The Flaws in the Justice System

At just 14, Morgan Scafe was caught in a web of betrayal, abuse, and silence, handpicked by her best friend's family to endure unthinkable trauma. With nowhere to turn, she wrote an anonymous note that sparked a seven-year battle for justice, resulting in a high-stakes courtroom showdown. 

 Morgan shares her journey from victim to advocate, the flaws in the justice system, and the urgent need for legal reforms to protect survivors. Her upcoming book, 'Carpenter Road, ' promises to shed even more light on the complicity of institutions, such as the Catholic Church. Tune in to hear Morgan's powerful message about trauma and transformation.

What you’ll get:
✅ Clear signs of grooming most adults miss
✅ What to say (and not say) when a child hints at abuse
✅ Why many kids don’t report—and how to change that
✅ How church/school systems can block disclosure
✅ Statute of limitations: what it is and why it matters
✅ Action steps to support survivors & push for reform

How to connect:
https://morganscafe.net/
https://www.amazon.com/CARPENTER-ROAD-SENTENCED-MORGAN-SCAFE-ebook/dp/B0BVT3CW89?ref_=ast_author_mpb

Transcript

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Unmasking the Monster: Fighting Back in Silence

[00:00:00] Tiffanie: What if the very people who were supposed to protect you were the ones who delivered you straight into harm's way? What if a church, a courtroom, and even your own home became a conflict in your silence? Tonight's guest lived that nightmare and survived it. I'm honored to welcome a survivor, truth teller and advocate, whose story is as devastating as it is courageous.

[00:00:34] She was just 14 years old when she found herself trapped in a web of betrayal, abuse, and silence, handpicked by her best friend's family to become another victim in a long line of generational pain. With no one to turn to and nowhere to go, she did the unthinkable. She wrote a note, an anonymous note that was desperate and life-changing.

[00:00:58] That note kicked off a seven-year battle for justice, culminating in a courtroom showdown that would reveal not just the horror she endured, but the system that allowed it to happen. Her book, Carpenter Road, isn't just a memoir; it's a warning, a reckoning, and a call to arms. With unflinching honesty, she exposes the complicity of institutions like the Catholic Church, the trauma that goes unspoken in so many families, and the urgent need to [00:01:30] change laws that silence survivors.

[00:01:32] Tonight, we're not just talking about trauma, we're talking about transformation. Please welcome to the show, Morgan Scafe, author of Carpenter Road. Hi.

[00:01:42] Morgan Scafe: Hello. Thank you for having me.

[00:01:44] Tiffanie: Of course, thank you for being here. This is such an important topic because this happens in so many more homes than people think.

[00:01:54] Morgan Scafe: Yeah, I think the numbers are

[00:01:55] way skewed and they're much, much higher and it's kept under wraps so, so strongly.

[00:02:03] Tiffanie: I agree. I don't think the numbers are even close to reality.

[00:02:09] no,

[00:02:09] Morgan Scafe: they just base it on who has been able to

[00:02:11] Tiffanie: No,

[00:02:12] speak

[00:02:12] Morgan Scafe: up and really probably half of us are still silent. So I think the actual number is probably much higher, maybe even double what they estimate. But I think it's really, really common.

[00:02:24] I don't

[00:02:25] Tiffanie: I don't know why

[00:02:26] Morgan Scafe: our society today that,

[00:02:28] accepted, but it, that's what it feels like to me, is it's almost accepted and silenced because there are so many people that I talk to on

[00:02:37] daily basis who have had this happen to them.

[00:02:39] And it's like they never spoke up or reported it. So we know that a lot of children are not talking about what's happening to them.

[00:02:51] Tiffanie: Well, unfortunately, the predators do have more rights than the victims. I mean, look at what just happened in the Diddy trial. I [00:03:00] mean,

[00:03:00] Morgan Scafe: Yes.

[00:03:01] Tiffanie: This is why people don't come forward, because where is the justice?

[00:03:06] Morgan Scafe: Yes. And you are so railroaded the minute you open your mouth and report it, your life is dramatically changed and altered, and not always for the better. I mean, you can get completely railroaded through the entire justice system. My trial took place in 1992, before many laws were in place for victims. It was pure hell, almost as torturous as the abuse itself. It was horrible. I'm glad I did it, but when people ask if they should report it, if they should go through the angst of a trial, I always say yes, but I'd also add, buckle up.

[00:03:53] It's going to be a really, really bumpy ride.

[00:03:58] Tiffanie: And it shouldn't be. But unfortunately, there are women out there who lie about it. And unfortunately, those are the ones that paint all women in a bad light. I almost wish that if you get caught lying, you should face an extra charge. Now you need to go to jail because that's the only way to set this straight.

[00:04:19] Morgan Scafe: Yeah, absolutely. Especially because you've ruined someone's life if you were not being truthful. That person has just been absolutely obliterated and devastated, and you can't come back [00:04:30] from that. As we've seen with all the people who have spoken out against real predators, what happens to them.

[00:04:37] I mean, you just don't survive it. And so we

[00:04:39] You don't survive.

[00:04:40] have to send a message to every single woman. You never joke, you never kid, you never lie about being sexually assaulted or abused. Never. Right? We, we can't have that. It's too important to make sure women are heard and believed and justice prevails, and if there's even

[00:04:57] prevails,

[00:04:58] a hint of doubt

[00:04:58] that someone could be making it up or fabricating it for their own

[00:05:02] benefit.

[00:05:03] way. You hear that in custody battles. That's just putting the real survivors in the ground completely. It's horrible.

[00:05:15] Tiffanie: 110%. If you're comfortable. Can we go back? Who were you before all the abuse happened?

[00:05:23] Morgan Scafe: It started when I was eight and I was in the third grade. It lasted until I was almost 16, and my parents switched all three of us into new private schools. The reason for that is explained in the book. In the third grade, I switched to St. Robert Catholic Church School. I met my friend there, and it was great. Within a couple of months, she and I struck up a wonderful friendship, and she lived really close by, just around the [00:06:00] corner. I didn't really know anybody else, so I befriended her and kind of became immersed in the family.

[00:06:08] And little by little, slowly after a few months, he crossed that line with me. When I walked into her bedroom looking for her, he had her in the bedroom. And I came in and surprised him and was like, you know, I didn't understand what was happening. I'm eight years old. He grabbed me and threw me up against the wall and said right away, if I ever spoke about what I saw, I would be dead. And I'm just a deer in headlights. I have no frame of reference as an 8-year-old as to what's going on, what's happening. I didn't even know what he was doing to her. And then after some time, I went back over again and it happened again, but this time to me. Then started the threats and the grooming and the, if you tell this will happen and it just started. I got sucked in. I got afraid to tell. I became terrified that people would find out. So it just continued and it continued to escalate all through those almost eight years.

[00:07:15] And I had no one to turn to.

[00:07:17] Tiffanie: It's a long time.

[00:07:18] Morgan Scafe: it was a long time and I did not really have anyone to turn to. I had a pretty dysfunctional home life, I didn't have anyone at home to [00:07:30] speak up to. I certainly did not feel secure and comfortable at school to speak up to anybody, and within just a few short months, he had me so terrified of anyone finding out, or that if I told what would happen, I just continued to keep my mouth shut. it just continued to escalate year after year as to what he felt like he could do, what he could get away with. It went from just touching to full on rape and, beatings and ultimately torture.

[00:08:05] "Do you think you kept going there because home wasn't much better and so at least you just, you weren't home."

[00:08:05] Tiffanie: You think you kept going there because home wasn't much better and so at least you just, you weren't home.

[00:08:13] Morgan Scafe: At first, I started going over there because my friend had lots of brothers and sisters, and she had a mom that never left the house. Well, I didn't realize then that she wasn't really allowed to leave the house except under very specific circumstances, like going to the grocery store or maybe picking up a child at school. And that was it. She wasn't, so to speak, allowed to leave the house. The domestic violence within their home was so severe that she was as tormented as we were.

[00:08:44] That she was.

[00:08:45] I went over there because the mom was home, all the siblings were home. Dinner might be minuscule, but there was something to eat. At my home, unfortunately, my parents were not home a lot. My mom was out golfing, [00:09:00] bowling at the bar, drinking, not coming home till after I went to bed. I didn't see her when I got up for school. I could go days without really touching base with my own parents. So I loved it over there at first because they were home, they had food.

[00:09:18] We sat down and ate at the table. We could have our own kickball team. It was great. It wasn't. Then once he started crossing that line, it just blew up and escalated to the point where I didn't know how to get out of it. I didn't know how to tell. I had no clue what to do.

[00:09:36] Tiffanie: What to do, right? I mean, that's a tough spot for a kid to be in. You thought you found a safe place, someone to at least turn to, and then it turned into a house of horror.

[00:09:48] Morgan Scafe: Absolutely. House of Horror.

[00:09:50] Yeah.

[00:09:50] I ultimately became just an extension of his own children, which there were six of them. And so I just became basically number seven and I was fair game to anything that he wanted to do. And he was perpetrating against everyone in the household. And whether it be physical or sexual, no one was unscathed at all. Even the little toddler who was just toddling around in a diaper had belt marks across her back. It was.

[00:10:22] it was terrible. And it didn't matter what you did. It didn't matter what you didn't do, what you said, or [00:10:30] didn't say. It was just about who was in the line of fire and what kind of mood he was in as to what kind of hell broke out. And it could be a complete, utter beating of one of the boys, or it could be a full-on sexual assault on one of the girls. It was just a constant house of horrors. He was never happy. He was always screaming. I mean, it was years before I learned he could actually speak without screaming. Somebody was always in trouble for the smallest infraction—winter coat on the floor, boots on the landing, anything. I mean, you couldn't even speak while he was eating 'cause he was listening to the news. And if you did, if you were within reach, you were getting backhanded across the head until you hit the floor.

[00:11:18] I mean, there was an unbelievable amount of violence constantly. We were very isolated physically on the property they had. So it wasn't like a neighbor overheard anything. It wasn't like anyone was watching, anyone was paying attention. Small town, back in the eighties—it was just a recipe for disaster right from the beginning.

[00:11:48] Tiffanie: He sounds like a very angry man. Like during the trial and everything. I'm just curious, did it ever come out? Was he abused as a child?

[00:11:57] Morgan Scafe: Yeah. Not during the trial [00:12:00] and it didn't come out, but knowing the family, knowing who his father is, his father was probably three times as violent as he was. So I can understand where that generational trauma trickled down and probably did again with his kids. But yeah, he as a child and his home life was probably pretty horrific as well.

[00:12:27] Tiffanie: I see that a lot. Predators were usually victims themselves, and it's either because they never work through it, either to make other people hurt like they did, or they just think it's normal because that's how they grew up. That's why people who have this kind of background, they gotta seek help that way.

[00:12:48] You're not doing this to other people.

[00:12:51] Morgan Scafe: I, yeah, one of my biggest advocates is

[00:12:54] it's one of the biggest,

[00:12:55] trauma people. You're just feeling it and everyone

[00:12:59] just feeling it

[00:12:59] either in the

[00:13:00] everyone

[00:13:00] or something else

[00:13:01] either in the same way or similar fashion, but you're

[00:13:04] it

[00:13:05] definitely passing it along. And that is why

[00:13:08] I did.

[00:13:09] I ended up in the situation I did. My mother was abused by her father,

[00:13:13] growing up

[00:13:14] but we didn't really know it.

[00:13:15] unless she had been drinking.

[00:13:17] And then she would reference it like, "Do you know what your grandfather did to me?" Well, no, we don't, because she never spoke about it. She tried maybe three or four times [00:13:30] to get counseling but never stuck with it because it was too difficult or painful, I don't know. But she did not stick with it and did not heal her trauma, dealing with it by drinking. And so that left both my sisters and me very vulnerable. I was the youngest and kind of like, well, a little bit of an accident that came along and was just kind of, I feel, forgotten about. There were many years between my siblings and me.

[00:14:01] And so I was just on my own from the very beginning of my childhood. It was always very nomadic, doing what I wanted when I wanted. I didn't need permission or have to account for my whereabouts. So, I was really set up in a pretty bad way, with everything aligning in the worst possible way you can imagine.

[00:14:28] Tiffanie: I get that. I really get that. What was your final straw? What made you write that letter?

[00:14:35] Morgan Scafe: I was home from work one day and decided to sit down, watch some Oprah, and have a bowl of cereal. Her show was about child sexual abuse. I thought, oh no, I don't want to watch this. I don't need to hear this. But [00:15:00] as I was eating, she got right in the camera's face.

[00:15:05] right away.

[00:15:07] said, you have

[00:15:11] Tiffanie: Have committed

[00:15:13] Morgan Scafe: a perpetrator,

[00:15:14] you know about a perpetrator

[00:15:16] or

[00:15:16] if you

[00:15:17] that a child

[00:15:18] about abuse

[00:15:19] and you do not speak up, you are just as bad as the perpetrator themselves. And I thought, hell yeah,

[00:15:27] and I.

[00:15:28] you, you bet.

[00:15:28] That's exactly right. If you are not speaking up and reporting your suspicions, you just let them go and say, oh, that's probably just us. Yeah, you are just as guilty. And I threw up what I had just consumed in my cereal because she was right. I'm sitting there knowing that that entire household is still under massive trauma, duress, violence. I knew that the two girls that were left, who were younger than my friend and I, were being abused, were probably being sexually assaulted. They were pretty young when I got out, but what do you think, he just grew a heart, a conscience and stopped and didn't move on to them when he was doing it to his daughter? And I'm sitting there with a bowl of cereal like I'm living, you know, the best life. And I was like, oh my God, I am one of those people. I am one of those people that knows children [00:16:30] are being hurt and I'm not reporting it. And I was 19, and I,

[00:16:35] Tiffanie: You're still a child yourself.

[00:16:37] Morgan Scafe: I know,

[00:16:38] Like

[00:16:39] I know, but back then I was 19. I was working, I was

[00:16:44] working,

[00:16:44] I felt like an adult

[00:16:45] trying to go to school.

[00:16:47] at

[00:16:47] I felt like an adult. I was living at home

[00:16:48] going, oh my

[00:16:50] and I'm sitting there,

[00:16:51] I

[00:16:52] my God,

[00:16:52] happening. And I've kept my

[00:16:54] I know that this is happening and I've kept my mouth shut

[00:16:57] as

[00:16:57] and as terrified as I was

[00:16:59] I put it back on me, the responsibility. And I'm like, I

[00:17:03] Responsibility, and I'm like.

[00:17:05] And so that is when I called Child Protective Services and reported it.

[00:17:13] Tiffanie: Once you reported it, were you kind of hoping that maybe his other kids' wife, somebody was gonna like stand by you and say, yes, this is happening? Or did you think there was gonna be any protection for you?

[00:17:28] Morgan Scafe: I never fathomed that no one would speak up. I assumed or thought my friend would be the most likely person to speak about it. And she was interviewed by the state police. I did not in a million years think that CPS would come back and their findings would say no findings of abuse, case closed. But later I found out that it basically was a social worker who went to [00:18:00] the school and spoke to the two girls in front of their mom and the principal, and then did a home visit.

[00:18:09] Tiffanie: Hmm.

[00:18:10] Morgan Scafe: and spoke only to the mother and the father. That was the extent of the investigation. When I gave her pages and pages and pages of information of what went on, who was being abused, and how they were being abused. I mean, I described everything in the house to a T, everything. I never thought in a million years that they would come back and say no findings. But the interviews were conducted very, very poorly, and they basically asked him, Hey, are you raping your daughter? Well, no, I would never do that. I don't know who could say such a thing. That was his response, and that was the investigation. And then case closed. And I got so pissed, so pissed at that. I mean, I just raged and stood up and said, okay, now I'm up. And I found out from a friend of mine that's in my story that I worked with, who's an attorney. I said, what do I do? Who do I go to?

[00:19:12] How do I report this? I thought CPS would, this would blow up, and it didn't. And she's looked into it and I went to the Flint State Police Office and spoke to an investigator there, and they took it very seriously. [00:19:30] They believed me. And from there, I interviewed with them for hours and hours and hours and days upon days, and then they took it to the prosecuting attorney and they, without any hesitation, moved forward with charges and they charged 'em with six different crimes. I just made the statute of limitations, which again needs to be changed because I was 19 and I barely, barely made what they consider statute limitations for then. And I could only talk about crimes that happened from the age of 12 to almost 16. So all the previous years I couldn't talk about in the trial, they couldn't be brought up. Those were past what was considered statute of limitations. It was just every

[00:20:20] Tiffanie: That's bullshit.

[00:20:22] Morgan Scafe: very much yes. And I think that's changed now. I think the laws are written differently and even with his sentencing, he didn't serve what he was sentenced to, but that's changed now with truth in sentencing laws. Since I went through my trial, they've changed it so if you are convicted for 30 years, you serve 30 years. He was convicted for 25 to 50 and only served 20. Thankfully, some things have changed. We have a lot more room for [00:21:00] improvement and hopefully, we will continue to move towards the victim's rights and not the perpetrators'. But it turned into just a mess of trying to come up with exact dates of things that happened years ago. I couldn't talk about so many injuries because they were past the statute of limitations. They charged him with a couple of crimes where they took photographs of my back, but they got dismissed because of the statute of limitations. And so ultimately, he was only tried...

[00:21:37] Tiffanie: like again, the perpetrator has more rights. It's absolutely insane to me.

[00:21:46] Morgan Scafe: Yeah. He had way more rights.

[00:21:48] Tiffanie: Mm-hmm.

[00:21:48] Morgan Scafe: Absolutely. Yeah. It was pretty unnerving. And to be that young and still just fresh out of talking about it, I hadn't really been speaking

[00:22:02] About it.

[00:22:02] about it only for about a year and a half, and I wasn't even remotely ready to discuss everything that happened.

[00:22:10] I just did the very, very minimal I could talk about that fell within the statute of limitations, and then they charged him accordingly.

[00:22:22] Tiffanie: You included the trial transcript in your book, why was that important to you?

[00:22:28] Morgan Scafe: Well, I wrote the [00:22:30] book in a chronological order, and when I read it I'm like, oh my God, this is so boring. It was just like, it just felt like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. To me, just follow me along from the time I'm eight till I'm 16. And it, it felt very boring to me and I thought, what would be of real interest for people? And I always had the trial transcripts they gave them to me after the trial was over, there're a thousand pages. I thought, if I put the trial in here so people got a real sense of. What actually occurred and how that unfolded and what that looked like. the idea just came to me. And then once it did, getting them in the into written form was a little difficult because I just had 'em as a paper copy. And, you know, transcripts are line, line, line, line, line. And you have to answer a question, answer a question. And so I wanted to keep 'em in that format. the book ended up being a lot longer than I would want it. But, only one line for one question. It was one line. So it made the book like 400 and some pages just, but it was really important to me for people to see what that's like and what, going through a trial, what you endure and how,

[00:23:52] it seems and feels very scripted, like the laws. Would not allow me to speak about so many [00:24:00] different topics, so many different issues. And during the trial I brought up something about his son and the other attorney tried to call a mistrial because I just, he asked me the question, I answered the question, had to do with his son. And he's like, judge in chambers we need to call for a mistrial, because I said one thing that happened to his son, and it almost blew up the entire trial. so trials are not what you think they are. They're not what you see on TV. They're, they're very, very rigid and scripted. And, and really it's like, who are we protecting here? And it does feel like it's always, the defendant has more rights than a victim or plaintiff, it's very frustrating.

[00:24:55] Tiffanie: Oh, very, very frustrating. I mean, I don't know how many cases I've seen where we have so much evidence and then nothing either because they're rich and have money. I don't know if people are getting paid off. I don't know what it is, but something has to change because this isn't working.

[00:25:15] Morgan Scafe: Yes. In my trial, one of the persons that was supposed to testify, oh, just disappeared. I mean, he was missing. And then after the trial, so much stuff happened after the trial [00:25:30] that the family did in retaliation to those that did come forward as witnesses and spoke out against them. One of them went to jail, and that's kind of a long story, but the family orchestrated that. He orchestrated his cellmate when he was, his cellmate was released and he came back to the house and victimized one of the children. Nothing was ever done about that. That was not a coincidence. I mean, there were so many things that continued to happen during and after the trial that were so shady and so obvious corruption.

[00:26:12] It was just like, you've got to be kidding me. It was so blatantly obvious.

[00:26:18] Tiffanie: Right? Like that makes no sense. You did these things. It's not like you're sitting in jail for something you didn't do and now you want retaliation. No, you actually did these things. Take it, own up to it, and cut it out. You're lucky they didn't castrate you. That's what we should start doing.

[00:26:39] Morgan Scafe: Oh, yeah. I am a full proponent of

[00:26:41] Oh yeah.

[00:26:42] They have found without a doubt, through studies and all sorts of information and paying attention to what actually happens, these perpetrators cannot be rehabilitated. They cannot, there is a sickness, there is a disease, there is a [00:27:00] miswiring in their brain, whatever you want to label it. They are so messed up in their head that they cannot be rehabilitated. So sending them to prison is wasting taxpayers' dollars. And then they get out and they re-offend. I mean, it's five percent in the nineties that re-offend. And so it's like, what are we

[00:27:26] Tiffanie: Oh yeah.

[00:27:27] Morgan Scafe: Are we subjecting more children? Oh, he did his time.

[00:27:31] He gets to come home. He's just gonna start all over again with somebody else's children. And now we're subjecting that child to torture. I mean, it's constant and it's like we're not getting it, we're not being tough enough, and we're allowing children's lives to be ruined from a very early age. It's a very difficult type of trauma to come back from. Most don't. There is so much drug use, addiction, prostitution, and you can almost be sure you can link it to child abuse in some form or fashion. These perpetrators keep getting out and wreaking havoc on the next child in line. We have seen it over and over again and we're just not doing anything about it because why? Because they have rights. They're human beings [00:28:30] that have rights. Well, when you cross that line and do that to a child, in my personal opinion, you've lost the title of being human because you're not, you're a monster.

[00:28:43] You're an evil person.

[00:28:45] Tiffanie: No, I agree.

[00:28:46] Morgan Scafe: You're an evil presence on this earth. Just go away. Bye-bye.

[00:28:55] Tiffanie: I feel like sometimes they'll say, oh, well the prisons are overpopulated. Okay, well then stop. Making someone who got arrested with an ounce of weed do 15 years when Joe down the street just raped a child and got four. Okay, so why don't we start reversing that? Or we have set prisons that are only for perpetrators.

[00:29:17] That way, they stay there. Once you're in, you don't come out.

[00:29:21] Morgan Scafe: Yeah. Yes. Yeah, I agree. Because we have way too many people incarcerated for crimes that we can rehabilitate. We can teach them a different way. We can help them live a different life when they come out. But to me, murderers and rapists just need to stay put, and that's the end of it, because you cannot fix that. You can't just unring that bell. It's not even a decision. Something's wrong with them. I mean, they're sick from the very beginning, it's something they're born with or something that happened in their own childhood or [00:30:00] both, but they cannot be fixed and they're not gonna stop.

[00:30:04] So why are we keeping them around?

[00:30:07] Tiffanie: I've even seen cases where some get out and it escalates. Like, they were only sexually assaulting before, and now when they get out, they're killing because they think, "I got caught because I didn't kill them before, so now I'll take it a step further." Exactly. They're not going to stop.

[00:30:29] It's, it's something that's in them. And they even say, like, someone will tell you like, I don't wanna do this, but the voices in my head, I can't, I can't shut it off. Well then you don't deserve to be out walking around if you can't shut that off. Stay behind bars.

[00:30:46] Morgan Scafe: Absolutely. Yeah. They,

[00:30:48] Yeah.

[00:30:48] Control over it.

[00:30:49] Yeah. They, they don't.

[00:30:50] For whatever reason that has occurred in their mind, they don't have control over it, and so we can't allow them to have freedom.

[00:30:59] Tiffanie: Freedom, you wrote that the priest prevented people from reporting it because of his own involvement. What happened with the priest?

[00:31:09] Morgan Scafe: Well, that's coming out in my prequel, so my first memoir, Carpenter Road, Sentenced to Silence, is about my journey through trying

[00:31:19] My journey through

[00:31:20] getting

[00:31:21] trying to break

[00:31:22] That's when I left the note for my teacher. I mean, at that point, I was so desperate for help. I was

[00:31:29] [00:31:30] begging.

[00:31:31] When does [00:33:00] that one come [00:34:30] out?

[00:34:59] Tiffanie: When does that one come out?

[00:35:00] Morgan Scafe: probably in a couple months. The cover's being done. The editing is being done. It's about ready to be formatted and then poof, off it'll go and it'll be out there. But that is, I think, as interesting as Carpenter Road is because of the trial that's in it. This is gonna blow people's minds, the things that can happen behind closed doors and the things that people see and just turn away and just look away, you know, because it's easier.

[00:35:36] away?

[00:35:37] than have to face that uncomfortable conversation with somebody.

[00:35:41] Whether it would've been me, another staff member, my parent, calling CPS. I mean, people are so reluctant to get involved and to speak up and say, you know, little Martha, she really seems like something is really, really wrong. Maybe we should look into that [00:36:00] a little bit better. People are so reluctant to do that, and it feels like it's getting worse, which is scarier because now children are gonna have zero voices. And if people are afraid to speak up and report more so now than ever, it makes me very nervous because back in the eighties it was like, well, yeah, Morgan's got another black eye.

[00:36:25] Oh yeah, Morgan's arm, she can't move her arm again. Oh yeah, she's walking funny. Wonder why she's walking funny. I had a secretary lift up my shirt when I was complaining about my stomach and it was just nothing but bruises. And it's like, why, why didn't you raise a red flag with that? I mean, because you see all little girls with stomachs that look like that's completely covered in bruising and black and blue marks. So yeah, I do have a little bit of a chip on my shoulder with the school because

[00:37:03] they were all about keeping things quiet and keeping things hidden in the Catholic church. I hate, I loved, I love bashing on them. I'd do like four hours of Catholic church bashing, but what they've done with these priests and moved them, the priest in

[00:37:23] Tiffanie: Mm-hmm.

[00:37:23] Morgan Scafe: The story was moved, oh, I don't even, can't even count. I've lost [00:37:30] count six, seven times. And it was 'cause people were complaining. So we got moved every time. Move them, move them. Just sweep that under the rug. Left, I don't know how many victims in his wake, I mean, dozens. Just mind-boggling.

[00:37:49] Tiffanie: Yeah, you would think, you're supposed to be a house of God and you're allowing children to succumb to the devil pretty much. So how are you gonna allow that to happen? It doesn't make any sense. What laws and changes are, is it that you are fighting for

[00:38:09] Morgan Scafe: Well, right now,

[00:38:11] Well.

[00:38:11] the church itself, and, and that's not limited to the Catholic church, but the churches right now are fighting the laws that allow victims like myself to come forward, even if it's 20 years later and say, father so and so abused me. Kids, first of all don't talk about abuse. Kids don't report abuse. then when they are old enough to be able to speak about abuse and report abuse, it doesn't mean they are able to confront their abuser or confront the institution, or it doesn't mean that they can show up. At a police station or a courthouse and report what happened to them. It's all different to go to a therapist and try to speak about these atrocities that are just horrific. [00:39:00] then you turn and say, well, well,

[00:39:02] But then you

[00:39:03] to, the police or the institution or, the clergy or

[00:39:08] the diocese or, whatever it may be doing that is excruciatingly painful and very, very difficult, and so few people are doing it, but the church is fighting those laws that allow somebody like me to sue that school or that church 20 years later when I can finally

[00:39:31] talk about it.

[00:39:31] about what happened to me. Those laws, they're trying to change them, but they're being squashed at every turn, and frankly, the church is what's doing it. They're squashing that because if you can imagine all of us who were abused by these schools or institutions or churches coming forward and saying, "Okay, now you owe me 10 million because you basically ruined my life." I mean, what would that do to them? Well deserved, but what would it do? I mean, it would bankrupt them and put them completely out of business, which is good as far as I'm concerned, because they have hurt and done more harm than good. Their silencing of all of these priests and ministers and clergymen, and moving them, has just allowed each one of them to have dozens and dozens of victims.

[00:40:28] But they are the [00:40:30] ones that are putting the squash on those laws that would allow retribution either criminally or civilly to move forward. I, I am just blasting that everywhere I can because it's like right now in Michigan, it's gotten through the house, but it's not gotten through the next phase and will it, three and four years of just keep getting pushed and pushed and pushed and they'll probably put an age limit on it.

[00:40:59] So that'll eliminate millions of people who could face the accuser, but they just keep pushing it under the rug, so just keep ignoring it. And there's a lot, a lot of that.

[00:41:13] Tiffanie: The statutes, the limitations, they need to be, first of all, just thrown out the door. If you can prove that this happened, then they need to be held accountable for it. I don't care if it was 40 years ago, you did it. Now pay. There shouldn't be such a thing.

[00:41:31] Morgan Scafe: Right. Yeah. I know the only statute of limitation that doesn't exist is murder. And as far as I'm concerned, what you're doing to children at this level of magnitude is really equivalent to murder because my life was derailed at eight and has never gotten back on track. I've never been able to become the person I probably was intended to be, should have been, could have been, wanted [00:42:00] to be. I mean, I was not even able to read until I was in my twenties. Once that abuse started at eight, so did my education. Again, the school just kept pushing me forward. They weren't making me repeat the same grade, even though they should have. I had no business being sent on to the next grade when I couldn't read and they knew it. And yet I graduated and I could barely read above a fourth-grade level.

[00:42:35] If I hadn't had this happen, my dream or wish in life would've been to be a veterinarian. That's who I am. I'm all about animals and I love them, and that's what I would've loved to have done with my life. By the time I could finally read and not flinch at every sound, not look over my shoulder, and not lose massive amounts of sleep from nightmares and flashbacks, I could have been a whole different person with a whole different life. And to me, you killed any chances I had at having a normal, self-sustaining life. Like I said, that's paramount to murder as far as I'm concerned. And like you said, the statute of limitations for the rape of a child should not exist. Why would you want it to exist? What reason could you give [00:43:30] me that it needs to exist?

[00:43:35] Tiffanie: I agree with you so much because it is, it's almost like the death of your identity because after that happens, you are never the same person. Whatever dreams, hopes, wishes that you had are gone because now you're just trying to cope. Now you're, you're trying to bandaid, you're trying to figure out now, well, who am I?

[00:43:57] Am I damaged? Am I? And it is not fair for someone to have to go through that just because somebody felt they had the opportunity and the permission to touch you in a way that is not granted by any means.

[00:44:16] Morgan Scafe: Absolutely.

[00:44:17] Tiffanie: just horrible. What would you tell someone if they were listening and something was happening,

[00:44:25] Morgan Scafe: Yeah.

[00:44:25] Tiffanie: They're keeping a secret?

[00:44:27] Morgan Scafe: The secret is for the perpetrator; it only serves the person committing the crime. So, no matter what circumstance you're in, you have to find a trusted adult to talk to and tell them what's happening. You absolutely have to, no matter what threat is being held over your head. That's just their leverage; they're not actually going to follow through with it. They're just using it as [00:45:00] a grooming technique to keep you quiet. So you have to tell. You know, if daddy says, "This is our little secret. This is what daddies and daughters do," it's not what your friend's father does.

[00:45:16] This is not what your coach is supposed to be doing. This is not what your doctor's supposed to be doing. All these men that seek out roles where they can be around children in order to fulfill their own needs, they use one grooming technique or another, and it's either systematic, just brainwashing, or in my case, it was straight out violence. And if you are being abused or victimized, you have to get out and you have to tell somebody that you know will help you. And if they don't, you go to someone else and tell them until someone helps you get out of the situation because it is not your fault. The shame doesn't belong to the survivor.

[00:46:01] It belongs to the perpetrator. We have to stop being silenced because that is what is allowing all of this to continue. If all of the women and children who were abused spoke up and brought light to their situation, it would blow our minds, first of all. But second of all, I think we would see so many changes come into the horizon that we could never fathom, like these laws [00:46:30] and the statute of limitations and all of this. We do have a voice as women and we can use them and we have to use them because, like when my time was done with him, he moved on to somebody else. And yes, I feel horribly guilty about that, but that is exactly what happened. They move on to the next victim. You will never just be their only victim. And so you,

[00:46:58] Tiffanie: I was just gonna say that exactly. If you do not speak up, someone else is going to be right where you are.

[00:47:07] Morgan Scafe: Absolutely. Yes, I mean that.

[00:47:09] Absolutely.

[00:47:10] drama coach who pays

[00:47:11] I that pays all that special attention to you

[00:47:13] And helps you believe you're gonna be a star out in the world. That is just a technique that they are using to reel you in, gain your trust and start manipulating you to the point where then they can cross the line. You might be a freshman in high school, but guess what? When you graduate, here comes the next victim. It's just a revolving door with perpetrators and women. We have to be the ones that speak up and tell and stop this. We can't rely on anyone else to do it. Women have to do it. We have to be the voice that changes this for the children, because as we already discussed, once that line is crossed as a child, your life [00:48:00] is never, ever the same. They have found that it really actually does change the chemistry in your brain. What trauma does to the brain is so significant. You can rip a piece of paper 10 times and try to tape it back together, but it's not gonna look like the piece of paper before you ripped it. And that's what's happening to children. It's just changing the trajectory of their entire life.

[00:48:28] So many of us don't get back on the right path.

[00:48:32] I had, I've had to have 15 surgeries because of the physical damage he did to me. So I have spent more time recovering from injuries and surgeries, way longer than the abuse occurred, way, way longer, and I've had to pay for that. I've had to pay for my rehabilitation. I've had to pay for the trauma centers that helped me learn how to deal and cope with what he did to me. Some of it was in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. I've had to pay for what he did, not only emotionally, mentally, and physically, but severely financially as well. That's not fair to me. But the laws prevent me from moving forward and saying, "Hey, look, if you got in a car accident, either the insurance company's gonna pay for it, or the [00:49:30] person that caused the accident is gonna have to pay for it."

[00:49:34] It's just not left to the person standing there going, well, now what do I do with my car? But that's how I was expected to live my life. Well, just, here's your life now. This is what you need to overcome. This is what you need to get through and get beyond and get past. And I wake up and I'm 54 years old and my life hasn't gone in any direction I thought or hoped it could because of what happened to me.

[00:50:02] Tiffanie: Right. And I do, I want men to realize, obviously women can also be predators. So do not be embarrassed if you are being beaten or seduced or like any of that by a woman, you still need to come forward. Don't be embarrassed 'cause then she's doing this to someone else.

[00:50:22] It does go both ways. Obviously, it's a lot more man to woman, but it does happen both ways. So I don't want to count anybody out. And if you know anybody who needs to hear this, please share this episode with them. It is so important. We've got to stand together. We've got to demand change. It's the only way it's going to happen.

[00:50:44] Morgan Scafe: Absolutely. Yeah. I would say the statistics for

[00:50:47] boys and men statistics for white men

[00:50:50] as

[00:50:51] are obviously higher, both because they

[00:50:54] out,

[00:50:54] more.

[00:50:54] There's such a stigma with it, and I cannot wrap my [00:51:00] head around why the stigma for boys is so much harsher. That to me doesn't make sense, but I know that it keeps them more silent than girls, and that's a tragedy in itself too. And I hope we can turn the needle for those. All the young men that have gone through that and spoke up, they just, they don't get the attention that women get. And that is unfortunate because it's happening to boys either from men or women that have been abused and didn't get help and turned around and continued the cycle.

[00:51:40] But I just want all victims to have an equal voice and to have more of a voice than the perpetrators get because that really just sounds, it sounds simplistic, but it sounds fair to me. I didn't cause one ounce of what happened to me as a child, and yet he got all the rights and privileges long before I ever did. And right up until after he was, even when he was released from prison after doing his 20 years. I was assured he would be not allowed back in the county it occurred, but because they couldn't find somewhere to put him, they had to go back on their word and put him in the county that I was living [00:52:30] in, and I'm like, oh, hell no.

[00:52:32] Am I going back into prison and looking over my shoulder every 10 seconds? Because he loved to chase me in his car. He loved to show up at where I worked, and it's like, you're essentially putting me back in prison, letting him out, letting him live where the crime occurred. After telling me he wouldn't, it is just at every turn you get railroaded as a victim, and frankly, I am sick of it up to here, and I just,

[00:53:04] Tiffanie: Yeah, you're re-victimized over and over and over again. Eventually it's like, fuck, what do you want from me? You got everything. What else do you want?

[00:53:15] Morgan Scafe: Yeah.

[00:53:15] Tiffanie: Like,

[00:53:16] Morgan Scafe: You,

[00:53:16] Tiffanie: have nothing left to give.

[00:53:18] Morgan Scafe: I know it does. Yes, it does. It does feel that way. I mean, like, it's a trial. When the jury was deliberating, I had some friends that were there for me, but they needed to fly out of state. I knew that if I left to take them to the airport, which was more important to spend time with them, I cherish them so much, but I knew the verdict could come back.

[00:53:45] I was fully aware of that, but I said, I don't give a shit. The verdict will be what the verdict will be, whether I'm sitting in that courtroom or not. And I left and took them to the airport, and sure enough, the verdict [00:54:00] came back while I wasn't present. And I've never regretted it a day in my life because I just could not handle what it was gonna be, whether it was in my favor or not. Through the whole thing, I felt like I was just being raped all over again. So, it is a tough road to do it, but I'm very much an advocate of speaking out, telling your truth, and taking it as far as you can.

[00:54:27] Tiffanie: Well, I commend you because it's hard, but somebody's gotta do it, and I'm willing to do it too because enough is enough. I'm so sick of reading articles and watching the news, and just seeing this disgusting stuff take place in our society. There should be no room for it.

[00:54:47] Morgan Scafe: Mm-hmm.

[00:54:51] Tiffanie: Is your book on Amazon, like if anyone wanted to get the book, if anyone wanted to reach out to you, what are the best ways?

[00:54:58] Morgan Scafe: The book is available on Amazon and in many local bookstores around where I live. But the best place to find it is Amazon. I also have a Facebook page for the book if others want to reach out. I hear from a lot of survivors, and of the probably hundreds and hundreds of survivors I've heard from, not even a handful have reported what [00:55:30] happened to them. So again, we need to start teaching these kids, these girls and boys, to speak up. Remember back in the day when they did the "Good touch, bad touch"? And if you were

[00:55:47] Tiffanie: Yes.

[00:55:48] Morgan Scafe: You know, if anyone's touched you in a bad way, forget that. If you've been touched, it's too late. It's too late. The line's already been crossed. You're either terrified, ashamed, or doing whatever you can in your head to justify it or to not speak up. It's too late. We need to start teaching girls about grooming, domestic violence, abuse, sexual abuse, and how someone starts paying attention to you, whether it be online, a coach, or a priest. They start giving you all sorts of special attention and want to help you, being as kind and sweet as can be. And I hate to be that jaded, but they're doing it for a reason. We need to start teaching kids to speak up way before that happens, like, "Wow, someone's really paying an awful lot of attention to me."

[00:56:52] I mean, just share that with your teacher, share that with your parent, let them look into it. It very well [00:57:00] could be legitimate, but it very well could be a path to where you're gonna be abused. And we have got to start helping our kids be able to have a voice and tell immediately and not let it happen in the first place, or happen in the second place because then it's just, you're just sucked in and it's so difficult to get out.

[00:57:24] Tiffanie: I agree. Agree, agree, agree. Things have got to change. Well, I'm so proud of you first of all though, for coming forward, speaking your mind, writing your books. This is how things move in the right direction. Whether you're going at 10 miles per hour or 50, at least it's something, you're in the right direction.

[00:57:47] Morgan Scafe: I

[00:57:47] Tiffanie: So I commend you for what you're doing.

[00:57:49] Yeah, I.

[00:57:50] Morgan Scafe: Thank you. It'll be my last breath. I take, I will be advocating for kids as much as I possibly can, and especially survivors. So many people just become paralyzed when they get into a situation like that. As I did, you can now find your voice. We have to find it for them, we have to help them to have it before something even happens, and then have it when something does happen afterwards. Or we are their voice, but we have to make change because so many women's lives are [00:58:30] being completely railroaded and just completely destroyed by this. And it breaks my heart. I hear from so many survivors and stories just like mine. And I always think, well, mine was really on the scale of abuse. But I hear from people all the time, and it's a similar level of violence and abuse and things that were done that you think, how can somebody get away with that? How can someone not notice that? It happens every single minute in this world. Something is happening to a child and it's just being overlooked, ignored, or kept in complete utter silence.

[00:59:14] Tiffanie: Well, I want people to know though, too, like even if yours is an extreme, I don't want you to think, oh, I can't come forward. It doesn't matter. Your trauma versus someone else's trauma, it's still trauma. Still come forward.

[00:59:27] Morgan Scafe: Absolutely. Yeah. If you have been handled or touched in a way that you are not okay with, then that scenario was wrong and you need to tell somebody about it no matter how small it was, no matter how big, someone needs to know. And so they can help you get out of it, whatever you need to happen. I can appreciate that some people do not have any interest in taking their perpetrators through [01:00:00] a whole trial process because that is difficult. That should be what happens. But the fact that they put so much of the weight on the victim's shoulders makes it very, very reluctant for people to come forward. I was sitting in that trial for over a week, and the entire trial rested on my shoulders a hundred percent. I mean, yeah, there were witnesses that spoke out about certain behaviors that they witnessed or certain things that they saw, and he had witnesses that were contradicting me. That entire trial rested on the weight of my shoulders, and I mean, the prosecuting attorney even screamed at me on more than one occasion for being elusive, evasive, reluctant to talk. While I was on the stand, we would take a recess and she would just scream at me, "We're gonna lose this goddamn trial. Do you wanna lose this trial? 'Cause we're gonna lose this trial if you don't start really saying what really, really happened." Well, my god, I had only been talking about it for like a year and a half, so I was—I mean, it's sad that, you know, putting someone away for their crimes rests a hundred percent on the victims.

[01:01:27] That shouldn't be the case either. [01:01:30] I mean, I

[01:01:31] Tiffanie: Right.

[01:01:32] Morgan Scafe: That's a topic for another, a whole other episode. But the juice system is like, oh my god, people, are you kidding me?

[01:01:43] Tiffanie: It's so broken. Hopefully, conversations like this can get the ball rolling in the right direction.

[01:01:51] Morgan Scafe: Ma'am, I sure hope so.

[01:01:52] Tiffanie: Morgan, I want to thank you so much for being here with me. This is such an important topic, and I'm glad that you're speaking out about it and we're going to spread the word. Enough is enough.

[01:02:03] Morgan Scafe: Thank you. And I'd love to come back and talk again after the second one is released. When people start reading that, it'll be interesting to see how well it's received because it is going to be a very difficult read. People say, "I just can't read that. That's too difficult for me to read and to hear about." And I say, "Well, it was a bitch to live."

[01:02:32] Tiffanie: Right. You can't read it? Should I live through it?

[01:02:41] Morgan Scafe: That is my go-to answer. 'Cause I'm like, well, do you think I had fun? Because let me tell you, I did not, it was a nightmare to live through. I think you can read about it. 'Cause otherwise

[01:02:51] Tiffanie: Right.

[01:02:51] Morgan Scafe: don't know what to look for. don't know what to, you know, to see. People don't know what to do, how to speak up, how to [01:03:00] report.

[01:03:00] It's not an easy thing to do. But I'm sorry, you're looking at an eight-year-old child's eyes and telling them you're not comfortable making that call.

[01:03:11] Tiffanie: Yeah.

[01:03:12] Morgan Scafe: Okay.

[01:03:13] Tiffanie: Get a hold of yourself.

[01:03:14] Morgan Scafe: Yeah. Put your big girl pants on. You got this.

[01:03:23] Speaker: If this story moved you, share it with someone who needs to hear it. Don't forget to follow, rate, and review. It helps more survivors find our community. Do you want to be part of the conversation and share your story? Visit truecrimeconnections.com. Until next time, be safe, be seen, and never forget. Your story