Speaker 1: This podcast discusses sexual assault. Please take care while listening.
Speaker 1: He wanted us to think he was cool. He wanted
Speaker 1: to be one of the kids. He wanted to fit in,
Speaker 1: and it worked. We were like, Oh, this guy's letting
Speaker 1: us get away with pretending we're in this club and
Speaker 1: getting credit for it. That's awesome. Let's all do it.
Speaker 1: We're all president, let's go. And we all thought it
Speaker 1: was super funny and it was just kind of like
Speaker 1: a running joke. So the idea of that carrying on
Speaker 1: for other reasons is terrifying. I'm Andrea Gunning and this
Speaker 1: is Betrayal, Episode four Damages. In the summer of twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one, Jennifer texted our show's production team there was
Speaker 1: news about Spencer's parole. Jennifer was a car on location
Speaker 1: at work. Well, you know, when I emailed Spence the
Speaker 1: other day, he said that he was having his parole
Speaker 1: hearing today. So I don't know. It's just really affected
Speaker 1: my whole nervous system. Knowing that I may find out
Speaker 1: today that he's getting out soon. Oh my god. And
Speaker 1: I'm not really prepared for that yet. What went through
Speaker 1: your mind? I feel like he was just put in prison,
Speaker 1: and now he's already getting out. It's hard because with
Speaker 1: him in there, I felt safer. With him coming out,
Speaker 1: not so much. I'm sorry, Jed. He got some time
Speaker 1: off of his sentence for good behavior. He's been a
Speaker 1: teacher's aid and I'm sure he's been leading Bible studies
Speaker 1: and so he's already gotten several months knocked off of
Speaker 1: his sentence and he was in front of the Pearl
Speaker 1: board today. I don't know how it works, but I mean,
Speaker 1: what if he gets out tomorrow? You know, do you
Speaker 1: know if anybody gets to write a letter to submit
Speaker 1: against the parole, because I imagine the victim of the
Speaker 1: sexual assault must be made aware that he's out for
Speaker 1: a parole, right well, I mean I think the victim
Speaker 1: has to be told when he gets released. How were
Speaker 1: you approach act the parole or was it something that
Speaker 1: you get kind of kept at arm's length. I kind
Speaker 1: of have been keeping it at arm's length. I just
Speaker 1: don't want to think about it. I just hate being
Speaker 1: this person on set. You know a couple of people
Speaker 1: are like, you're kind of quiet today, Jennifer, And you know,
Speaker 1: I don't want to be that moby person. I just
Speaker 1: I can't help it right now. You know. It's like
Speaker 1: when you get past heartache, you usually get to move on,
Speaker 1: and I just feel like I'm going to be starting
Speaker 1: back over again for a little bit with him out
Speaker 1: and knowing that he's out, getting past the heartache and
Speaker 1: starting over. It's something that Jennifer and the sexual assault
Speaker 1: victim had to do. Both described shame as a big hurdle,
Speaker 1: even when you know you aren't the guilty party. Jennifer
Speaker 1: would feel it when she was out in public, people
Speaker 1: are looking at me and kind of, oh, that's her.
Speaker 1: I've gotten a lot of those looks before. Oh your
Speaker 1: husband was the one, Oh you're her. The sexual assault
Speaker 1: victim had her anonymity that didn't protect her from shame.
Speaker 1: Just turning on the television after Spencer's arrived revealed how
Speaker 1: some community members viewed her. You don't always know what
Speaker 1: the truth is. I mean, someone can say something about
Speaker 1: somebody just to hurt their reputation, You don't know. I
Speaker 1: would always want to know the history of this person.
Speaker 1: Might can be complaint as well. You know, what kind
Speaker 1: of history do they have? Could they provoke something like that?
Speaker 1: Perhaps it's the reason the victim was fearful to come
Speaker 1: forward sooner. After Spencer Heron was arrested, the victim never
Speaker 1: heard from any school official. Not one person reached out
Speaker 1: to ask how she was doing. Even with Spencer behind bars,
Speaker 1: the victim had an uphill battle. Eventually, Jennifer would learn
Speaker 1: how he abused his role as a teacher and mentor
Speaker 1: and became a predator in the halls of Kill High School.
Speaker 1: My name is Mike Rafe. I'm a lawyer in Atlanta
Speaker 1: and I help people. Mike's a civil attorney. The sexual
Speaker 1: saw victim's parents reached out to him because they wanted
Speaker 1: to pursue a case against Kill High School. Most of
Speaker 1: our cases are people who are critically or seriously injured,
Speaker 1: and a small percentage of our cases are who, like
Speaker 1: this client, are victims of sexual assaults in places like hospitals,
Speaker 1: apartment complexes, hotels, and schools. Mike and one of his
Speaker 1: colleagues went to meet the victim and her parents at
Speaker 1: their home. When we left my client's house, we started
Speaker 1: reading a text message log that had been given to
Speaker 1: the police, and there was a lot It was straight
Speaker 1: out of to catch your predator. Reading this chat history.
Speaker 1: As a thirty something year old. I felt like I
Speaker 1: was Chris Hansen. I can see the manipulation. I can
Speaker 1: see the terms that are being used, the words that
Speaker 1: are being twisted, and so on. This is one of
Speaker 1: those cases that we left that house and said this
Speaker 1: is really fucked up and we have to do something.
Speaker 1: I'm actually my blood's boiling right now as I'm telling
Speaker 1: the story, because I remember we left the house so angry,
Speaker 1: and I'm still angry, maybe even angry or to this day.
Speaker 1: As the sexual saw victim from Kell High School sought
Speaker 1: therapy and support for what happened to her, she began
Speaker 1: to fully grasp how she had been manipulated abused. She
Speaker 1: was angry, angry that Kell High School had never addressed
Speaker 1: it in a meaningful way. Mike Raefy spent a lot
Speaker 1: of time piecing together how it happened. It took him
Speaker 1: down a path of investigating Kell High Schools after school clubs.
Speaker 1: The clubs were key to Spenser getting the victim alone
Speaker 1: without raising suspicion. The way it's supposed to work is
Speaker 1: that students are supposed to get together and say we'd
Speaker 1: like to have a club. We're really interested in this.
Speaker 1: They would then go to a faculty member who probably
Speaker 1: has an interest in the club or at least helped
Speaker 1: spur that interest, and say we really like you to
Speaker 1: be our leader for this club. Would you please do that.
Speaker 1: There has to be a certain number of signatures showing
Speaker 1: student involvement. Parents have to agree that if this club
Speaker 1: was created, then my child would be allowed to participate
Speaker 1: in the club. There's a budgeting component to it, and
Speaker 1: then there's administrator approval and the faculty advisor has to
Speaker 1: submit a plan of what is the goal the purpose
Speaker 1: of this plan, how will we execute it? Then the
Speaker 1: administration is supposed to formally approve or disapprove it. Spencer
Speaker 1: had a history of sponsoring clubs, but some of them
Speaker 1: were fake. My name is Julia and Coacharn was my
Speaker 1: high school video productions teacher. I graduated from Kel High
Speaker 1: School in twenty ten. I had him for my junior
Speaker 1: year and my senior year. A lot of my best
Speaker 1: friends had him freshman and sophomore too, so I always
Speaker 1: knew of him and I wanted to be in this
Speaker 1: class because it was a sought after program. It was
Speaker 1: a cool class, real part of Even when I didn't
Speaker 1: have him, we would hang on his classroom and in
Speaker 1: the edit rooms. Everyone who had him loved him. He
Speaker 1: was the fun class, the fun teacher, the fun program.
Speaker 1: You got to be on the announcement. You got to
Speaker 1: work on these cool projects and like kind of roam
Speaker 1: the hallways and get some b roll while other kids are,
Speaker 1: you know, sitting in their classes learning about history or math.
Speaker 1: It didn't feel like a class. When I was a
Speaker 1: junior coach, Aaron started a fake club and we all
Speaker 1: put it on our wasn't your resume, but we put
Speaker 1: you know, president of movie club. It was called movie Club,
Speaker 1: you know, on the chair of movie club, which it
Speaker 1: was all a fake club. I think we took like
Speaker 1: a picture together for it, maybe in the yearbook. I
Speaker 1: don't know i'd have, but it wasn't really we never met.
