Episode 64 | 4 Men Were Convicted of R**ing Me Before I Was 16

Follow Steph on tic tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@culty.steph?_r=1&_t=ZP-96bsVq01Zp1

On the Jaden Jeffs Podcast, Steph recounts a childhood marked by repeated sexual and physical abuse in LDS-connected homes and the ways church authority, secrecy, and “repentance” were used instead of protection. She describes her father’s abuse and conviction, abusive stepfathers, frequent moves while homeless or evading child services, and being exploited for labor after being pulled from school. At 15, she reported an attempted assault by her stepbrother-in-law Richard; her family blamed her, and an LDS bishop bailed him out and supported him before he fled and later was convicted of several felonies after additional victims. Steph also describes being groomed at 16–17 by a 28-year-old LDS leader, being shamed and disfellowshipped by a bishop, and later being denied church aid unless she paid tithing. She connects these patterns to her sister Cindy’s later life sentence for a 2009 killing and to her niece’s trafficking case, arguing for mandatory reporting laws.

00:47 Podcast intro and guest
03:07 Parents and early abuse
06:15 Bishop knew for years
07:08 Stepdad Alan and violence
13:05 Midnight moves and homelessness
17:42 Utah motels and crash
21:28 Mom marries Mike fast
25:39 Richard the abuser
28:20 Pulled from school and exploited
30:04 Child labor at Business Habitat
37:04 Abandoning brother and Oregon
42:39 Church life and mistletoe sales
45:27 Back to Utah Again
47:14 Assault and Blame
50:14 Bishop Bails Predator
52:26 Closet Punishment
58:19 Running to Hospital
59:58 Kinship with Brother
01:01:58 Move to Florida
01:04:26 Milton Grooms Her
01:10:57 Bishop Disfellowships
01:16:08 Forced Teen Marriage
01:20:32 Hawaii Teen Mom
01:30:02 Divorce and Tithing
01:32:31 Tithing Or Groceries
01:35:09 Phasing Out Of Church
01:35:40 Early Doubts And Racism
01:37:27 Cindy Left Behind
01:39:38 Isolation And Suicide Attempts
01:41:52 Cindy With The Kids
01:44:31 Murder Plot Unfolds
01:48:28 Life Without Parole
01:51:29 Trauma And Accountability
01:54:23 Little B Abandoned
01:57:14 Tinder Predator And Trafficking
02:02:00 Seeking Help From OUR
02:08:02 Trial PTSD And Jail
02:13:34 Rebecca Dies Family Twist
02:16:08 Cut Off After Leaving
02:16:42 Family Fallout After Death
02:18:05 Predator Warning to Kids
02:19:35 Church Covers Abuse
02:21:16 Hotline and Moving Abusers
02:28:09 Affairs Worse Than Abuse
02:31:21 Tithing and Exploiting Poverty
02:35:51 LDS and FLDS Similarities
02:37:01 Tim Ballard Controversy
02:42:35 Push for Mandatory Reporting
02:46:16 Marching and Final Wrap

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

That night I woke up to him trying to assault me. He was trying to take off my clothes while I was sleeping. And so I woke up and I was kicking and screaming and nobody came to help me.

SPEAKER_04 0:15

It's like, oh, you're such a good friend and partner. Yeah. Fuck you if you don't pay your tithings.

SPEAKER_02 0:22

You're not entitled to these blessings. You're not entitled to help with food. How dare you ask for help with food if you're not paying your tithing? I've had four men who were prosecuted, who were convicted of rape from me before I was 16 years old. Four men. Like, does God hate me? If there's a God, does he hate me? Because I think so. Like, like what the fuck?

SPEAKER_04 0:47

Yeah, everybody. This is the Jade and Just podcast. Today I'm joined by Steph, who grew up in the LDS Church. And I'll just tell you guys a little bit about her. Uh Steph grew up in a religious environment where sexual abuse was repeatedly handled through spiritual authority, secrecy, repentance, or family pressure instead of clear protection. Her father and brother-in-law were members of the LDS Church. That's right, right? Her sister Cindy later left home and entered a chaotic social world in West Virginia and became involved in a 2009 home invasion killing. Court records say Cindy and another man entered Terry Lewis's home looking for money, armed themselves with kitchen knives, and both inflicted fatal wounds. Steph has details where she alleges the man they killed was a child abuser. Cindy pleaded guilty, expecting the state to recommend parole eligibility after 15 years, but the judge rejected Mercy and sentenced her to life without parole. Steph's thesis is that institutions like the LDS Church fail to stop abuse and can help create later devastation, like in your sister Cindy's case. Anyway, thanks for being here, Steph. If you want to introduce yourself to everybody and tell them anything you want them to know about you.

SPEAKER_02 2:09

Thanks for having me. I'm uh I'm Stephanie. I am I'm remarried. I have four kids and four stepkids. I have a grandbaby and another grandbaby on the way. Love gardening and plants. I'm not currently working, but I did have a pretty fulfilling career for quite a while. I was a tech recruiter and actually part of my work I recruited for the LDS Church for their for the priesthood portfolio in the missionary portfolio. It was it was interesting recruiting for the church as a non-member that had left. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 2:46

Well, thanks for being here. If you want to kind of just tell us, let's start with your parents.

SPEAKER_03 2:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 2:53

Because you were kind of telling me the story before, and so I figured uh starting with your parents, kind of tell us how they met and who they were. Tell us who your father was.

SPEAKER_02 3:07

So my mom um she went to she was put into foster care when she was 15, and she was placed with the Mormon family, and she was baptized at 16. And then they sent her to LDS Business College when she was 20, where she met my father, and my father's from um Wyoming, and he's um he's generational Mormon. Like his father was Mormon, his grandfather was Mormon. They came across on the plains and they just settled in in Wyoming. So they met in 1970, and they were married in late 1970, and then they started having children right away. My dad was in the Air Force, um, he was uh a chef for the Air Force, and then he also had several positions in the church that he held. Um he always had a calling. One of those was um Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts. Umrested. Well, he was finally convicted in 1989 of um severe abuse and and sexual abuse. They ended up calling it Indecent Liberties with a Child, but they detail what he confessed to, and it was really it was really graphic and and shocking. Um so my mom finally left my dad when he went to prison in 1989, and then um after that things were extremely rocky. So we moved to we moved to a little town called Aberdeen, Washington. It's just a tiny And where did you grow up? Um all over. I was born in California, and then we moved to Spokane when I was about three, and then we moved to um we moved to Aberdeen when I was five, turning six, and um that's where my mom met my stepdad, Alan, and Cindy's father.

SPEAKER_04 5:18

Okay, so your dad was put in prison when in 1989, when I was four, I remember testifying against him.

SPEAKER_02 5:26

I don't remember like specific details of what I said, but I I remember it. Um yeah, so he went to prison at that point and there was a lifetime restraining order against him. So he wasn't allowed to contact any of his children because of the extent of the abuse. And um it went all the way to the Spokam Supreme Court, and it was it was a really bad case. He had um he had about 12 victims total.

SPEAKER_04 6:01

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 6:02

It wasn't just me and my siblings, from what I understand. So he was an opportunist, it seems like.

SPEAKER_04 6:10

And you feel like that kind of had to do with his Mormon roots or just who he was.

SPEAKER_02 6:15

Well, the thing is, is when my mom caught him the first time they went to the bishop, and um the bishop counseled him, and so um the bishop knew what he was doing for several years before he was finally convicted. The bishop said he was repentant. My mom said he was repentant, so it they just kept him in the house and he kept doing what he was doing behind closed doors. Okay until it was my oldest sister that told someone that had him arrested. So it's always someone telling an outside person, it seems like.

SPEAKER_04 6:55

Yeah. How many siblings do you have?

SPEAKER_02 6:58

I'm the youngest of seven from my dad, and then I have um a younger half sister, Cindy. Cindy has a different dad.

SPEAKER_05 7:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 7:06

So Cindy's dad is Alan. And um Alan passed away, I think, in 1998.

SPEAKER_03 7:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 7:15

He was an interesting guy. He was uh he was like he rode motorcycles and he had an eye patch, like a black eye patch, and it he looked like a pirate. He had a lazy eye that he would cover up, and then he always wore this this cap, and it was like one of those leather motorcycle caps. It was interesting. Okay. He was um he was an interesting guy. He was nicer than my father, but the abuse was still there. Like um my parents did things like they would strip the clothing off of children and then heat up spatulas on the stove and spank us with those bear.

SPEAKER_04 7:59

When you say your parents, do you mean your my mom?

SPEAKER_02 8:02

Your father it started with my father, but okay, and my mother continued it. Got it.

SPEAKER_04 8:11

And then your stepdad was also that way.

SPEAKER_02 8:14

Mm-hmm. So my stepdad, yeah, he was definitely also that way. He was I was his favorite, so I didn't get the brunt of it. Um but their discipline was really abusive. It was really abusive, like hitting you with plates and breaking dishes on you. Um, my mom used a frying pan to hit my brother, stuff like that. That, you know, it may sound funny in cartoons, but it's really not funny in real life. Right. You know?

SPEAKER_05 8:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:48

Um, so there's an incident with my stepfather where my sister, that's just directly older than I, we were climbing a tree outside of their bedroom. And we climbed up the tree and we're playing spies because that's what my sister and I did. And we look in the window, and there's my stepdad dressed up in my mom's square dancing clothes, dancing in her bedroom.

SPEAKER_04 9:14

So he's basically dressed like a woman.

SPEAKER_02 9:17

He's dressed as a woman in my mother's square dancing skirt, and it's like a big petticoat, like it's one of those big wide ones, and it's really frilly. And my sister and I tell my mom about it because it's shocking, you know, it's like 91, and stuff doesn't happen. So we tell my mom, and um they get in a huge fight, and they ended up um my stepdad ended up pushing my oldest brother through a plate glass window. And we lived across from the house that we lived in, it was across from the post office, so like literally directly across the street from it. So um someone there called the police, and the police came, and then Alan was removed from the home, and there was a restraining order against him, and again, all the kids had to go in and testify what happened in that big giant fight, and so there was that court hearing, and then it was probably less than a month later. My older brother was dating this Hispanic girl. She was also dating someone else at the time who happened to be a marijuana dealer, and so she was dating two people kind of dating two people once, yeah. Yeah, okay. So, so um her boyfriend, her actual boyfriend, gets mad at my brother for sleeping with his girlfriend because yeah, um, and he comes and he does a hit and run in front of our house and smashes his pento, like smashes it like an accordion. Like it is not ever running again.

SPEAKER_04 10:57

So the Mexican boyfriend comes and smashes, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:02

The Hispanic, we have to very we have to to clarify that, huh? Oh, Hispanic. Yes, it was a Hispanic girl that he was dating, and she had a Hispanic boyfriend.

SPEAKER_04 11:11

Oh, I see. So your brother was dating someone who had a boyfriend. Okay, got that straight.

SPEAKER_02 11:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 11:20

And the the other boy was mad. Oh, okay, that makes more sense.

SPEAKER_02 11:24

The other boy was mad, and he also happened to be a marijuana dealer. Oh, okay. So um it was like early in the morning, like 6 a.m., we hear this big old smash outside the house, right? And something just like smashing, kind of exploding, and it was my brother's car. Well, my mother took it as the Mexican mafia was after us and they were coming to get us. So she packed us all up in the middle of the night and stuck everything in a moving van, and then we she decided we had to get away because she also thought that Cindy was cursed by Alan, her dad.

SPEAKER_04 12:05

So Alan wasn't with the family anymore after that.

SPEAKER_02 12:08

Uh-uh.

SPEAKER_04 12:09

So once he had this big fight with you guys, he is literally separated. Did he go to prison or something?

SPEAKER_02 12:16

He went to jail for it.

SPEAKER_04 12:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 12:19

Yeah, he went to jail for it because it it was a pretty bad incident.

SPEAKER_04 12:24

Yeah, so that was your stepmom. And he my stepdad. Your stepdad, sorry. Yeah, yeah. Sorry. Uh and he has this daughter, Cindy, with your mom. And your mom feels like Cindy's cursed.

SPEAKER_02 12:38

So my mom thought Cindy was cursed because Alan put a curse on her, according to her. So we also found out that he was um into witchcraft. Like he did some interesting stuff. I later found out he identified as a Satanist. So that's interesting. You know, you hardly ever meet a Mormon Satanist, but apparently they exist.

SPEAKER_03 13:02

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 13:04

So she thought that Alan had put a curse on Cindy's. So she's like, we've got to move as far away as we can. So we move from Washington State to Pennsylvania, right? And um, it takes us months and months and months and months to get there. So we leave Aberdeen, right? And we've got this big old like yellow moving van. I'm pretty sure it was a Penske moving van. And we go under this underpass, and um it doesn't quite make it because the height, it um, so it rolls the top off of the moving van. And so we have to basically stop, put everything in storage, and um my mom's idea was to have us stay in a tent in Tent City in Portland. And I don't know if anyone's ever seen Tent City in Portland, but it's not an area for kids.

SPEAKER_04 13:55

And is it just like a homeless area?

SPEAKER_02 13:58

It's a homeless camp, so okay, they have like makeshift shelters that they've built that are like half tents and half shed. Um, like these people are moved in, okay? Okay, yeah. Like some of them have fences up around their little enclosures. Um, but it's really not the safest area because it's it's lawless. People aren't following the laws in there. Um so this this lady, Bonnie, and her husband Les, um I guess they took food over there to the town city, and um she took pity on us and she got us into a shelter for a couple weeks, and we were at the shelter for the max amount of time. Um and then we we stayed at Bonnie and Les's house for a couple months until um he fixed our vehicle so we could move on. And then we finally get to Pennsylvania, right? After months and months and months of stopping and living in tents for a little while, you know, homeless shelters here and there. It takes us like seven months to get from um to get from Washington to Pennsylvania. So we finally get there, and it was it's like right before my eighth birthday, because I remember I got baptized there.

SPEAKER_04 15:31

So you're still a faithful member of the church. Yeah, your mom's really into it, isn't she?

SPEAKER_02 15:36

My mom was super into it. Super into it. Yeah. Um my mom she died a full believer.

SPEAKER_04 15:48

Really?

SPEAKER_02 15:49

Yeah. Like she had to get cremated in her garments, and that was her wish. Yeah, so she was super in the church, and she thought, well, the Lord is gonna protect us or do LDS people get cremated?

SPEAKER_04 16:04

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 16:05

Sometimes. Yeah. It's it's one of those things where it's um I don't know, some people think that if you get cremated, you have no body to come back to at the resurrection.

SPEAKER_05 16:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:18

So I don't know.

SPEAKER_05 16:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:23

So we are in Pennsylvania for like a year and a half at this point, right? And um my sister and I are watching out the window, right? Like, like we do, because we're spies, remember? It's called the Black Cats Club. Okay. That's what we called it. Um, so we're watching out the window again, and we lived in we lived in low-income housing in this really tiny town in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, right? So there's this low-income housing, and then down the alleyway, there's a bar, and then there's like a fence, right? So everyone would just go down the alleyway past the our our houses because it was easy. So we're watching out the window this one night, and these two men get in a fight from the bar and they're drunk, and um the guy ends up killing the other guy. So my sister and I are watching at this point, right? And we go run and get my mom, and my mom goes, It's the Mexican mafia.

unknown 17:32

Right.

SPEAKER_05 17:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:36

She's like, they found us. So we pack up and we move in the middle of the night again. Um, but this time we moved to Utah because Utah is the home of the church, and um, my mom really liked Utah. Um, so we get here and we are staying at the um, it's called the All-Star Motel, and across the street is the Rancho Motel. And people who are from Salt Lake will know what I'm talking about because the Rancho Motel was constantly being raided for human trafficking.

SPEAKER_03 18:11

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_02 18:12

It was a dangerous area, like totally dangerous, but that is where the LDS Church would put the homeless people, it would put them up in the All-Star Motel. So we're staying there and um we get in the car and we're driving around the avenues and looking at houses because we're homeless and you know, you gotta dream, right? So we're in the avenues and we get hit by this Hispanic driver. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 18:47

Your mom really is attracting these.

SPEAKER_02 18:52

So we're there. We're there. First of all, it's a pretty bad accident, okay? So like I go through the windshield, right?

SPEAKER_03 18:59

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_02 18:59

And I kind of remember it. Like, I remember hitting the ground and then running, like just like running as fast as I could. And then um some people like catching me and holding me down, you know, and waiting for the paramedics to come. So I ended up um I broke my collarbone, and um they thought I had a hairline fracture in my neck. Okay, so I'm at primary children's hospital, and um the bishop comes in and they're like, we just took x-rays, and the bishop wants to give you a blessing. So the bishop gives me a blessing, and then they took more x-rays, and they misdiagnosed my break. It wasn't a full break, it was a hairline fracture in my collarbone and and my neck. So my mom totally believed that God had just healed me.

SPEAKER_04 20:00

Okay, right?

SPEAKER_02 20:01

Like, totally believed that, and she wanted me to believe it too. Um, and and I did for a long time. Like, I thought that that was that was it. You know, God really did love me because he healed me. I mean, I had a broken collarbone and then I had a hairline fracture. How does that happen? It must be a miracle, right?

SPEAKER_04 20:20

Yeah, totally, yeah. Yep, that sounds accurate.

SPEAKER_02 20:27

This one this diagnosis. Um, but it was probably, oh gosh, four months after that. My okay, we're finally in a house at this point. Finally in a house, and it is over by like the it's it's not too far from the All-Star Motel. Okay, it's over by like the the old Salt Lake Community Campus, like the original one. Okay, and um again, not a very safe area, not safe at all. And we're all going to school like normal, things are pretty good. Um, like I've made friends, and my brother was dating my oldest, not my oldest brother, he's like the next youngest brother. Anyway, he was dating a girl, and we're gonna call her Elle. Okay. Okay, just to give her some privacy.

SPEAKER_03 21:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:28

So my brother was dating a girl named Elle, and um he was 16, almost 17, right? So he didn't come home for curfew on time, and my mom went to his girlfriend L's house to look for my brother E, right? So my mom, this is on February 1st, 1995, by the way. Okay, so my mom was talking to L. Dad, and next thing we know, on February 14th, 1995, exactly four 13 days later, they got married. Like they got married, they knew each other for 13 days and got married, which made E and L stepbrother and stepsister now, who were also dating.

SPEAKER_04 22:25

Okay. Can you explain that a little bit better? Because I don't understand my stepbrother.

SPEAKER_02 22:31

So so E is from my mom's.

SPEAKER_04 22:34

Yeah, she's he's your full brother? He's my full brother.

SPEAKER_02 22:39

Okay. So E is my brother. L is Mike's daughter. And yeah.

SPEAKER_04 22:50

Mike is uh your mom, your mom's first husband.

SPEAKER_02 22:54

My mom's last husband.

SPEAKER_04 22:56

Last husband. Oh, he's Alan.

SPEAKER_02 22:58

No, no, no, no, no, no. Alan's the middle husband.

SPEAKER_04 23:01

Oh, so there's another one. Yes, I missed this one. Sorry, they got divorced.

SPEAKER_02 23:06

They they got divorced when he went to jail again.

SPEAKER_05 23:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 23:10

So, yeah. So when Alan went to jail and my mom decided that we had to move to Pennsylvania, she filed for divorce and did all that. So.

SPEAKER_04 23:22

And then she married another guy.

SPEAKER_02 23:25

And then she married Mike, which is Elle's dad. So they met because E and L were dating at school.

SPEAKER_05 23:34

Oh.

SPEAKER_02 23:34

And E did not come home for curfew on time. So my mother went to go get E, started talking with L's dad, and 13 days later they got married.

SPEAKER_04 23:47

Your mom got married. Oh, I see. I thought you were saying your brother and the No, my mom married El's dad.

SPEAKER_02 23:57

No. And so it married stepbrother and stepsister living in the same house, right? But they were dating first.

SPEAKER_05 24:07

Yeah, that is crazy.

SPEAKER_02 24:08

Like they have been dating for months. And she's like, she just decided she was gonna marry him. So now we know there's no boundaries at all.

SPEAKER_04 24:19

Yeah. To ruin your child's dating life.

SPEAKER_02 24:27

Right. So at school, they're like, you're sleeping with your stepsister. I can't imagine that. Oh my gosh. Yeah. I cannot imagine that. Um so at that point when they got married, um Mike, my stepdad, his three girls moved in with us. And this is kind of important. So the oldest was already married, and she had a baby girl, and the baby girl was about she was almost a year when I met them. Um and then there was another daughter, Elizabeth. She passed away. Um, she's the same age as my next to the oldest brother, right? And then Elle, she is the same age as my brother E. So that's why they were dating. So they all move in, and now we have like 13 people in a three-bedroom house. Because you gotta pack them in like sardines, right?

SPEAKER_04 25:34

Yeah. Um keeping up Mormon.

SPEAKER_02 25:37

Yeah, keeping up Mormon, right? So that's when I meet my um um my abuser that we're gonna discuss, Richard. So um Richard was married to my stepsister, who's still alive, so I'm gonna give her a little bit of privacy, even though I n I I don't really want to, right? Okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 26:05

So just to clarify, your original dad, he was abusive sexually. Mm-hmm. And physically. But he went to prison when you were four. Then your next dad came along who was Alan.

SPEAKER_02 26:21

Mm-hmm. And he was very physically abusive and he went to prison when I was six.

SPEAKER_04 26:26

And he was a Satanist.

SPEAKER_02 26:27

Mm-hmm. A Mormon Satanist.

SPEAKER_05 26:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:31

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 26:32

Wow. Yes. That is very odd.

SPEAKER_02 26:34

Right? Yeah. Right?

SPEAKER_04 26:36

Okay. And then Mike now.

SPEAKER_02 26:39

Mm-hmm. And then Mike now, which is my mother's third husband.

SPEAKER_04 26:43

Okay, and then Richard is who exactly?

SPEAKER_02 26:47

Richard is Mike's oldest daughter. It's her husband.

SPEAKER_05 26:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 26:56

Mm-hmm. So they're living in the house too. And Richard is a very touchy person. He was always picking up the kids, holding the kids, tickling the kids, always putting his hands where they didn't belong. And um after that was before he moved in, I started screaming. So anyway, when he when he got there, like he would always just try and tickle me, and he went for the groin area so he could access areas that he wanted with his hands. Um, so I would start screaming bloody murder, right? And he would eventually leave me alone. But I found out that he didn't leave the younger ones alone, so he essentially switched his focus from me to someone who wouldn't scream, um, which was my younger sister. I was 10, so she was four at the moment. And this is Cindy. And this is Cindy. So he switched his attention to Cindy and then his own stepdaughter and his own children. Um and so let's see here. Also that year, no, it wasn't that year, it was the next year that I turned 11. Um, they my mother and my stepfather decided to take us all out of school. And the reason was was because um it was my fault. Um, I would go to school and I would say, hey, this bruise is from my stepdad, and this is what so-and-so did to me, and I don't want to stay in my home, right? So I would tell these teachers, I need to get away, I need to escape. And so child services was would come out, and um we would end up moving in the middle of the night again. So, like we would move in the middle of the night, and that started in Washington, and um I believe every time we moved in the middle of the night is because child services was called, and um I was already a victim, you know, when I was four, and so I should have been tracked by the state of Washington, right? Like I should have been getting care from the state of Washington, but she wasn't adhering to those um to the care plans. Does that make sense? Yeah, okay. So essentially she could have been kidnapping us from the state every time she moved.

SPEAKER_04 29:35

Oh, I see.

SPEAKER_02 29:36

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04 29:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:37

Yeah. Um, so eleven.

SPEAKER_04 29:41

She wasn't running from the Mexican cartel anymore.

SPEAKER_02 29:44

Not then, yeah. For some reason, the Mexican mafia left her alone now, you know, now that we're in Utah, which is funny because um we have a really good-sized Hispanic population here.

SPEAKER_05 29:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:00

So we're no longer being chased by the Mexican mafia. And um my mom, she wants to get this this business storefront going, right? Because she loves to have her own businesses, she makes baby clothes, she does crafts, like all sorts of things. And so um, she gets this little shop at a place called the Business Habitat in North Salt Lake. Well, she couldn't pay for it because we're poor, right? So um somehow, I'm not sure whose suggestion it was, but somehow my siblings and I became currency to work for that storefront. So we started off um with just janitorial work, like cleaning the business habitat, and then um we also like every year from October to I don't know, end of December, like we would work on selling mistletoe. Do you know what mistletoe is? I don't. Okay, so it's they call it the Christmas kissing plant. It's like it's a parasite that grows on oak trees. So um, I don't know, it's kind of pretty, it's leafy. Anyway, it's for Christmas time. So we would drive down from Utah to Oregon to harvest the the uh mistletoe from the trees. So that would entail me and my older sister climbing up the trees with knives and cutting down the mistletoe, right? Not safe.

SPEAKER_05 31:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:37

And then eventually we got like this big stick, and they tied a knife onto that, and we'd just kind of, you know, cut up higher if we couldn't reach them. Um, and then we would come home, we'd bring all the stuff back, we'd package it and stick it in the freezer, and then it would last until like Christmas time in the freezer. So from like the day after Thanksgiving until Christmas Eve, we would go. My sister, my older one that's just barely older than me, she and I would go door to door selling mistletoe.

SPEAKER_04 32:13

So your mom bought a storefront and but she couldn't like make the payment or something. And so, how did that turn into you guys doing it?

SPEAKER_02 32:25

We had we had to start doing janitorial work. So the owner of the building traded our labor um for the storefront. Oh so it was the it was three of us. Um Cindy was too young to work because she was like only five at that point, right? More hindrance than help. So it was me, my sister that's three years older than me, and then my brother that is five years older than me that we're working at. So they could have legally hired my brother because he was 16 at that time, but he chose not to. So the owner, Eric, um, his name's Eric Hale, he um decided that yeah, it was great, we'd just work for him. So we got kicked out of the house that we were living in, and then we were homeless, and we were kind of staying in the parking lot. Well, Eric Hale decided it was a really good idea to offer to let me, my sister, and my brother work for him in exchange for a house that's right in front of the business habitat. It's like a tiny, it's like a thousand square foot three-bedroom, one-bath, little tiny house in front of um this business park. So then um, like we weren't in school anymore, so we just worked all day. And it wasn't like it wasn't like we just kept cleaning. Like the tasks got a lot harder. So then we started pouring asphalt. Um, we started having to replace ballasts, and they had us starting running to electrical wire, and then they had us on the roof like fixing tar leaks with hot tar, like no safety belts to keep us on, there was nothing.

SPEAKER_04 34:11

So, how old were you guys?

SPEAKER_02 34:13

I was 12 at this point.

SPEAKER_04 34:15

And what was your mom doing?

SPEAKER_02 34:17

My mom was sewing.

SPEAKER_04 34:19

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 34:20

She was making baby clothes for her for her shop.

SPEAKER_05 34:22

Oh, I see.

SPEAKER_02 34:23

Mm-hmm. So, yeah, and she was doing stuff for the business. And um, if you ask my sister about it to this day, she says she'll tell you that we worked for a roof over our head and that she has no problem with it. Um I have a lot of problems with it, right? I should have been in school. We weren't the only kids there. There was another family that lived there, and they lived like right behind um the house that we lived in. They lived in a bus that was like pushed up against the fence, and they had two girls that lived in that bus with them. And the younger, the younger one's name was Shodi. I still remember her. Um but they ran the the inside the the little cafe. So like they were homeschooled too. When really it wasn't it wasn't homeschooled, you know, like we we didn't have any books, we didn't have any lessons. We were running ballasts, like you know, yeah. I just I cannot wrap my mind around how a grown man who was in the stake presidency, because this man, like he was the first or second counselor in the stake presidency, he could have helped us, right? He could have helped us, but he chose not to. He chose to use us for work and he chose to continue to exploit us and to keep us out of school.

SPEAKER_04 35:57

Yeah, so you're really in the LDS community. Your mom's really she's a really faithful believer, and then Mike's probably LDS.

SPEAKER_02 36:06

He's LDS, we go to church every Sunday, um and then this richer guy's probably LDS. He's LDS.

SPEAKER_04 36:13

Okay, and then raised LDS in Arizona, and then this storefront is the stake president.

SPEAKER_02 36:19

So owned by an LDS person. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yep. Um, yeah, the business habitat is over by, you know, North Salt Lake where they have the turtle dome, it's shaped like a turtle. I don't know Salt Lake very good, but it's almost a bountiful area, and there's like the turtle dome, and then you'll see like Martin Doors over there and the business habitat. So it's like it's something I still see driving by.

SPEAKER_03 36:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 36:46

So it's something that I I cannot stop thinking about because I I see this building, and I'm like, you motherfucker, you could have helped us, but you chose to use a 12-year-old girl, right? Yeah, like I I don't understand that. Um, so we ended up leaving the business habitat. Um, my another one of my brothers got in a fight with my stepdad, and um my stepdad's way of getting your attention was to grab you by the throat and shove you up against the wall and like hold you there. So he did that to my brother, and he was 16 at this point. Well, he kicked him and broke his ribs, you know? Fair fight, right? Yeah, big old fat guy choking you up against the wall, you have every right to fight back. Um, well, they didn't think so, so they um literally packed up in the middle of the night and we moved without him. I have no idea where he was.

SPEAKER_04 37:54

You just moved away from him.

SPEAKER_02 37:56

We just moved away from him. We just left him. He was 16, and they just left him. Like leaving the Pradlow.

SPEAKER_04 38:06

So your mom and Mike just packed their stuff up.

SPEAKER_02 38:10

Mm-hmm. And then it was me, my older sister, and younger sister from then on. They just abandoned him, flat out abandoned him.

SPEAKER_04 38:19

So, what did you do with the storefront and all that?

SPEAKER_02 38:23

Uh my mom put that stuff in storage.

SPEAKER_04 38:26

She put her stuff in storage, got rid of the storefront.

SPEAKER_02 38:30

Mm-hmm. And then we at that point we moved to Oregon and we lived in in a tent for a while. And then Was there more to it than just this 16-year-old breaking the ribs or yeah, yeah, there's a little more to it that I don't really want to discuss. Okay. Um, but that's the gist of it. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 38:56

I I can't tell if your mom is like a little bit crazy or oh yeah, she is.

SPEAKER_02 39:02

Oh yeah, she is. Okay. Like with my mom, you obey the first time. You don't get told twice. Because if you didn't obey the first time, or if you talk back, she's gonna hit you in the mouth, right?

SPEAKER_04 39:15

Yeah, I was gonna say she seems to have an interesting choice in men.

SPEAKER_02 39:19

Yeah, yeah, yeah, she does.

unknown 39:23

She does.

SPEAKER_02 39:24

I have no idea why or how she ended up with my with my last stepdad. It was insane. Um, so we're in Alsey, Oregon now, right? And it's outside Port Vallis, and we're staying in this campground. It's really pretty. Um, well, the ranger there took pity on us again because there's three girls living in a tent. Like the three of us girls were living in a tent, and then the the parents got the van, right? I don't want to stay in the van anyway because I don't want to be that close to my stepdad. Because I didn't like him, and he stunk. Okay. So it was like he was a big guy. I mean, like a big guy, like he was over 500 pounds. So the van, it smelt like farts and unwashed ass. And I'm like, I'll sleep in the tent. I'm good. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 40:26

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 40:27

Um, but they so we meet a a forest ranger and he takes pity on us again. And um there's this ranger station in Alsey, Oregon, that is it's a retired ranger station. So they have a bunch of houses that are empty there that still have power running water, and they're just not being used. So um he's like, why don't you guys come live in one of these houses and I'll find a job that that you can do to trade the work? That sounds great, right? Okay, well, there was inventory that needed to be done. Again, it wasn't this ranger that did it though. So this ranger hired on my stepdad to do inventory, but it was my sister and I that did the inventory instead of my parents. And then um when things happened there, um like they were extremely abusive, just extremely abusive. Like you can't do anything good enough, you can't do it quite right if you don't do it exactly how they say, it's not the right way. So, like I was constantly getting hit upside the head, you know, constantly getting hit and just having to do stuff I didn't want to do.

SPEAKER_04 41:45

So were they just over in their van? Yeah. And then making and you guys were doing the work or yeah. Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:56

Yeah. Uh my stepdad, um, he would say quite often, children are for work because they're closer to the ground.

SPEAKER_05 42:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 42:06

What a nice guy, huh?

SPEAKER_05 42:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:09

Yeah. Um, so I finally get the nerve up and I tell another young women's leader, like, I don't want to stay here. I'm not safe, I'm getting hit all the time, and I don't want to stay with my parents, right? So I run away again, and then we move, right? And we move back to Utah for a little bit.

SPEAKER_04 42:34

So you were gonna run away, but but we moved. Okay. So during all this time, you attend the church events.

SPEAKER_02 42:43

Your mom is you know devoutly every Sunday, whether we're homeless or not.

SPEAKER_04 42:50

Got it.

SPEAKER_02 42:51

Every Sunday, right?

SPEAKER_04 42:53

Mike and everybody. Everybody and his van.

SPEAKER_02 42:57

And Mike loves, loves, loves gospel doctrine. Loves it. He was the gospel doctrine teacher because he loves church history. He loved Joseph Smith and Brigham Young so much, right? Just really admired those guys.

SPEAKER_04 43:15

And somehow he just thought it was great to sit in the van while you guys worked.

SPEAKER_02 43:20

I think he was so fat he couldn't move.

SPEAKER_04 43:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 43:27

So yeah, like he was just always sitting. Like, we would get for selling mistletoe, they would drop us off in these neighborhoods. And um, they would pick the nicer neighborhoods, like the ones around the temple, and drop me and my sister off with like um a whole bunch of of the mistletoe and bags of candy. And we had to sell five hundred dollars a day or we couldn't quit. Like we couldn't stop for that day. So there's a lot of times where we would start. At exactly 5 p.m. And we were going door to door until 11 o'clock when people would start calling the police on us at night because it's 11 o'clock. You have children going around door to door selling stuff. And it it just put us in a lot of really bad situations. Like really bad situations. Like for we got flashed multiple times. Um, there was one guy who came to the door in a towel, and he was like trying to convince me to go inside with him, and I'm like, no, no, I'm good. Another guy came and he was in a robe and he literally flashed us, and I had no idea that was illegal and that I could call the police. I just thought I just had to put up with this shit, right?

SPEAKER_04 44:44

So that's pretty good money, $500 a day.

SPEAKER_02 44:48

Yeah, it's really good money. Think about it. Like um, we were selling these little bags in that day, yeah. Well, they were five dollars a piece, so we only had to sell a hundred of them. So, um, and you can't buy mistletoe from stores. You just you can't because it's poisonous. They sell fake stuff, but not the real stuff. So it was the only place you could get real mistletoe, and so people bought it from us. Um, but yeah, that is it's a lot of money, especially back then, because this was late 90s, and then I stopped in 2000.

SPEAKER_04 45:27

So um okay, so you moved back to Utah.

SPEAKER_02 45:33

Mm-hmm. So we moved back to Utah. Let's pick up here. Okay, so by this time, I'm 15 by the time we move back to Utah.

SPEAKER_04 45:41

And Cindy.

SPEAKER_02 45:42

And Cindy is nine. She's six years younger. So Cindy has never been to school. She has never had a sleepover, she's never been to a friend's house, she's never been on a field trip. Like, she doesn't have all these experiences that, like, I guess I got to have up to that point. Because I was I was 10 when I was taken out of school.

SPEAKER_04 46:08

Um, does your mom still believe she has like this curse from Alan?

SPEAKER_02 46:14

I'm not sure. I'm not sure when she thought the curse was lifted, right? But she totally thought the Cindy was cursed from from Alan. So, okay, so I'm 15 and we're back in Salt Lake City, and we're living on North Temple. It's like actually directly across from the Christmas box house, but I had no idea what that was. So um, so we're we're living there in that house, and my sister got married that November, like the month before. So it's just me selling mistletoe door to door now, and it's just me taking care of the house, and it's just me cooking dinner for everyone, and it's just me watching my stepsisters' kids, you know. And um, I started getting like these really creepy emails, and I didn't know where they were coming from, and they they really spooked me, and then it was like right before Christmas. Um, so I remember like I had just gotten home from selling mistletoe. It was like 10 o'clock at night, and um I remember standing there in the kitchen and trying to get something to eat, and my my sister, my stepsister's husband, he was just like staring at me and looking at me, and I just I felt really weird, so I went to bed. And um that night I woke up to him trying to assault me. He was trying to take off my clothes um while I was sleeping, and so I woke up and I was kicking and screaming, and nobody came to help me, nobody bothered to check what was going on. So um he stopped because I'm screaming and kicking, of course. And then I called my young woman's leader because I was scared out of my mind, and I knew my parents weren't gonna help me, they knew what was going on, and they said that he was sleepwalking, they said that I misinterpreted his touch, they said that, and then they they they just said it was my fault that I somehow seduced him. Um so it was the night of the 23rd that he was arrested. Um, yeah, it was the night of the 23rd, so this must happen on the 22nd. So he was arrested the night of the 23rd, and when I got home from You told the young woman's leader. Mm-hmm. I told the young woman's leader what happened to me, and she she came over and she got the emails and forwarded them so she could prove what was going on.

