Speaker 1: I'm Andrea Gunning with another Betrayal bonus episode. As the
Speaker 1: Betrayal team works hard to bring you season three and
Speaker 1: at the same time turn Ashley's story into a docu series,
Speaker 1: we wanted to introduce you and Ashley to Stacy, the
Speaker 1: person who will share her story in season three. We
Speaker 1: also wanted to check in with Aaron Adams, who was
Speaker 1: having a hard day after getting some bad news. First,
Speaker 1: we wanted to learn more about one of the organizations
Speaker 1: working to keep kids and family safe, so we asked
Speaker 1: Jenny Coleman, the director of Stop It Now, if she
Speaker 1: would sit and speak with us. Jenny, thanks so much
Speaker 1: for joining us today.
Speaker 2: Oh, thank you for having me. I'm really happy to
Speaker 2: be here.
Speaker 1: I'm with Ashley Lytton, she's the subject of season two
Speaker 1: of Betrayal. Before we get into ashle story, I want
Speaker 1: to hear a little bit about what you do. Can
Speaker 1: you tell us about Stop It Now?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 2: Absolutely, Stop It Now is a national child sex abuse
Speaker 2: prevention program. We actually focus on perpetration prevention, which means
Speaker 2: we really want to help folks who are in a
Speaker 2: position that they're seeing warning signs or a vulnerable environment
Speaker 2: and help them know what steps they can take to
Speaker 2: interrupt any sort of harmful or abusive trajectory. It could
Speaker 2: be signs in a spouse, a partner, a family member.
Speaker 2: You're concerned that they're struggling with safe boundaries. But we
Speaker 2: also serve everyone parents who have found out their child
Speaker 2: has been harmed or abused, or that someone they know
Speaker 2: has abused someone. Anybody who's in position that says, you know,
Speaker 2: I want to keep kids safe and I feel like
Speaker 2: I could do more, or I'm seeing something that's concerning
Speaker 2: me and to do that, we offer a free confidential helpline.
Speaker 2: We also have a website full of free downloadable resoalce
Speaker 2: verses on everything from what are warning signs? To how
Speaker 2: do I check into my child's school? So visit us
Speaker 2: at stopittnow dot org.
Speaker 1: Ashley, do you want to share with Jenny a little
Speaker 1: bit about your story and some of the hurdles that
Speaker 1: you're dealing with now?
Speaker 4: Yeah, Hi Jenny, Hi Ashley, I'm glad to meet you. So,
Speaker 4: my husband was convicted of a child sexual exploitation and voyeurism.
Speaker 4: He served ten months in county jail. He will be
Speaker 4: on our sex offender registry for ten years and now
Speaker 4: we have been going through a pretty terrible divorce for
Speaker 4: two years now, and because he is doing well in
Speaker 4: his court mandated therapy for sex offenders, he has had
Speaker 4: supervised visits with our ten year old, and as soon
Speaker 4: as the end of this month he will have unsupervised
Speaker 4: visits with her.
Speaker 2: I'm so sorry that you and your family have had
Speaker 2: to go through this. I can't imagine just what a
Speaker 2: difficult time. And you've been such a protective mom, and
Speaker 2: you are the epitome of what to do when you
Speaker 2: make such a horrific discovery.
Speaker 1: In your line of work, do you see a lot
Speaker 1: of parents navigating this process of visitation and what are
Speaker 1: some recommendations that you can offer to Ashley.
Speaker 2: I was thinking earlier about how important it is to
Speaker 2: know that we can't control everything that happens in the world,
Speaker 2: but how we respond is what really.
Speaker 5: Makes or breaks us.
Speaker 2: And so we look at what do we have control over,
Speaker 2: and that's how we talk with our kids about safety.
Speaker 2: What are good boundaries? What are our rules so that
Speaker 2: if anybody, even someone you love and care about, parent,
Speaker 2: a grandparent, a professional, someone in a faith based institution,
Speaker 2: does cross your boundaries. We give our children tools to
Speaker 2: keep them safe.
Speaker 4: Statistic the recidivism rates for sex crimes are pretty low.
Speaker 4: But you're kind of on the ground running. What do
Speaker 4: you see? What are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 2: So recidivism is really tricky because it is low, but
Speaker 2: that's what we know. Interestingly enough, what we do here
Speaker 2: is from people who do want to change and who
Speaker 2: want help. But that's why they come to our site.
Speaker 2: They recognize that they're struggling with safe boundaries or struggling
Speaker 2: with their thoughts, feelings and behaviors. These are people who
Speaker 2: want help to not cross a line, or if they
Speaker 2: have crossed the line, they want help not to. But
Speaker 2: I think the point with that is that they've taken
Speaker 2: responsibility and are accountable. So there's kind of a model
Speaker 2: of success.
Speaker 1: In terms of model for success. If you hear I
Speaker 1: found God and now I'm healed, or I was sick
Speaker 1: but now I'm healed, how do you feel about those
Speaker 1: statements in terms of recovery.
Speaker 2: This is not to in any way diminish the power
Speaker 2: of anybody's faith. It is fine to say I have
Speaker 2: found faith through this process, But here's how that's impacted me.
Speaker 2: Here's what I've learned about myself. Here's what it is
Speaker 2: that I plan to do differently, Here's how I plan
Speaker 2: to get support. There's got to be a lot more
Speaker 2: than just oh, I didn't have God in my life
Speaker 2: before and now I do, and so I'm a safe person.
Speaker 2: That is not going to cut it.
Speaker 1: And if someone is communicating just that, does that give
Speaker 1: you cause for concern about their rehabilitation process or where
Speaker 1: they are in their recovery process.
Speaker 2: It absolutely does. That statement in and of itself, to me,
Speaker 2: is really leaving out such a huge important part. It
Speaker 2: doesn't help heal the harm. It just doesn't demonstrate an
Speaker 2: understanding of the harm that they've caused. God didn't cause
Speaker 2: this harm. I, as a human being, harm the people
Speaker 2: I love in my family by crossing their boundaries and
Speaker 2: violating their privacy and engaging in a legal harmful behavior
Speaker 2: by doing X, Y and C. It doesn't include that.
Speaker 2: So it's not enough.
Speaker 1: So much of this process, I feel like you were voiceless, Ashley,
Speaker 1: And part of the podcast was you reclaiming your voice,
Speaker 1: reclaiming your power. Jenny, do you have any recommendations for
Speaker 1: Ashley on how she can stand in her power and
Speaker 1: all of this?
Speaker 2: That's a great question, just because I already see you
Speaker 2: doing that. I mean, you're such a protective mom and
Speaker 2: you are speaking out, and I do want to say
Speaker 2: I'm not one of those folks that feel like everybody
Speaker 2: has to disclose abuse in their life, but I do
Speaker 2: think being able to use your voice to educate others,
Speaker 2: share your experience, encourage others is incredibly powerful. And realizing
Speaker 2: I couldn't control everything and I'm doing all the right
Speaker 2: things now forgiving yourself, having your own good personal therapy
Speaker 2: or counseling to support you and just self care really
Speaker 2: important to reclaiming your power as well.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 1: Jenny, thank you so much for joining us today and
Speaker 1: I appreciate all of your insight.
Speaker 4: Yeah, thank you so much. I will definitely look for
Speaker 4: some different resources on Stop It Now. I didn't know
Speaker 4: that was also a resource for people like me, so
Speaker 4: thank you for that.
Speaker 2: Absolutely write me directly and I'd be happy to point
Speaker 2: you to some resources I'm thinking about that may be
Speaker 2: helpful as well.
Speaker 4: Oh all right, cool. Thank you so much, Jenny, and
Speaker 4: thank you for all the work that you do.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Thank you again.
Speaker 1: Go to stop it Now dot org if you or
Speaker 1: someone you know is worried about their thoughts and feelings
Speaker 1: towards children. Next, we'll get an update from someone you
Speaker 1: met before in season two, Aaron Adams, and if you
Speaker 1: haven't heard her story before, check out season two episode
Speaker 1: six member Aaron Adams. She was a marriage and family
Speaker 1: therapist whose husband Joel, pled guilty to twenty five felony
Speaker 1: charges of child sexual abuse material and was sentenced to
Speaker 1: eight years in prison, but was released just after three years.
Speaker 1: After finding out that Aaron's husband had reoffended, Ashley and
Speaker 1: I wanted to catch up with her to see how
Speaker 1: her custody fight was progressing.
Speaker 4: And you have the hiccups I do.
Speaker 3: I'm trying to calm myself.
Speaker 4: I think it's cute. How are you.
Speaker 3: I'm mad as hell today, big bad, Yeah, big bad,
Speaker 3: big sad.
Speaker 1: No, it's gone on.
Speaker 3: I just thought this was over, you know, and it's not. Yeah. Basically,
Speaker 3: they just said, yeah, you still have to take your
Speaker 3: kids to supervise visits. I'm like, he's awaiting sentencing next week,
Speaker 3: but they said, listen, family Court, we know nothing about that.
Speaker 3: You still have to take your kids. I'm just I
Speaker 3: rate about the best that this has caused.
Speaker 1: Jewelry offended. Yeah, how did you find out about that?
Speaker 1: And how did that all play out?
Speaker 3: I don't know the circumstances of how or why he reoffended.
Speaker 3: All I know is that it was a felony charge.
Speaker 3: It's public on the court County website. And my lawyer
Speaker 3: had called me to prepare me for court and she said,
Speaker 3: guess what, he did it again, So this should be easier. Now.
Speaker 3: I've never once felt anything got easier throughout this entire process.
Speaker 3: I've never felt that freedom like how to get caught?
Speaker 3: He had things on his phone that violated his parole
Speaker 3: and got him sent back for more charges.
Speaker 4: Wow, I think you and I both are fighting that
Speaker 4: same bite right now. I was like, fuck, no, he's
Speaker 4: not seeing her, I'm not doing supervised visits. And I
Speaker 4: got in trouble for it. They told me I had
Speaker 4: to let her go to supervise visits, even though I
Speaker 4: said she doesn't want to go. How are we supposed
Speaker 4: to protect these kids?
Speaker 3: That's exactly how I feel. I mean, it'll always be
Speaker 3: our job, but I don't think they should have to
Speaker 3: be on us. Because I told the judge the very
Speaker 3: same thing. I said, my kids are still the same
Speaker 3: age as the kids that he's viewing.
Speaker 6: And he just did it again. So this isn't an
Speaker 6: oopsy whoopsie. This isn't he accidentally stumbled across this page.
Speaker 6: He purposely made a habit out of this. This is
Speaker 6: something that he does.
Speaker 3: She didn't listen to me at all, and I said,
Speaker 3: we've moved on. I'm not even mad at him. I
Speaker 3: feel sorry for him. Right, I'll abide by the court order,
Speaker 3: but if he ends up going to prison, I might
Speaker 3: have bought us some more time. And I absolutely don't
Speaker 3: coach my kids. I'm only trying to inform my kids.
Speaker 2: I know.
Speaker 3: This is a super fine line. I said, if you
Speaker 3: ever change your mind and you want to meet him,
Speaker 3: you have questions for him, I will one hundred percent
Speaker 3: uphold that. I will make sure you go and you
Speaker 3: get your questions answered and you are in a safe place.
Speaker 3: I don't know that every parent would do that, but
Speaker 3: I know I will do that.
Speaker 1: You're wonderful, mom, you really are, and we are thinking
Speaker 1: and rooting for you on the sidelines. And keep us
Speaker 1: updated for what happens in the next few weeks.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, I'm always a text away up.
Speaker 1: We'll meet with the woman at the center of Betrayal
Speaker 1: season three. We wanted to introduce you and Ashley to
Speaker 1: the person we will all get to know in season
Speaker 1: three of Betrayal Stacy Rutherford. Hi, Stacy, Hey, I have
Speaker 1: Ashley here with me and I want to introduce you guys.
Speaker 4: Finally, Hey, Ashley. Hi, Stacy. Good to hear from you.
Speaker 5: It's so good to hear you, so.
Speaker 1: Stacey wrote in After Hearing season two, Stacy, do you
Speaker 1: want to just share you know what hearing Ashley's story
Speaker 1: was like for you?
Speaker 5: Yeah? Well, my boss at work had told me that
Speaker 5: she had listened to the podcast and it was so
Speaker 5: similar to my story that she shared it with me
Speaker 5: and I went home and binged it that week. It
Speaker 5: was just like, for the first time, I felt understood,
Speaker 5: like I wasn't alone. I know Ashley probably realizes, like
Speaker 5: in this situation, there's very few people you can talk
Speaker 5: to who know what you're going through, and I just
Speaker 5: I wanted to reach out. Actually, I wanted to find
Speaker 5: her because I just wanted to talk to her, like
Speaker 5: I just wanted somebody that understood me and understood my situation.
Speaker 4: Wow, as you're telling me that, it's kind of getting
Speaker 4: teary eyed, because I think when I first started out
Speaker 4: on this journey, it was for the exact same reason.
Speaker 4: I mean, I could be in the room with you know,
Speaker 4: all the people that loved me and care about me,
Speaker 4: and still feel really alone because nobody really knows.
Speaker 1: What was it about Ashley's story that felt similar or
Speaker 1: felt like you understood.
Speaker 5: I think it was after everything happened, you know, having
Speaker 5: that anger towards my husband at the time for the
Speaker 5: betrayal and for doing what he did. But also when
Speaker 5: you go from loving someone one day to the next
Speaker 5: day finding out all of these things, everybody thinks you're
Speaker 5: just automatically supposed to just shut these feelings off. Your
Speaker 5: love just doesn't magically go away, or does the memories
Speaker 5: that you had with that person, And I felt shameful.
Speaker 5: And I think when I heard in Ashley's story that
Speaker 5: she still had those similar feelings too, it was like, Okay,
Speaker 5: I'm not abnormal for feeling this way and missing those
Speaker 5: parts of my life.
Speaker 4: That's been like a really hard thing for me to reconcile.
Speaker 4: We did build a life with these men. They were
Speaker 4: good fathers, they were good husbands, and we did have
Speaker 4: really great times but then to have them also be
Speaker 4: the perpetrator of these terrible things. For me to bring
Speaker 4: those two together was insanely hard, but I had a
Speaker 4: therapist tell me that it's possible to have had this
Speaker 4: past life with Jason that was happy and good, and
Speaker 4: Jason to be this good person and he is also
Speaker 4: a monster. In the beginning stages of the podcast, I
Speaker 4: was embarrassed, but I had made a vow to myself
Speaker 4: that I was going to be one hundred percent truthful
Speaker 4: with the whole story because I knew that I couldn't
Speaker 4: be the only one that felt these same things. And so, yeah,
Speaker 4: I'm glad that that was something that you were able
Speaker 4: to connect with, because I knew people were going to
Speaker 4: either love it or hate it.
Speaker 5: Well that's my fear also, just like, oh gosh, what
Speaker 5: are people going to think? And I think you can
Speaker 5: very much compartmentalize those kinds of things in that moment.
Speaker 5: You know of this is the person I know in
Speaker 5: this box, this is the person he truly is. And
Speaker 5: it's hard for someone who was on the outside to
Speaker 5: see that and understand that that it just doesn't stop overnight,
Speaker 5: and so you keep it quiet and you don't tell anyone,
Speaker 5: And so therefore I just like say, I suffered in silence, right.
Speaker 1: I just think people expect grief to be a linear process,
Speaker 1: but it's not. And what I've gravitated towards both of
Speaker 1: your stories is that it's very real, and the struggles
Speaker 1: and the things that you have to ask and question
Speaker 1: is what I believe people relate to. And it's a
Speaker 1: very real human experience and we're not hiding from any
Speaker 1: of that. And so I applaud both of your ability
Speaker 1: to be vulnerable and transparent. Stacey, do you have any
Speaker 1: advice that you want to ask Ashley going through this experience.
Speaker 5: Yeah. When everything happened, ours was very highly publicized, and
Speaker 5: I shut everything down on social media for a while
Speaker 5: because I was afraid people would try to reach out. So,
Speaker 5: you know, just that kind of thing, like, have you
Speaker 5: had any issues with that, with people trying to reach
Speaker 5: out to you to say horrible things, not like what
Speaker 5: I wanted to reach out.
Speaker 2: To you for.
Speaker 4: Yeah, actually I did, surprisingly though. I was in a
Speaker 4: social media support group for women going through divorce and
Speaker 4: I had asked a question, nothing related to our story
Speaker 4: or anything, and somebody posted links to the news article
Speaker 4: and just said things like her husband's a pedophile. So
Speaker 4: I did. I shut my social media down, started a
Speaker 4: new one with just my family and close friends for me,
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 5: I had some of his family who didn't support him,
Speaker 5: but yet wasn't ready to tell certain family members. So
Speaker 5: it was kind of one of those things of like,
Speaker 5: can you guys just not blast this all over social media?
Speaker 5: Which I hadn't intended to anyways, you know, it was
Speaker 5: on the news, but luckily we had moved back home
Speaker 5: so we were far from that. But you know, I
Speaker 5: kind of feel the same way, like we had to
Speaker 5: be quiet for so long.
Speaker 1: Stacy, do you mind sharing with Ashley a little bit
Speaker 1: about what happened to your family?
Speaker 5: Sure? In summer of twenty twenty one. July of twenty
Speaker 5: twenty one, we had Social Services show up at our house.
Speaker 5: They basically just said that there had been a complaint filed.
Speaker 5: So for the next three weeks, Social Services investigated us.
Speaker 5: And at the end of the three weeks, I go
Speaker 5: to work, our nanny calls and she's like, you need
Speaker 5: to come home. So I pull in the driveway and
Speaker 5: there's all these vans and SGVs and they're raiding my home.
Speaker 5: I walk inside, I see my husband sitting at the
Speaker 5: table with police officers around him, and they take me
Speaker 5: downstairs and they proceed to tell me that for those
Speaker 5: three weeks they had been investigating us, and they laid
Speaker 5: out all these photos. So from there I ended up
Speaker 5: making him leave the house.
Speaker 4: So they didn't arrest him that day. No, oh wow.
Speaker 5: This was July and he was not arrested till October.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 5: They told me that they wanted to build a big
Speaker 5: enough case, because that was my question too, is like,
Speaker 5: what are you guys waiting on? You know, what more
Speaker 5: do you need? Right from there, my understanding is he
Speaker 5: left the country pretty quick after that. He spent a
Speaker 5: month over in Europe. He ended up being apprehended when
Speaker 5: he came back that October of twenty one.
Speaker 4: Wow. Our timelines are pretty similar, really, yeah, Because Jason
Speaker 4: was arrested on the twenty ninth of September twenty twenty one.
Speaker 5: Oh wow, so he was like a month before. Justin
Speaker 5: was wow.
Speaker 4: I have so many questions, but I'm gonna I'll wait.
Speaker 1: You know, it's so interesting because when Jen approached me
Speaker 1: to tell her story, our goal was if we could
Speaker 1: make one person feel less alone than we did our job,
Speaker 1: and then through that season you found the podcast Ash
Speaker 1: and we told your story, and then through Ashley's story, Stacy,
Speaker 1: you reached out to us. So I just think it's
Speaker 1: so amazing that, you know, our little community has gone
Speaker 1: from Jen to u Ash and now we have you, Stacy.
Speaker 1: And I'm so grateful that you guys trust us to
Speaker 1: tell your story.
Speaker 4: It's truly remarkable.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I call you guys part of my tribe. Stacy, you're
Speaker 4: part of it too.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I can't say it enough, Like we have to build
Speaker 4: up so many people and bring light to this like
Speaker 4: really ugly dark thing. Yeah, that is so prevalent.
Speaker 1: Well, Stacy, thank you so much for giving us your time.
Speaker 1: I'm this afternoon and I'll connect you guys so you
Speaker 1: can continue to talk throughout this process.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that'd be great. Yeah, as you go, you have
Speaker 4: questions or anything, you just go ahead and give me
Speaker 4: a call and shait me a text.
Speaker 5: It was so awesome to me too. And you know,
Speaker 5: like we said, if it reaches you know a few
Speaker 5: moms or people questioning things, it's worth it.
Speaker 4: Absolutely you too, So hold on tight because here you go.
Speaker 5: Yeah exactly.
Speaker 4: Whoo Okay, bye bye bye.
Speaker 1: Thank you to our growing Betrayal community. If you missed
Speaker 1: all of our big updates from the last bonus episode,
Speaker 1: you missed some pretty exciting news. Season three of Betrayal
Speaker 1: will follow Stacy Rutherford's story. When she laid eyes on
Speaker 1: doctor Justin Rutherford, she was sure that she was looking
Speaker 1: at her soulmate. They fell in love and life was perfect.
Speaker 1: But this family doctor, beloved father, and treasured husband had
Speaker 1: dark secrets. The man who had sworn an oath to
Speaker 1: do no harm would go to great lengths, using any
Speaker 1: means necessary to save himself. Listen to Betrayal Season three
Speaker 1: on May twenty third on the iHeartRadio app or wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts. Also, because of the overwhelming response,
Speaker 1: we are launching Betrayal's weekly series. It's about the people
Speaker 1: we trust the most and the deceptions that change everything.
Speaker 1: This new series debuts end of July, and look for
Speaker 1: Ashley on the small screen as her story has been
Speaker 1: turned into an ABC News Studios in Hulu docuseriies streaming
Speaker 1: this summer on Hulu. If you want to contact the
Speaker 1: Betrayal team, email us at Betrayal pod at gmail dot
Speaker 1: com to report a case of child sexual exploitation, call
Speaker 1: the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's cyber Tipline
Speaker 1: at one eight hundred The Lost. If you or someone
Speaker 1: you know is worried about their sexual thoughts and feelings
Speaker 1: towards children, reach out to stop it now.
Speaker 5: Dot Org.
Speaker 1: Is a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass
Speaker 1: Entertainment Group, in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show was
Speaker 1: executive produced by Nancy Glass and Jennifer Fason, hosted and
Speaker 1: produced by me Andrea Gunning, written and produced by Kerrie Hartman,
Speaker 1: and also produced by Ben Fetterman and associate producer Christen
Speaker 1: melcurri Our iHeart team is Ali Perry and Jessica Crincheck.
Speaker 1: Audio editing and mixing by Nico Aaruca and Matt Dolvecio.
Speaker 1: Betrayals theme composed by Oliver Bains. Music library provided by
Speaker 1: my Music. For more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts.