S1: E1 - The Perfect Husband

Jennifer face In. She pitched a story she thought was compelling enough to make something of, and it turns out it was her own story. No information this morning about a cob County teacher in jail. Spencer Harron, was arrested Friday at his home in Ackworth. Harron is currently in the cop County Jail on a fifty five thousand dollar bond. Spencer was Jennifer's husband of seven years. Twenty years after dating in college, the stars seem to align and they

reconnected when they decided to get sirious. Jennifer moved from la where she worked as a television producer, to Acworth, Georgia, where Spencer was a popular high school teacher. He was also awarded Teacher of the Year twice. We've learned his arrest stems from an alleged three year sexual relationship with a sixteen year old female student, Investigators saying The team says it started back in twenty sixteen when he allegedly groped her. It all happened on Kel High School property.

The school's website lists the forty eight year old as the head of the career type department and a coach. Jennifer was blindsided. I came home on June first, twenty eighteen. Spence didn't greet me. Instead, he was sitting on the couch shaking his head. It's all over. It's all over. It's all over. Nothing could have been more shocking from

this popular teacher, respected coach, and loving husband. The arrest unlocked terrible secrets about predatory behavior that went against the image Spencer Herron fabricated for years, the cheerful neighbor, member of the Air National Guard. The truth shook a community, devastated his wife, and sent Spencer Herron to prison. I'm Andrea Gunning and this is betrayal Episode one. The Perfect Husband. Spencer and I met at college. I wanted to be

in video production and he was the station manager. And I'll never forget our first meeting. He said, excuse me, do you know what time it? And I said, oh, I don't wear a watch. She said, oh, me either, And that was kind of like the Inn and I don't know, it was just one of those things. We just connected right away. He was a year older than I was. In him being the station manager, he seemed

so cool to me. I remember I tried out for anchor that semester and he didn't choose me because he was afraid that if he did, everybody would know that he liked me. The were college sweethearts, That's what we were. We had so much fun. He would always tried to do surprises for me or make a mixtape. Every day when we would pass by each other in the hallways, he would give me a note. He was just very

attentive and he was very caring. I'm Jeffrey Birch, and this is virgin I'm her stepfather and I am her mom. She and spent stated in college and she was absolutely in love with him, and we loved him too. I'm Karen Basin and I'm John Basin. I'm Jen's father and I'm Jennifer's stepmother. We thought a lot of it. We thought he was a wonderful young man. He had a great personality and you know, just a real down to earth person, very personable, and michaelbl And a talented fellow.

I mean he was a musician, and I mean he played trumpet very good. Evidently Jennifer's sister Christie. You know, when people are in love, they just are beautiful because they're themselves and someone just totally accepts them for who they are, and they just shine and they're beautiful. Like I remember seeing my sister and she was wearing a red winter coat. She just looked so beautiful, and it

was because she was just so in love. I don't know when we started calling him Saint Spen's, but there were a few reasons why he was wonderful to my sister. When he got up, he was like, does anybody need anything, or he would go get coffee for my sister. He was polite and engaged with my mom and my grandparents. He was really curious about everyone, and he just didn't do anything wrong. It was my senior year in college and I wanted to go out and you know, enjoy

my friends and have fun. So we broke up, still kept in touch. I think I can honestly say I broke his heart and he was very sad and tried to get me back. And it wasn't that there was an anything wrong. It was just not the right time. So we remained friends, but eventually went our separate ways. My grandmother was upset. She couldn't believe it. She just thought Spence was perfect. She thought we were going to get married after school. My sister cried, She was like,

how could you leave this great, perfect guy. You know, a lot of people can't understand, but at the time, that's just how I felt. I wanted to explore. We dated for a year and a half and it was one of those relationships where you realized what a good one looks like. She took her communication degree, She got into radio and was on the air in Minneapolis. From there, she decided that she wanted to see if she could get a producing job in California. She just decided, I'm

going to la and I'm gonna find my mark. Spencer and Jennifer stayed in touch for a while, Like a lot of couples, in college. They eventually lost touch and started their own lives. Jen was on a path, so we lost touch after that for a long time. I think partly because he was married and had kids, and I wanted to respect that and those boundaries in that relationship. Jennifer was ambitious. She built an impressive resume and reputation as a talented reality show producer and was even nominated

for three Emmy Awards. You are a Foot to enter the courtroom of Judge Judith Schindler. She also worked for Judge Judy. In fact, when was nominated for a time Emmy, we got to go to New York to walk the red carpet. After a few years with Judy, Jennifer made her way from daytime to Primetime Tonight. She ended up getting a job with Extreme Makeover Home Edition with Ty Pennington, so she went all over the country. Jen was making

her mark in the industry. She could go from Judge Judy to Home Makeovers to the Craziness at the Beach. One of the ones that I was shocked about was she was doing Jersey Shore. That's what Jennifer excels at is being able to get along with everybody, keep peace, amongst everybody, manage their different personalities and then produce a great show. That's what she's good at. Well, Jennifer was building an impressive resume. Spencer had built a different life

back in Georgia. Spence got married, had three great kids, and for many years he was the stay at home parent who took care of those kids. Kevin, Spence's best friend, describe Spence as trustworthy and loyal. He's funny, very charismatic. He came from a big family, so you never had much like in terms of physical possessions and stuff, so we always seemed like a simple person. My name is Rod and I've known Spencer since probably nineteen eighty seventy

sixth grade. Rod and Spencer bonded over shared interests. Our high school was pretty small. There was probably one hundred and fifty people in the graduating class. Sloth like that. I think we were both always top students in top popularity. I would think Spencer grew up in Avondale Estates, twenty minutes east of Atlanta. It's kind of confused. Well, Spence's

real father, Spence's real mother. They had this other couple that was good friends, and both couples I guess you could say he's blew it up and married each other. And so Spence has step brothers, real brothers and brothers, and it was a bunch of It's a little confusing, but Spence was part of a big blended family. There were six boys altogether. Well, Jennifer was living her best life in La Spence was living in Georgia as a well regarded video production teacher. Julia Sultziak was one of

Spencer's students over a decade ago. She still has fond memories. My name is Julius. I graduated from cal High School in twenty ten. I'm going to refer to him as coach Haarn if that's okay. I've never actually called him Spencers, So everyone called him co chairn because he was the soccer coach. He coached girls soccer. Coachaen was my high school video productions teacher, my junior year and senior year high school. Everyone who had him loved him. He was

the fun class, the fun teacher, the fun program. You got to be on the announcements, you know, you got to work on these cool projects. When Spencer was thirty seven, he joined the Air National Guard and became part of the band. He was the oldest person in his boot camp class and kind of played the role of dad there. And then, out of the blue, twenty years later, Jen's first love reached out to her on social media. I

get a message from him on Facebook. He was planning his college reunion and saw me like a photo or something, so he reached out to me, Hey, how are you, how's it going, what are you doing? He told me that he had kept up with my career and knew I was in LA And honestly, the first thing that I wrote to him back was are you still married? Because I'm not going to get involved with somebody that's married. That's just not me. He wrote me back immediately said

we split up four years ago. Great. Well, then he says, so, I know you travel a lot for work. Are you by any chance going to be in New York City in December, which was a couple months away. He said, I'm going to be there with the Decca group from school. I said, no, you know, I don't usually work in New York. Then I go to the movies with my sister two days later and run into my old boss from Extreme Makeover Home Edition, who says what are you doing right now? And I said nothing. I was in

between jobs at the time. He said, okay, I need to fly to New York and you need to help me out with this show. Said okay, great, I'll do it. Hopped on a plane and flew out there. So I emailed Spence and said, hey, guess what, I'm here. I'm going to be here for about a month, and he said, great, I would love to see you when you're here, and maybe you could even come and speak to the students. So I agreed to do that. One afternoon, rushed home from work changed try to look as cute as possible.

You know, it's December now in New York and hard to get a taxi at that time of night, so I was running late. The taxi drops me off about two blocks from the hotel because I just figured I can get there faster if I walk. So I walk in there and he's kind of leaning up against the wall, all kind of cool, and he sees me, and I think both of our faces just light up and gives me a big hug, and I just I remember thinking, wow, he looks really good. I just I got butterflies. I

was excited to see him again. And then he and I went and walked around New York and talked and learned about each other again, and we sat in this cute little speakeasy bar. I noticed his sleeve kind of came up on his jacket, and I saw he had tattoos. And now I'm not a tattooed person, but for some reason, this was so sexy to me. You know, now he

was cool and everything. I remembered, everything I remembered. The two of them walked the city all night long, just talking and talking and talking, and that's when they said they just fell in love all over again. I was on cloud nine. He walked me back to my hotel room. Yes, he came inside. No, I don't usually do that, but it was Spence, and I always felt safe with Spence.

I asked him if he could stay, and he said no, I have to go back because he had to go back to his student's And the next morning I woke up and I called my best friend crying because I was so sad that I may never see him again. I really thought that was it, and something in me was really sad about that. But that's not what happened. The whole New York trip was serendipitous. After twenty years apart, Jen and Spencer were reconnected, and this time Spencer was

not going to lose her. He continued to pursue me and text me and call me from Atlanta to LA. We would be up all night on the phone. So she went back to LA. He went back to Atlanta area and they continue with their phone conversations. He had called us and said that he wanted to marry Jennifer, and he asked for permission. We said, we've always felt like your part of the family. You know, you don't need to ask us, you just need to ask her.

I said, the only thing we ask of you is that you go to LA and you visit Jennifer and you see what kind of lifestyle that she was living, because she was very, very successful in her career, very successful financially, I'm very established. And so he said, okay, he would do that because he was going to be asking her to possibly move to this small little down in Georgia, pulling her away from LA. And that was

a concern that we had too. Would she be able to adjustice that fair to her as that going to affect her career, So we re met in December twenty eleven. We made the decision pretty quickly that I would move out there, and I didn't mind doing that. I mean, it meant giving up a lot. My career was doing great. I'd really established myself, which in hindsight is a good thing because I was able to move to Atlanta and

keep working. But his kids were there and that was important to him, and being a stepchild myself, it was important to me that he stay as close to the kids as he could. So I decided I would move there. I packed up my whole apartment and then he flew out and we drove my car across the country. Our first stop was Vegas. He gave me this booklet and in it were all these photos of the two of us, some of them from college and then some from New York and just you know, when we had seen each

other since. And at the very end was a picture of my grandmother's ring that he had gotten from my mom. He got down on one knee and he asked me to marry him, and I was so excited. I wanted to be able to remember exactly what it felt like and what it sounded like, so I said, can you ask me again, and he just laughed and he asked me again, and of course I said yes. It was everything that I could have wanted. It was like a movie, all of the thought and effort Spencer put into their engagement.

She waited so long for love. They were so sweet together. Like he was very demonstrative with his affection towards her. You know, he would say, look at Jenn, Look how cute she looks today. He was always very proud to talk about her and about her accomplishments and things like that. He would walk by her and just kiss her on the top of the head, you know, just was very sweet. And their little love story was very sweet, and they

loved to tell it. She was traveling, you know, producing a show and coming back, he would always walk in and, you know, hug her and say, so glad you're home. Dinner's friend, Danielle. I mean, he would just say, like, hey, wife, you know, and he was so proud of that. He was such a doting husband. Every morning he would leave me a note by the coffee pot. Every single morning for six seven years, he would text me during the day. I'd never worried about where he was or what he

was doing. I really really thought we were living a fairy tale. Every time the clock would turn on eleven eleven, I would make a wish, and ever since Spence and I got back together in New York, the wish was, I hope Spence and I have a beautiful, long life together. When the bottom drops out, you usually don't see it coming, and Jennifer never did. I came home on June first, twenty eighteen, and Spence did and greet me instead. He was sitting on the couch in the living room just

shaking his head. So I was joking around with him because he didn't jump up and say wife, welcome back. And I walked over to him and he just kept shaking his head. It's all over, it's all over, it's all over. I kept expecting him to say, oh, just kidding, because what could be that wrong that he would be feeling this way. He slid a piece of paper to me. I just kind of glanced at it, trying to figure out what it was, and it said search Warren on top.

I saw the words sexual assault and student. Police arrested kel High School teacher Spencer Harron on Friday at his home in Atworth. Investigators say he faces three counts of sexual assault. Imagine seeing that piece of paper, the search Warren, and knowing that everything in your life was out to change. He was charged with sexual assault with one of his own students. It had started when she was a sophomore in high school. I got up and stood in front of him and said, is this true? He said yes,

he said it happened three times dispenses. The last person that I would have ever guessed would have taken advantage of a kid, And I think anybody else that knew him would have said the same thing. To find out that he cheated on me, not with a woman, but with a sixteen year old girl, it is so hard to understand that I just started pacing back and forth, telling him he ruined everything. He knew how much marriage meant to me, He knew what it meant to me.

I thought I knew what it meant to him. I set across from him at that point because I didn't want to be near him, just trying to make sense of what just happened. In realizing that life as I knew it would never be the same. The future that we planned was gone. It couldn't be true. Not her husband, the nicest, kindest man in the world. A predator. Not possible, except it was possible. It happened. It didn't take too long before I saw two Cobb County police officers drive

past our house. I knew they were on their way back for Spence. They had already been there once with the search warrant and busted down our front door. They took a bunch of his stuff, his computers, hard drives, and a pair of his underwear. All Spence could talk about was killing himself at that point. So I sat down on the coffee table right in front of him where he was sitting on the couch, and I just

begged him not to do anything stupid. Her life was upended, Her husband was sitting across from her talking about suicide. It was all so scary and so much to digest. Jen felt conflicted by a feeling of obligation to Spence because of the vows they took. Jennifer repeat after me, I, Jennifer, I, Jennifer say the Spencer, take the Spencer to be my wedded husband, To be my wedded husband. I wanted him to know that somebody would be there for him. From

this day we were married. You're supposed to stick by your spouse for better or worse, for better, for worse, till death do us part, till death do us part. The cops came. I opened up the door and looked across to Spence and was so relieved when I saw him walking into the foyer, because if he had run, I don't know what would have happened. But he turned around. He let them put the cuffs on him. Even after seeing the words sexual assault and student on the search warrant,

Jennifer still needed to hear the police say it. I said, what are you arresting him for? They looked at him like, is it okay if we tell her? And he yells out no, don't tell her anything, which is weird because he'd already admitted what he had done. I guess he was still hoping to hide stuff. They walked him out of the house. I shut the door and I couldn't watch them put him in the back of the car. And the four year was the last time I've seen him.

Jennifer was trying to process what had just happened. Unfortunately, what she learned that day was only the tip of the iceberg. I was on a walk one morning and I just thought, I need to call Jennifer. When I got home, I called her. She picked up the phone and she was like in hysterics and I was like, what's wrong, and she's like, they took Spencer away. She wasn't shock. It was like Spence of all people, Spence,

Saint Spence. Jennifer wasn't a problem solving mode. I think because I was distant from it, I could get into problem solving mode. My thought was, if it's a student, it's going to get around really fast. Then my thought was, oh god, the kids, they worshiped their father, and that was my thought. I was like, oh my god, do they know? How are they going to find out social media these days? He needs to take down his social media like all of this stuff. My sister called and said,

people are making comments. You've got to go in there and take down his account. I had never been in his account before. I never looked at his phone, his text, his computer, his Facebook, nothing. Ever, I trusted him with every piece of my being. Never ever, ever would I have snooped. But I knew Christy was right. So somehow I got into his Facebook account, which got me into his email to say what she learned next with shocking

would be an understatement. The student, well, she was one of dozens of affairs that Spencer had been carrying on for years, and he was soliciting photos from these women. I only had to scroll down one row before the pictures of all these naked women were showing up on his computer, woman after woman after woman. I literally didn't know what was happening. Spence would never want women to send him pictures like this. He wasn't like that. He

was not. No one wants to think that the person they love that they're married too, has a secret life. Jen had to face the hard truth her husband had betrayed her, not once, but every single day of their relationship. Through this podcast, Jen's about to go on a journey of discovery she never could have imagined on this season of Betrayal, Jen's going to talk to the sexual saw victim, who is an adult now. The first thing he said to me was, I've never done this with a student.

I've never felt this way about anyone. It's because I love you that we're doing those. There were dozens of affairs simultaneously, Some women she knew personally like this. One put this because it's not very kind towards myself. I was being used, but I really thought that he loved me and even Spencer himself. This is a direct pay call from an inmate at the Cherokee County Jail, Georgia. The lies, affairs, shame, the broken marriage, and stolen innocence.

We're going to talk about it all on Betrayal. If you'd like to reach out to the Betrayal team, email us at Betrayal Pod at gmail dot com. That's Betrayal Pod at gmail dot com. Betrayal is a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group, in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show was executive produced by Nancy Glass and Jennifer Facon, hosted and produced by me Andrea Gunning, written and produced by Carry Hartman, also produced by Ben Fetterman.

Our iHeart team is Ali Perry and Jessica Crinchek. Special thanks to voice actor Todd Gans. Sound editing and mixing done by Mount DeVecchio. Betrayal's theme was composed by Oliver Bain's music library provided by my Music and For more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts