normal at that time to not necessarily have eyes on the person you were assisting. So, over the course of 10 days, constantly between Amy and Katie, constantly in Kaitlyn's ear, Kaitlyn delivered a stillborn baby in hospital. Then, she went into trauma because the bleeding wouldn't stop. Then, she had to have an emergency hysterectomy because she wouldn't stop hemorrhaging. But even after the emergency hysterectomy, things weren't resolved. Doctors did more exploratory work. They found out that she had stage four pelvic cancer, and she was basically going to die. And so, she literally was reading brochures about palliative care with these doulas over the phone as they were trying to figure out the best course of action for this poor young woman whose life had taken the worst possible turn. And it just escalated from there until 10 days in, exhausted. Kept up around the clock. Kaitlyn used sleep deprivation as part of her manipulation. 10 days in, something turned, and both Amy and Katie sort of started to come out of this fog of selfless nurturing and realize this had just been a grotesque and detailed and very sophisticated manipulation.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: It's so sophisticated, and the details are incredible. And I want to get to what happened. Like eventually, we start to learn that she's been doing this to other people. But there's so many questions people are going to have. So, I just feel like we need to back up just for a second. Let's just start by saying like, very specifically why we think she targeted doulas. Like, what is it about being a doula that made Kaitlyn quite possibly realize that these were the women, usually women that would be most open to her con?

SARAH TRELEAVEN: So, I think you know, doulas, as I mentioned, are birth workers, but they're not doctors, they're not midwives. So, there's less medicalization, less physicality to much of what they do. Though, they do things like massage. They, they help you breathe through contractions. They teach you techniques primarily when you're in labour to get through it emotionally and physically. And fundamentally, I think it's a profession that's motivated by deep compassion and a desire to help people. And I think another part of this is that, you know, Kaitlyn really weaponized these narratives of marginalization. She was queer. She was a victim of sexual assault. You know, part of the excuse she used, many doulas tried to get her to go to the hospital because they were worried about her, and she wouldn't go. And she repeatedly told doulas that doctors had mistreated her in the past. She even told some doulas that a hospital was the site of her sexual assault. And, you know, these doulas who help people who have had, often who have had negative experiences with systems were of course primed to believe and advocate for her. These things she was reporting weren't impossible. They weren't even necessarily unusual. They were entirely believable. They just happened to be a lie.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Right. And like, doulas are there for the woman, which we've come to, I've come to learn from this whole podcast. They're not, they're not like you said, they're not medical. They're not listening for a baby's heart rate. They're not looking for dilation. So, they're really not focused on the pregnancy for, say, like you said, they're advocating for the woman who's about to have a baby. But some of these doulas did see Kaitlyn in person, and believe she is pregnant. Can we talk about that? Because that's really important. She looked pregnant, correct?

SARAH TRELEAVEN: So, Kaitlyn was, I guess, larger bodied or some people would say fat. And, you know, I think some doulas reported kind of squinting and saying that doesn't look to me like an eight-month pregnant woman. But again, you know, many of them, they silenced that inner critic because they felt it wasn't their position to judge, but also: Who would lie about being pregnant as a result of a sexual assault?

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: You wouldn't even think about it.

SARAH TRELEAVEN: I mean, listen, that is part of the harm associated with this story is that now, these doulas think about it. But I think, sort of, this blind trust of the people you're attempting to help is necessary to doing what is functionally very intimate work. And so, could Kaitlyn pass as pregnant? Yes. And I've seen pictures of Kaitlyn taken by doulas where she is faking labour. And, you know, if I walked by her on the street, if I saw this scene and someone told me that she was in labour, I would believe it.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Well, I saw those pictures, too. And she looks pregnant. And especially when she's clothed, especially when she's clothed. But there is even one where she's in a bra and underwear, and she looks pregnant. So, I just think that's really important to put out there, because, you know, both of us have worked on a lot of these con artist stories. And so often, the worry is that the people listening in are going to be like: Were they stupid? What were they not seeing? How could they have fallen for this? But these people who do this and Kaitlyn was especially good at it, was sucking you in in the right way, picking the right victim, saying the right things, just putting that person in a position where never, and I also believe this: If you were never going to be the person to ever lie like that, it wouldn't occur to you. Why would it occur to you that she was lying?

SARAH TRELEAVEN: That's right.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: It's so important. We talk, you talk about the harm, but like these women that you spoke to, the harm was very significant. Can we talk a little bit about sort of the fallout from this?

SARAH TRELEAVEN: I mean, I think, I think there's a lot that people misunderstand about this story. And when I've described, you know, what I've been working on, what we've been working on for the last, like, lengthy stretch. People kind of think, okay, so she lied about being pregnant, get over it. But, you know, I think there's something uniquely injurious about weaponising compassion. You know, it's a complete inversion of, particularly in this case, our social construct of women as nurturers. And that's why, you know, almost, I believe all of Kaitlyn's victims identify as women, because when you want to leech off the goodness and selflessness of others, you don't typically target men. That's just the reality. And I think there's a term for attempting to help someone and then, basically being screwed over, and it's betrayal trauma. And I think, to think you're helping someone to sacrifice elements of your own well-being, to help someone to get up at 3:00 in the morning and talk someone through an emergency hysterectomy, only to learn that that reality doesn't even exist, that that person doesn't even really exist, is such a colossal mindfuck. And I think the additional injury of being targeted in that way, being used in that way for someone's gratification. Like, you're not even really a person is really hard to stomach. And you know, for me, one of the major questions that we take on in this podcast is what do you do with someone like Kaitlyn? You know, her case has intersected with the criminal justice system, you know, sort of surp--, surprisingly, because in, and there's no real case exactly like Kaitlyn's. But in similar cases, we often don't see women prosecuted because unless money changes hands, we don't adjudicate those matters in the criminal justice system. It's not really set up for that. I think these women end up feeling betrayed in the same way that you would feel betrayed on a personal level if someone you had loved and devoted yourself to lied to you.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Yeah. And just to mention quickly, a lot of these women did this work pro bono. But how did Kaitlyn finally get on the radar of the police and the criminal justice system?

SARAH TRELEAVEN: I mean, the short answer.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: I know, it's a long one again.

SARAH TRELEAVEN: You know, I mean, this was. This was something that was a long time coming. I mean, Kaitlyn had been on the radar of police for a long time. And, you know, she had been visited by police for wellness checks. She'd been cautioned by police. And then finally, really through the concerted efforts of doulas that she victimized, she was finally arrested. But that was not a straightforward path or an easy one. Initially, when many of these doulas went to the Brantford police, they were told that Kaitlyn hadn't done anything that was against the law. You know, she's lying to you, she's deceiving you. It's not great. But what do we charge her with? And it really wasn't until the doulas really banded together and made a concerted effort to disseminate information about Kaitlyn on social media because they were sort of like, well, the police aren't going to stop her. We need to warn other people.

SOUNDCLIP

AMY: Hey, it's been a long time since I've come on and shared anything. If you don't know me, my name is Amy. I am a doula in London, Ontario. Very recently, I supported somebody through what I was told was a stillbirth.

SARAH TRELEAVEN: It was only then when the story started blowing up online that it got any traction with the police. And eventually, Kaitlyn was charged with fraud, harassment, and sexual assault. And that's when that story, I think, really came across people's radar. But if it wasn't for the doulas, I'm not, I'm not sure Kaitlyn would be charged.

[Music playing]

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: You know, the work that you did over the last two years was also really looking at who Kaitlyn was, and where she came from, and how come she does this. So, tell me a little bit about who she is. Like, what did you learn about where this might have come from?

SARAH TRELEAVEN: I mean, I feel like I know a lot about Kaitlyn, and I still can't really answer that question to any degree of satisfaction. Why someone would do this? Why the need for this particular type of power and control and manipulation? Why the desperation for this kind of attention? I don't have a satisfactory answer for that. I think with Kaitlyn, what we do know is from a very early age and we've spoken to, we spoke to a really good friend of Kaitlyn's, a really good childhood friend who, who told us a little about the Kaitlyn she knew. You know, Kaitlyn was someone who likely struggled with mental health issues from a very early age. She was sad and sort of detached from, from a very early age. She had a profound sense of abandonment in the wake of her parents' divorce when she was quite young and even felt rejected by her father. Her mother told the court later that after, after her father left, Kaitlyn would often repeatedly call her while she was at work to make sure she was still coming home. Which is an anecdote that really stands out for me because, you know, it speaks to I mean, this is like a young kid that wants to make sure their mother isn't going to leave, too. And I think maybe that's like sort of the closest we've gotten in terms of a kernel of understanding where this kind of attention-seeking behavior might come from.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: You spoke to I mean, her diagnosis became complicated, but you spoke to a doctor named Dr. Mark Feldman, whose expertise is on something called factitious disorder, which really kind of does sort of feel like it rings true to me when I, when I listen to what factitious disorder is, and how it relates to her behaviour. So, so, what is factitious disorder and why do we think that might be what Kaitlyn is dealing with?

SARAH TRELEAVEN: So, factitious disorder, in its most simple form: Someone, and disproportionately women, who fake illness or crisis for gains beyond financial or material gains. I think we're well-acquainted with people who lie for money or sex or tangible goods. These are people who lie, who fabricate whole identities, whole scenarios, whole universes in order to derive emotional gratification. And that is, again, from the attention, from the compassion. And, you know, there's also something called duping delight, which is just the sheer satisfaction of manipulating others, of just creating this universe and then, watching your puppet dance.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: It's so awful, isn't it? So mean.

SARAH TRELEAVEN: It is. It is. It's really what it is, is it's an inability to, inability or unwillingness to demonstrate empathy for other people. You know, that just this objective that a perpetrator, that a person who engages in this behaviour has set is the only thing that matters. And people are just sort of, they're not sort of fully human in these scenarios. They're just sort of collateral damage to this emotional need.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: How did all of this play into her trial then? Because she does eventually face a judge. How do they deal with it? How does it become part of the conversation?

SARAH TRELEAVEN: So, it becomes a huge part of the conversation. And it's, it's, you know, this question of what we should do with Kaitlyn undergirds the podcast. You know, what does someone like Kaitlyn deserve? And this became, you know, as you and I sat in a courtroom in January of 2024, as Kaitlyn expressed her remorse and the Crown, and Kaitlyn's defense lawyer presented a joint submission.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: I'm just going to interrupt you because she pled guilty. Let's just, like, put that out there. She pleads guilty. So, there is no trial. There's just sentencing.

SARAH TRELEAVEN: So, she pleads guilty to, to the slate of charges agreed upon by the crown and defense. And this joint submission is in front of Justice Robert G. And he looks at it, and he's immediately confounded by what to do with this woman because on one hand, you know, she is a young, chubby cheeked, white, nonviolent, first-time offender. You know, she's, she's really, she, and she has this facade of innocence and is almost sort of a bit pathetic. You know, I mean, to me, to get your needs met in this way is really desperate. And so, I think that's how she's been seen. And that is certainly an aspect of Kaitlyn. On the other hand, you have a calculated, willful repeat offender who has many mental health diagnoses, who has been through various forms of treatment, but seems to be committed to this pattern of behaviour and has even identified in her psych evaluation as presented to the court as if at a very high risk to re-offend. So, immediately the judge is confounded because, you know, he doesn't really have grounds to keep her in prison. She's again, she's a nonviolent first-time offender. The crown and the defense attorney have agreed that she should be released into house arrest. On the other hand, there's this overriding question of how you stop someone who's committed to reoffending from doing it all over again. There was just kind of no real plan for stopping her from reoffending. And it was this very fraught moment in court where the judge kind of identifies all these things and says, you know, I'm on one hand, I understand that I'm supposed to accept this joint submission. On the other hand, I have a duty to protect the public. And I am not convinced that if you let this woman out of prison, she's not just going to end up in front of me again in a couple of months.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: So, what happens?

SARAH TRELEAVEN: So, she ends up in front of him again in a couple of months. I mean, the short version, you know, ultimately we convene again in February and you and I were at this hearing again and with all the doulas there, you know, a lot of whom have mixed feelings about what should happen to Kaitlyn and sort of what she deserves. But the judge ultimately declared that his hands were tied, and he called the joint submission, which called for two years of, of basically house arrest and three years' probation. He called it distasteful. He acknowledged it's not a good option. But he said, you know, there's not a lot I can do. You know, we have sentencing guidelines. He, too, works within a system. But at that point, the prognosis for Kaitlyn was not particularly good. You know, there was definitely this sense of leaving that sentencing hearing that this was not a satisfactory resolution. And within three months, she had been arrested for re-offending.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: You know, you and I have both sat through sentencing trials and all that stuff, and, and I really found that day with him quite extraordinary. It pulled back a curtain that I don't think many people get to see.

SARAH TRELEAVEN: Yeah, I think it's unusual that, you know, again, she's young, she's white, she's educated. It's a non-violent offense. It's her first time in front of a judge. You know, she's somebody who I assume customarily would just sort of be passed through the, the system and everyone would hope for the best. But this judge, Justice G, he really, really hung on to this systemic and moral quandary, which is, there's no doubt that this woman struggles with mental illness. On the other hand, we have a pattern of highly calculated manipulation. You know, the burden for responsibility in the criminal justice system is whether you know that your actions were wrong and harmful. And based on what I understand and based on Kaitlyn's own statements in court, she understands that her actions were wrong and harmful. But there was also just this clear understanding that there was no choice but to let her go. And it doesn't seem like, you know, sentencing Kaitlyn to ten years in jail is the right course of action. You know, I'm not you know, carceral solutions are not right for, for many offenders and they're often not rehabilitative or beneficial. But it just seemed like the options available were really limited. And if you have somebody who's not committed to reform, who's at high risk to re-offend, who is actively committed to doing harm despite what she says, and yet you cannot hold them and they likely won't benefit from, from additional jail time. What do you do with them? And we just don't really have any satisfying answers.

[Music]

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: How are the doulas who had to be the one to come forward, who dealt with all of this doing in the light of, of what's happened with Kaitlyn?

SARAH TRELEAVEN: I think, you know, it's mixed. You know, I still, I'm in touch with, of course, the doulas we spoke to for the podcast and have been for a couple of years. But I'm, I'm often like, I send them sort of a bit of a like trigger warning message if I need to talk to them about, about the story because they're, you know, I worry when they see my name pop up. It's this really unpleasant memory that they kind of are reminded of as they're trying to move on with their lives. And, you know, I think my sense is that many of them still struggle. A lot of them have engaged therapy. Some of them have made changes to their practice. Some of the adults have formed a collective so that they're working together and that makes them feel a little bit less vulnerable. I think for a lot of them, while they may have moved on sort of in their family life, it's been challenging to move on professionally to something that they were so and remain so wholeheartedly dedicated to because now, they've had this seed planted that they should be naturally wary of people who reach out to them for help, and that really compromises their ability to deliver the services that they deliver to establish trust with new clients. It's just, you know, I think a lot of them have struggled to do the work that they love, the work that they do very selflessly with a completely open heart. And I think that is a major part of the lingering damage here.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: It's such a fundamental part of who they are and what they do that has been shifted. Yeah. How about you? I mean, I'm not saying that you are emotionally distraught over this for sure, but I do find, I know that every story that I work on sort of informs the next, you know, and it all becomes this soup of understanding or complexity or whatever. How does Kaitlyn impact sort of the work that you're going to do moving forward? What do you think?

SARAH TRELEAVEN: You know, I think, I'm, I haven't like I said, I don't have, I never got a satisfactory answer for why Kaitlyn does what she does. I think one of the core questions that has been on my mind since I, you know, started working in this broader world of women who lived these very particular types of double lives is whether or not we should feel sorry for them. And I think, I don't, I still wrestle with that. Really? I really, I mean, like on one level, these are people who are mentally ill. They are making calculations that are not, that are, that are very rational to them but are not recognizable to the rest of us. On the other hand, so much of our ability to feel empathy for people who have done awful things is connected to their genuine remorse and a commitment to cease doing harm. And I am not sure that Kaitlyn and other people with patterns of behaviour similar to hers are, at least until they have received very intensive therapy or have, you know, committed themselves to a different path, whether they are genuinely remorseful, whether they are capable or willing of ceasing harm. And so, I think mental illness is absolutely a factor in these cases, and it certainly has been a factor in Kaitlyn's case. But that doesn't tell the whole story. And so, on one hand, you know, I feel bad for her. But it's less related to, I would say, her specific mental health struggles, which a lot of people share and more to her determination to destroy almost anyone who tries to care for her. You know, I think that piece is so fascinating to me, that sort of fundamentally destructive tear everything down. I don't know. I still continue to be fascinated by people who maneuver in that way. And if anything, this is just sort of continued my interest in these cases. I, I think it's, it's fascinating. And again, it's, it's, there's a calculus at play that's so unfamiliar to us that sort of breaks all social rules. And, and that's, that's really fascinating and hard to understand.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Well, Sarah, I mean, it, it was such a, I mean, joy is the wrong word. But I loved working on this with you, and I'm so excited that it's out in the world. And it really is such a spectacularly interesting story. You are such a great reporter, and I just really enjoyed it. So, thank you for your time here and thanks for all the work that you did.

SARAH TRELEAVEN: Thank you, Kathleen. I mean, this podcast could not have been made without you. I mean, this, you made a great team. And it was, it's odd to say a pleasure, but it was a pleasure to make it with you. And yeah, we'll have to make another one.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: We will. Okay. Thanks, Sarah. Talk to you soon.

SARAH TRELEAVEN: Thanks, Kathleen.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: You've been listening to Crime Story from CBC Podcasts. We release a new episode every Monday, so please remember to follow the show in your podcast app. You can get our next episode a week early on CBC Podcasts' YouTube channel or by subscribing to CBC Podcasts' True Crime channel on Apple Podcasts. In addition to early access, subscribers to our True Crime Channel also listen ad-free. Crime Story is hosted by me, Kathleen Goldhar. Our producers are Nikky Manfredi and Mitchell Stuart. Sound design by Julian Uzielli, and Mitchell Stuart. Our senior producer is Kate Evans. Our video producer is Evan Aagaard, and our YouTube producer is Jon Lee. Executive producers are Cesil Fernandes and Chris Oke. Tanya Springer is the senior manager of CBC Podcasts and Arif Noorani is the director of CBC Podcasts.

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Transcript: Crime Story, Episode 64

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