Speaker 1: It was like it was really fake, Like it was pretend.
Speaker 1: Why would a teacher make up a school club because
Speaker 1: he wanted us to think he was cool. He wanted
Speaker 1: to be one of the kids. He wanted to fit in,
Speaker 1: and it worked. We were like, Oh, this guy's letting
Speaker 1: us get away with pretending we're in this club and
Speaker 1: getting credit for it. That's awesome. Let's all do it.
Speaker 1: We're all president, let's go, and we all thought it
Speaker 1: super funny and it was just kind of like a
Speaker 1: running joke. So the idea of that carrying on for
Speaker 1: other reasons is terrifying. In twenty fifteen, Spencers sponsored a
Speaker 1: drone club. It began as a real club with real
Speaker 1: members and real meetings. Students even had fundraisers, but they
Speaker 1: would sell T shirts and videos so they could purchase
Speaker 1: a real drone. The problem was the club never went
Speaker 1: through official channels. I was never authorized. If you have
Speaker 1: a club that doesn't go through this process, then you
Speaker 1: don't have that oversight and you don't have any of
Speaker 1: that guidance. You don't have the faculty member answering or
Speaker 1: reporting to their administration. Instead, you have the faculty member
Speaker 1: being able to do whatever it is that he wants
Speaker 1: whenever he wants to, and that's what happened here. Eventually,
Speaker 1: the drone Club died out and stopped having meetings, but
Speaker 1: Spencer continued to see one member of the club. It
Speaker 1: continued to be a time and a place in a
Speaker 1: school where a teacher had full access to someplace to
Speaker 1: take a student without the student happening to leave school
Speaker 1: grounds because typically when you leave school grounds, you gotta
Speaker 1: tell your parents where you're going. So this teacher has
Speaker 1: a perfect opportunity to lure a student into a place
Speaker 1: where they won't be caught and where they can do
Speaker 1: whatever he wants to do. It wasn't what she wanted
Speaker 1: to do. It was what he wanted to do, and
Speaker 1: what he wanted to do was take advantage of Mike's client.
Speaker 1: If you remember when you were a kid, every once
Speaker 1: in a while, an administrator will come in your classroom
Speaker 1: and watch your teacher. That's the administration taking active role
Speaker 1: to make sure that the teachers are doing their jobs,
Speaker 1: that they're effectively conveying their message to students, that they're
Speaker 1: disciplining students properly, that everything that's going on in the
Speaker 1: classroom is the way it should. If you have a
Speaker 1: club that doesn't go through this process, then you don't
Speaker 1: have that oversight and you don't have any of that guidance.
Speaker 1: You don't have the faculty member answering or reporting to
Speaker 1: their administration. Kell High School's administrators deny all knowledge of
Speaker 1: the drone club. There was nothing to oversee because it
Speaker 1: didn't officially exist as a school club. He's flying a
Speaker 1: drone over the school at football games to get drone
Speaker 1: shots for the drone club, which isn't supposed to exist.
Speaker 1: So the skeptic in me says, the school didn't know
Speaker 1: there was a club. They just didn't give a crap.
Speaker 1: They knew there was a club, They actively participated in
Speaker 1: the club, they benefited from the club, they allowed the club,
Speaker 1: but they just didn't feel or didn't care enough to
Speaker 1: go through the process of properly authenticating it and then
Speaker 1: properly monitoring it and making sure that students weren't endanger
Speaker 1: Was it because bencer Herron was a department head or
Speaker 1: trusted faculty member. No one knows. Mike points out that
Speaker 1: there's an administrator whose job it is to supervise after
Speaker 1: school clubs. The vice principal Students Daddard, it's her job
Speaker 1: to authenticate clubs and to monitor them. And when she's
Speaker 1: sitting in her office and listening to the PA system
Speaker 1: and it says there's a drone club meeting today, or
Speaker 1: the drone club meeting is canceled, or if you'd like
Speaker 1: to join the drone club, isn't she saying, what the
Speaker 1: fuck is this drone club? What is going on? We
Speaker 1: don't have a drone club. Yeah, Mike gets heated. Think
Speaker 1: about all those students that had text message conversations through
Speaker 1: the years with him. Think about all the parents who
Speaker 1: probably knew, Oh, Spencer Haron so nice. He texts my daughter.
Speaker 1: He's talking to my daughter when they go to college.
Speaker 1: You think those text messages stayed completely appropriate. When Mike
Speaker 1: mentioned this to me, I felt a pit in my stomach.
Speaker 1: Felt too similar to my conversation with Julia. Him and
Speaker 1: I used to play Words with Friends together, which seemed
Speaker 1: super innocent, but you would message on the sidebar things
Speaker 1: like you should come check out my new house. There
Speaker 1: wasn't anything that I ever took as him hitting on
Speaker 1: me until further down the road when the allegations came out.
Speaker 1: As an eighteen year old somebody in their forties saying
Speaker 1: come check out my new house, You're like, no, lame,
Speaker 1: I don't care about your house like I want to
Speaker 1: go out. He was kind of just old and I
Speaker 1: had no interest in that. But looking back, if I
Speaker 1: had said, sure, I would love to see your house,
Speaker 1: there's no doubt in my mind that there was potentially
Speaker 1: an ulterior motive there. Ry else would he want somebody
Speaker 1: eighteen years old to come check out his new house.
Speaker 1: Her whole friend group from his class, well, all of
Speaker 1: them were contacted by Spencer after they graduated. All of
Speaker 1: those girls, every single one of them. He would message them,
Speaker 1: you know, let's get coffee, let's get drinks. Or one friend,
Speaker 1: Nicole had a boyfriend, and he didn't like it at all.
Speaker 1: Nicole's boyfriend actually told her to stop texting him because
Speaker 1: he was like, this is your high school teacher. Why
Speaker 1: is he asking you to go get drinks? You're eighteen.
Speaker 1: We were all like, oh, it's just co Charan. All
Speaker 1: that being said, Julia was completely blindsided. The day he
Speaker 1: was arrested, I was on the treadmill at the gym
Speaker 1: and his mug shot puffed up on the TV in
Speaker 1: front of me, and I almost fell off of the treadmill,
Speaker 1: stopped breathing. I had to stop the treadmill, and I
Speaker 1: was just like in shock. It was terrible. And then
Speaker 1: my phone was like ding ding ding ding ding. You know,
Speaker 1: everyone from the class of twenty ten, all these group messages,
Speaker 1: Oh my god, did you see this about Cochran, And
Speaker 1: everyone was in just such disbelief. You know, he would
Speaker 1: send these texts. It just to people potentially trying to
Speaker 1: meet up. None of my friends ever acted on it,
Speaker 1: so no one really knew. So we knew it got
Speaker 1: a little bit weird, but we weren't sure what to believe.
Speaker 1: Maybe some girl had just potentially taken it too far.
Speaker 1: No one wanted to believe that he really did that.
Speaker 1: I'm really pessimistic about what would have happened if my
Speaker 1: client reported this without the proof that she had, would
Speaker 1: people have believed her? Would they have said, she's just
Speaker 1: a slut, She's just somebody that went out and sought
Speaker 1: out her teacher and slept with him, which is what
Speaker 1: people said anyway on Facebook boards and messaging. I mean,
Speaker 1: she had to deal with that victim blaming. There was
Speaker 1: plenty of it. The defendants the administrators in this case,
Speaker 1: argue that the victim's claims were barred by the doctrine
Speaker 1: of comparative negligence. It's a legal term that means assigned
Speaker 1: blame to two or more parties based on the degree
Speaker 1: of negligence each contributed to the incident. According to that logic,
Speaker 1: the student shared in the blame when the teacher sexually
Speaker 1: assaulted her. When you have a teacher that treats you
Speaker 1: like an adult, makes you feel special, breaks a rule
Speaker 1: for you, and expects you to keep that in confidence.
Speaker 1: You're trusting each other with secrets. He has to take
Speaker 1: a risk, and to me, that was a small risk
Speaker 1: that he was taking by saying, I'll do something bad.
Speaker 1: If you're willing to let me do something bad, that's
Speaker 1: step one. Now I'm going to do something worse. Are
Speaker 1: you still okay with that? Now I'm gonna do something
Speaker 1: really bad? Are you okay with that? At that point,
Speaker 1: it's a recipe for an inappropriate relationship, especially when you
Speaker 1: add an authority figure with practice. It's an unfair fight.
Speaker 1: And if an authority figure, especially a teacher, keeps doing
Speaker 1: bad things, why are they bad? Maybe the student doesn't
Speaker 1: think they're bad because now they've been normalized, because now
Speaker 1: that's just what teachers and students do. After Spencer was
Speaker 1: charged criminally, I left a lot of students and parents
Speaker 1: at Kell High School wondering. She was on a developmental
Speaker 1: stage in her life where you are still growing and learning,
Speaker 1: and she was supposed to be able to trust him,
Speaker 1: and it's unfair for any of this to fall back
Speaker 1: on her. She was only a girl. She was manipulated,
Speaker 1: and he took advantage of a young girl who was
Speaker 1: vulnerable and believed in somebody that she was supposed to
Speaker 1: believe in. My parents were so thankful that, you know,
Speaker 1: it wasn't me, but they almost felt a little scared
Speaker 1: for themselves. So it's like, you know, we trusted this
Speaker 1: man around our daughter. You know, that's scary. And one
Speaker 1: is also scary how little information was given to the
Speaker 1: community itself. As far as I know, there hasn't been
Speaker 1: any investigative report accessible to the public. There hasn't been
Speaker 1: any disclosures made, There hasn't been anything. It's almost like
Speaker 1: this just didn't happen. And that's really really scary, because
Speaker 1: it certainly isn't the only time. I was curious about
Speaker 1: why the victims sued three school administrators instead of the
Speaker 1: school itself. So in Georgia, you can't sue the school
Speaker 1: a weird rule we have. You can't sue the school board.
Speaker 1: I have to sue on behalf of my client administrators.
Speaker 1: So I have to sue people. I have to sue
Speaker 1: the supervisors or the authority in those positions, and I
Speaker 1: have to prove that those individual people did things wrong.
Speaker 1: We don't want to sue them. We want to sue
Speaker 1: the entity because it's the entity that's protecting them. On
Speaker 1: the legal side, this isn't a dispute about what happened
Speaker 1: in any sense. Everyone knows what happened, when it happened,
Speaker 1: and why it happened. The issue is does the law
Speaker 1: allow my client to recover to get justice in the
Speaker 1: civil justice system, And so far the answer has been no. Basically,
Speaker 1: they lass in court, but they are appealing. Lawyers say
Speaker 1: this all the time about their cases. I'm proud to
Speaker 1: have represented so and so when lose draw I don't care.
Speaker 1: I'm just glad that she knows that someone will stick
Speaker 1: up for her, because that's part of the problem here
Speaker 1: in Georgia. To hold a public servant, which includes teachers,
Speaker 1: responsible for something in their job capacity, you have to
Speaker 1: show that there was a rule, a capital R rule,
Speaker 1: and a capital R rule is a rule that requires
Speaker 1: no discretion, thought or judgment. The public servant must follow it,
Speaker 1: and if they don't follow the rule, then they can
Speaker 1: be held accountable. And we were able to show that.
Speaker 1: We were able to show that there was a rule
Speaker 1: in terms of how these clubs must be authorized and
Speaker 1: how they must be monitored. We're able to show that
Speaker 1: that rule existed and that that rule was violated. Here's
Speaker 1: the problem. What the judge said was, even though the
Speaker 1: rule was violated, it's not a negligent violation of the rule.
Speaker 1: I am still trying to figure out exactly what that means.
Speaker 1: The way I interpret that is that the rule was violated,
Speaker 1: but it's not a big deal. So the administrators poorly performed.
Speaker 1: They didn't do what they were supposed to do, but
Speaker 1: it doesn't rise to a breach of their duties. I
Speaker 1: interpret that to mean they're the worst employees in the school,
Speaker 1: but they still aren't gonna get fired. I guess you
Speaker 1: know you have that really poor performer in your office
Speaker 1: who barely gets by the court seem to agree with
Speaker 1: the school district's argument that because some of the sexual
Speaker 1: conduct occurred outside the school, it couldn't be held accountable.
Speaker 1: We acknowledge the fact that there were physical acts done
Speaker 1: outside of school grounds, but every single instance where there
Speaker 1: was physical sexual conduct at school I believe is a
Speaker 1: separate instance of harm. One thing I couldn't wrap my
Speaker 1: head around was how to calculate the damage the law
Speaker 1: in Georgia is that it's up to the impartial conscience
Speaker 1: of the jury. Basically, twelve people are going to sit
Speaker 1: around and figure it out. What do I think that
Speaker 1: the pain and suffering, the physical violation, the embarrassment for
Speaker 1: my client who still lives in the community. You know,
Speaker 1: those damages don't just stop. That's got to be devastating.
Speaker 1: Her feelings weren't manipulated, and her sense of reality and
Speaker 1: worth has drastically, drastically deteriorated. And I don't know anyone
Speaker 1: could possibly blame her. And I'll ask a jury to
Speaker 1: think about the ways that relationship affects a person and
Speaker 1: that self worth affects someone and put a value on that.
Speaker 1: But Mike will only be able to ask the jury
Speaker 1: if the court grants their appeal. And as it turns out,
Speaker 1: in an interesting twist, the defendants also appealed on the
Speaker 1: one point Mike's client prevailed. They are fighting that violating
Speaker 1: a rule written in their own policy and procedures and manuals.
Speaker 1: They're saying, we don't always have to follow those rules.
Speaker 1: Imagine if you're a parent and copp County and you
Speaker 1: have the administration saying we have these rules, but we're
Speaker 1: going to go to the Supreme Court of Georgia and
Speaker 1: say we don't really have to follow them. It can't
Speaker 1: be easy for parents. Just a few weeks before, we
Speaker 1: spoke with Mike Grafee, a teacher at another Cobb County
Speaker 1: high school, Osborne High School, was arrested for having sexual
Speaker 1: intercourse with a student in his office. That teacher is
Speaker 1: in jail. I wanted us to get together because I
Speaker 1: was just really curious, what were your thoughts after hearing
Speaker 1: all of that. And my biggest thing is if we
Speaker 1: don't educate people, students, teachers, administrators, if we don't educate
Speaker 1: them on what signs to look for, then it's going
Speaker 1: to keep happening over and over and over. There is
Speaker 1: so much trust put into teachers. Instead of sweeping it
Speaker 1: under the rug and acting like it didn't happen and
Speaker 1: just moving on, we need to somehow bring in that
Speaker 1: education into the schools and make people more aware of
Speaker 1: what happens and how it happens. I think that a
Speaker 1: lot of people have preconceived notions about relationships between high
Speaker 1: school students and their teachers, and they make assumptions. People
Speaker 1: really don't think about what it's actually like your ex husband, Spencer,
Speaker 1: He's obviously well versed in sex and relationships, and this girl,
Speaker 1: she had no idea what she was doing. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think back to when I was in high school. You're
Speaker 1: at school, you're with someone that everybody is looking up
Speaker 1: to and admiring, and then all of a sudden, that
Speaker 1: person starts making you feel really good. Meanwhile, she's in
Speaker 1: the halls of hell High school wanting to scream at
Speaker 1: the top of her belongs what she's experiencing. She is
Speaker 1: so alone in this because she can tell nobody. It's
Speaker 1: so sad that this happens. We all did research leading
Speaker 1: up to this interview, and there was one study published
Speaker 1: by the Department of Education that I think all of
Speaker 1: us were impacted by and I kind of want to
Speaker 1: read it here. It says that ten percent of school
Speaker 1: students will be victims of some form of teacher sexual
Speaker 1: misconduct that can range from sexual soa to inappropriate comments,
Speaker 1: exposure to pornography. Ten percent. Hi, and that's millions of kids.
Speaker 1: It's insane. I don't think you can just hold one
Speaker 1: person responsible. I think it's got to be a big effort.
Speaker 1: What did you think of the lawyer Mike Rayphee. I
Speaker 1: understand that when it comes to lawsuits and all of that,
Speaker 1: it's very tough. I appreciate what he's doing because what
Speaker 1: happened here is so much bigger than people realize. I
Speaker 1: was pretty taken it back that one of the school
Speaker 1: administrator's offenses was comparative negligence, meaning that the student was
Speaker 1: partially responsible for the administration. To use that term, Think
Speaker 1: about the victim hearing that and how that feels that
Speaker 1: she's supposed to take some of that responsibility on. That's
Speaker 1: not fair and I think that sends an awful, awful
Speaker 1: message out to the community, to the victim, to everybody else.
Speaker 1: How dare they try to victim blame and victim blame
Speaker 1: a child. Earlier in this episode of Betrayal, we heard
Speaker 1: about the possibility of Spencer being released on parole. Jennifer
Speaker 1: wrote to Spencer and asked him to let her know
Speaker 1: what happened at the parole hearing. A few weeks later,
Speaker 1: he emailed, I have some disappointing news that I wanted
Speaker 1: to share with you. I recently received a letter from
Speaker 1: the parole board stating that my tentative parole month date
Speaker 1: has been rescinded. The decision was made quote due to
Speaker 1: the welfare of society. This was very disturbing and upsetting
Speaker 1: to say the least. The kids are doing okay with
Speaker 1: the news. Thank god they are so strong. The Parole
Speaker 1: Board does not have to tell anyone anything, and they
Speaker 1: certainly don't have to tell anyone why an inmate was
Speaker 1: denied or delayed parole. In the letter, he expressed frustration.
Speaker 1: He had served sixty five percent of his time and
Speaker 1: that's what his lawyer, the judge and prosecutor agreed on,
Speaker 1: but he wasn't getting out and he didn't know the reason.
Speaker 1: Maybe the truth was too hard for him to consider.
Speaker 1: Turns out, the sexual self victim wrote a letter to
Speaker 1: the parole board hand delivered it for self. She urged
Speaker 1: the board not to release Spencer, saying that it wouldn't
Speaker 1: be good for the welfare of society. On the next
Speaker 1: episode of Betrayal, a woman explains to Jennifer how one
Speaker 1: text from Spencer Herron led to a torrid multi year affair.
Speaker 1: I don't even remember what the initial start of the
Speaker 1: conversation was, but then a comment was made about, well,
Speaker 1: you're beautiful, something to that extent, and that's kind of
Speaker 1: where it started. Here's an attractive guy telling me I'm grady.
Speaker 1: You know, I remember or feeling like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: what's happening. But then at the same time, I didn't
Speaker 1: do anything to stop it, and the shocking behavior that
Speaker 1: she shares with Jennifer, there was a very dominating side
Speaker 1: to him. I remember a couple of times where you know,
Speaker 1: he would kind of put his hands around my throat
Speaker 1: and push down. If you'd like to reach out to
Speaker 1: the Betrayal team, email us at Betrayal Pod at gmail
Speaker 1: dot com. That's Betrayal Pod at gmail dot com. Betrayal
Speaker 1: is a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass
Speaker 1: Entertainment Group and partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show was
Speaker 1: executive produced by Nancy Glass and Jennifer Face. It hosted
Speaker 1: and produced by Me Andrea Gunning, written and produced by
Speaker 1: Carry Hartman, also produced by Ben Fetterman. Our iHeart team
Speaker 1: is Ali Perry and Jessica Crimecheck. Special thanks to voice
Speaker 1: actor Todd Gans. Sound editing and mixing done by Mount DeVecchio.
Speaker 1: Betrayal's theme was composed by Oliver Bain's music library provided
Speaker 1: by my Music and For more podcasts from iHeart, visit
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.