Speaker 1: Hey, Betrayal fans, I have exciting news to share. Season
Speaker 1: three of Betrayal is now a docu series on Hulu.
Speaker 1: It's the gripping story of Stacy Tyler and the doctor
Speaker 1: who betrayed them. See the voices You've come to know
Speaker 1: in Betrayal Under his Eye, streaming now on Hulu.
Speaker 2: It was just my daughter and me, the TV and
Speaker 2: the laundry, and I just remember being on the ground,
Speaker 2: totally hyperventilating, having the only panic attack I've ever had
Speaker 2: in my life. If this could be true, and I
Speaker 2: could have no idea, how on earth would I ever
Speaker 2: know who the monsters were.
Speaker 1: I'm Andrea Gunning and this is Betrayal, a show about
Speaker 1: the people we trust the most and the deceptions that
Speaker 1: change everything. Today, we have a story about family, about
Speaker 1: what it means to love someone and to lose them,
Speaker 1: not to death, but to something much harder to talk about.
Speaker 2: In some ways, it feels harder to grieve for a
Speaker 2: person who isn't dead.
Speaker 1: That's doctor Jill Stoddard. She's a clinical psychologist, a mother,
Speaker 1: a woman with a close knit family and what she
Speaker 1: always thought was a safe, ordinary childhood.
Speaker 2: So I grew up in a suburb of Boston, stereotypical,
Speaker 2: middle class, waspy kind of upbringing. Mom was always home
Speaker 2: when we got home from school, and even though Dad
Speaker 2: worked hard, he was always home by six o'clock for dinner,
Speaker 2: so it felt like a very normal, intact family.
Speaker 1: Jill was the oldest. Then came her brother John, who
Speaker 1: was two years younger, and then when Jill was seven,
Speaker 1: her youngest brother was born.
Speaker 2: When my little brother was born, my mom would always say, well,
Speaker 2: we can't very well name you Jill, John and Bob.
Speaker 3: It just doesn't sound good.
Speaker 2: And so she named him jim And then all of
Speaker 2: our you know, holiday cards, everything from that point on,
Speaker 2: whenever my parents signed it, it was their first names
Speaker 2: and the three jas.
Speaker 1: From the time he was a baby, Jimmy stood out
Speaker 1: in the best way.
Speaker 2: We were all very average looking brunettes, brown hair, brown eyes,
Speaker 2: and he had this bright orange hair and bright blue
Speaker 2: eyes and freckles, and you know, he was so just
Speaker 2: stunning looking and adorable.
Speaker 3: I feel like he kind of always had a little
Speaker 3: bit of drool on.
Speaker 2: His face for some reason when he was little, and
Speaker 2: people would stop us on the street to comment on
Speaker 2: his hair and how cute he was.
Speaker 1: Jill adored her little brother. He wasn't just a cute baby,
Speaker 1: he was a happy baby.
Speaker 2: He was just this like very lovable, goofy, funny little guy.
Speaker 2: And one of his favorite things that he would do
Speaker 2: on command is we would say happy face, and he
Speaker 2: would make this like very big, bright, smiley happy face,
Speaker 2: and though we'd say mad face, and then he'd make
Speaker 2: this very mad face and it just cracked us up.
Speaker 1: As he got older, Jimmy clearly looked up to Jill
Speaker 1: and John. They would lovingly tease him, and he played
Speaker 1: along too.
Speaker 2: We would yell the word servant, like servant, and then
Speaker 2: you would hear bitter better, bitter better, bitter better, bitter better,
Speaker 2: and he would just come running and you'd say, go
Speaker 2: make me some chocolate milk, and he would like happily
Speaker 2: go run and make chocolate milk.
Speaker 3: Because he he was like just happy to be included.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: When the family got a camcorder, the kids' film skits
Speaker 1: and commercials.
Speaker 2: One of the skits we would do was mister Rogers,
Speaker 2: and he would play mister mcpheey and ring the doorbell
Speaker 2: and say speedy delivery, speedy delivery, and was just like
Speaker 2: always up for anything.
Speaker 1: Having Jimmy intew made everything more fun. Besides his red hair,
Speaker 1: Jimmy's most defining feature was his laugh. Not only was
Speaker 1: he hilarious, but he laughed really easily, and that just
Speaker 1: always felt so good that even if you're not a
Speaker 1: person that everyone thinks of as being really funny, when
Speaker 1: you were with him, you felt really funny. Despite their
Speaker 1: seven year age difference, Jill loved his company. I don't
Speaker 1: ever remember there being a time where I was like,
Speaker 1: you're annoying, get away from me. I think even as
Speaker 1: we both got older, he was still my baby brother,
Speaker 1: and we were very, very close, and he was always
Speaker 1: just sweet and fun and funny. And I'm sure that
Speaker 1: there were probably times that, you know, I closed my
Speaker 1: door and was like, get away from me, But those
Speaker 1: moments aren't the ones she remembers. When Jill thinks back
Speaker 1: on her childhood, there's Jimmy in the frame every time,
Speaker 1: with his messy red hair and his huge smile. Because
Speaker 1: Jimmy was the baby, Jill says, he got away with
Speaker 1: a lot.
Speaker 2: Our parents were a fair amount more permissive with him,
Speaker 2: which I think is pretty typical of their children. Maybe
Speaker 2: because you're tired by the time you have a third
Speaker 2: child coming along, you're older, kind of like been there,
Speaker 2: done that, You're like less worried, less anxious.
Speaker 1: As Jimmy got older, he got in.
Speaker 2: Trouble more often than we did. And a lot of
Speaker 2: the things he got in trouble for were not things
Speaker 2: that my middle brother and I weren't also doing. He
Speaker 2: just got caught more frequently than we did. Their mom
Speaker 2: had a hypothesis about why Jimmy always seemed to get
Speaker 2: in trouble at school. The teacher's writing on the chalkboard
Speaker 2: and all the little kids in class are chit chatting,
Speaker 2: and she turns around to see who the culprit is,
Speaker 2: and you're looking at a sea of brown and blonde heads.
Speaker 2: You know, your eyes are naturally drawn to the bright,
Speaker 2: orange haired kid.
Speaker 1: There was some sense in it, but it didn't explain
Speaker 1: why Jimmy was falling behind in school.
Speaker 2: At some point, my mom told me that she had
Speaker 2: all three of us IQ tested. She never told us
Speaker 2: the results or the scores, but she did tell us
Speaker 2: that Jimmy had the highest IQ, which is not surprising,
Speaker 2: like he was very naturally intelligent, but he probably did
Speaker 2: the worst in school, which I would guess is probably
Speaker 2: because he had untreated ADHD until he was in high school,
Speaker 2: and then by then, you know, I think when you
Speaker 2: have a history of like kind of always doing the
Speaker 2: wrong thing because you have untreated ADHD, you sort of
Speaker 2: stopped trying to do the right thing.
Speaker 1: By high school, Jimmy developed a pattern of making excuses.
Speaker 1: It was hard to tell what was just Jimmy being
Speaker 1: Jimmy and what was cause for concern. But Jill was
Speaker 1: hardly around for those years because she left for college
Speaker 1: when Jimmy was eleven. She studied psychology because she wanted
Speaker 1: to know how people tick. She called her parents every
Speaker 1: week and they would give her updates about Jimmy. She
Speaker 1: remembers one story in particular that gave her pause.
Speaker 2: He got in a fight with a classmate in high school.
Speaker 2: I don't remember why, and we like smashed a tennis racket.
Speaker 2: I think he might have physically assaulted the kid, because
Speaker 2: I remember my dad saying that the family was threatening
Speaker 2: to sue. So it was more than just angry outburst
Speaker 2: that ruined a tennis racket. And so that kind of
Speaker 2: thing was like the start of us seeing there's something
Speaker 2: going on with him at the time, Jill was focused
Speaker 2: on getting her master's degree, and despite being a troublemaker
Speaker 2: in high school, Jimmy ended up getting accepted to the
Speaker 2: same college as his two older siblings. I think I
Speaker 2: thought of it at the time as like, I'm not
Speaker 2: his mom, I'm his sister, Like it's not my job
Speaker 2: to figure out how to get him in line. When
Speaker 2: Jill was accepted into a PhD program, it meant she
Speaker 2: would need to move back to Boston, so she packed
Speaker 2: up to move across the country. On the way, she
Speaker 2: planned to stop at her parents' house for the night.
Speaker 2: I had driven cross country with my boyfriend at the time,
Speaker 2: and we ended up arriving one day ahead of schedule.
Speaker 2: And we arrived at night to my parents' house, and
Speaker 2: my parents must have been out of town for some reason,
Speaker 2: and Jimmy was having party and I walked into the
Speaker 2: kitchen and there was cocaine on the table. You know,
Speaker 2: there's a rolled up dollar bill.
Speaker 1: She'd never seen cocaine in real life. Jimmy told her
Speaker 1: to relax. He was twenty at the time. It's not
Speaker 1: like he was a child. But to me, no matter
Speaker 1: how old we got, he was always my baby brother
Speaker 1: and so it just felt very shocking. As Jill started
Speaker 1: her PhD program, Jimmy was in college.
Speaker 2: This was a time where I was working twelve hours
Speaker 2: a day, seven days a week. There was always some
Speaker 2: thirty five page paper due. But as busy as she was,
Speaker 2: she wouldn't miss Jimmy's college graduation. When the time came,
Speaker 2: she bought a plane ticket and traveled a few states north.
Speaker 2: I have no time and no money, but this was
Speaker 2: a really big deal that he was graduating, and so
Speaker 2: my entire family flew out and got up early and
Speaker 2: were sitting in the auditorium waiting for him to cross
Speaker 2: the stage. They're reading the names alphabetically, and they go
Speaker 2: right past where he should have been, and we waited
Speaker 2: and were very confused, and he never walked across the stage.
Speaker 2: The family got in their rental car and drove to
Speaker 2: Jimmy's apartment concerned, so we knocked on the door. He
Speaker 2: answered the door, looking very sleepy. All the lights were off,
Speaker 2: and he started ranting about his stupid, effing roommate who
Speaker 2: must have turned off his alarm. And we were so upset.
Speaker 2: We spent all this time and money and effort to
Speaker 2: get out to this big event, and like he couldn't
Speaker 2: even be responsible enough to show up to the graduation.
Speaker 2: You know, it turned into a fight and we decided
Speaker 2: to go home early. It just felt like it was
Speaker 2: an escalation of irresponsibility and unreliability.
Speaker 1: Their family wondered if Jimmy actually graduated at all. Her
Speaker 1: parents asked him directly, and he said, no, no, I
Speaker 1: definitely graduated, and they had no way of proving it.
Speaker 3: They're paying for.
Speaker 2: His school, but they don't have access to his school records,
Speaker 2: so there was nothing they could really do to confirm
Speaker 2: whether this was the truth. And I think ultimately they
Speaker 2: just opted to believe them.
Speaker 1: But Jill still had her suspicions about what really happened
Speaker 1: that weekend. It was years later and we were having
Speaker 1: fun and having drinks and I asked him, I said,
Speaker 1: tell me the truth, like what was the real story?
Speaker 1: Did you graduate? And he was like, well, don't tell
Speaker 1: mom and dad, But no, I didn't graduate. So the
Speaker 1: whole thing was actually premeditated, and the lie about the
Speaker 1: alarm clock.
Speaker 2: And his ire that how dare we leave him when
Speaker 2: this wasn't his fault? It was an act all along.
Speaker 2: He knew that he wasn't graduating. That conversation made Jilsey
Speaker 2: her brother a little differently. Before this moment, she knew
Speaker 2: he could be irresponsible, but she didn't know he had
Speaker 2: the capacity to lie like this. I had a pretty
Speaker 2: complicated emotional reaction to that. I was really angry. It
Speaker 2: was sort of like, how dare you? Like, how can
Speaker 2: you do.
Speaker 3: This to us? You know?
Speaker 2: I think the anger was the thing that was covering
Speaker 2: the harder emotion, which was like fear, fear of who
Speaker 2: her brother really was and what he was capable of.
Speaker 2: So after his fake graduation from college, I remember him
Speaker 2: kind of like job jumping a fair amount because he
Speaker 2: always had a terrible boss, you know, that kind of thing.
Speaker 2: And that was kind of the extent that my middle
Speaker 2: brother and I knew.
Speaker 1: Became an arborist, a tree expert, and he started his
Speaker 1: own landscaping business.
Speaker 2: He ended up moving back to New England and lived
Speaker 2: in the same town as my middle brother and his family,
Speaker 2: and so they started to see more of him and
Speaker 2: to see some behaviors that were concerning. He was going
Speaker 2: to go out and get his truck washed, and he'd
Speaker 2: be gone for hours and then he would come back
Speaker 2: and his truck wouldn't be washed, but he would never
Speaker 2: explain where he was or what he was doing.
Speaker 1: Every year, there'd be one good visit with Jimmy and
Speaker 1: one visit where Jimmy was clearly up to something.
Speaker 2: Despite the irresponsibility and the frustration, I still adored him
Speaker 2: and we were still very cloth like. I was frustrated
Speaker 2: by his behavior, but pretty quick to forgive him. And
Speaker 2: partly that's because he's my baby brother, and he wasn't
Speaker 2: always like that, and that cute, little, sweet and enthusiastic
Speaker 2: and happy little boy like he was still that in
Speaker 2: so many ways. I even remember, while I was in
Speaker 2: graduate school having a conversation with one of my friends
Speaker 2: that classic question of like, if you were going to
Speaker 2: be stranded on a desert island with five people, who
Speaker 2: would be on your island?
Speaker 3: And he was at the top of my list.
Speaker 1: Jimmy was there when Jill got married in Vegas. It
Speaker 1: was an intimate wedding, a house party, but the next
Speaker 1: morning Jimmy was taking someone to the airport and he
Speaker 1: disappeared for hours, and when he finally came back, he
Speaker 1: was like sweaty and anxious and claimed it was because
Speaker 1: he was lost I just remember my brother, my sister
Speaker 1: in law, my husband, and I all being like, something
Speaker 1: is going on here, no idea what it is, but
Speaker 1: it's got to be drugs. Right after years of Jimmy's
Speaker 1: strange behavior, Jill and her other brother, John assumed that
Speaker 1: he must be secretly using drugs. It was the only
Speaker 1: logical explanation. By twenty thirteen, Jill had achieved some big
Speaker 1: life milestones.
Speaker 2: I was working as a professor in a graduate school
Speaker 2: for psychology. My daughter had just turned one, and I
Speaker 2: was working on my very first book.
Speaker 1: One day, she was home alone with her infant daughter.
Speaker 2: I was in my family room TV on, daughters playing
Speaker 2: on the floor, and I was folding laundry, and I
Speaker 2: got a text message from John that said he was
Speaker 2: on his way to go bail Jimmy out of jail.
Speaker 2: And of course we're speculating back and forth, what do
Speaker 2: you think this is. It's got to be drugs because
Speaker 2: this was on the heels of some of this bizarre,
Speaker 2: suspicious behavior. So we thought, okay, this is our confirmation
Speaker 2: he's using drugs. I was like, all right, just keep
Speaker 2: me posted, and so he started texting me with updates
Speaker 2: as he got them. I don't remember what all the
Speaker 2: texts said, but I do remember the one that came
Speaker 2: through that said, it's a class felony. A felony either
Speaker 2: he has like a large amount or he was distributing
Speaker 2: or selling.
Speaker 1: But then Jill got the text that changed her life.
Speaker 1: The police had confiscated Jimmy's computer and they'd found photos
Speaker 1: of underage girls.
Speaker 2: What made it a felony was that the children in
Speaker 2: the images were clearly under the age of twelve, they
Speaker 2: were pre pubescent. And I remember like falling to the
Speaker 2: ground having the only panic attack I've ever had in
Speaker 2: my life. My husband wasn't home, and it was just
Speaker 2: my daughter and me, the TV and the laundry, and
Speaker 2: I just remember being on the ground, totally hyperventilating. Oh
Speaker 2: this to this day, so it's been twelve years. I
Speaker 2: just remember feeling so panicked that if this could be
Speaker 2: true about my brother, and I could have no idea
Speaker 2: how on earth was I ever going to keep my
Speaker 2: daughter safe, How on earth would I ever know.
Speaker 3: Who the monster.
Speaker 1: Jimmy insisted that he'd been framed, just.
Speaker 2: Like he told us, he graduated and his alarm didn't
Speaker 2: go off. We didn't believe anything he was saying. Jill
Speaker 2: formed an alliance with her sister in law, John's wife,
Speaker 2: and so she and I we would get on the
Speaker 2: phone for hours and hours and hours and talk about
Speaker 2: all of the sat nauseum because we were on the
Speaker 2: same page and we were both new moms. All we
Speaker 2: cared about was making sure that our kids were safe.
Speaker 2: Nothing else mattered. So my sister in law ended up
Speaker 2: actually going to the courthouse to get access to whatever
Speaker 2: records were public, and so she was able to see
Speaker 2: what the arrest was for. It listed the file names
Speaker 2: of the content that they found on his computer.
Speaker 1: It wasn't a lot of information, but it was enough.
Speaker 1: These were photos girls as young as six. Jimmy had
Speaker 1: photoshopped himself into some of the images. But when it
Speaker 1: came to his sentencing.
Speaker 2: The consequences were not significant. I think he maybe spent
Speaker 2: a couple weeks incarcerated and then he was on the
Speaker 2: sex offender registry.
Speaker 1: To Jill, it seemed like a slap on the wrist,
Speaker 1: but the inner personal cost was immeasurable.
Speaker 2: Because after Jimmy's arrest, our family kind of fell apart.
Speaker 1: A stark divide formed in the family. Jill, her husband
Speaker 1: and her sister in law wanted to cut Jimmy out
Speaker 1: of their lives, but her parents weren't on the same page,
Speaker 1: and I remember them saying things like, well, I mean,
Speaker 1: isn't it not as bad because it's only pictures. They
Speaker 1: wanted to find a way to explain it, a way
Speaker 1: that wasn't as horrib horrific as what the reality was
Speaker 1: a lot of just mental gymnastics and denial. And what
Speaker 1: resulted from that, I think it was pretty clear to
Speaker 1: Jimmy that he could fairly successfully manipulate my parents. He
Speaker 1: told them that his addiction to Adderall is what caused
Speaker 1: him to do this, and I had several conversations with them,
Speaker 1: you know, as a clinical psychologist.
Speaker 3: Saying.
Speaker 2: Being high on adderall very likely led him to feel
Speaker 2: disinhibited so that he was more likely to engage in
Speaker 2: these behaviors, but the drug itself did not cause him
Speaker 2: to be attracted to little girls.
Speaker 1: Jill and her sister in law drew a firm boundary
Speaker 1: that they would not interact with Jimmy. They both had
Speaker 1: young daughters to protect, and in response, Jimmy lashed out,
Speaker 1: and so he sent me and my sister in law
Speaker 1: very nasty messages. He told me I should go kill myself,
Speaker 1: cruel lashing out emails the likes of which we had
Speaker 1: never seen. We had not seen this side of him.
Speaker 1: That year, their parents invited Jimmy to the family reunion
Speaker 1: and we were like, what, No, there were going to
Speaker 1: be children there.
Speaker 3: He can't be there.
Speaker 2: And I remember saying finally, like, I will tell everyone
Speaker 2: I am not allowing him to be around children without
Speaker 2: the parents knowing. My parents didn't want anyone to know.
Speaker 2: They wanted to keep this a secret, so I think
Speaker 2: they ultimately just told him he couldn't come. Jill didn't
Speaker 2: talk to her little brother for four years. That was
Speaker 2: until their mom got sick, when it became clear that
Speaker 2: she was near.
Speaker 1: The end of her life.
Speaker 2: Of course, my little brother also wanted to say goodbye
Speaker 2: to his dying mother, and we were all there together,
Speaker 2: and so my dad asked our permission based only to
Speaker 2: let him come. Honestly, it was a hard decision, but
Speaker 2: it wasn't you know. It was like, of course, he
Speaker 2: has the right to see his mom and say goodbye
Speaker 2: to his mom, and there were no children present for
Speaker 2: any of that, so we let him come.
Speaker 3: And this was the first time we saw.
Speaker 1: Him, when Jimmy walked in the door, he looked like
Speaker 1: his old self. He seemed clear eye and genuine.
Speaker 2: He assured us that he was clean. His behavior was
Speaker 2: quite different. He apologized for the mean emails that he
Speaker 2: sent to my sister in law and me. He apologized
Speaker 2: for the terrible way that he had treated all of us.
Speaker 2: He was very sincere, and we believed him. We believed
Speaker 2: that even if he still had this sexual proclivity, he
Speaker 2: wasn't acting on it.
Speaker 1: After that, Jill and Jimmy were on speaking terms again.
Speaker 3: We agreed to try to.
Speaker 2: Repair the rupture in our relationship, but of course with
Speaker 2: like gigantic boundaries that he would not be ever unsupervised
Speaker 2: around kids or anything like that. And that lasted for
Speaker 2: a year. Exactly one year. It was their grandmother's ninety
Speaker 2: ninth birthday party. He was there and it became instantly
Speaker 2: obvious that something was wrong. He's acting super cagey, he's
Speaker 2: being weird. He's sleeping a lot, he's being very aggressive
Speaker 2: and hostile. You got in a fight with someone in
Speaker 2: a bar. I mean, just kind of back to a
Speaker 2: lot of the old stuff. And I remember leaving the weekend,
Speaker 2: and my sister in law and I talking and just saying,
Speaker 2: like the other shoe's going to drop, We're.
Speaker 3: Just waiting for the call. The call's going to come.
Speaker 2: And then sure enough, shortly after that, we got the call.
Speaker 2: A few months earlier, the police had received another tip
Speaker 2: about Jimmy. They executed a search warrant at his house.
Speaker 2: They confiscated his computers. They also found several thumb drives
Speaker 2: in various pockets of his clothing.
Speaker 1: He wasn't home during the search. His roommate called to
Speaker 1: tell him that the police were looking for him, but
Speaker 1: Jimmy was nowhere to be found, so the police tracked
Speaker 1: his cell phone to try and make the arrest.
Speaker 2: When they finally found him, he had climbed up a
Speaker 2: very high tree. He was a tree guy in arborist,
Speaker 2: so he had equipment to climb trees, and the police
Speaker 2: all came and he was demanding a letter that he
Speaker 2: would not be held responsible for what they found, and
Speaker 2: if they didn't give him that letter, that he was
Speaker 2: going to jump and kill himself. They ultimately talk him
Speaker 2: down out of the tree and they arrest him.
Speaker 1: This time the FBI was involved. Jimmy insisted again that
Speaker 1: he had been framed. Jill knew it was a lie,
Speaker 1: but she didn't have the FBI report. She didn't know
Speaker 1: exactly what he'd done, and she was determined to find out.
Speaker 2: We had a close family friend that was friends with
Speaker 2: my middle brother since like third grade, and he's a
Speaker 2: private investigator. Actually, this family friend was able to get
Speaker 2: access to this very detailed FBI report. He emailed it
Speaker 2: to me, and my husband begged me not to read it.
Speaker 3: He begged me what.
Speaker 1: Was in this report would determine the future of her family.
Speaker 1: The four years that she'd been estranged from Jimmy tore
Speaker 1: her family apart. They'd just gone back to speaking terms.
Speaker 1: If Jill was going to put her father through that again,
Speaker 1: she needed to see it with her own eyes. So
Speaker 1: she opened the FBI report.
Speaker 3: And I knew I shouldn't.
Speaker 2: I knew, I knew it was the worst idea, and
Speaker 2: I couldn't not read it. I mean, we had just
Speaker 2: been sitting in so much uncertainty and bewilderment that it
Speaker 2: felt intolerable. I was just compelled, like I.
Speaker 3: Just had to know. And of course he was right.
Speaker 2: It was the worst thing I could have done.
Speaker 1: Jill was in the car with her husband when she
Speaker 1: received a copy of the FBI report on Jimmy, and
Speaker 1: despite her husband's please, she read it. The report started
Speaker 1: by describing not pictures, but videos and objects found in
Speaker 1: Jimmy's house.
Speaker 3: It was sickening.
Speaker 2: The detail in this report will be burned on my
Speaker 2: brain forever. There were things happening in these videos that
Speaker 2: I couldn't have even imagined in my worst nightmare.
Speaker 1: Jimmy had clearly escalated.
Speaker 3: He was not.
Speaker 2: Only downloading material, he was also uploading material.
Speaker 1: In his home. The police seized a child sized sex
Speaker 1: doll and multiple pairs of children's underwear.
Speaker 2: That was really the moment I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 2: he's a monster.
Speaker 1: Jill spoke to him one last time, and on that
Speaker 1: phone call, he wasn't remorseful. He was defiant.
Speaker 2: He said to me, well, at least I'm not part
Speaker 2: of a ring or anything. She's often wondered if he
Speaker 2: was telling on himself in that moment, and it was
Speaker 2: like what a little kid would do. You know, it's
Speaker 2: got chocolate all over the face. Did you eat a
Speaker 2: cookieat No.
Speaker 1: It's important to note that in crimes like this, her
Speaker 1: perpetrators are seeking to consume se sam. There's often a
Speaker 1: limit to how much someone can download before they're required
Speaker 1: to create and upload their own content.
Speaker 2: Knowing the depths of what these perpetrators are capable of
Speaker 2: doing really sent me into a spiral as a mom.
Speaker 2: A switch flipped in Jill's reality. After the first arrest,
Speaker 2: I could still see both sides of him, like he
Speaker 2: was still my little baby brother who I always loved
Speaker 2: and was very cleo to, who had this sickness, this
Speaker 2: horrible proclivity. I even had some compassion for him because
Speaker 2: I recognized that he wouldn't want this or wouldn't choose this.
Speaker 2: But I think after the second time, my capacity for
Speaker 2: compassion largely disappeared. Once I read that report, all I could.
Speaker 3: Think about.
Speaker 2: Was what happened to those little girls and when he
Speaker 2: got caught the second time, the girls in those images
Speaker 2: were the exact same age as my daughter, and that's
Speaker 2: all I could think about.
Speaker 3: That's all I could think about, was like if he
Speaker 3: had had access to.
Speaker 2: Her, that was really the point of no return for me.
Speaker 1: This time. It wasn't a slap on the wrist for
Speaker 1: Jimmy because he'd been trading videos and the FBI got involved.
Speaker 2: He was charged with a federal crime because they have
Speaker 2: these federal minimums. The penalty for this is ten years,
Speaker 2: so he was ultimately sentenced to ten years in a
Speaker 2: federal correctional facility. She'd seen the darkest parts of humanity
Speaker 2: in her own brother, and so after this happened, all
Speaker 2: of us were just how, why, what possibly could have
Speaker 2: caused this? How could the same family, you know, raise
Speaker 2: my middle brother and me to be who we are,
Speaker 2: but also have this person be a pedophile. It just
Speaker 2: did not make any sense.
Speaker 1: She began obsessively researching and studying perpetrators like her brother.
Speaker 2: If I could just understand this enough, then I would
Speaker 2: have the tools to protect my children. As an anxiety expert,
Speaker 2: what I know about what fuels anxiety is uncertainty, a
Speaker 2: lack of perceived control, and a high sense of responsibility.
Speaker 2: And those three things were so present for me as.
Speaker 3: A mom when this happened.
Speaker 1: She learned how perpetrators often groomed the parents first and
Speaker 1: how they select their targets.
Speaker 2: Perpetrators groom children by connecting with little kids over things
Speaker 2: that they like. They test them by sharing secret you know,
Speaker 2: saying to a kid, telling them or doing something that
Speaker 2: their parents wouldn't approve of, and saying this will be
Speaker 2: our secret. To then see did the kid tell the
Speaker 2: parents it was a secret, and if not, that might
Speaker 2: make them a good victim.
Speaker 1: But no matter how much she learned, the anxiety didn't
Speaker 1: go away. All the research in the world didn't give
Speaker 1: her an answer about how or why her own little
Speaker 1: brother became this person. She's had to accept that her
Speaker 1: brother's actions have fundamentally changed her.
Speaker 3: I think it's made me hard.
Speaker 2: And I was not that way before this. Ooh, that
Speaker 2: just got me choked up. It was just the most
Speaker 2: painful experience of letting yourself love someone so deeply.
Speaker 3: And to have that backfire.
Speaker 1: What hurts the most is thinking back to the happy
Speaker 1: little boy she loved so much.
Speaker 2: It feels impossible that those people are the same person.
Speaker 2: It just feels impossible that human body is still walking
Speaker 2: around on the earth. But I lost my brother that
Speaker 2: I knew years years ago.
Speaker 1: There's a word for this kind of experience. It's called
Speaker 1: disenfranchised grief.
Speaker 2: And so I feel like I have never really been
Speaker 2: able to properly grieve any of this because I don't
Speaker 2: feel like I'm allowed to feel grief for someone who's
Speaker 2: a pedophile.
Speaker 1: Jimmy's now out of prison. Jill isn't in touch with
Speaker 1: him and doesn't plan to be. Just knowing he's out
Speaker 1: there brings all these emotions to the surface once again.
Speaker 1: But Jill is committed to finding meaning in the wreckage. Today,
Speaker 1: she writes and speaks publicly about her story, including the
Speaker 1: darkest parts. Jill co hosts a podcast of her own
Speaker 1: psychologists Off the Clock. It's a place where clinicians talk
Speaker 1: about real life grief, shame, and what actually helpslogy.
Speaker 3: There's a concept of post traumatic growth.
Speaker 2: Some people experience trauma and they kind of rebound back
Speaker 2: to baselines. Some never really rebound, and some actually end
Speaker 2: up doing better than they were at baseline.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 2: Exactly where I fall on that spectrum, but I do
Speaker 2: think there has been sort of examples of growth or
Speaker 2: good or purpose through this.
Speaker 1: We end all of our weekly episodes with the same question,
Speaker 1: why do you want to share your story?
Speaker 2: I think as much as this feels scary and uncomfortable,
Speaker 2: we have to be willing to say the hard thing.
Speaker 2: Treating this like a dirty little secret, like this is
Speaker 2: not my crime, this is not my family's crime, Like
Speaker 2: none of us did anything wrong. He Jimmy is the
Speaker 2: only one who did anything wrong.
Speaker 3: And keeping it a secret is just protecting him, and
Speaker 3: he doesn't deserve.
Speaker 2: Protection, deserve protection, And so I just feel compelled to
Speaker 2: start having more of these honest conversations, even if they're
Speaker 2: not popular. Like sunlight is the best disinfectant, and I
Speaker 2: have to be part of the sunlight.
Speaker 1: On the next episode of Betrayal Weekly, I get.
Speaker 4: A call and it's a detective, he said, Jack oln
Speaker 4: We got an anonymous call from a gentleman stating that
Speaker 4: you were being scammed and they felt sorry for you.
Speaker 4: My head exploded, thinking, oh my god, Oh my god,
Speaker 4: Oh my god, oh my god.
Speaker 1: Before we end the episode, I have some exciting news.
Speaker 1: Betrayal will be doing our first ever live show as
Speaker 1: part of the Virgin Voyages True Crime Crew OZ. We'll
Speaker 1: be answering listener questions and discussing them live on stage
Speaker 1: with Stacy and Tyler from Betrayal season three, as well
Speaker 1: as Caroline from season four. So if you have a
Speaker 1: question for us, please email us at Betrayalpod at gmail
Speaker 1: dot com with the subject line listener question and if
Speaker 1: you want to join us on the Caribbean cruise, there
Speaker 1: are still spots available. Search virgin voyages dot com slash
Speaker 1: true crime. If you would like to reach out to
Speaker 1: the Betrayal team or want to tell us your Betrayal story,
Speaker 1: email us at Betrayalpod at gmail dot com, That's Betrayal
Speaker 1: Pod at gmail dot com, or follow us on Instagram
Speaker 1: at Betrayal Pod. You can also connect with me on
Speaker 1: Instagram at It's Andrea Gunning. To access our newsletter, view
Speaker 1: additional content, and connect with the Betrayal community, join our
Speaker 1: substack at Betrayal dot substack dot com. We're grateful for
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Speaker 1: A big thank you to all of our listeners. Betrayal
Speaker 1: is a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass
Speaker 1: Entertainment Group and partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is
Speaker 1: executive produced by Nancy Glass and Jennifer Fason, hosted and
Speaker 1: produced by me Andrea Gunning, written and produced by Monique Leboard.
Speaker 1: Also produced by Ben Fetterman, Associate producers are Caitlin Golden,
Speaker 1: Olivia Hewitt, and Kristin Melcurie. Casting support from Curry Richmond.
Speaker 1: Our iHeart team is Ali Perry and Jessica Krincheck. Audio
Speaker 1: editing and mixing by Matt Delvechio. Additional audio editing by
Speaker 1: Tanner Robbins. Betrayal's theme composed by Oliver Bains. Music library
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