The Suffering Podcast

The Suffering of Pressure Featuring Detective Sergeant Ramon Caraballo For more than 25 years, Ramon Caraballo has lived in a world where pressure isn’t an occasional challenge—it’s part of the job. A veteran law enforcement professional with more than two decades in criminal investigations, Ramon currently serves as a Detective Sergeant supervising a Criminal Investigations Division. His career h...

The Suffering of Urban Farming Meet Elisabeth Concepcion & The Backyard Girls Urban Farm In the middle of Newark, New Jersey—where concrete, traffic, and city life dominate the landscape—Elisabeth Concepcion and her husband are building something unexpected. The Backyard Girls Urban Farm. What began with a few chickens and a simple desire for fresh eggs has grown into something much bigger: a...

The Suffering of the Emotional Toll Featuring Brian J. Bartiromo | The Suffering Podcast What happens when a man spends his entire life preparing to become a police officer—but never prepares himself for what the job, grief, and decades of buried emotion will do to him? Brian J. Bartiromo was born into law enforcement. Raised in Irvington, New Jersey, his father, stepfather, two uncles, and cousin...

The Suffering of Police Therapy | The Suffering Podcast What happens when the people trained to protect everyone else finally admit they need help themselves? Police officers spend their careers responding to humanity's darkest moments. They run toward danger while everyone else runs away. But when the shift ends, the trauma doesn't always stay behind. In this powerful episode of The Suffering Pod...

Donald R. Erickson Jr. has spent his life learning how to get back up. On this episode of The Suffering Podcast , Donald shares his journey from a difficult childhood marked by poverty, an abusive father, childhood sexual abuse, medical struggles, and being raised alongside four siblings by a single mother, to discovering purpose in the restaurant industry at just 13 years old. What began as a dis...

What happens when the people who spent a lifetime teaching integrity watch their son become the center of one of New Jersey's most controversial criminal prosecutions? In this deeply personal episode of The Suffering Podcast , Barbara and Drew Oldrati share the emotional journey of standing beside their son, Mantua Township Police Corporal Salvatore Oldrati, following his indictment in connection...

After graduating from St. Rose High School in the summer of 2007, Alfred completed Marine Corps Boot Camp at Paris Island. Throughout the next year, he attended Military Police School and was selected to become a K9 Handler, sending him to Military Working Dog School in Lackland AFB San Antonio Texas. Brenner spent the next few years at Camp Pendleton California training for a 2010 deployment with...

What happens when someone spends decades helping people navigate both financial challenges and life's deepest spiritual questions? In this episode of The Suffering Podcast , we sit down with Daniel Burrus —a husband, father of four, Enrolled Agent, ordained minister, author, and educator whose unique journey bridges the worlds of accounting, theology, and leadership. Daniel holds both a Master of...

Nick Goldsack spent nearly three decades running toward danger as a firefighter. Today, he's still solving problems—just with a different set of tools. A retired Fire Captain with the Hoboken Fire Department, Nick built a career defined by leadership, resilience, and service. From responding to everyday emergencies to helping his community through major events like Superstorm Sandy and the COVID-1...

Linda Scarpa grew up loving her father. The rest of the world knew him as one of the most feared men in organized crime. As the daughter of notorious Colombo crime family hit man and FBI informant Gregory Scarpa Sr., Linda lived a life few could imagine. Behind closed doors, she knew him as a devoted father and family man. Outside the home, he was a violent enforcer whose actions left a trail of f...

For more than 20 years, Tony Bova served in law enforcement and emergency medical services, spending much of his career as a State Police Homicide Detective. When lives were shattered and families needed answers, Tony was the person people trusted to remain calm under unimaginable pressure. What few people saw, however, was the personal cost of carrying that responsibility. While he excelled in on...

Part 2 THE CONCLUSION Kelly Sutliff is a Licensed Professional Counselor, advocate, speaker, and the Founder and Executive Director of Kelly’s K9s, Tails of Courage, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing highly trained personal protection dogs to survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault at no cost. With over 20 years of experience in the mental health field, Kelly has dedicated...

Part 1 Kelly Sutliff is a Licensed Professional Counselor, advocate, speaker, and the Founder and Executive Director of Kelly’s K9s, Tails of Courage, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing highly trained personal protection dogs to survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault at no cost. With over 20 years of experience in the mental health field, Kelly has dedicated her career to h...

What happens when the career that defined your identity suddenly disappears? This week on The Suffering Podcast , we sit down with Erik Malmstrom , whose life journey is one of loyalty, loss, resilience, and rediscovering purpose after unimaginable change. Raised in the tight-knit neighborhood of Crum Lynne in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, Erik grew up surrounded by generations of family, lifelon...

But this episode isn't about crime. It's about redemption. After serving his sentence and walking out of prison, Richie faced the challenge that countless formerly incarcerated individuals know all too well: rebuilding a life from the ground up. Rather than allowing his past to define his future, he chose a different path—one built on perseverance, accountability, resilience, and personal transfor...

In this episode of The Suffering Podcast , host Kevin Donaldson sits down with licensed psychologist Dr. Dorothy Novitskie to analyze one of the internet's most controversial conversations: Jubilee's "Surrounded: 1 Cop Vs. 20 Criminals." Unlike a typical reaction video, this episode dives beneath the surface of the debate to explore the psychology, trauma, emotions, and lived experiences...

Dave Velasquez grew up in chaos long before he ever wore a badge. Raised in Minnesota in a home consumed by addiction, instability, and repeated trauma, his childhood was defined by survival. With an absent father and a mother battling severe substance abuse and suicide attempts, Dave spent his early years moving from place to place, never knowing what “normal” looked like. At just 15 years old, h...

Samuel Taveras’s story begins before he ever had a chance to speak. Born prematurely at just six months in a developing country, he spent the first three months of his life fighting to survive through constant medical emergencies and uncertainty. Complications from his birth left him blind in one eye, but the physical challenges were only the beginning. By the age of five, Samuel had already witne...

Born in Grand Junction, Colorado, our guest’s story begins in the rugged working-class towns of the American West and South—places where grit wasn’t optional, it was survival. Raised in a coal mining family, with both parents working under his grandfather and a father who spent years as a roughneck, he grew up surrounded by hard labor, discipline, and resilience. Life wasn’t always easy. His fathe...

Melony Feliciano is a media executive, producer, distributor, and entrepreneur from New York City. She is the Founder and CEO of B.A.R. TV Show, LLC, a multimedia company specializing in television, film, podcast production, distribution, and media consulting. Since launching B.A.R. TV in 2018, Melony has built a reputation for helping creators, filmmakers, and podcasters monetize and expand their...

Chris Stoddard’s story doesn’t begin with strength—it begins with survival. Raised in a financially strained household, Chris grew up watching his mother fight tirelessly to keep them afloat, while enduring the chaos of an abusive, alcoholic stepfather. On the other side, love from his biological father was complicated by manipulation and psychological pressure, leaving Chris feeling like the caus...

Steve Morris is the host of the Peace • Power • & Purpose Podcast. He served his country as a commissioned officer in the United States Navy and later served his community as a police officer working patrol, bringing a leadership style grounded in discipline, accountability, and real-world experience. A father of two, Steve has direct, unfiltered conversations with veterans, first responders,...

On this episode of The Suffering Podcast , we sit down with Robert Ledogar, a former U.S. Marshal, to explore the weight behind one of America’s most historic badges. From the battlefields of Desert Storm to the relentless pursuit of justice on the streets, Robert shares what it truly means to carry responsibility in a profession built on courage, sacrifice, and integrity. This conversation goes b...

Frankie Anne is a multi-talented performer and stand-up comic, opening for comedy greats such as Mike Marino, Craig Shoemaker, Dana Eagle and more. With a diverse career that spans producing and directing shows featuring icons like Tom Bergeron (DWTS), Dee Wallace (ET), and Sam Tripoli, Frankie has also produced Showtime's Live Nude Comedy, which included Whitney Cummings, Chris D’Elia, and Tig No...

What does it take to tell the truth about something most people spend a lifetime trying to forget? In this powerful and deeply personal episode of The Suffering Podcast , Kevin Donaldson sits down with co-authors Sherrie Allsup and Dr. Dorothy Novitskie to discuss their new book, A Life Unfolding: Carrying the Secrets of Childhood Sexual Abuse . This conversation pulls back the curtain on what it...