I'm Andrea Gunning with another Betrayal bonus episode. As the Betrayal team works hard to bring you season three and at the same time turn Ashley's story into a docu series, we wanted to introduce you and Ashley to Stacy, the person who will share her story in season three. We also wanted to check in with Aaron Adams, who was
having a hard day after getting some bad news. First, we wanted to learn more about one of the organizations working to keep kids and family safe, so we asked Jenny Coleman, the director of Stop It Now, if she would sit and speak with us. Jenny, thanks so much for joining us today.
Oh, thank you for having me. I'm really happy to be here.
I'm with Ashley Lytton, she's the subject of season two of Betrayal. Before we get into ashle story, I want to hear a little bit about what you do. Can you tell us about Stop It Now?
Oh?
Absolutely, Stop It Now is a national child sex abuse prevention program. We actually focus on perpetration prevention, which means we really want to help folks who are in a position that they're seeing warning signs or a vulnerable environment and help them know what steps they can take to interrupt any sort of harmful or abusive trajectory. It could be signs in a spouse, a partner, a family member.
You're concerned that they're struggling with safe boundaries. But we also serve everyone parents who have found out their child has been harmed or abused, or that someone they know has abused someone. Anybody who's in position that says, you know, I want to keep kids safe and I feel like I could do more, or I'm seeing something that's concerning me and to do that, we offer a free confidential helpline. We also have a website full of free downloadable resoalce
verses on everything from what are warning signs? To how do I check into my child's school? So visit us at stopittnow dot org.
Ashley, do you want to share with Jenny a little bit about your story and some of the hurdles that you're dealing with now?
Yeah, Hi Jenny, Hi Ashley, I'm glad to meet you. So, my husband was convicted of a child sexual exploitation and voyeurism.
He served ten months in county jail. He will be on our sex offender registry for ten years and now we have been going through a pretty terrible divorce for two years now, and because he is doing well in his court mandated therapy for sex offenders, he has had supervised visits with our ten year old, and as soon as the end of this month he will have unsupervised visits with her.
I'm so sorry that you and your family have had to go through this. I can't imagine just what a difficult time. And you've been such a protective mom, and you are the epitome of what to do when you make such a horrific discovery.
In your line of work, do you see a lot of parents navigating this process of visitation and what are some recommendations that you can offer to Ashley.
I was thinking earlier about how important it is to know that we can't control everything that happens in the world, but how we respond is what really makes or breaks us. And so we look at what do we have control over, and that's how we talk with our kids about safety. What are good boundaries? What are our rules so that if anybody, even someone you love and care about, parent, a grandparent, a professional, someone in a faith based institution,
does cross your boundaries. We give our children tools to keep them safe stistic.
The recidivism rates for sex crimes are pretty low, but you're kind of on the ground running. What do you see? What are your thoughts on that?
So recidivism is really tricky because it is low, but that's what we know. Interestingly enough, what we do here is from people who do want to change and who want help. But that's why they come to our site. They recognize that they're struggling with safe boundaries or struggling with their thoughts, feelings and behaviors. These are people who want help to not cross a line, or if they have crossed the line, they want help not to. But I think the point with that is that they've taken
responsibility and are accountable. So there's kind of a model of success.
In terms of model for success. If you hear I found God and now I'm healed, or I was sick but now I'm healed, how do you feel about those statements in terms of recovery.
This is not to in any way diminish the power of anybody's faith. It is fine to say I have found faith through this process. But here's how that's impacted me. Here's what I've learned about myself. Here's what it is that I plan to do differently, Here's how I plan to get support. There's got to be a lot more than just oh, I didn't have God in my life before and now I do, and so I'm a safe person. That is not going to cut it.
And if someone is communicating just that, does that give you cause for concern about their rehabilitation process or where they are in their recovery process.
It absolutely does. That statement in and of itself, to me, is really leaving out such a huge important part. It doesn't help heal the harm. It just doesn't demonstrate an understanding of the harm that they've caused. God didn't cause this harm. I, as a human being, harm the people I love in my family by crossing their boundaries and violating their privacy and engaging in a legal harmful behavior by doing X, Y and C. It doesn't include that. So it's not enough.
So much of this process, I feel like you were voiceless, Ashley, And part of the podcast was you reclaiming your voice, reclaiming your power. Jenny, do you have any recommendations for Ashley on how she can stand in her power and all of this?
That's a great question, just because I already see you doing that. I mean, you're such a protective mom and you are speaking out, and I do want to say I'm not one of those folks that feel like everybody has to disclose abuse in their life, but I do think being able to use your voice to educate others,
share your experience, encourage others is incredibly powerful. And realizing I couldn't control everything and I'm doing all the right things now forgiving yourself, having your own good personal therapy or counseling to support you and just self care really important to reclaiming your power as well.
Well.
Jenny, thank you so much for joining us today and I appreciate all of your insight.
Yeah, thank you so much. I will definitely look for some different resources on Stop It Now. I didn't know that was also a resource for people like me, so thank you for that.
Absolutely write me directly and I'd be happy to point you to some resources I'm thinking about that may be helpful as well.
Oh all right, cool. Thank you so much, Jenny, and thank you for all the work that you do.
Thank you, Thank you again.
Go to stop it Now dot org if you or someone you know is worried about their thoughts and feelings towards children. Next, we'll get an update from someone you met before in season two, Aaron Adams, and if you haven't heard her story before, check out season two episode
six member Aaron Adams. She was a marriage and family therapist whose husband Joel, pled guilty to twenty five felony charges of child sexual abuse material and was sentenced to eight years in prison, but was released just after three years. After finding out that Aaron's husband had reoffended, Ashley and I wanted to catch up with her to see how her custody fight was progressing.
And you have the hiccups I do.
I'm trying to calm myself.
I think it's cute. How are you.
I'm mad as hell today, big bad, Yeah, big bad, big sad.
No, it's gone on.
I just thought this was over, you know, and it's not. Yeah. Basically, they just said, yeah, you still have to take your kids to supervise visits. I'm like, he's awaiting sentencing next week, but they said, listen, family Court, we know nothing about that. You still have to take your kids. I'm just I rate about the best that this has caused.
Jewelry offended. Yeah, how did you find out about that? And how did that all play out?
I don't know the circumstances of how or why he reoffended. All I know is that it was a felony charge. It's public on the court County website. And my lawyer had called me to prepare me for court and she said, guess what, he did it again, So this should be easier. Now. I've never once felt anything got easier throughout this entire process. I've never felt that freedom like how to get caught? He had things on his phone that violated his parole and got him sent back for more charges.
Wow, I think you and I both are fighting that same bite right now. I was like, fuck, no, he's not seeing her, I'm not doing supervised visits. And I got in trouble for it. They told me I had to let her go to supervise visits, even though I said she doesn't want to go. How are we supposed to protect these kids?
That's exactly how I feel. I mean, it'll always be our job, but I don't think they should have to be on us. Because I told the judge the very same thing. I said, my kids are still the same age as the kids that he's viewing.
And he just did it again. So this isn't an oopsy whoopsie. This isn't he accidentally stumbled across this page. He purposely made a habit out of this. This is something that he does.
She didn't listen to me at all, and I said, we've moved on. I'm not even mad at him. I feel sorry for him. Right, I'll abide by the court order, but if he ends up going to prison, I might have bought us some more time. And I absolutely don't coach my kids. I'm only trying to inform my kids.
I know.
This is a super fine line. I said, if you ever change your mind and you want to meet him, you have questions for him, I will one hundred percent uphold that. I will make sure you go and you get your questions answered and you are in a safe place. I don't know that every parent would do that, but I know I will do that.
You're wonderful, mom, you really are, and we are thinking and rooting for you on the sidelines. And keep us updated for what happens in the next few weeks.
Okay, yeah, I'm always a text away up.
We'll meet with the woman at the center of Betrayal season three. We wanted to introduce you and Ashley to the person we will all get to know in season three of Betrayal Stacy Rutherford. Hi, Stacy, Hey, I have Ashley here with me and I want to introduce you guys.
Finally, Hey, Ashley. Hi, Stacy. Good to hear from you. It's so good to hear you, so.
Stacey wrote in After Hearing season two, Stacy, do you want to just share you know what hearing Ashley's story was like for you?
Yeah?
Well, my boss at work had told me that she had listened to the podcast and it was so similar to my story that she shared it with me and I went home and binged it that week. It was just like, for the first time, I felt understood, like I wasn't alone. I know Ashley probably realizes, like in this situation, there's very few people you can talk to who know what you're going through, and I just I
wanted to reach out. Actually, I wanted to find her because I just wanted to talk to her, like I just wanted somebody that understood me and understood my situation.
Wow, as you're telling me that, it's kind of getting teary eyed, because I think when I first started out on this journey, it was for the exact same reason. I mean, I could be in the room with you know, all the people that loved me and care about me, and still feel really alone because nobody really knows.
What was it about Ashley's story that felt similar or felt like you understood.
I think it was after everything happened, you know, having that anger towards my husband at the time for the betrayal and for doing what he did. But also when you go from loving someone one day to the next day finding out all of these things, everybody thinks you're just automatically supposed to just shut these feelings off. Your love just doesn't magically go away, or does the memories that you had with that person, And I felt shameful.
And I think when I heard in Ashley's story that she still had those similar feelings too, it was like, Okay, I'm not abnormal for feeling this way and missing those parts of my life.
That's been like a really hard thing for me to reconcile. We did build a life with these men. They were good fathers, they were good husbands, and we did have really great times but then to have them also be the perpetrator of these terrible things. For me to bring those two together was insanely hard, but I had a therapist tell me that it's possible to have had this past life with Jason that was happy and good, and Jason to be this good person and he is also
a monster. In the beginning stages of the podcast, I was embarrassed, but I had made a vow to myself that I was going to be one hundred percent truthful with the whole story because I knew that I couldn't be the only one that felt these same things. And so, yeah, I'm glad that that was something that you were able to connect with, because I knew people were going to either love it or hate it.
Well that's my fear also, just like, oh gosh, what are people going to think? And I think you can very much compartmentalize those kinds of things in that moment. You know of this is the person I know in this box, this is the person he truly is. And it's hard for someone who was on the outside to see that and understand that that it just doesn't stop overnight, and so you keep it quiet and you don't tell anyone, And so therefore I just like say, I suffered in silence, right.
I just think people expect grief to be a linear process, but it's not. And what I've gravitated towards both of your stories is that it's very real, and the struggles and the things that you have to ask and question is what I believe people relate to. And it's a very real human experience and we're not hiding from any of that. And so I applaud both of your ability to be vulnerable and transparent. Stacey, do you have any advice that you want to ask Ashley going through this experience.
Yeah.
When everything happened, ours was very highly publicized, and I shut everything down on social media for a while because I was afraid people would try to reach out. So, you know, just that kind of thing, like, have you had any issues with that, with people trying to reach out to you to say horrible things, not like what I wanted to reach out.
To you for.
Yeah, actually I did, surprisingly though. I was in a social media support group for women going through divorce and I had asked a question, nothing related to our story or anything, and somebody posted links to the news article and just said things like her husband's a pedophile. So I did. I shut my social media down, started a new one with just my family and close friends for me, you know.
I had some of his family who didn't support him, but yet wasn't ready to tell certain family members. So it was kind of one of those things of like, can you guys just not blast this all over social media? Which I hadn't intended to anyways, you know, it was on the news, but luckily we had moved back home so we were far from that. But you know, I kind of feel the same way, like we had to be quiet for so long.
Stacy, do you mind sharing with Ashley a little bit about what happened to your family?
Sure?
In summer of twenty twenty one. July of twenty twenty one, we had Social Services show up at our house. They basically just said that there had been a complaint filed. So for the next three weeks, Social Services investigated us. And at the end of the three weeks, I go to work, our nanny calls and she's like, you need to come home. So I pull in the driveway and there's all these vans and SGVs and they're raiding my home.
I walk inside, I see my husband sitting at the table with police officers around him, and they take me downstairs and they proceed to tell me that for those three weeks they had been investigating us, and they laid out all these photos. So from there I ended up making him leave the house.
So they didn't arrest him that day. No, oh wow.
This was July and he was not arrested till October.
Wow.
They told me that they wanted to build a big enough case, because that was my question too, is like, what are you guys waiting on? You know, what more do you need? Right from there, my understanding is he left the country pretty quick after that. He spent a month over in Europe. He ended up being apprehended when he came back that October of twenty one.
Wow. Our timelines are pretty similar, really, yeah, Because Jason was arrested on the twenty ninth of September twenty twenty one.
Oh wow, so he was like a month before.
Justin was wow. I have so many questions, but I'm gonna I'll wait.
You know, it's so interesting because when Jen approached me to tell her story, our goal was if we could make one person feel less alone than we did our job, and then through that season you found the podcast Ash and we told your story, and then through Ashley's story, Stacy, you reached out to us. So I just think it's so amazing that, you know, our little community has gone from Jen to u Ash and now we have you, Stacy. And I'm so grateful that you guys trust us to tell your story.
It's truly remarkable. Yeah. I call you guys part of my tribe. Stacy, you're part of it too.
Yeah.
I can't say it enough, Like we have to build up so many people and bring light to this like really ugly dark thing. Yeah, that is so prevalent.
Well, Stacy, thank you so much for giving us your time. I'm this afternoon and I'll connect you guys so you can continue to talk throughout this process.
Yeah, that'd be great. Yeah, as you go, you have questions or anything, you just go ahead and give me a call and shait me a text.
It was so awesome to me too. And you know, like we said, if it reaches you know a few moms or people questioning things, it's worth it.
Absolutely you too, So hold on tight because here you go. Yeah exactly. Whoo Okay, bye bye bye.
Thank you to our growing Betrayal community. If you missed all of our big updates from the last bonus episode, you missed some pretty exciting news. Season three of Betrayal will follow Stacy Rutherford's story. When she laid eyes on doctor Justin Rutherford, she was sure that she was looking at her soulmate. They fell in love and life was perfect. But this family doctor, beloved father, and treasured husband had
dark secrets. The man who had sworn an oath to do no harm would go to great lengths, using any means necessary to save himself. Listen to Betrayal Season three on May twenty third on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Also, because of the overwhelming response, we are launching Betrayal's weekly series. It's about the people we trust the most and the deceptions that change everything.
This new series debuts end of July, and look for Ashley on the small screen as her story has been turned into an ABC News Studios in Hulu docuseriies streaming this summer on Hulu. If you want to contact the Betrayal team, email us at Betrayal pod at gmail dot com to report a case of child sexual exploitation, call the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's cyber Tipline
at one eight hundred The Lost. If you or someone you know is worried about their sexual thoughts and feelings towards children, reach out to stop it now.
Dot Org.
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 Fason, hosted and produced by me Andrea Gunning, written and produced by Kerrie Hartman, and also produced by Ben Fetterman and associate producer Christen melcurri Our iHeart team is Ali Perry and Jessica Crincheck. Audio editing and mixing by Nico Aaruca and Matt Delvecio.
Betrayal's theme composed by Oliver Bains. Music library provided by my Music. For more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts.