S3: E2 – Good Moms

Speaker 1 This is an iHeart Podcast.

Speaker 4 Are your AI agents helping users or just creating more work?

Speaker 6 If you can't compare your users' workflows before and after adding AI, how do you know it's even paying off?

Speaker 11 Pendo Agent Analytics is the first tool to connect agent prompts and conversations to downstream outcomes like time saved, so you know what's working and what to fix.

Speaker 8 Start improving agent performance at pendo.io/slash podcast.

Speaker 13 That's pendo.io slash podcast.

Speaker 14 It starts like any other night.

Speaker 16 The glass of red, the cozy blanket, then the drop.

Speaker 18 The stains so dark, so stubborn, it might as well have been a crime scene.

Speaker 21 But this isn't your average couch.

Speaker 15 This is Anna Bay.

Speaker 22 Fully washable, unspeakably comfortable, and ready for whatever your life, your kids, or your ex throws ahead of.

Speaker 16 And here's the kicker.

Speaker 23 Starting at just $6.99, you can make sure your sofa isn't part of the problem. Fully washable, stain-resistant, and built to hide even the darkest offenses.

Speaker 16 Right now, get up to 60% off in Black Friday savings because no one should have to live with a stain that won't quit.

Speaker 19 Anna Bay, the only mystery you won't be losing sleep over.

Speaker 18 Shop washable sofas.com today.

Speaker 16 That's washable sofas.com.

Speaker 25 We all have dirty mouth moments, but this one makes your dentist proud. I'm talking about dirty mouth toothpowder from Primal Life Organics.

Speaker 25 Instead of foamy fillers and dyes, it gives your teeth back the minerals they're made of, restoring enamel naturally. Best part, it's safe even if the little ones swallow it.

Speaker 25 No harsh chemicals, no scary warning labels, just clean ingredients that whiten and strengthen with science. Ready to switch? Visit primalifeorganics.com and use code DirtyMouth for 15% off.

Speaker 25 That's primalifeorganics.com.

Speaker 26 She was embarrassed. It's her home.
She's the wife, the mother. She had no knowledge of that device being there.

Speaker 26 But realistically, the first time we were in the home, we didn't know who placed it there. I mean, Justin was acting like a suspect by not talking to us in the way he was acting.

Speaker 1 I'm Andrea Gunning, and this is Betrayal Season 3, Episode 2.

Speaker 1 Good Moms.

Speaker 1 A listener note, some names have been changed to protect privacy.

Speaker 1 Stacey Rutherford had met her soulmate, Dr. Justin Rutherford, in 2015.
They had been together for five years. Michaela, Stacey's eldest, was off to college and Tyler started high school.

Speaker 1 They were all enjoying the two youngest additions to the family. Stacy's two older kids loved having young siblings.

Speaker 27 They called them the littles.

Speaker 1 Here's Tyler.

Speaker 28 My little siblings would always call me Bubby.

Speaker 28 It's fun. It's good, like on days when you're feeling sad.
They don't know what's going on, but just a hug from them makes you feel so much better.

Speaker 1 Justin was providing for his family and involved with all four kids. He took Tyler to hockey practice.
He helped Michaela pay for school at Penn State.

Speaker 1 And he was the dad who got on the floor with the kids. Stacy showed me some videos of Justin and the littles.

Speaker 1 It's hard not to smile when you hear the kids squealing with delight.

Speaker 1 Tyler's friends enjoyed having Justin around, especially when it came to gaming. He was always down for a game of Call of Duty.

Speaker 28 If I had friends over and we needed another person to fill up the game, they'd have him come in. I mean, that was like his outside of work passion.

Speaker 1 Stacy felt fulfilled as a doctor's wife and mother of four in Pennsylvania. But like any couple, Stacey and Justin had their issues.

Speaker 1 Physical intimacy was one of the areas where they were not on the same page. Even while dating, Stacy found Justin's lack of libido concerning.

Speaker 29 We never had a normal sex life. The only time he ever seemed to really want to have sex was when we were trying to get pregnant.
He always had problems performing.

Speaker 29 He just always explained it that, oh, med school is very hard. You know, I'm stressed a lot.
And then it would turn into, well, you know, I've never been a very sexual person.

Speaker 29 And I remember, you know, having conversations with like my girlfriends, like, is it me? Is it my weight? And I ended up talking to one of the doctors I worked with.

Speaker 29 And I was like, I need to ask you a question. Like, is it common for residents to have to use Viagra or just not have a sex drive? And they were like, oh, yeah, that's very common.

Speaker 29 So then I felt like a horrible person. Like, you know, he's just really stressed out.
And here I am making a big deal out of this.

Speaker 29 And so I was willing to sacrifice that part of our relationship to have all of the good that we had.

Speaker 1 And some of the good Justin offered was his intrinsic approach with children. He was a natural.
He spoke their language.

Speaker 30 All of the kids that we ever have been around, nieces, nephews, residence kids, everybody gravitated towards him because he was like a big kid.

Speaker 1 For me, it warmed my heart because I was like, oh, I want a man that's good with kids.

Speaker 1 But sometimes Justin took it too far and Stacey had to remind him that he was the father in the family.

Speaker 30 Like one time, you know, all the boys over at our house stayed the night I swam in the pool and they all went and got Play-Doh, including my husband, and made Play-Doh penises.

Speaker 30 Of course, for teenage boys, you know, you're going to be like, ah, that's, you know, they were laughing, I'm sure.

Speaker 16 But for an adult to get in on that, I was like, Justin, you're 30-some years old.

Speaker 30 It was like there was never this understanding that he was the parent, they were the kids.

Speaker 1 But Stacey was never seeking perfection.

Speaker 30 I always looked at it as that's Justin. He was an only child.
He's immature.

Speaker 30 You know, my sister always used to call him Peter Pan.

Speaker 30 He just wanted to be a boy forever.

Speaker 1 The Rutherford house was a hub for guests, pool parties, and friends. There were sleepovers too.
And with kids going over to swim, a lot of them changed and showered at the house.

Speaker 1 It was a completely normal happening. But one afternoon, Tyler had a couple of friends over who left in a hurry.

Speaker 28 I had my friends over and we were kind of just having a pool day. Everything was going fine.
We even planned to later on go to like a trampoline park of some sort.

Speaker 28 They had gone upstairs to change out of their swim trunks into their normal clothes.

Speaker 28 And then out of nowhere, they had said their aunt texted them or uncle, someone around those lines, and they needed to leave.

Speaker 28 Didn't really give much information as to why, but they made it seem as if it was something very urgent. And within 20 minutes, they were out the door and they were gone.

Speaker 28 I found it odd, but I just kind of assumed it was some family emergency. Someone had gotten hurt, something like that.

Speaker 1 Tyler didn't really know what happened, but didn't dwell on it either. Later on that night, another strange incident occurred.
They had an unexpected visit from Social Services.

Speaker 29 There was a tip sent to DCFS that he had asked two of Tyler's friends to do inappropriate things in the shower together.

Speaker 1 DCFS is the Division of Children and Family Services. It's a government agency that investigates the mistreatment and abuse of children.

Speaker 29 And I'm like, that's not true. I was here all day.
Like, he never was alone with anybody.

Speaker 29 And they said, okay, well, we're investigating this. And because Tyler is not Justin's biological child, he has to leave the house.

Speaker 1 Stacy had no idea what they were talking about, but it didn't matter. It was upsetting.

Speaker 1 Imagine social services knocking on your door telling you that your husband is suspected of inappropriate, possibly criminal behavior. The Division of Children and Family Services was investigating.

Speaker 1 Tyler would stay just down the street with a close friend until it was over.

Speaker 29 The social worker came back to the house and said, we've interviewed Tyler. He loves his stepdad.
He's happy here. He seems safe.
We think he's fine to come home.

Speaker 29 You know, she said, sometimes in situations like this where there is a doctor and there's money involved, it could have been somebody who thought, you know, oh, let's, you know, make up something and see if they'll pay us off.

Speaker 1 Justin agreed, telling Stacey, it had to be a money grab.

Speaker 1 So Stacey was relieved when social services told them they were dropping the case.

Speaker 29 We were just like ecstatic, like, oh my gosh, our lives can go back to normal.

Speaker 1 And for a little while, they resumed their everyday routine.

Speaker 1 But then Stacey saw something that made her realize they couldn't go back to normal.

Speaker 29 I'm downstairs with the little ones and Justin had been gone for a little while. And I'm like, where is he at?

Speaker 29 I go upstairs to our bedroom.

Speaker 29 And when I tell you that it was like a movie, I mean, it was like a movie.

Speaker 29 He was encrypting his his computer.

Speaker 29 Like the

Speaker 29 stuff coming down the screen.

Speaker 1 I imagine it looked like the scene from The Matrix when it starts raining down code.

Speaker 29 And I stood there and he turned around and he said, oh, great.

Speaker 29 Great.

Speaker 29 And I said, what are you doing? And he said, listen, you know, if we've got somebody coming after us and this and that, I'm encrypting my computer, Stacey, and I know what you think.

Speaker 29 You know, he kept saying, I know what you think. And I'm like, you're damn right.
I know what I think.

Speaker 29 From that moment on,

Speaker 29 I knew something was wrong.

Speaker 1 Stacy felt something in her gut and it changed the way she viewed her husband from that day on.

Speaker 28 We had family time every night before bed. You know, we still had those after all that, but it wasn't the normal happy family night.

Speaker 28 It was mom sits on the couch on her phone, ignores everyone and everything.

Speaker 28 And

Speaker 28 Justin tries to play it cool and act normal, but you can still tell something's not right.

Speaker 28 She wouldn't sit next to him. She wouldn't touch him.
Kisses were forced.

Speaker 28 Nothing was like the usual.

Speaker 1 Stacy performed the role of wife and mother, acting out the parts well enough to keep her household from collapsing. But in her head, she was preparing for the worst case scenarios.

Speaker 30 With my first divorce, I I felt helpless because I wasn't working. I had just quit my job and he was letting me open up a home daycare.
And within weeks of that, everything imploded.

Speaker 1 So she made sure she could always work and make a living. It's the reason she kept her certified nursing assistant credentials up to date.

Speaker 30 So I think with Justin, I just was like,

Speaker 27 I'm good. Like, I'll stay working.

Speaker 1 As much as she loved Justin and her life in Pennsylvania, she was not naive.

Speaker 1 She wouldn't make the same mistake again.

Speaker 30 I don't want to say it was like a divine thing, but I always just had this feeling at any moment the bottom could fall out, Stacey, and you need to be prepared.

Speaker 1 And sure enough, a few weeks later, the other shoe finally dropped when she was met by a detective at her front door.

Speaker 29 I get home and I pull in and there's all these vans and SUVs just flooding my driveway.

Speaker 29 And I walk up to the house and an armed officer, like, you know, ma'am, calm down, come downstairs with me.

Speaker 29 And laid out on our couch was a device torn apart and then photos of my kids all naked in the shower.

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Speaker 1 That's simplysafe.com/slash betrayal. There's no safe like SimplySafe.

Speaker 4 Are your AI agents helping users or just creating more work?

Speaker 6 If you can't compare your users' workflows before and after adding AI, how do you know it's even paying off?

Speaker 11 Pendo Agent Analytics is the first tool to connect agent prompts and conversations to downstream outcomes like time saved so you know what's working and what to fix.

Speaker 8 Start improving agent performance at pendo.io/slash podcast.

Speaker 13 That's pendo.io/slash podcast.

Speaker 14 It starts like any other night.

Speaker 16 The glass of red, the cozy blanket, then the drop.

Speaker 18 The stains so dark, so stubborn, it might as well have been a crime scene.

Speaker 21 But this isn't your average couch.

Speaker 15 This is Anna Bay.

Speaker 22 Fully washable, unspeakably comfortable, and ready for whatever your life, your kids, or your ex throws at it.

Speaker 16 And here's the kicker.

Speaker 23 Starting at just $6.99, you can make sure your sofa isn't part of the problem. Fully washable, stain-resistant, and built to hide even the darkest offenses.

Speaker 16 Right now, get up to 60% off in Black Friday savings because no one should have to live with a stain that won't quit.

Speaker 19 Anna Bay, the only mystery you won't be losing sleep over.

Speaker 18 Shop washable sofas.com today.

Speaker 16 That's washable sofas.com.

Speaker 1 Stacey had suspicions about her husband, but was not expecting a police raid. Now she was standing in her home watching a scene right out of the crime shows she watched on television.

Speaker 1 Sergeant Mike Fick, a detective with the Berks County District Attorney's Office.

Speaker 26 Amity Township Police Department received information that juveniles in a home of Justin Rutherford saw something in a bathroom that they didn't know what it was.

Speaker 26 One of the juveniles took a picture of it and sent it to his mother. The mother researched it and found that it was a camera.
Juveniles removed it with a SIM card and took it home.

Speaker 1 The Rutherford family lived in Amity Township. Sergeant Vick explained how it got to the county.

Speaker 26 Amity asked us if we would take the case because we have more knowledge and experience in this field. The good news is the evidence was secured.

Speaker 26 We wanted to have our forensic services unit withdraw the information on the SIM card and see exactly what was recorded on that device.

Speaker 1 The police have been investigating the secret camera since social services first came into their home three weeks prior.

Speaker 1 Investigators found images of several children and a handful of adults using the bathroom and showering.

Speaker 26 A lot of the boys will go in and, of course, when they stand to urinate, he would capture that. His stepdaughter, I believe our boyfriend, those people were captured.

Speaker 26 But realistically, we didn't know who placed it there.

Speaker 1 It was concerning enough to warrant further investigation.

Speaker 26 We executed a search warrant at the house, and at that time, we were in there to take every electronic device. Rutherford was there.

Speaker 26 When we went to take his cell phone, he actually tried to delete something from it quick.

Speaker 26 We had to secure him and take the phone from him.

Speaker 26 He didn't want to talk to us. He said he was going to have a lawyer.
So, of course, we couldn't question him any further. I mean, Justin was acting like a suspect.

Speaker 1 Okay, so there was a camera in the bathroom. Justin was being uncooperative.

Speaker 29 One picture was Justin's hand, and they asked me if I could identify his wedding ring. And I said, Yes, that's his wedding ring.

Speaker 29 And they told me, Well, we're here because we have reason to believe that he placed a camera in this bathroom to record your son and his friends undressed.

Speaker 1 And just then, Tyler came home from work.

Speaker 28 I was working landscaping at the time, and I'm walking down to the house, and I noticed there's all sorts of cars. And I'm thinking I'm about to walk into one of our like family parties.

Speaker 28 It's about to be a fun night.

Speaker 28 I opened the door, and there's like six police standing there in front of me.

Speaker 28 I was all covered in grass clippings and muds. I was stinky.
I was dirty. I was ready to go take a shower.
And I asked him, I kind of see what's going on. Can I just go take a shower?

Speaker 28 And then he was like, no.

Speaker 28 So they had sent me downstairs and they had broke the news that there were cameras in the house and that most of the allegations are most likely true.

Speaker 1 While Stacey felt something was off, She wasn't expecting the police to show up with a search warrant. And she certainly wasn't expecting what they were showing her.

Speaker 29 I remember crying and just, I kept saying, oh my God, like, what kind of mother doesn't know this?

Speaker 29 One of the police officers grabbed a hold of me and just held me while I cried. He kept saying, good moms, good moms, Stacey.

Speaker 29 He said, the whole time we investigated you, we were in every area of your life. Your emails, your Facebooks, your everything.

Speaker 29 The whole time he said the one thing we kept saying over and over was, this woman has no idea what's about to happen in her life.

Speaker 1 Tyler was trying to process the whole scene. His mother crying downstairs, his stepfather stonewalling upstairs.

Speaker 28 I finally got to go take my shower as they were getting ready to leave. I'm usually a five minute, 10-minute shower kind of guy.
I get my job done, I leave, but that shower was different.

Speaker 28 I just stood in there and pretty much cried cried the whole time, head against the wall, eyes closed, water falling down my head.

Speaker 1 Tyler knew what was at stake, and he knew they would not be staying in this house or in this life.

Speaker 28 We had everything we ever dreamed of growing up. We had an in-ground pool, and to me, that was the craziest thing.
Like I thought billionaires had inground pools. It had a slide.

Speaker 28 Like I thought we had a water park in the backyard.

Speaker 28 And he took us on our first cruise. And I mean, I had a nice like $1,500 gaming PC,

Speaker 28 pretty much anything a kid could want.

Speaker 30 After the raid happened, they told me social services will be contacting you.

Speaker 1 Detectives took the family's electronic devices and left. This was a mission to find and collect evidence, not to arrest Justin.

Speaker 30 At that point, He was standing in the kitchen and he started to talk to me. And I said,

Speaker 5 just shut the fuck up.

Speaker 30 I don't want to hear another word out of your mouth. I need you to get your shit, and I need you to get out of my house.
And he was like, You're going to ruin our marriage over this?

Speaker 30 Are you serious, Stacy? I said, No, you ruined our marriage. I said, They showed me everything down there, Justin.
He was like, I didn't do this. You know, that's all lies.

Speaker 1 Justin was maintaining his innocence. He started naming all of the kids who might have been the culprit.

Speaker 1 But the detective had wisely shown Stacy the photo of Justin's hand, presumably testing the camera.

Speaker 30 I was like, mm-mm, you got to go. I said, it's either you or me and these kids.
So you need to make it. He's like, well, I'm not going to make you and the kids leave the house tonight.

Speaker 30 So then he ended up going and staying with one of his co-residents and just told her that we were going through a divorce and that he just needed a place to crash.

Speaker 1 Stacy and the kids needed family and friends who were like family. But those folks were back home in Virginia.

Speaker 1 Once this story about Justin got back to his employer, this house they loved, this job he had worked so hard for,

Speaker 1 it would all be over.

Speaker 30 The day after the raid, we were put in the house up for sale.

Speaker 30 His mentality was, I'll finish out my contract here, you know, and then we'll slowly work on like rebuilding our relationship. I mean, at the time, I was trying to play the part like, oh yeah, maybe.

Speaker 16 But I was just like, oh yeah, buddy, that's not happening.

Speaker 1 Justin was adamant that that he was innocent, but Stacy no longer cared. She just wanted to keep her kids safe.

Speaker 30 I called my sister and I said, this is what's going down. I think it's going to be bad.

Speaker 30 She was like, oh my God, you got to get the babies out of that house. And I said, I told him he had to leave.
But I'm moving home. And she was like, shit, Stacey's school starts next week.

Speaker 1 Heather was concerned about Tyler. He was in high school and this move would mean a new school for him.
That was hard enough.

Speaker 30 She was like, we got to get him here to get him enrolled in school. He can't get behind.

Speaker 29 I tell my husband what's going on and my husband says to me, we're going to get Tyler.

Speaker 29 And my husband is one of those people that not a lot of people argue with. He's not taking over an answer.

Speaker 1 Tyler loved his Aunt Heather and knew on the day of the raid that his life was going to change. But he never could have predicted it would happen so fast.

Speaker 28 I'd gotten a text from my mom. Hey, when you get home tonight, we're gonna pack up all your stuff.
You're going to live with your Aunt Heather.

Speaker 5 Like, bam.

Speaker 28 It's really getting real.

Speaker 28 Woke up that next morning. My friend had come over because I'd told him I was leaving.

Speaker 28 This was the same friend I'd stayed at after social services came, so he kind of knew what was going on.

Speaker 28 We hugged. which was not like us, you know, teenage boys don't really do that.
And like he actually shed some tears. I did too.
It was kind of like heartfelt but sad at the same time.

Speaker 28 He was my best friend.

Speaker 28 I didn't have much to leave him, but I was like, take this Xbox, it'll be like a good remember-me-by.

Speaker 28 And then I was off to my aunts to live for the next year and a half or so.

Speaker 4 Are your AI agents helping users or just creating more work?

Speaker 6 If you can't compare your users' workflows before and after adding AI, how do you know it's even paying off?

Speaker 11 Pendo Agent Analytics is the first tool to connect agent prompts and conversations to downstream outcomes like time saved, so you know what's working and what to fix.

Speaker 8 Start improving agent performance at pendo.io/slash podcast.

Speaker 13 That's pendo.io/slash podcast.

Speaker 14 It starts like any other night. The glass of red, the cozy blanket, then the drop.

Speaker 18 The stain so dark, so stubborn, it might as well have been a crime scene.

Speaker 21 But this isn't your average couch.

Speaker 15 This is Anna Bay.

Speaker 22 Fully washable, unspeakably comfortable, and ready for whatever your life, your kids, or your ex throws at it.

Speaker 16 And here's the kicker.

Speaker 23 Starting at just $6.99, you can make sure your sofa isn't part of the problem. Fully washable, stain-resistant, and built to hide even the darkest offenses.

Speaker 16 Right now, get up to 60% off in Black Friday savings because no one should have to live with a stain that won't quit.

Speaker 19 Anna Bay, the only mystery you won't be losing sleep over.

Speaker 18 Shop washable sofas.com today.

Speaker 16 That's washablesofas.com.

Speaker 25 We all have dirty mouth moments, but this one makes your dentist proud. I'm talking about dirty mouth toothpowder from Primal Life Organics.

Speaker 25 Instead of foamy fillers and dyes, it gives your teeth back the minerals they're made of, restoring enamel naturally. Best part, it's safe even if the little ones swallow it.

Speaker 25 No harsh chemicals, no scary warning labels, just clean ingredients that whiten and strengthen with science. Ready to switch? Visit primalifeorganics.com and use code DirtyMouth for 15% off.

Speaker 25 That's primalifeorganics.com.

Speaker 1 We've all seen those stories. When a person with means suddenly falls and is about to lose everything, many times they don't just bow out.
They take people with them.

Speaker 1 Usually, it's those closest.

Speaker 1 Justin had lost his family, had not seen his biological children, and it was just a matter of time before he'd lose his ability to practice medicine. What then?

Speaker 1 Stacy's mind went to worst case scenarios.

Speaker 29 I slept with a loaded gun next to me for a long time. I mean my thought was his life is falling apart.
He's going to take us all down with him.

Speaker 1 As heartbreaking as it was, Stacy moved quickly and put the house on the market.

Speaker 1 I don't know if you remember the housing market in 2021. I do.
It didn't take long for for prospective buyers to start looking at Stacey's home.

Speaker 30 We were there at the house and they said the new tenants were going to come for a walkthrough. I think they got there early.

Speaker 30 So they came in and I was just like, they just kind of opened the door and walked in and I was like, oh, I'm sorry. And

Speaker 30 I just remember looking at them and I said, you know, you're getting a really good house.

Speaker 5 It's a really good neighborhood.

Speaker 30 I said, you're just, you're really going to love it here. I said, I love my time here.

Speaker 1 Her loss was their gain. Even in that moment, she showed grace.
She loved that house. She loved the life she thought she was living.

Speaker 1 Michaela had been living away at college. Stacy knew that it would only be a matter of time before she'd hear what happened.

Speaker 1 Stacy wanted to be the one to tell her. but she didn't want to break this type of news over the phone.
So she invited Michaela and her boyfriend Tommy for the weekend.

Speaker 1 When Michaela arrived at the house, she noticed something was off right away.

Speaker 27 We get there and it's just oddly quiet in this house.

Speaker 1 That's when her much younger sister spilled the beans.

Speaker 27 She looks me dead in the face and says, Daddy doesn't live here anymore and Bubby's living with Aunt Heather.

Speaker 27 And I was like,

Speaker 24 what?

Speaker 27 And mom, who hasn't said anything,

Speaker 27 explained everything, you you know, that they raided the house, they took all electronics.

Speaker 1 Michaela thought there had to be some kind of mistake. She just couldn't wrap her head around it.
Not Justin.

Speaker 27 Immediately, I was kind of like, are we sure? You know, people put nanny cams all the time. Was it an accident?

Speaker 27 Was it supposed to be like downstairs to maybe make sure Dee, who lived with us, was taking care of the kids and somebody moved it.

Speaker 1 The stress of everything that was going on seemed to be getting to Justin.

Speaker 1 One of his patients noticed a total transformation in his bedside manner.

Speaker 31 My name is Christina Calvaresi.

Speaker 31 I have to go to the doctor for regular checkups. So I went and I visited him.
I liked him a lot. He was very talkative, very interested.

Speaker 31 To me, he was a great doctor.

Speaker 1 Until he became preoccupied with his own problems.

Speaker 31 I never had an issue with him until the medication that he put me on. It crippled me.
I could not walk.

Speaker 31 It was actually destroying my muscles and the side effects of that medication were exactly the side effects that I was having.

Speaker 31 When I called his office and asked that he call me back and talk to me directly,

Speaker 31 He was very abrupt.

Speaker 31 It was not the same Dr. Rutherford that I knew.

Speaker 1 Justin kept working. He still hadn't been charged with a crime.
So word of the raid was spreading through their circle of friends and community.

Speaker 27 About a week or so later, I get a Snapchat message from one of Tyler's friends.

Speaker 1 It was a boy. She knew well.

Speaker 27 He was at the house all the time when I lived there.

Speaker 31 It was like another little brother to me.

Speaker 27 We've had difficult conversations in the past about anxiety and depression.

Speaker 27 He disclosed to me that Justin had sexually abused him.

Speaker 1 Michaela was devastated.

Speaker 27 I pulled over on the side of the road. I'm like bawling my eyes out.

Speaker 27 I did tell him, like, I'm so sorry that happened to you.

Speaker 27 But as somebody who works in healthcare, I have to mandate report or I could lose my job.

Speaker 1 Michaela was working at an outpatient psychiatry department and she took her mandate seriously.

Speaker 1 She explained that the police would probably contact his parents and that she would be there for him. But inside, Michaela was heartbroken.
Justin was her dad.

Speaker 27 It was hard.

Speaker 27 You know, when you love somebody so much, there's that little part that's like,

Speaker 27 what the heck is going on? There's no way that he could have done this. And then the bigger part of me is like,

Speaker 27 it doesn't matter. Like, this kid just told you that he was abused.
You take that seriously. It's real.

Speaker 1 Michaela didn't go to work that day. Instead, she turned around and drove herself straight to the police precinct to report the text.

Speaker 27 On my way there, I had called my mom. I asked her who the detectives were.
And I think she knew something was wrong. So I'm like, okay, I wasn't going to tell you.
You're at work. I'm trying to drive.

Speaker 27 I'm trying to still process it.

Speaker 27 But this is what happened.

Speaker 1 Michaela met with the detective at the police station to share the text. It was evidence.

Speaker 27 I gave them my phone and they made copies or screenshots.

Speaker 1 These were serious allegations and now it was in the detective's hands. She was a wreck and concerned for the victim, but there wasn't much more for Michaela to do, or at least she thought.

Speaker 1 Detectives eventually pivoted and asked her for help with the hidden camera case they were building against Justin.

Speaker 27 And then they were like, we're gonna show you a bunch of pictures. We need you to identify the individuals in the pictures.

Speaker 1 They were screen grabs the forensic team had pulled from the hidden camera.

Speaker 27 And then they whip out this huge binder and they just start flipping through it.

Speaker 27 And it's like my brother's friends, family members,

Speaker 27 all these people sitting on the toilet, brushing their teeth, using the shower. It was literally anything you can think of.

Speaker 1 No one ever noticed the camera because it was disguised as an everyday household item.

Speaker 27 It was like a cube and it charged your phone. So it worked just like a phone block, but it had a camera inside of it.

Speaker 1 Michaela was still processing the abuse allegations. And this new responsibility, well, it was awkward and just plain awful, sitting there identifying people.
Hundreds of photos laid out in binders.

Speaker 1 Detectives did their best to make her comfortable. But seeing your friends and family getting in and out of the shower, they're naked.
Can you imagine? It couldn't cover them up at least.

Speaker 1 And when she thought it couldn't get any worse,

Speaker 27 they whipped out another binder and it was me.

Speaker 27 So I dye my hair a lot. And I had to identify myself in every different hairstyle, every different hair color.

Speaker 27 And then they let me know that some of these pictures were actually like they had clipped it from a video. And the one picture was actually Tommy and I

Speaker 27 in the bathroom together doing like sexual acts.

Speaker 27 I said, how many people have seen this video?

Speaker 27 And he told me all of the forensic team, all of the detectives on the case.

Speaker 27 And I was like, as white as a ghost, I wanted to throw up.

Speaker 1 And who could blame her? Detectives went to interview the boy who said he was abused by Justin. Here's Sergeant Fick again.

Speaker 26 I personally did a forensic interview and interviewed him, and he disclosed being sexually abused by Justin.

Speaker 1 Still, there were no charges, but Stacy wanted to get away from the house. She reached a breaking point.

Speaker 30 I took the kids immediately and left the house with nothing and went to Michaela's because her building was secure. You had to have a key to get in the front.

Speaker 30 You had to have a key to get on the elevator and that key had to match the floor that you lived on too.

Speaker 1 Stacy shared the terrible development with her sister Heather, and Heather told Tyler. At least her son was safe with Heather and Virginia.

Speaker 1 For Stacy, Heather, and Michaela, there was a question that permeated all of their thoughts. If Justin sexually assaulted Tyler's friend, was it possible that he preyed on Tyler as well?

Speaker 1 Michaela couldn't stop thinking about that text and her younger brother.

Speaker 27 Honestly, as soon as I opened the message from him, I could feel it in my gut that he wasn't the only one.

Speaker 1 Stacy checked checked in with Tyler often. She asked him multiple times if he was okay.

Speaker 1 She asked him after social services came. She asked him again after the raid and thought it was agonizing to raise it with him again.

Speaker 1 She even asked her son after the sexual assault victim came forward. He always reassured her.

Speaker 1 But there was so much she didn't know. So much that happened right in front of her.
But she remembered what social services told her.

Speaker 29 We've interviewed Tyler. He loves his stepdad.
He's happy here. He seems safe.

Speaker 1 Everything was different now.

Speaker 1 Nobody had been safe.

Speaker 1 Heather thought she had the best chance of approaching Tyler. He was staying in her house.

Speaker 30 Heather was very proactive about

Speaker 30 something happened to Tyler.

Speaker 30 If he did it to another boy, I just know it. So she started immediately asking questions.

Speaker 1 Her sister sought advice from a friend who was a social worker. Here's Heather.

Speaker 29 She's like, you can't push him. You can't pull it out of him.
You just need to continue to let him know that you're there. If he wants to chat, you know you're there.

Speaker 30 They would talk about it and then she'd let it go.

Speaker 1 While Stacey was agonizing over what may have happened to Tyler, She noticed that Justin was making some unusual financial transactions.

Speaker 1 She reached out to Detective Weaver, who she had met the night of the raid.

Speaker 30 I remember texting Weaver and them saying, he's going to run. I feel it.
He's drawing out money. Oh, we got eyes on him.
We're good.

Speaker 27 We're good.

Speaker 1 Detectives were not in a hurry to arrest Justin. They were more interested in building a strong case than a fast one.
Remember, Stacey had caught him encrypting his computer.

Speaker 1 So the only evidence they had in their case against Justin at this point was the SIM card from the camera in the bathroom.

Speaker 1 With the victim coming forward, you may be thinking, there had to be an arrest warrant soon. Well, not necessarily.
Detectives were trying to corroborate the victim's story.

Speaker 1 Law enforcement wouldn't just make an arrest without sufficient evidence. They would need more.

Speaker 30 When it was just the camera charges, Detective Weaver had said to me, this was a misdemeanor act.

Speaker 30 And that with him having a clear history and no arrests or any violence or anything like that, that they would look at that and they would look at kind of who he was in society, and that more than likely he would just get probation out of it.

Speaker 30 And it was gross to me to think that you could walk away with a misdemeanor and just have probation for looking at naked children.

Speaker 1 Maybe that was Justin's purpose for hiding the camera in the bathroom, but the sim card contained images of children and adults. A defense attorney could argue that it wasn't meant for just kids.

Speaker 1 It was no slam dunk for a prosecutor.

Speaker 30 It was scary because I thought, well, he's going to get a misdemeanor. I mean, people get misdemeanors for stupid stuff and still are able to see their kids.

Speaker 1 My thought was, he's still going to have access to our children.

Speaker 30 I knew I was leaving. I knew I was divorcing him.
Like, there was no question. But to think that I would have had to possibly drive my children to his home and drop them off was just nauseating to me.

Speaker 1 Heather was on the receiving end of Stacy's anguish. My sister had just called me and she's crying and she's like,

Speaker 29 this is crazy. Like, how are they going to let him go? And I'm like, I know, you know, God's got this.
We're going to figure this out.

Speaker 29 I do not believe in my heart of hearts that this man is going to walk free. And Tyler's listening to this.

Speaker 29 And I got off the phone and he was helping me fold laundry. And I said, man, buddy, I said, I don't know.
We got to do some serious praying.

Speaker 27 He's like, why? What's up?

Speaker 29 I said, they're talking about only charging Justin with the cameras.

Speaker 1 He goes, well, what does that mean?

Speaker 29 And I said, well, that probably means your little brother will have visitation with his father in due time.

Speaker 24 And he just looked at me

Speaker 29 with a look I will never forget.

Speaker 29 And his eyes welled up with tears.

Speaker 29 And Tyler says, he'll never see the outside of a prison when I tell them what I know.

Speaker 1 He had heard enough. The thought of Justin being alone with his little brother, the idea that he could have visitation,

Speaker 1 that was the tipping point.

Speaker 1 Tyler was ready to talk.

Speaker 1 On the next episode of Betrayal.

Speaker 28 You know, they were at work making the money, doing their jobs, and I was doing my job, keeping my mouth shut to keep the family together.

Speaker 1 And Justin makes a run for it.

Speaker 30 I go to the house, and his side of the closet is gone. All of his stuff was gone.
I was like, oh shit, he's on the run.

Speaker 1 If you would like to reach out to the betrayal team, email us at betrayalpod at gmail.com. That's betrayalpod at gmail.com.

Speaker 1 Also, please be sure to follow us at Glass Podcasts on Instagram for all betrayal content, news, and updates. We're grateful for your support.

Speaker 1 One way to show support is by subscribing to our show on Apple Podcasts. And don't forget to rate and review Betrayal.
Five-star reviews go a long way. A big thank you to all of our listeners.

Speaker 1 Betrayal is a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is executive produced by Nancy Glass and Jennifer Faison.

Speaker 1 Hosted and produced by me, Andrea Gunning, written and produced by Carrie Hartman. Also produced by Ben Fetterman.
Associate producers are Kristen Mel Curie and Grace Bollinger.

Speaker 1 Our iHeart team is Allie Perry and Jessica Kreinchek. Special thanks to Stacey Rutherford, Tyler, and the rest of Stacey and Tyler's friends and family.
Audio editing and mixing by Matt Delvecchio.

Speaker 1 Editing support from Nico Aruka. Betrayals theme composed by Oliver Baines.
Music library provided by MIBE Music.

Speaker 1 And for more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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