Speaker 1: This podcast discusses sexual assault. Please take care while listening.
Speaker 1: On December thirtieth, twenty twelve, Spencer Heron and Jennifer Fason
Speaker 1: were married.
Speaker 2: Let us pray, God of all love and mercy, make
Speaker 2: this a sacred place wholly by your presence and by
Speaker 2: the love that we celebrate today. Help us to find
Speaker 2: in this couple's love and laughter the love and laughter
Speaker 2: you share for us.
Speaker 3: Amen, Jennifer.
Speaker 4: Ever since I saw you walk into that hotel lobby
Speaker 4: last year, I've known what I'm supposed to do with
Speaker 4: the rest of my life. I feel beyond honor to
Speaker 4: know you, to love you, and to accept the most
Speaker 4: privilege of all things being your husband.
Speaker 1: Nearly six years later, on August sixteenth, twenty eighteen, Heron
Speaker 1: was indicted on five counts of sexual assault by a
Speaker 1: teacher on school property in Cobb County, Georgia.
Speaker 4: You will never have to question my love devotion to you,
Speaker 4: because there's nothing else that I want to spend my
Speaker 4: time doing except showing you those things. I am so
Speaker 4: in love with you.
Speaker 1: Nearly nine months later, on April eighth, twenty nineteen, Spencer
Speaker 1: was indicted for sexually assaulting the same student in a
Speaker 1: hotel in Turkey County, Georgia. Spencer told the victim to
Speaker 1: stay down in an effort to hide her while driving
Speaker 1: her from Kel High School to a hotel.
Speaker 2: Having witnessed the covenant that you have made today and
Speaker 2: celebrated the love that you share, it is my privilege
Speaker 2: to pronounce you husband and wife.
Speaker 3: You may kiss.
Speaker 1: I'm Andrea Gunning and this is a trayal Episode two.
Speaker 1: The aftermath.
Speaker 5: The judge set a fifty five thousand dollars cash bond,
Speaker 5: so we couldn't get him out if we tried, couldn't
Speaker 5: put the house up or anything like that. Fifty five
Speaker 5: thousand dollars is a lot of money, so he stayed
Speaker 5: in jail. It was almost like a wake, almost like
Speaker 5: someone had died, because people just kept coming over.
Speaker 1: In the days after the news broke, Jennifer and Spencer's
Speaker 1: friend group were in disbelief and rallied around her. Her
Speaker 1: friend Danielle was one of the first people Jennifer reached
Speaker 1: out to, and upon hearing the news, Danielle drove straight
Speaker 1: to Jennifer's house.
Speaker 6: Oh what the fuck. I couldn't wrap my head around
Speaker 6: there being any truth to it. All I could do
Speaker 6: was just be there for her and let her know
Speaker 6: that she had a huge community who was not going
Speaker 6: to let her down.
Speaker 1: Jen's neighbor Jail knew Spence, and she just couldn't process it.
Speaker 3: Like no, no, no, no, nope.
Speaker 5: It was like her calling me and speaking to me
Speaker 5: in Mandarin because I was just like, I don't know
Speaker 5: what you're saying to me right now.
Speaker 1: Spencer's moogshot was all over the news, not just an Atworth,
Speaker 1: but nationally and internationally. There was no hiding it. Jennifer
Speaker 1: had to deal with the shame of what her husband
Speaker 1: had done. The victim told investigators that during the summer
Speaker 1: of twenty sixteen, Spencer met with her at school several
Speaker 1: times for a non existent school club meeting. She said
Speaker 1: that he would text her and tell her when he
Speaker 1: would be at the school and where to find him.
Speaker 1: That would give her a reason to be at Kel
Speaker 1: High School. Spencer began groping the victim on several different occasions,
Speaker 1: and his behavior continued into the fall semester. Law enforcement
Speaker 1: also learned that in twenty seventeen, Spencer started having sexual
Speaker 1: relations with the student inside the school on multiple occasions.
Speaker 1: She was a sophomore. She provided some devastating des details
Speaker 1: that were contained in the criminal warrant as a warning.
Speaker 1: Some of them are difficult to hear. For example, when
Speaker 1: she began crying because it hurt, Spencer told her to
Speaker 1: be quiet. Also, he insisted that he not used protection
Speaker 1: because he was quote unquote fixed.
Speaker 6: You know, it was sickening to know that the accusation
Speaker 6: was coming from someone the same age as his youngest.
Speaker 6: That was really difficult for us. How do you wrap
Speaker 6: your head around that?
Speaker 1: And there were plenty of people who couldn't channel.
Speaker 7: Woos Lauren pos and talked to one of his former
Speaker 7: students tonight. She's live outside the Cobb County jail, was
Speaker 7: what she learned.
Speaker 8: People we spoke with are skeptical of the charges because
Speaker 8: you don't always know what's the truth is. The two
Speaker 8: former students who did not want to go on camera
Speaker 8: told me Haron was a great coach and teacher. The
Speaker 8: other student added Haron was a professional and kind hearted.
Speaker 8: She told me she does not believe the allegations are true.
Speaker 1: But Jennifer knew they were true. Spencer had admitted it.
Speaker 1: Now she was confronted with something else. Two days after
Speaker 1: Spencer's arrest, Jennifer uncovered a dark secret life. Her husband
Speaker 1: had been living a trove of her husband's lovers, sex partners,
Speaker 1: and prostitutes that dated back to the beginning of their
Speaker 1: marriage and beyond. He kept everything, photos, videos, emails, and
Speaker 1: text exchanges between him and at least fifty other women
Speaker 1: littered his computer.
Speaker 6: She had gotten into his email to reset the password
Speaker 6: for his Facebook, and that's when she was able to
Speaker 6: shut down his social media. She was just looking to
Speaker 6: protect him, protect him, protect the family. But once she
Speaker 6: logged into his email, it was over and there's just
Speaker 6: no going back. I don't think that anybody expected for
Speaker 6: her to find what she found. I call it his
Speaker 6: trophy case. It was an entire catalog of emails and
Speaker 6: correspondents with women years and years and years. I mean,
Speaker 6: he saved everything. He saved the rejection emails, he saved
Speaker 6: every photo, He backed up the photos that he got
Speaker 6: from his Facebook. He was not who we thought he was.
Speaker 9: She told us that she was going to file for divorce.
Speaker 5: Spence was literally living a double life. On one hand,
Speaker 5: he's living as the perfect, doting, loving husband, great father,
Speaker 5: teacher of the year. Air Force banned he was even
Speaker 5: an Eagle scout.
Speaker 1: Jennifer's sister Chrissy, was the voice of reason and probably
Speaker 1: understood Jennifer better than anyone.
Speaker 9: She had discovered all of the other women and the emails,
Speaker 9: and I think she was obsessed about that because it
Speaker 9: was easier than actually being sad about it. She only
Speaker 9: showed me one thing because I just don't want to
Speaker 9: see I didn't need to see it, but I think
Speaker 9: she had to because it was Spencer. You still don't
Speaker 9: believe it.
Speaker 1: Jennifer and Spence got married on December thirtieth, twenty twelve.
Speaker 1: She found photos of fourteen different women, many of them nude,
Speaker 1: within the first year of their marriage.
Speaker 6: There were two that I knew. One is someone who
Speaker 6: became friends of ours through the wine bar. Her and
Speaker 6: her husband would come in pretty regularly.
Speaker 1: The wine bar. It was a big part of Jennifer
Speaker 1: and Spence's life. It had been a dream of Jennifer's
Speaker 1: to own one.
Speaker 5: Spencer and I talked about opening a coffee shop when
Speaker 5: we first moved here, because Atworth has this small town
Speaker 5: feel and it's got this great main street. It somehow
Speaker 5: evolved into a wine bar, which we opened and had
Speaker 5: for two years. This was a place where the neighborhood
Speaker 5: really came together. All we had to do was open
Speaker 5: up the doors and the neighborhood just came in and
Speaker 5: they introduced themselves and they hung out and we all
Speaker 5: just became friends and this really great community. Having that
Speaker 5: wine bar was a way to play hostess to the neighborhood.
Speaker 1: And it turns out it was also a sexual playground
Speaker 1: for Spencer, who found new prospects, seduced women, and even
Speaker 1: had sex here.
Speaker 5: I think we just have this great bar, and Spence
Speaker 5: was basically using it as his I have seen messages
Speaker 5: where he says, while that blowjob you gave me in
Speaker 5: the bathroom last night was amazing, or photos of somebody
Speaker 5: in the bathroom taking a picture of herself and sending
Speaker 5: it to him. He used to put a sign on
Speaker 5: the door apparently that said back in five minutes or
Speaker 5: back in ten minutes, and then would have sex in there.
Speaker 1: Jennifer's mother, Gail just couldn't wrap her head around the audacity.
Speaker 2: It's like in my business too.
Speaker 5: I mean, is there no place sacred?
Speaker 2: Unbelievable? It's absolutely unbelievable.
Speaker 1: But there were dozens and he met them in all
Speaker 1: kinds of ways. Jennifer discovered evidence of a year long
Speaker 1: affair with a woman from his running.
Speaker 6: Club, and then another one was in the military with him.
Speaker 6: They were all very different from who Jennifer is as
Speaker 6: a person.
Speaker 1: Spencer juggled multiple conquests at the same time. The affairs
Speaker 1: he was having with the women overlapped, and he stayed
Speaker 1: in touch with them through sordid text exchanges. It's fair
Speaker 1: to assume that people behave differently with secret lovers during
Speaker 1: affairs than they might with their own spouses, but reading
Speaker 1: his text was like reading a novel. He was a
Speaker 1: fictional character. The messages showed that Spencer had secret fetishes.
Speaker 1: Just a warning. The texts are explicit, and maybe the
Speaker 1: most alarming part is realizing that your own partner wrote them,
Speaker 1: and that's what jen faced when she discovered these text messages.
Speaker 1: Note all of the following were sent to adult women.
Speaker 7: Will you actually punch me this time? I'm not fucking around.
Speaker 7: I need you to hurt me. That's the point, the
Speaker 7: entire point.
Speaker 1: Was he into pain or was it the rush? Jennifer
Speaker 1: had no idea because she had no clue that he
Speaker 1: liked to be hit Spencer also liked his lovers to
Speaker 1: refer to him as Daddy. Send outy a picture was
Speaker 1: a frequent request in his fantasy life. Jennifer noticed he
Speaker 1: seemed to enjoy a playful and sometimes not so playful,
Speaker 1: dominating persona. There were other texts where Spencer was in
Speaker 1: touch with former students. Here he keeps trying to persuade
Speaker 1: one of them to get together.
Speaker 7: I remember you being in class. You're always so much
Speaker 7: fun and so sweet. I hope you could tell that
Speaker 7: I was always super fond of you. We have a
Speaker 7: cool connection, your gorgeous fact. We need to hang out.
Speaker 7: I can't wait.
Speaker 3: I dig you.
Speaker 1: Eventually, the young woman asks how are you and your wife?
Speaker 3: Though?
Speaker 7: Okay, I guess you know how relationships are. Can you
Speaker 7: see how I might have a crush on you?
Speaker 1: You know how relationships are. He barely acknowledges the question
Speaker 1: and brings it back to the conversation he really wanted
Speaker 1: to have. In another exchange, he mentions with holding sex
Speaker 1: from Jennifer.
Speaker 7: When I know that we're going to meet, I like
Speaker 7: depriving myself, so I avoid sex with her if it
Speaker 7: even comes up.
Speaker 1: And to another he references tension at home for more excitement.
Speaker 7: By the way, Jen and I are fighting right now,
Speaker 7: so I am in an even freakier and more amped
Speaker 7: up mood to test the waters. And then there was
Speaker 7: this I am a single man for the next six days.
Speaker 7: If you want to hook up, I'm still very interested.
Speaker 1: That's a tech spencer sent when Jennifer was traveling for work.
Speaker 1: But the person Jennifer saw when she returned with someone
Speaker 1: happy to see her.
Speaker 5: He'll be jumping up, you know, saying hi, wife, welcome home.
Speaker 5: It's almost like an outer body experience, because you can't
Speaker 5: prepare yourself for something like that, especially when it's the
Speaker 5: last thing you expect to happen.
Speaker 1: Jennifer needed to get away from it all, so she
Speaker 1: went to stay with her sister in La.
Speaker 9: During the time that she stayed with me, she went
Speaker 9: from angry to.
Speaker 3: Really, really fat.
Speaker 9: She started thinking it was because of her that she
Speaker 9: wasn't enough. And I didn't cry when she was here,
Speaker 9: but as soon as she left, I cried, I think
Speaker 9: for two days straight because.
Speaker 1: She hated herself.
Speaker 9: You know, like we did have plans to go and
Speaker 9: need some friends, but she didn't want to go because
Speaker 9: she didn't want people to think she was a loser,
Speaker 9: and a loser turned into ugly, a loser turned into fat.
Speaker 9: She's none of those things. Her self esteem, I mean,
Speaker 9: the saddest part is the effect it had. No matter
Speaker 9: how many times you say that it wasn't her fault,
Speaker 9: she couldn't hear it. It was so sad just to
Speaker 9: watch someone who was so beautiful and vibrant and confident
Speaker 9: and smart turn into someone so small or thought that
Speaker 9: they were so small and unlovable.
Speaker 1: Christy remembered something from a past conversation she had with
Speaker 1: Spencer at a dinner party.
Speaker 9: I had asked Spence and his friend. I said, you know,
Speaker 9: do you guys ever get nervous with the young girls
Speaker 9: these days? And Spencer had this look on his face
Speaker 9: because he was being thoughtful about it. And Spence said, well,
Speaker 9: I never meet any of my students alone. I do.
Speaker 9: I always have the door open. But there was a
Speaker 9: pause there that made me think. It didn't make me
Speaker 9: pause because I thought he had done something, but it
Speaker 9: made me pause because I thought he wasn't saying something
Speaker 9: he wanted to say. And I'm not gonna lie. That
Speaker 9: was the first time that I thought, say it's Spence Spence.
Speaker 1: Never made bail, and although all of his friends and
Speaker 1: family knew that he was incarcerated for sexual assault with
Speaker 1: a student, he was determined to stay in touch and
Speaker 1: make amends however he could.
Speaker 9: Jennifer mentioned that he wanted to write me an email
Speaker 9: if he wants us all to love him. He has
Speaker 9: this need for everyone to love him. He wants to
Speaker 9: send emails and talk about how he's found God and
Speaker 9: all of this stuff. And I was like, don't bother,
Speaker 9: It's never going to happen. He's insane. Nothing he says
Speaker 9: is true.
Speaker 1: Jennifer wouldturn home to Actworth to pick up the pieces.
Speaker 1: The next casualty of Spencer's crimes. Jennifer's day to day
Speaker 1: life life Spencer's income, all that household money was lost.
Speaker 1: On top of that, her work was suffering from a
Speaker 1: lack of sleep and horrible stress. She had spent a
Speaker 1: lifetime building a reputation as a dependable and highly skilled producer,
Speaker 1: but coworkers could see that she was distracted. Finally, there
Speaker 1: would be the cost of a divorce attorney, and eventually
Speaker 1: she had to sell her home. The house that jen
Speaker 1: and Spen's bought together represented much more than their marriage.
Speaker 1: Jen's sister understood it symbolized something greater stability.
Speaker 9: Growing up after my parents divorced, we moved around a
Speaker 9: lot when we were younger. My sister Jennifer, John and
Speaker 9: I my brother John. We were all very close, but
Speaker 9: we also were always going into different schools twelve different
Speaker 9: schools before eighth grade. Was kind of just needing to survive.
Speaker 9: For Jennifer, she always wanted a home. She wanted to
Speaker 9: stay in one place. She wanted a house. She wanted
Speaker 9: the white picket fence because we didn't have that.
Speaker 5: You can't hide from the reality when those bills are due. Here,
Speaker 5: I have a mortgage on a home we just bought together.
Speaker 5: As hard as I tried, I can't make ends meet.
Speaker 1: Jennifer was broke and practically homeless. Her friends offered up
Speaker 1: their basement apartment rent free, and she accepted. It was humiliating.
Speaker 1: She was starting over all over. And then there was Spence.
Speaker 1: She was done with him. He was behind bars, but
Speaker 1: he had nothing. Even after everything that he had done
Speaker 1: to her. She couldn't live with the thought of him
Speaker 1: not having toothpaste or deodorant. She was not that kind
Speaker 1: of person.
Speaker 5: He's still a human being, and he at the time
Speaker 5: is my husband. I'd put money in his commissary account,
Speaker 5: but it was never a lot. It was like maybe
Speaker 5: twenty dollars here and there.
Speaker 1: As Bence's sentencing date got closer, he appealed to his
Speaker 1: friends and family, which included Jen's close social circle, asking
Speaker 1: them to write letters on his behalf. He asked Jennifer
Speaker 1: to pass a message onto the group. Here's an excerpt
Speaker 1: from the letter.
Speaker 7: Dear Villagers, I'm a man who comes to you with
Speaker 7: a humble heart and zero pride for all of the
Speaker 7: obvious reasons. I am not asking for your forgiveness because
Speaker 7: I'm not there yet and I don't deserve that anyway.
Speaker 7: I am asking for your help. However, why am I
Speaker 7: doing this. It's because I am fighting for my life.
Speaker 7: It's because I have clearly never been in such a
Speaker 7: place of need. But I am now. What I did
Speaker 7: to Jennifer and how I treated our marriage is something
Speaker 7: that I cannot only never fix, but also something I
Speaker 7: cannot ever apologize enough for doing. I will never be
Speaker 7: able to give back to her the things that I
Speaker 7: have taken. My only hope is that she moves on
Speaker 7: from this life bomb that I dropped on her as
Speaker 7: soon as she possibly can. I am coming to you because,
Speaker 7: despite how horrible I was to Jennifer, I hope and
Speaker 7: pray that you don't see me as the person the
Speaker 7: media and my charges are making me out to be.
Speaker 7: I hope that the Spencer you know or knew is
Speaker 7: not that person that has been described. For my upcoming
Speaker 7: arraignment hearing, I'm asking people who know me to consider
Speaker 7: writing a character reference letter to be given to my
Speaker 7: judge and the DA. Obviously, I'm wanting to get out
Speaker 7: of jail as soon as possible. You all know, of course,
Speaker 7: that the three kids are all in college, and I
Speaker 7: am desperate to get out so that I can support
Speaker 7: them in every way emotionally, spiritually, parentally, and financially. What
Speaker 7: it will do for my case, I believe will be
Speaker 7: so very important. I wish you all the very best,
Speaker 7: and thank you for being such an incredible friend to Jennifer.
Speaker 7: Much love, Thanks Spencer.
Speaker 5: He brings up the kids. That is when my blood
Speaker 5: started to boil. That is his first thing that he tried,
Speaker 5: using those kids, he says, I hope you remember the
Speaker 5: person that you know and not the one that the
Speaker 5: media is making me out to be. Well, he is
Speaker 5: the person the media is making them out to be.
Speaker 5: It's all true.
Speaker 1: Several people did write letters of support for Spencer, but
Speaker 1: none of them were the Villagers. Sentencing day came without
Speaker 1: much warning.
Speaker 5: I had planned to go and sit in the back.
Speaker 5: Jill planned to go with me and says she would
Speaker 5: hold my hand. But I wanted to go, not as
Speaker 5: support for him, but just to witness everything and hear
Speaker 5: it for myself. Unfortunately, the court date came up all
Speaker 5: of a sudden and there wasn't any preparation for it.
Speaker 1: Spenser pled guilty to five counts of sexual assault by
Speaker 1: a teacher. For each count, he was sentenced to twenty years,
Speaker 1: with five years to be served in confinement, serving them concurrently,
Speaker 1: he was going to state prison.
Speaker 5: I'm pretty sure that the evidence was stacked way way
Speaker 5: against him. As soon as it was over, he called me.
Speaker 5: He said he asked to say something to the victim's
Speaker 5: pa parents and the mom said, we don't want to
Speaker 5: hear anything you have to say.
Speaker 10: You know.
Speaker 5: He went into all of this thinking, I am an
Speaker 5: eagle scout, I'm in the Air Force reserves, I'm a
Speaker 5: school teacher. I was Teacher of the Year. I'm a
Speaker 5: great dad. Look at these people that are speaking on
Speaker 5: my behalf. And it didn't work. He couldn't talk his
Speaker 5: way out of it.
Speaker 3: This time.
Speaker 1: There was one very small consolation. Spencer could be sentenced
Speaker 1: under the first Offender Statute. The intent of the law
Speaker 1: was to give first time offenders a chance to learn
Speaker 1: from their mistake and move on with their lives out
Speaker 1: the burden of a conviction.
Speaker 5: The benefit is that after the twenty years everything will
Speaker 5: be wiped off his record, so he will not be
Speaker 5: considered a felon anymore. He can vote again and the
Speaker 5: slate is white clean for him. Having that title of
Speaker 5: first defender was like, you know, a notch on his belt,
Speaker 5: I think.
Speaker 1: But remember how he took the student into a hotel
Speaker 1: that was not in Cobb County but in Cherokee County,
Speaker 1: a different jurisdiction. Spender was indicted for that charge several
Speaker 1: months later. On July fifth, twenty nineteen.
Speaker 5: After he'd been sent to prison, they woke him up
Speaker 5: in the middle of the night to transport him from
Speaker 5: Wilcox Prison back up to Cherokee County to have a
Speaker 5: hearing for that case. He was really disappointed because he
Speaker 5: didn't think that they were going to move forward with that.
Speaker 5: So just by picking a hotel that happened to be
Speaker 5: in another county, he got another twenty year sentence for.
Speaker 1: Cherokee County's District Attorney, Spencer Hearn wasn't a first time offender.
Speaker 1: He was now a repeat offender. You would no longer
Speaker 1: qualify for first offender status. Cherokee County gave them the
Speaker 1: same sentence also to run concurrently. Upon release, Spencer Hearn
Speaker 1: will have to register as a sex offender. Cobb County
Speaker 1: District Attorney Flynn Brody Jr.
Speaker 10: As a sexual predator. That is a scarlet letter for
Speaker 10: the rest of your life. It'll limit the types of
Speaker 10: jobs he can have. It'll limit the places that they
Speaker 10: can live. They'll have to report everywhere they go. Anytime
Speaker 10: they cross state lines, they have to report that they're
Speaker 10: sexual predator in that particular state. It really limits them
Speaker 10: as far as their future is concerned, and rightfully so,
Speaker 10: because we know they're a predator and they have to
Speaker 10: be controlled.
Speaker 1: The court proceedings, the apology letters from Spencer, they were
Speaker 1: all distractions. Most days after the arrest, Jennifer was alone
Speaker 1: with her thoughts. She was simmering in the sadness, fury,
Speaker 1: and trauma of this massive betrayal. How did she get here?
Speaker 1: A successful, confident, secure woman with everything was now just
Speaker 1: fighting to get through every day.
Speaker 9: None of this had anything to do with her. She
Speaker 9: had not done anything wrong at all, and this horrible
Speaker 9: thing happened to her.
Speaker 1: Jen needed to put all the pieces together. She needed
Speaker 1: to make sense of it all. Jennifer was tormented by
Speaker 1: the spends she didn't know, by the women that were
Speaker 1: involved with him, especially the high school student. But she
Speaker 1: didn't want to sit at home with her trauma buried
Speaker 1: under the covers, hiding from the world, so she decided
Speaker 1: to confront it, to go out and meet the other
Speaker 1: people who had been impacted by spends us her instead
Speaker 1: of hiding. She wanted to know everything about who she
Speaker 1: married and what he had done. For the past eleven years,
Speaker 1: Jennifer had been living in a sea of lies. Now
Speaker 1: she wanted the truth that would be the start of
Speaker 1: her healing. On the next episode of Betrayal, Jennifer meets
Speaker 1: with Spencer's most vulnerable victim, his former student. The young
Speaker 1: woman in her twenties now is breaking her silence.
Speaker 3: I'm shaking.
Speaker 6: Yeah you too.
Speaker 1: If you'd like to reach out to the Betrayal team,
Speaker 1: email us at Betrayal Pod at gmail dot com. That's
Speaker 1: Betrayal Pod at gmail dot com. Betrayal is a production
Speaker 1: of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group, in
Speaker 1: partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show was executive produced by
Speaker 1: Nancy Glass and Jennifer Fason, hosted and produced by me
Speaker 1: Andrea Gunning, written and produced by Kerry Hartman, also produced
Speaker 1: by Ben Fetterman. Our iHeart team is Ali Perry and
Speaker 1: Jessica Crinchick. Special thanks to voice actor Todd Gans. Sound
Speaker 1: editing and mixing done by Mount Tavecchio. Betrayal's theme was
Speaker 1: composed by Oliver Baines. Music library provided by my Music
Speaker 1: and For more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.