SPEAKER_04 49:18

And could you just have like a computer or something?

SPEAKER_02 49:21

Mm-hmm. It was a downstairs PC that everyone used. Okay. It was actually my mom's. Yeah. Um, so I tell my young women's leader she picks me up and gets like copies of the emails and takes me to the police station, and I do the police report, and then she has to take me home. Um, well, when I got home, my parents stuck me in a closet, like in a dark closet, and they're like, Um, you don't deserve anything, it's your fault that these kids won't have a father anymore. How could you do this? Like, he was sleepwalking, you misinterpreted it, like all this stuff over and over again. They wanted me to recant, and I just I wouldn't recant because um he assaulted me, right? Um, so my parents go to the bishop, and the bishop ends up going to see him in jail, and he took a Book of Mormon, and the bishop thought that he was so repentant, and he bailed him out. And when he bailed him out, he put him up in a motel and gave them money for food, and like just really took care of him, really took care of the predator, and then um so it was just just the local bishop, the bishop of the harmony park ward, yeah. Okay, mm-hmm. Not gonna give the bishop's name right now.

SPEAKER_04 50:59

Okay, yeah, I was just wondering because you guys move so much, so yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:03

So this was the bishop of the Harmony Park ward, and um, so yeah, he bailed Richard out of jail and said he was repentant, and then um they helped him move. He skipped town while he was on bail and he moved to Mesa, Arizona, and um he was there off and on. Um he wasn't caught until 11 years later, and then by that time he had another nine victims, and um he was convicted of 40 charges. So 40 felony charges, including kidnap, child rape, assault, and yeah.

SPEAKER_03 51:52

That's like the worst of the world.

SPEAKER_02 51:54

He's still in prison, he's spending life in prison without possibility of parole. And he's in the Mesa, Arizona prison, if anyone, you know, is wondering.

SPEAKER_04 52:02

Yeah, and you can look up the court case, because his name is Richard Richard Daniel Forster. Okay, yeah. You can look up the court case because you sent me the court case documents.

SPEAKER_02 52:14

Um when I so okay, so we're gonna rewind a little bit. Okay. So okay, so he's arrested on the 23rd, and I'm stuck in a closet, right? The 25th comes, Christmas comes, and I'm let out, and they're telling me you don't deserve anything. Like you don't deserve a Christmas because you ruin everyone else's Christmas, and their dad's in jail because you, and blah blah blah blah, and you're evil and all this stuff. So my mom's like, well, we're gonna give you a gift anyway. So I open the gift, and it is a floor-length FLDS dress. I kid you not, it was an FLDS dress. Like, down to the stitching. She probably got it at DI and was like, oh yeah, this is good. You know?

SPEAKER_04 53:13

Yeah. So what was your parents' mindset about the church? Yeah, I I'm just curious because I'm trying to understand how much all this abuse has to do with the church versus um just kind of how your parents were so um they we would start our day out with family prayer and scripture study, and then um that's how we started off every day.

SPEAKER_02 53:47

Um they loved spare the rod, spoil the child. They loved that that scripture, and they said that basically they were teaching us to to grow up godly in the faith. So, like we did, they went to the temple all the time. I I was even doing um temple like baptisms for the dead. Do you guys do baptisms for the dead? Yeah, okay. So when we do baptisms for the dead, they start letting you do that at like 12 years old. So I was doing that ever since I was like 12. So you go in there, you get in the white jumpsuit with all the white underwear, and then you go into the big fountain or the the big tub that's like surrounded by 12 oxen, and they dunk you. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 54:43

Okay. Uh but you strongly feel about these bishops and the president of the stake that was making you work. That's kind of where you feel the church had a lot more to do with it.

SPEAKER_02 54:58

Yeah, the church could have helped us out. They they could have, but they chose not to. So um, yeah, and every almost every place I went to, I ran away about probably about a dozen times from the time I was eight until I was 15. So every couple months I was running away because I wanted out. So anytime I thought where there was a chance I could get away, I was taking that chance.

SPEAKER_04 55:29

You just kind of wanted to get away from your uh parents. Mm-hmm. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 55:34

Mm-hmm. Yeah, I didn't even think about leaving the church until I was a lot older. So, I mean, I thought I was gonna be given to this nice Mormon family and everything was gonna be, you know, happy, happily ever after. Right? Yeah, doesn't work that way. Um so okay, so we're gonna rewind back to when my my brother-in-law assaulted me. So um after I got that dress, um I decided I had to leave. I couldn't stay anymore, I was gonna run away. I had no idea what that meant. But I didn't think it was gonna be good and I knew I was not gonna enjoy it, right? So um So you're 15. I'm 15 still. It's um right before my 16th birthday. So it's like the 26th and my sixth and I turned 16 on the 28th.

SPEAKER_04 56:37

So is this in 2000? Around 2000?

SPEAKER_02 56:41

It's in 2000. Yep. And by the way, there was no nothing happened in 2000. Like we moved to we moved to Idaho because my mom thought that that the city was gonna explode. She thought the city was going to like, I don't know, explode, and there was gonna be fires all over and like earthquakes. I don't know exactly where she got that from, but she thought that it was gonna happen. So yeah, we were in we were in American Falls for Okay.

SPEAKER_05 57:19

For that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 57:21

Yeah, in Idaho. Um, so the 26th of December, like the day after Christmas, I'm sitting there and I'm like, I've gotta run, I've gotta run, I've gotta run. And um, I wasn't allowed to call anyone, I wasn't allowed to interact with anyone. Um they were withholding food at that point, because that's another, it seems like that's another really Mormon punishment is to withhold food from children, and they like to call it fasting. So I really don't see a need in withholding food. I mean, that's a really weird punishment, right?

SPEAKER_04 58:02

Yeah, it is.

SPEAKER_02 58:04

Like super weird punishment.

SPEAKER_04 58:06

Is this because you reported Richard or the first place?

SPEAKER_02 58:09

It's because I reported Richard to the police and I wouldn't recant. So I didn't deserve anything, right? Not even to be fed. Um, so that night when everyone fell asleep, the night of the 26th, that's when I ran. So I ran from my house, that's like right across from the Christmas box house, to St. Mark's Hospital, which is about three miles away. And I just I just remember like looking behind me, trying to make sure no one was following me, because oftentimes I would leave out the window and I would be followed by a family member, and that's how they would get me back. So I'm like running, trying to make sure I'm not being followed, like going zigzags, like going different alleyways, and trying to make sure no one can track me and my 15-year-old mind, and just trying to get to that hospital. And I remember telling them what was going on, and I remember telling them that if they sent me home, I was gonna kill myself. Like, and I would continue trying until I was successful. And um that and the the the um the report that my young women's leader helped me make is what uh is is why my parents' parental rights were terminated. So I ran away on the 26th, and then by the 29th, there was a court case where I had to testify against my mom and my stepdad, and um their parental rights were dissolved at that point. So that was like the day after my 16th birthday. Um and then I was in um there's like these group homes right behind the Christmas box house. So I stayed there for about a month, and I went to school and did a couple other things, and then they stuck me in a kinship placement with my brother, E.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:15

The same one that got Mike going anyway. So, what is a kinship?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:25

A kinship placement is when the state says they need a place to put you and they would rather put you with family than a stranger. So it's um, yeah, the state of Utah thought it was a great idea. E was 21 at the time, and he was married, and his wife was also 21. I'm gonna give Sarah's name because she deserves it. You'll know why. Sarah's my sister-in-law. It's E's wife.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:53

Oh, okay. The one that also got Mike and your mom put together.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:00

No, no, no. Um, they E didn't marry El. They split up. So stepbrother and stepsister didn't get married, thankfully. Okay, thankfully.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:10

They did they split up.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:11

Uh-huh. Yeah. So um so Sarah's a new girl. Sarah's a new girl.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:19

Not related. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:21

Totally separate. Totally separate.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:27

So I move in with E and Sarah, and I'm 16, right? Just barely 16, and I'm trying to figure things out, and I get put in to school, like to high school. I haven't been to school since I was in fifth grade, right? And so here I am trying to figure out blockers and trying to figure out like how to act and what to do in school, and just generally trying to keep up. Um and then E got a job in Pensacola working for the EPA. So we move out to Pensacola, me, or me, um, E and Sarah, right? So we get out there in August of the same year, right? 2001. So he's had me for a whopping seven months now. And um as soon as we move out there, like he got a really nice place too. Um in Pensacola, it in the early 2000s, he bought a three-bedroom, two-bathrouse with a pool for $82,000.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:40

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:40

Right? Yeah, so amazing. It was like a nice house. He made friends with the young men's president like as soon as we moved there. And um Milton, it was like literally the week that we moved there, they kind of hit it off. So Milton was living in an apartment and he was 28. He was a second lieutenant, and he was in flight school.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:01

Okay, who's Milton?

SPEAKER_02 1:03:03

Milton is the young men's president in Colorado.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:07

Okay. Is this in Utah?

SPEAKER_02 1:03:10

Florida.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:11

Florida. Okay, I didn't know where that was.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:13

Yep, so we moved from Utah to Florida. Um, and it's like this really interesting area. There's beaches nearby, but there's like this huge Navy presence, and they have the Air Force flight school there too. So there's a ton, ton of military guys. Um Well, Milton was the young men's president.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:37

So why did your brother move there?

SPEAKER_02 1:03:39

Because he got a job with the EPA doing water testing.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:42

Because Florida has horrible water, they have horribly polluted water, right? Um so he we were doing that. Anyway, so Milton is 28, he's second lieutenant, he's in flight school, he's in the Air Force, right? So he's at our house all the time, all the time, and he's doing his laundry there, and he uh he was asking me, Well, how do I get these stains out? How do I do this with the laundry?

SPEAKER_04 1:04:14

So this is the house that he bought for 82,000. Okay, yeah, and he's the young men's president and interesting. Yep. Okay, okay, keep going. The laundry.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:26

So Milton would come over and do his laundry and it would take several hours. So he would sit there with me on the couch, and he's like, You're so smart. I can't believe that you were able to catch up without being in school for all this time. Wow, you're so intelligent, you're so beautiful. Wow, like I'm just so amazed by you. You're so smart, right? And then um he lived across from PJC, which is Pennsylvania Junior College, and that's where I was going to school because we moved out to to Florida, and I didn't have any credits whatsoever. And they're like, Well, we can put you back in ninth grade, and I'm like, I'm 16, I don't want to go to ninth grade, right? So um I went to an adult high school, and it was right across from the church, and then his apartment was down the street, maybe half a block from the church, and and down. So it was really convenient for him to come pick me up and take me wherever I wanted. And so he did that. Like he would offer me rides and I would call him to pick me up, and then he started like taking me to base. He's like, Hey, you want to run this errand with me? And so I'd go and run errands with him, and he'd take me to lunch. And he's like, You want to see a movie? I'm like, sure, I'll go see a movie. And so I'd go see a movie with him, and then he started like buying me clothes. He's like, There's no one taking care of you, so you know, let me have. Help you, and then it became like a sexual relationship, right? And he's telling me he's gonna marry me, and I thought that I had like scored big, right? I think wow, I found this really great guy, he's super smart, and he's gonna be a pilot, right? Nope, I found a file. So, um, so I'm being pressured from my sister-in-law Sarah.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:30

So you're 16.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:31

I'm 16 at this point.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:32

And he's 28. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:34

28, almost 29.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:36

And everywhere you guys go, you just go to the church. Because you're just right there by the church again. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:44

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:45

Interesting.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:46

So I would walk to the church and try and get a ride home because it was directly across from the church. So I would sit there a lot of the time while the boys were playing basketball and just sit there and wait for a ride. You know, I didn't think I was doing anything wrong. I was just I needed a parent to look out for me, you know? Yeah. Um, but I didn't have one. So Milton is saying things like he's gonna marry me and he loves me so much, and I'm so incredibly smart, and all this stuff, and I just have to wait a little while because you know it'll be better if we wait a little while. Um, so I'm asking my friends for advice because Sarah is pushing me to get married, right? Every boy I bring home, Sarah asks, are you gonna marry her? Right? Like the weirdest thing ever. Who asked the 16-year-old's boyfriend, are you gonna marry her? Like, what the fuck?

SPEAKER_04 1:07:47

Well, is Sarah how old is she? Like 21, too?

SPEAKER_02 1:07:51

She's she's also 21. Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:55

And they're married.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:56

And they're married. Okay. And they have no kids yet. I'm their kid.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:01

Got it.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:02

I called him my brother dad. Brother Dad and sister mom. Because he had he had guardianship of me, he had legal guardianship.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:12

Got it.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:13

Um, yeah, because the state, like, they dissolved my mom and stepdad's parental rights. So they had no rights over me. I was a ward of the state of Utah. That was now in Florida. Got them. Yeah. So we're there, and I'm dating Milton, and I had like, I'd kind of dated another boy too. Like, um, he was my age, and we met in September, right? So we met in September, we kind of we hung out and kind of dated, did whatever, and um, he went to BASIC in January. So that's September, October, November, December. It was like literally three months and some change that I knew him before he went to basic. And then, like, you can't see them in BASIC. It's it's not like you're gonna write to them, and it's not like you're gonna like uh call them or whatever. So you just don't. I just didn't see him for months and months and months, and then so I go to in like April, I go to my friend and I'm asking her for advice because Sarah is pushing me to get married. She's like, it's time for you to get married. You need to be thinking about who you're gonna marry.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:34

To who?

SPEAKER_02 1:09:35

To me.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:36

Well, does she have somebody that she wants you to get married to or she wanted me to marry Milton? Oh.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:44

She wanted me to marry Milton. Um, and I thought, this dude wants to control how I dress. I don't want to wear garments. He's gonna make me wear garments.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:58

I see.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:59

And this other boy, he grew up Southern Baptist, um, which is also very interesting too. He grew up Southern Baptist and didn't have all the weird Mormon things that we had. Like I could show my shoulders and he didn't think it was slutty, you know, like I could wear normal shorts and he's like, oh yeah, that's fine, you know, whatever. So he wasn't too concerned about how I was dressing, where Milton was more concerned about how I was dressing, and I needed to dress so I could wear garments later, too, you know, so I would be ready for that. Uh I see. Yeah. So it's like April, and I'm finally 17 now, right? Because my birthday's in December. It's April, and so this one boy is off to basic training in AIT, and then I'm somewhat dating Milton, and he's like, I'm gonna marry you, and I'm like, what the fuck am I doing? I've got this guy who wants to marry me. I've got this kid who I like better and is way more fun to hang out with, and I would rather spend time with than him. Um, and um, I went to a friend and she went to the bishop and she told the bishop, because it's I'm sure it was alarming to her that I was dating a 28-year-old. Um so the bishop called me in and he didn't let me explain anything. He didn't ask me any questions about the relationship. He called me a whore and said I would never see it inside the temple, and that he didn't want me around the other young women, and so I was removed from young women's and I was um disfellowshipped at that point.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:38

So is this down in Florida?

SPEAKER_02 1:11:39

Mm-hmm. In Pensacola, Florida. Right? He does not call the police.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:45

So he's telling you this because you were dating because I was dating Milton.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:51

Because I was dating Milton. And he said that I seduced Milton, is what he said. So it was my fault. That entire relationship was my fault. So I was 17 at this point and he was 29. And that is illegal in any state that you go to. Okay. Like most states allow for a four-year age gap. Um, this was 12.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:20

But it started at 16.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:22

And it started at 16, yeah, which makes it even worse. Yeah. So um I thought it was all my fault.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:31

And so this bishop he heard about this situation.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:37

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:38

And he just called you in.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:40

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:42

And just told you like you're disfellowshipped.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:46

Well, they had I had to go in a meeting. So I I had to like try and explain myself to three old men sitting across from me. And that as a 17-year-old girl is so humiliating. I just wanted to die. I just absolutely wanted to die. And like it wasn't my first bad run-in with a bishop. Like, before we left Utah, I I was in the Riviera ward, and I was trying to renew my temple recommend to go do baptisms for the dead. And the bishop had called me in his um, well, I went in for the worthiness interview, and he was asking about chastity, and I told him that I had been assaulted by my brother-in-law, and he literally asked if I climaxed. And I didn't know what that word meant, so I asked what it meant, and then he proceeded to explain to me in explicit details what it meant and asked me again if I climaxed. And like those are the experiences that I've had with bishops over and over and over again. So if I have three different bishops that are asking me sexually explicit, you know, questions, I think there's a lot more bishops that ask sexually explicit questions.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:10

You know? So I okay, so now I'm 17 and I'm just fellowshipped and it's like April. Well, um, the boy, the other boy that I liked and was kind of seeing, he came back from his training, from one of his training in May. He came back to take me to a prom in May. And then in like the end of June, he was done with his training, and he okay, so is he a Mormon? He got baptized in basic because of me.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:48

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:49

Yeah, yeah. So he got baptized in basic because it was the longest church session, and you could get away from from basic for the longest time. And I was Mormon. And he's like, hey, guess what? And I'm like, oh. So um he wasn't really Mormon, he just got baptized, and um, yeah, he didn't really understand the entire thing.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:21

So did that bishop feel like that made sense to um just cut you off to church for having a relationship?

SPEAKER_02 1:15:34

Yes, yes, so I was kicked out of young women's. I had to go to Relief Society. I didn't want to go to Relief Society because I was 17. It's not fun. I don't want to hang with old ladies, right? So I kind of stopped going for a little bit, and then um, and then my so then the boy I was seeing, he comes home in May, takes me to prom, and then his training is done in like the end of June. So he comes home the end of June, and we're like kind of dating again. And um my he's almost 19 at this point, and my brother's like, well, if you're gonna be having sex, you have to be married. And I'm like, bullshit. So he says, if you don't get married, I am going to turn your boyfriend into the police and have him charged for statutory rape, right? And this is in 2001, and I didn't, you know, there's no Google, I can't just Google that and fact check it. So we ended up getting married less than two weeks later. My brother and Sarah drove us up to Enterprise Alabama. We went in the courthouse, there was just the four of us and the um the judge there, and that was it. That was my wedding.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:02

So your 21-year-old brother tells you that if you're not gonna get married, then he's gonna report your boyfriend to the police. Because the boy is 21?

SPEAKER_02 1:17:18

He's over 18, he's just 18.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:19

He was almost 18, okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:22

Yeah. So the boy my age.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:25

He's like, yeah, I'm gonna turn him for statutory rape. Why not Melton?

unknown 1:17:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:30

Like, why? Sarah wanted me to marry him so bad, you know? And um, oh man. Yeah, Sarah comes up in the the story later on. That's why she gets a name.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:50

I don't know. It's just crazy to me that the bishop cut you off the church.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:55

Right? That the bishop actually disfellowship me.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:58

I'd like to talk to that motherfucker.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:01

He's still here. Well, no, he died. That was Bishop Gardner, yeah. But I don't understand. Florida had a duty to report. He had a duty to report this, and he did not.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:16

Well, he cut you off to church. That's insane.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:20

Yeah. Right? Right? So, um, so here we're in July, and um I'm being forced to get married, and then I start going back to church after I get married. Because I could take the sacrament again. Like, how fucked up is that? 17-year-old can't take the sacrament, right? Until she gets married? So you're gonna marry the child off? Like, it wasn't anyone thinking, maybe this kid needs school, maybe this kid needs some serious therapy, because I needed some serious therapy. Like, like, what does this kid need? No, they said, let's marry off this child. So I got married, and then um 11 days later, so we got married three days later, he shipped off to Hawaii, and 11 days after that I followed him to Hawaii. So that's how that turned out.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:27

That's how your first wedding went down.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:28

That's how my first wedding went down. And then I got pregnant um a month after. So I was 17 and now pregnant, and I knew within, gosh, I knew within three months I'd made a huge mistake. And I'm like, I don't want to do this anymore. But the thing is, when you're 17 and you're pregnant, um you can't do anything. You can't um go to a shelter, they can't accept you because you're underage, you can't file for divorce, um, you have no rights. I couldn't go out after 10 p.m. on base without my husband because I was a child.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:09

Oh, I see.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:13

Yep. So even though I was married, I was still a child in the eyes of the military. And my husband is already at training because he was going to ranger school and AIT and special forces, and so that meant a ton of training. So I find out that I'm pregnant September 15th, and here I am, 17, and pregnant in Hawaii, and my husband is in Georgia on training, right? So what do I do? I turn to the church because that's the only thing I know, and it was what I thought was safe. So I kind of um dove into the church. Uh, because well, partly because I had no friends, I had no family there, and then um I found out I was pregnant and I didn't know what I was going to do. I didn't know what I was gonna teach my child, I didn't know how I was going to raise her. So I decided that going to church would be the best thing for me to do. Um, so I taught sunbeams for quite a while. I tried to go to BYU Hawaii.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:35

What's sunbeams?

SPEAKER_02 1:21:37

Sunbeams is a three-year-olds, three and four-year-olds. Oh.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:41

That's such a fucking church name. Yeah, it is.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:46

So here I am, a pregnant 17-year-old, um, teaching the three-year-olds in primary.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:53

That sounds accurate. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:57

Yep. And um I thought I I was gonna go to school because um my husband deployed for the first time when my daughter was seven months old. So I was 18 now in Hawaii, and I had a baby, and um I had finally finished up my schooling, and I I sent it back to PJC, and I'd gotten my diploma. I'd gotten a high school diploma. And that's something I was super, super proud of because I I'm sure that you kind of understand this. When you're out of school for so long, it's so hard to get back into it. And when I left school, like I think I was learning fractions.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:43

Wow. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:45

Like, I wasn't even into algebra yet. It was in fifth grade, I didn't even make it to sixth grade. That's way back. Yeah. So um, I was really, really proud of earning that high school diploma, even if it was an adult high school diploma. That's something that I still to this day value very much because I worked my ass off to get it. Good. You know, congrats. Thank you. Um, so I thought I need to go to college now.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:12

Well, you being 18 was a trip because you kind of you kind of have a long path to 18. Right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:23

Right? I'm I'm honestly surprised that I made it to 18 because um I started having suicidal ideation when I was about eight after I got baptized, and when I started really internalizing those teachings, the purity culture teachings. So I I knew that um in the church, your virtue as a woman is your value, right? And I knew because I testified against my father, that I didn't have that, right? I didn't have that to say, you know, someone took that away from me before I could even contemplate it. So it's it's something that I struggled with for a really, really long time. And so when I got pregnant with my daughter, um it it kind of flipped the switch for me because I wasn't living for me anymore. I was living for her, and I wouldn't hurt a baby, you know. I I couldn't hurt a baby, so I couldn't terminate the pregnancy. And I just I had I had to keep her. And she's my little she's my little buddy. She went everywhere with me, everywhere with me, like you know, a teenager would. I was hanging out with friends, I'd take her with me, you know, she was just my little everything. Um so I was gonna go to college when I was 18, and I thought BYU Hawaii would be amazing because they could give me a discount. I was now like a resident of Hawaii, so I could get like maybe I could get a church scholarship. So I went to my bishop and um I was asking them, and the bishop told me you're not BYU material.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:11

Damn.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:12

And I think it's because I had those notes in my record from being disfellorshipped.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:19

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_02 1:25:20

Because this was the year later. He's like, you're not BYU material.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:25

So they don't like judge judge off some. They kind of judge off your church status for going to BYU. Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:37

So your bishop has to write a letter of recommendation and he won't write it for me.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:40

Fuck him.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:41

Mm-hmm. Thanks, Bishop Maka Eevee, because it's no longer, it's not on my resume.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:48

BYU.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:50

Yeah, BYU. Yeah. Um, so yeah, so um I was in Hawaii and things were going, things were going great. Um my my husband was deployed. I had my little girl, I was just living my life. Um, I had met some amazing, amazing women in Hawaii. Like, I met this girl who lived across the street from me, and we're still really good friends. Um, the first girl I met, she was she was 19 when I met her, but she was also a teen mom. Um so we connected pretty fast. She was here. Her baby was like 18 months old, so she was she was like 18 when I met her. She got married at 16. Um so we were like, Is she a Mormon too? No, no.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:45

Interesting enough, um, it was Pentecostal. Her parents were Pentecostal and they married her off at 16.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:57

How old was her husband?

SPEAKER_02 1:26:59

The same age.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:00

16. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:02

She ended up getting pregnant, and they're like, well, you gotta get married now.

SPEAKER_05 1:27:05

Oh wow. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:09

Back then they're like, that's the that's the solution. You get pregnant, you marry him off at 16.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:15

Well, if you're Pentecostal, you probably still do that. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:20

I think so. Um yeah, I met I met these incredible women. Um, I still keep in touch with several of them today. My best friend, um I met her, she lived across the street too. And you know, I was the I was the 18-year-old with the baby, with the year and a half year old baby, and she's like, you're so young on your own.

SPEAKER_05 1:27:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:48

Um, but yeah, she uh she actually lives in Lunhai, so I'm gonna go see her after this.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:53

Yeah, you oh really?

SPEAKER_02 1:27:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:55

Yeah, you meet somebody, you're 18, you have this like one and a half year. Old baby and they're 27, they're like, Oh, we might have a kid. Like, what the fuck's your problem? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:09

Yeah, yeah. So Hawaii was amazing for me. Um, I think Hawaii and my baby is what made me really reevaluate my my will to live. And um, so things weren't working out between me and my husband because he came from trauma and I came from trauma, and um I went to therapy and he went to war.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:41

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:42

So when one goes to therapy and one goes to war, one heals and one matures and one does not. Um, and and so it was really apparent when he came back the first time that it wasn't going to be what I wanted for a marriage. Um and then I got pregnant with my second child. So I was about to leave, and then I got pregnant with my second child, and I'm like, well, what do I do now? I'm like at this point, I was 20 and I was gonna have two kids. I still I had no education still. Um I was still trying to catch up from my homeschooling years, you know. I felt like I I felt like I needed to learn everything that I could to catch up to to make up for what I didn't learn in school. Um so yeah, I did a lot of studying and he didn't, and we just became very, very different. He's definitely a typical special forces guy. Yeah. Okay. So when when we were going to split up, um I I was pregnant with my twins, and I knew we were going to divorce because he was he was on his second deployment at this time, and I'm like, I cannot do another one where you come home and we have this this volatile relationship.

SPEAKER_05 1:30:26

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:27

I got into this stage where I wanted to be in charge.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:35

It's kind of what it comes down to. It's like you're gonna listen to me now. Got it. And I was hard to deal with. I'm gonna be very clear about that. I was really hard to deal with. Um, so we split up and we get a divorce, and things aren't going well. So I go to my bishop and I ask for help from my bishop.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:04

In Hawaii.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:06

In Florida now. Sorry, sorry. So, okay, so in Hawaii, I determined I was gonna get a divorce, and I knew I was pregnant with twins, and um I already had two kids, and I'm like, well, fuck. I can't live in Hawaii with four kids and no income. Like, this is not gonna go well.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:23

Um, so I did So you had another kid, and then you got pregnant again. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:32

Okay. Yep, yep. I ended up having four kids in five years.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:38

Dang.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:39

Mm-hmm. Um, yeah. So I it's called PCSing. So I PCSed back to Pensacola, Florida, because in the military, um, if you aren't married before the man joins, then they will only send you home to the man's home of record. So they sent me to his home of record, which was Pensacola, Florida, where I met him. And so I moved back there. And then, you know, I've got four kids and I'm 23, and I'm trying to leave my spouse because it's not working out like it was needed.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:22

Uh-huh. Sure.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:23

Um, so I go to the bishop and I ask for help, and they're like, Well, you need to be a full tithe payer before we can help you.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:30

A what?

SPEAKER_02 1:32:31

A full tithe payer. What tithing.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:35

Oh, a full tithe pay.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:36

Yeah, tithing. Like, you know, you're supposed to pay 10% of your income, and then you're supposed to give fast offerings, you're supposed to give missionary offerings, and you're supposed to give all these donations.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:45

A full tithe pay.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:47

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:48

Okay. Well, I was not fucking pay your bills.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:51

Yeah, fucking pay your bills.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:52

I'm not gonna help you unless you fucking business.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:57

The bishop says, um, you have to be a full tithe payer in order for us to help you. So I was trying to figure it out. Like, I had enough to pay my bills and then buy groceries, but I didn't have enough for for tithing and I needed something else. And um that was the last time that I paid tithing instead of groceries because I paid the tithing, and then the Relief Society leader came over and she literally went through our cupboards, and she was asking me, like, are you sure you need three gallons of milk? Yeah, I'm sure I need three gallons of milk. Like, why are you being stingy with the milk? Um so they give you like exactly what's needed for that week or week and a half, you know. And um, it was really humiliating. And at this point, I was doing the math, and I'm like, I could have bought way more groceries, and if I had just not paid the tithing, I wouldn't be in this predicament.

SPEAKER_05 1:34:02

Um, yeah, yeah, that's crazy.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:05

So it was a really big lesson to me. Um, and that's when I stopped paying my tithing, and I was on my way out of the church at that point. Because they're like, you need to go back to your husband, and they literally told me to go back to my husband, and that I needed to pay my tithing, and I'm like, Well, I can't pay tithing because he's he's the income, and he's not a member anymore, and he doesn't want to pay tithing, so I can't just give you his money, right? Right, so it's like a really awkward thing, and I finally, you know, I finally pay this tithing, and I'm like, okay, this is gonna be great. Um I'm gonna trust in the Lord, it's all gonna be fine, and it wasn't. I didn't have enough to get through that month, and it sucked, and I wasn't gonna ask the church again for money. Um, but yeah, that was the the beginning of my exit. So I kind of phased myself out of church over the next five years from then. Um, and I kind of stopped going to church, right? Just kind of stopped going. I'm going like every other Sunday, and I'm not going to the Relief Society events anymore, and I'm not going to like all the extra stuff. I'm just going to church on Sunday. And I might miss a Sunday here and there. So my faith has dwindled. But the thing is, is I've always had doubts, like always, as long as I can remember, I've always had doubts. Um, because I lived in Pennsylvania when I turned eight, and there's a lot of black people there. And I thought, why can't they hold the priesthood? So it was really um abrasive to me that um, you know, the church had just barely allowed people, black people to hold the priesthood. And here I am, friends with these people, and I'm like, why are they so different than us? Why are they cursed by God? And we're not, you know, so I had always struggled, and um and then tithing became a huge one for me, and tithing is like it's all your blessings, and when you lose your faith in tithing, everything else kind of crumbles too. So it was like my, I guess, I don't know, my invitation to leave. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:36:42

When you start seeing the tithing thing, you're kind of, you know, all these guys, they'll bear they'll bear their testimony to you, they'll do all this stuff, and when you reject the idea of tithing, then it's over. You know, it's like all your friendship, all your bullshit talk, all your bullshit scriptures, it all hinges on tithings.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:04

You know, they don't love you, they love your money.

SPEAKER_04 1:37:07

Yeah. It's like, oh, you're such a good friend and partner.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:37:12

Fuck you if you don't pay your tithing.

unknown 1:37:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:15

You're not entitled to these blessings. You're not entitled to help with food. How dare you ask for help with food if you're not paying your tithing? Jesus Christ. Yeah. Um, so I moved back to Utah and oh wait, I forgot about Cindy.

SPEAKER_05 1:37:35

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:36

Okay, so let's let's rewind a little bit backwards for Cindy, because this is a good place to rewind back. Um so Cindy, when I was taken away, Cindy stayed with my mom and my stepdad. Okay. And then they kept having um my stepsister and Richard living with them, like off and on. Wait. After he had assaulted me and after he had skipped out on bail. They lived with him again.

SPEAKER_04 1:38:08

Okay. So Cindy was. They moved to Arizona. Richard and his wife moved to Arizona.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:17

And then my parents were there for a little while, and then they moved to Fresno, California, like all of them. And then they, and then my parents moved to Alabama, and Richard and my stepsister stayed.

SPEAKER_04 1:38:35

And at what point did he go to prison?

SPEAKER_02 1:38:38

In 2011. The end of 2011. So it was that before. It yeah, it was a while later. Yeah. And like during this time, um, I would periodically call child services and try and get my my younger sister taken away and try and get my nieces and nephews taken away because I knew what was going on with them. Right. And at some point, it was probably 2010, is when I finally kind of no, it was like 2008, I think, is when I stopped calling child services because I'm like, that's not gonna do anything. It's just it's killing me. I have to completely just cut off of it, detach, and I can't think of it anymore.

SPEAKER_04 1:39:26

So did you still talk to Cindy?

SPEAKER_02 1:39:28

Um, a little bit. I wasn't allowed to talk to Cindy after I left.

SPEAKER_04 1:39:33

So she was just living with her parents this whole time and with Richard.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:37

Mm-hmm. She's never been to school one day in her life. Really? Never.

unknown 1:39:43

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:44

Mm-hmm. She has never been to any type of activity that was outside of a church activity.

SPEAKER_04 1:39:52

Okay. She so her parents, your parents, and Mike.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:59

They really isolated her. Oh okay. Like really isolated her. Um yeah. And then um so she started really struggling when she was in her teen years, and she started um struggling with suicidal ideation. And um she tried to commit suicide a few times and and tried to escape that way, and she wasn't able to be taken away by the state. They they kept her there. So when she turned 18, um I moved back to to Pensacola in 2008. Um, so they were in Alabama, and um my mom decided to move to Pensacola. So then they were all there in the city that I was in again, right? My mom starts showing up at my house, and I'm like, I don't want to see you. Like, I don't want to see you, I don't want anything to do with you.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:01

Wait, they came to Pensacola?

SPEAKER_02 1:41:03

They came to Pensacola after I moved back, yes.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:07

So they moved from Alabama, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:09

Okay, yes, to Pensacola, and I'm like, what the fuck is this? I thought I cut you guys off like eight years ago. Like, I haven't talked to you for a reason. I don't want to see you.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:21

Um so are you seeing Cindy now?

SPEAKER_02 1:41:24

Uh no, I wasn't allowed to see Cindy until I saw my mother. I wasn't allowed to see or talk to my sister without my mother or stepfather being present because they thought I was going to give her advice on how to run away.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:41

Okay, that makes sense. I can see why they would think that.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:47

To be fair, I probably would have. It would have been like this, how are you gonna get away? Yeah um, but she she really, really struggled, and then she turned 18 and she was she moved in with my other brother that was down there, E. So she was staying with E and that wasn't working out. And then she came and stayed with me for a couple months, and um it wasn't working out either because I had I had my four kids, and my twins were a year at that point, and she would laugh when they got hurt, and I'm talking fingers slammed in the door and little smashed fingers, and my my son um he was in a high chair that was strapped to a chair, and um my sister was supposed to be watching him while my oldest daughter was pushing him around in the chair like a choo-choo train, and the chair fell over, and my son broke his nose, and she laughed, and I was hysterically crying, and she's laughing, and I'm like, Oh, okay, you're not safe around my babies. Yeah, and so I made her leave.

SPEAKER_04 1:43:03

Um What do you think that was? Do you think it's just her whole life of I think it's her whole life.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:09

I had found a poem that she had written about pain and how she enjoyed inflicting pain.

SPEAKER_05 1:43:15

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_02 1:43:16

And yeah, and I had found a couple other things like that, and I'm like, you're fucking psycho, you need to go. Um and I was probably a little harsh with her, but my son had just broken his nose.

SPEAKER_04 1:43:29

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:29

And she laughed about it.

SPEAKER_04 1:43:31

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:32

Um, you know, and that's my baby, right? Um so she meets up with her friends that she had met online, and um they buy her a bus ticket, and she takes a bus down to West Virginia. And um while she was there, one of the the boys that she was friends was was telling her how um he had an abuser that was a scout leader, and that was that a Boy Scout leader?

SPEAKER_04 1:44:07

Mm-hmm. His Boy Scouts they're just they're not Mormon. They're they're just an organization by themselves.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:14

But they're closely affiliated.

SPEAKER_04 1:44:16

Are they?

SPEAKER_02 1:44:17

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04 1:44:18

Was he a Mormon? This guy they killed? Mm-hmm. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:22

He was also a Mormon? Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04 1:44:25

Everybody you guys had to deal with was Mormons. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:31

Um, so she um she hears this story about how he was abused by this man and how no one believed him, and this man was still out there living his best life, and so they decided they were going to um rob and murder him. And so the guy who was the the victim, the man's victim, alleged victim, he drove the car and had two different people. So my sister and the other boy go inside. So the first boy went inside, I forget his name.

SPEAKER_04 1:45:11

Okay, so how he's tailored straight. Uh there's a boy who says this man abused him sexually. And this boy tells Cindy and the other boy about it. He drives them to his house and they're going inside.

SPEAKER_02 1:45:33

Yes, so Cindy and the other boy, not the victim, go in. The boy goes into the bedroom where he finds him sleeping in bed with an eight-year-old boy, um, and he stabs him. And then when Terry is his name, when he got up to go to the hallway to call for help, that's where my sister met him with a knife in the hallway and stabbed him. And so her her stab wounds were fatal. Um they arrested them all about they arrested Cindy three days later. Um, one of the other boys had gone back to Georgia and the other boy had gone somewhere else. Um, so Cindy was the first to be arrested. And they I don't understand why they put all this stuff in there. They said she was on drugs, going from one fix to another. Yes. She hadn't even been there three weeks in the state for three weeks. She wasn't hooked on drugs, she may have used drugs, but she wasn't going from one fix to another. This was the first crime she had ever committed. And I know that if her abuser had been, you know, turned in and prosecuted, she wouldn't have been as angry as she was.

SPEAKER_04 1:47:01

You mean like Richard? Mm-hmm. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:47:04

Mm-hmm. Because Richard, this is in 2009, October of 2009, and Richard wasn't arrested again until November of 2011.

SPEAKER_05 1:47:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:47:14

Until two years after she was in prison.

SPEAKER_04 1:47:21

So to say the least, she just had a really traumatic childhood.

SPEAKER_02 1:47:25

She had a really, really traumatic childhood. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:47:29

With probably a lot of sexual abuse.

SPEAKER_02 1:47:31

A lot of sexual abuse. And it makes you extremely angry. Extremely angry.

SPEAKER_04 1:47:40

Okay. So this guy, we really don't know. Like if he was a really bad person or we don't know for sure now. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:47:51

No. I mean, do I believe the kid? Yeah, I do. Because um, why would you say that otherwise? Why would you hold that grudge?

SPEAKER_04 1:48:02

Did you say he was a Boy Scouts leader? Yeah, that kind of stuff goes on in the in the in those organizations.

SPEAKER_02 1:48:09

There was 82,000 Boy Scouts who were on the lawsuit. 82,000. How many Boy Scouts didn't want to speak up? Yeah. You know?

SPEAKER_05 1:48:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:48:21

So um Yeah. So she was arrested three days later. She pled guilty in hopes that she would get parole. And um they took that away, and she's life without parole.

SPEAKER_04 1:48:38

Yeah, that's what I read. Uh she really fought to try to get it. Sounds like she agreed to a parole agreement. And somehow, because it wasn't in writing or something, yeah. She thought she was gonna get 15 years and then parole. And because it wasn't in writing, then she ended up getting life in prison. Yeah. They appealed it in like 2015 or something. They didn't do anything, they didn't change anything, and then they did another appeal, I think, in 2020.

SPEAKER_02 1:49:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:49:14

And didn't change anything.

SPEAKER_02 1:49:16

So um, and with those appeals, the the victim's family was asking for um the death penalty also.

SPEAKER_04 1:49:25

Really? For her?

SPEAKER_02 1:49:28

For her.

SPEAKER_04 1:49:29

Fuck them.

SPEAKER_02 1:49:31

Yeah, yeah. So it's really I mean, I get it. I do too. I do too. I see both sides. You can't be judge, jury, and executioner. But also if we don't start taking care of the pedophiles in our community, then there's gonna be other women who are raised, like my sister, who rise up and they think that it is their job to protect other people and to remove the pedophile. Because no one else will.

SPEAKER_04 1:50:02

Yeah. Well, I think in her case, like 15 years was probably it was probably the right, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:50:10

Yeah, yeah, I agree. I definitely agree. She needed prison time. I mean.

SPEAKER_05 1:50:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:50:15

Yeah. Um, and and would I take her in my house afterwards again? I don't I don't know. I don't think so.

SPEAKER_04 1:50:23

Well, she probably needed some sort of mental health.

SPEAKER_02 1:50:27

Yeah. Yeah. She needed some serious therapy that I couldn't offer her.

SPEAKER_04 1:50:33

She needed some school, she needed some social life.

SPEAKER_02 1:50:36

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04 1:50:36

She needed some mental health.

SPEAKER_02 1:50:38

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04 1:50:40

So, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:50:42

Yeah, she got her, she ended up getting her GED in prison. Um, and then she went on to get her associates and bachelors.

SPEAKER_04 1:50:51

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 1:50:52

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04 1:50:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:50:54

So she's been working on school since she's been in there. Um but it's it's really difficult because she self-harms. Um, and she's also aggressive. So she's self-harmed and she's gotten into other physical fights with other inmates, and so she ends up in solitary confinement a lot.

SPEAKER_04 1:51:17

Oh, okay. I got it.

SPEAKER_02 1:51:22

You don't just lose the fight.

SPEAKER_05 1:51:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:51:25

Yeah. Um, so that's Cindy, and um, I just I really wish people could could see the correlation. You can't raise children in these environments and expect them to be healthy members of society, you know?

SPEAKER_04 1:51:48

Well, that's what I think when I see somebody like that. Like, I so easily like that could be me, you know, and you could lock me away forever if I did something wrong, or you could like get me the help I needed and the you know, and thankfully, like I was raised in a situation where I'm not, you know, I'm not that violent, so that I didn't do those things, but I can understand, I can resonate. Like, if you raise a child with that much abuse, then you got to understand what happened, like you gotta understand what's in their mind, and if they can never fix it, then it's true that they can't be in society, like they do have to be in prison, but you should give them like 15 years and a chance to fix it. Yeah, like because if they were raised like that, you gotta give them a chance. They had no chance, they never had a chance. She never had a chance.

SPEAKER_02 1:52:49

No, no, but if you read in her appeal, it says she graduated high school, she didn't graduate high school, she never went to high school, she never had the opportunity to have a job, right? She wasn't going from one fix to another, from one crime to another. She was broken, they created her.

SPEAKER_05 1:53:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:53:08

You know, like she okay, so she went there, she also got married too in that three weeks. I forgot that.

SPEAKER_05 1:53:15

Really?

SPEAKER_02 1:53:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:53:16

Whoa.

SPEAKER_02 1:53:17

Yeah. So she met the guy and got married in that three weeks and murdered some.

unknown 1:53:24

I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 1:53:26

I've never reached out, I've never reached out to him. I know, right? I just I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 1:53:32

But he wasn't there, he wasn't one of the ones. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:53:35

He wasn't one of the ones.

SPEAKER_04 1:53:37

He's probably like, oh my god, what happened?

SPEAKER_02 1:53:40

No, really, really. And I don't know, I've never talked to him, but I'm kind of curious what he would say now.

SPEAKER_04 1:53:51

Yeah. Interesting. Kind of a sad story, though.

SPEAKER_02 1:53:57

It is a really sad story.

SPEAKER_04 1:54:00

You gotta give these people some grace, though. I I agree she probably needed to go to prison. But with a little bit of better, you know, parental guidance growing up, then she probably that day she probably chooses to not go do that, you know?

SPEAKER_02 1:54:19

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:54:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:54:22

Yeah. Um, and then you would think that that's like happily ever after, right? So in 2017, I got custody of my niece, and we're gonna call her little B. And little B is E and Sarah's daughter.

SPEAKER_04 1:54:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:54:42

So you know who had custody of me when I was 16? My brother, dad, sister, mom.

SPEAKER_04 1:54:49

Your brother E and your and my sister-in-law sister. Sister in law Sarah. Okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:54:56

So fast forward to So fast forward now we're at 2012. Okay. 2012, I moved back to Utah. It's like, okay, you know, 2013. I moved back December of 2012. So 2013, I'm back in Utah. And Sarah is living in St. George, and she's got her, she has four kids.

SPEAKER_04 1:55:23

Still with E. Mm-hmm. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:55:25

No, she she divorced E. Oh. She divorced E, and so she was living like with her grandparents in St. George. Um, well, she decided that she's gonna like move back to Salt Lake, and so she drops off little B at my house, and she's there for like six months. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:55:45

She's like a little girl. Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:55:47

Yeah, she's like eight or nine at this point.

SPEAKER_05 1:55:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:55:53

Nine at this point. She drops her off and she's like, I'm not sure when I'm gonna come pick her up again. Just whatever. Oh yeah. Okay. It was months before she picked her up. And like I'm talking, it was right when school got out, and then school had already started. My kids are in school, and I'm like, Sarah, I need to put little B in school, or you need to come take her, right? Yeah, and so she finally comes and picks her up because my husband, who I was married to at the time, I divorced him. But my husband I was with at the time was like, I'm not gonna do this. We can't take care of another kid, blah, blah, blah, blah. Mind you, I was the one working and earning all the money, and he was going to school, so he could shut the fuck up. Oh, really? He wasn't working. Yeah, he's like, we can't afford this, and I'm like, I say we can, so we can. Anyway, um, so Sarah gets all pissy and takes back little B, and she gets in a fight with my ex-husband Jason. And um, so Sarah keeps little B from me until she's 12. Okay. I'm not allowed to see her for a year and a half, right? And during this year and a half, she has been dating this man that she met on Tinder named Charles Philip Grinier. And Charles Philip Grinier is wearing a fucking ankle monitor when she meets him, right?

SPEAKER_04 1:57:32

And you would think a go about your Tinder.

SPEAKER_02 1:57:35

Right? And you would think that um she would look into it, right? But no. He goes, I was um, he's like, I was wrongfully charged for child porn. It was just a misunderstanding. Oh wow. Okay, yeah. So little B is 10, almost 11 when they start dating. And um Charles has a daughter that's also little B's age, and he uses his daughter as like a lure to get little B. And he says, Well, she can come over to my house and um she can just play with my daughter, and it'll be great. Well, Sarah drops her off over there, and um, Philip's daughter is there, right? It's just little bee, and she is just fine with leaving her there, and um things happen, she ends up getting drugged and assaulted, and um I don't think little bee knew what was going on at this time, and then um things progress, and their boyfriend and girlfriend, and Phil is taking Sarah to Hawaii, and right before their trip to Hawaii, little bee's like 11 at this point. They decide that little bee needs some cute clothes, so they take her shopping at Victoria's Secret for underwear, and then Phil said, I want to do this cute photo shoot of little bee in the bathtub with bubbles. She's 11. So Sarah's like, Oh, that sounds great. Just take naked pictures of my child, won't you? In the bathtub. And she tells little bee, you need to do just whatever he says because he's gonna be our sugar daddy. And so little B does what she's told, and this man rap her multiple times and takes pictures of her and sells the pictures on back page. And when little bee is 12, she tells her teacher that she can't do it anymore and that she doesn't want to do it anymore. So like little bee just didn't want to live anymore.

unknown 2:00:10

Sorry.

SPEAKER_02 2:00:12

Um so she tells her teacher, and the teacher obviously goes to the police, and um um, so there's finally an open case, and then later that year, Little B wants to come stay with me again. So she's um she's like 12 and 13 now, and she's like, I don't want to ever go home. Don't make me go home. So I'm like, fine, I won't make you go home. Like, I'm not I'm not gonna make you leave. You know, you're 13 now. Um, ask your dad if you can stay, ask your mom if you can stay, and I'll let you stay here. You can just live with me. Um and so Sarah got really mad at that, and um little B was still 13 at this point, and she calls me up and she says, if you want her so bad, come and pick her up before I come and before I drop her off somewhere. I don't want her anymore. I never want to see her again, right? Yeah. So I go and I I pick her up and I take her home and like trying to figure things out and getting her in school and all this stuff, and um about two weeks later I get a call from the FBI and the DA's office, and they're telling me about this child rape case that's going on that I had no idea about, that Sarah didn't tell me about, and little B didn't exactly tell me about either. So um I didn't know what to do. I was freaking out, I was having the worst PTSD of my life, trying to figure out what to do for this little girl, how to help her, and um, and so I try and get a hold of Operation Underground Railroad and Tim Ballard because they say that they are like they say they know everything about child trafficking, they say they know about recovery services, they have all this great stuff that they um claim that they do for these children, they claim that they've done all these rescues, so I call them and I email them and I'm calling and emailing, calling and emailing. No one gets back to me, right? So I am working in Lehigh at um a tech company there, and um I had gone to court earlier that day and I had to go to work and I broke down at work, and my coworker was like, What is up with you? And so I had to tell him like the basics of the story, and he's like, Well, he's in my ward. Tim's in my ward. I know Tim.

SPEAKER_04 2:03:01

Oh, is Tim a Mormon?

SPEAKER_02 2:03:02

Yeah, Tim's a Mormon.

SPEAKER_04 2:03:03

Oh, I didn't realize that.

SPEAKER_02 2:03:04

Tim is a Mormon. Okay, uh-huh, and I worked for a Mormon company at this point still too. So um he set up a meeting with Tim Ballard under his name, and he took me in Little B and like showed up at his office, and he's like, You're gonna help them. Because Tim has this organization for trafficked children, and little B was definitely trafficked.

SPEAKER_05 2:03:29

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 2:03:30

Mm-hmm. So, um, and I didn't know what to do. I'm like, she needs therapy, like, she needs therapy that I never got. Like, she needs help. I don't know what to do for her. Like, I've just like I I had gone through some therapy, but it wasn't the right type of therapy, it wasn't trauma therapy, and it it definitely wasn't what she needed. So um we finally meet with Tim in this like round table meeting, and there's um there's Tim and then there's Tyler Schwab and Jessica Mass and um my my coworker and a couple other people there, and they decide that they're they're gonna help us, and they're like, Well, we can't operate in the United States because of XYZ reasons, but we'll still help you. So um, Tyler and Jessica, like they went to all. They can't operate in the United States. That's what I want to know. They said because of laws, because of different laws.

SPEAKER_04 2:04:36

Aren't they based in the United States?

SPEAKER_02 2:04:38

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And um Operation Underground Railroad brings in an average of 20 to 30 million a year in donations, and this is for rescuing children and for aftercare that they need, right? So they go to like all the court hearings with us, and that's going fine. And um and then we get closer to the trial date, and little B needs to be put into like an inpatient care system because um she also was cutting, so she was trying to get a hold of some serious drugs. She was doing some things she shouldn't have been doing, giving away pictures that shouldn't be given away. And um, she was cutting.

SPEAKER_04 2:05:35

What do you mean by cutting?

SPEAKER_02 2:05:37

She would take a knife and cut her skin because she needed to feel the emotional pain, but she was so numb that she couldn't feel it. And so she would cut herself to cry. Um, and I was so worried that she was gonna cut herself so deep that I was gonna come home to a dead kid, you know, like that was my worst fear. Um, and then I had my kids too there. Like my daughter is the same age as little bee, she's five months younger, so they've always been super, super close. Like, I have pictures of of little bee and my oldest, and they're they're still crawling and they're hugging, you know? Yeah, so they've always been very close. Um, but I had to put little bee into treatment because she wanted to be in treatment and in like daily therapy during the trial, and um the trial was coming up, so so we put her in therapy, and it wasn't even Operation at a own railroad that helped us. Let me be very clear with that. It was actually the Asian Association of Utah that helped us, and um and the DA's office that helped us. It wasn't OER at all. So we finally got a case worker from um from the Asian Association of Utah. You would it's it's actually a human trafficking um agency, like they they help get people out of human trafficking. I have no idea why it's named that, but it is. Okay. Um so they ended up paying for most of Little B's therapy because it was it was gonna cost us $92,000 for like three months for her to be in this treatment center. And insurance didn't want to cover it because she wasn't our child and we didn't have um, she wasn't adopted, we only had legal guardianship over her. It was really, really tough. Um I needed therapy during this time, but I wasn't able to get therapy, so I was trying to just work and you know go home and take care of the kids and work and just all this stuff. Yeah, so she's in, she's in the inpatient treatment when the when the trial started, and it was supposed to be like a five-day jury trial. And we get there and it's like we're starting it, and the I remember the prosecutor coming in there, and he's like, you have to stay out. If you yell, if you yell at him, if you have an emotional outburst, like you are going to cause us to lose this case. And he was talking to me because I had cried be before in other um court hearings. I couldn't help it. When you're going over that, and you know, you're talking about your niece, someone that you love so much, right? Someone that you wish you could have saved from it so bad. It's like the most heartbreaking thing. Um, I ended up having a PTSD episode, like an actual PTSD like actual PTSD episode where I'm pretty sure it was a break. Like it sounded, it sounded weird, like it sounded um kind of like helicopters, and everything went white and fuzzy, and I remember sitting there and just crying hysterically in the room offside of the um of the the trial room. Um and they're like, what is going on with you?

SPEAKER_04 2:09:36

Yeah. So was this the trial for for Charles Grenier?

SPEAKER_02 2:09:42

Okay, so this was in 2019.

SPEAKER_04 2:09:44

The one that Sarah was dating. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 2:09:47

The one that Sarah said, do whatever he tells you, he's gonna be our sugar daddy. So I wanted Sarah to be charged. Like I went to the DA and I'm like, um, she did this, this, and this. Like she took her to Victoria's Secret with Phil to pick out sexy underwear. Why do you do that with an 11-year-old? Like, that is grooming. Why isn't she being charged alongside him? And essentially what they told me was they thought she wasn't intelligent enough to charge, is what they told me. So she got to keep her other three kids. Two of them were girls, and none of the other three are related to me by blood, so I can't do anything to help them. Um, yeah. So I ended up having a PTSD break, and my husband called, I think he called Jessica or Tyler, and they're like, I don't know what to do, call 911. So they call 911, and I had like by the time we got home, I had taken all my meds and I was not in a good state, and I had started drinking and I was trying to commit suicide. Um and so the like the paramedics got there and I wouldn't cooperate for them. And they're like, What'd you take? And I'm like, Nothing. What'd you take? Nothing. We know you did. What'd you take? Nothing. Anyway, they ended up taking me to jail because when you don't cooperate with the paramedics, they take you to jail.

SPEAKER_05 2:11:25

Really?

SPEAKER_02 2:11:25

Yes. So I ended up going to jail instead of the trial, and I got there for the last two days of the trial. And um, yeah, that's how much OUR helped. They tried to hook her up. Well, okay, so they suggested that we take her to a company called Bridal Up Hope, and it's equestrian therapy. But the equestrian therapy is $200 a lesson. Right? $200. A lesson.

SPEAKER_04 2:12:01

But they weren't offering to help.

SPEAKER_02 2:12:02

But they weren't offering to help either. So, you know, we did like some lessons, but I couldn't afford to do many, you know, and I'm thinking I've got to take I've got to take my my kid to this really expensive equestrian therapy because it's the only thing they suggest.

SPEAKER_04 2:12:20

So O U R is that what is that?

SPEAKER_02 2:12:24

Tim Ballard's Tim Ballard's organization. Opera Underground Railroad.

SPEAKER_05 2:12:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:12:30

Yeah. So not only did they not help us, they didn't understand PTSD, they didn't understand trauma, they didn't understand how people react in those situations, and they really put us in a worse situation.

SPEAKER_04 2:12:46

Fuck them.

SPEAKER_02 2:12:47

Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:12:50

Yeah, but see, it's interesting that he's LDS. I just I just find it interesting that so much hypocrisy.

SPEAKER_02 2:12:58

Charles Philip Grinier was also LDS.

SPEAKER_04 2:13:01

Who's that?

SPEAKER_02 2:13:02

Charles Philip Grinier, the one that was arrested.

SPEAKER_04 2:13:05

Oh, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:13:06

Little B's abuser.

SPEAKER_04 2:13:08

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 2:13:08

So he's serving life in prison without parole, also. Got it. And he's here in the Utah. In Utah prison. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04 2:13:18

I see.

SPEAKER_02 2:13:19

Right? So you think like nothing else can go wrong, right? Right? Right?

SPEAKER_04 2:13:28

I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 2:13:30

Okay. So it seems like nothing else can go wrong. Okay. So 2022 hits, and um my sister Rebecca, my oldest sister, um, she got COVID and she ended up in the hospital on a Friday, and she passed on that Monday from COVID. And um, so we went to California to help like clean out her house and help her husband and everything, and for the funeral. And um my sister's best friend was there, and she was like really involved, super involved in it. Like she took over the planning of the funeral, like she wanted to take over like going through my sister's house, and she just like took command and was not gonna take no for an answer, right?

SPEAKER_04 2:14:22

Your sister's best friend.

SPEAKER_02 2:14:23

Oh my sister died, her best friend's at her funeral, taking over thing.

SPEAKER_04 2:14:28

Okay, got it.

SPEAKER_02 2:14:29

And then, right, I see her holding my brother-in-law's hand. Right? Okay, they were a thing before my sister died. Really?

SPEAKER_04 2:14:43

Dang.

SPEAKER_02 2:14:44

Guess who her first cousin is? Her first cousin, as in her dad's brother's son. Milton. Milton is her fucking cousin. Why is he fucking related to my nieces and nephews now? Like, what the fuck? How does that happen? Like, I met him in Florida. They were in California. Like. Yeah, so um now this guy is um around my nieces and nephews um during family reunions and stuff.

SPEAKER_04 2:15:28

Dang. You have had a crazy life.

SPEAKER_02 2:15:36

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And so when um I found out that he was related to my, I guess what would he be? My widowers? What what what would that be? My brother-in-law.

SPEAKER_04 2:15:51

Boy, I don't know. I guess it's it's your sister's uh yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 2:15:56

Because it's not an ex. She died.

SPEAKER_04 2:15:59

You're right. But they were a thing before.

SPEAKER_02 2:16:01

They were a thing before. Oh my gosh, they were a thing before.

SPEAKER_04 2:16:05

And she didn't know.

SPEAKER_02 2:16:05

And she didn't know. You have no idea. When I left the church, she cut me off.

SPEAKER_04 2:16:10

Your sister?

SPEAKER_02 2:16:11

My sister. I wasn't allowed to see them anymore. I wasn't allowed to see nieces and nephews anymore. And we were in a bad place because um my sister has a child that identifies as they them. And um actually as he him, they them. And my sister was making them go to young women's while they identify as he they. And I said, How damaging do you want to be to your child? You know, and she's like, Well, I think it's my choice whether she has to go to young women's or not. Like it's always she, she, she. Well, your child wants to be a they them. So you know, so we were really at each other right then when she passed, and um, yeah, so they got married about a year ago.

SPEAKER_04 2:17:02

So she's LDS and her husband is LDS. And he was having an affair with her best friend, who's also LDS, who live in Pleasant Grove.

SPEAKER_02 2:17:16

Really? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:17:17

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_02 2:17:22

So so when Becky dies, my brother-in-law and my sister's kids, because she still has underage kids, they move over to Melanie's house, right? With Melanie and her husband. Well, who's okay?

SPEAKER_04 2:17:36

I didn't know who Melanie was.

SPEAKER_02 2:17:37

Melanie is my brother-in-law's new wife.

SPEAKER_04 2:17:42

She's the best friend.

SPEAKER_02 2:17:43

She's the best friend, and she is Milton's cousin.

SPEAKER_04 2:17:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 2:17:46

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_04 2:17:50

Okay.

unknown 2:17:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 2:17:52

I think you have that straight.

SPEAKER_02 2:17:54

How does that happen? Like, does God hate me? If there's a God, does he hate me? Because I think so. Like, like, what the fuck?

SPEAKER_05 2:18:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:18:05

So now, like, I'm stuck in this predicament. Like, what do I do? Like, what do I do? So I told my my nieces and nephews and my nibbling, I'm like, do not go around this person. He's a f file.

SPEAKER_04 2:18:21

From when I was little.

SPEAKER_02 2:18:22

From when I was little.

SPEAKER_04 2:18:24

Because you guys had sexual relations.

SPEAKER_02 2:18:26

Yeah, more than once.

SPEAKER_04 2:18:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:18:28

And I was 16 and he was 28.

SPEAKER_05 2:18:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:18:32

So um now he's got his own plane, and he's still got his pilot's license, and he owns a house here in Utah, and one in um one in Idaho over by Rexburg. And he's got his planes, and you know, who else is he gonna take advantage of because they have no parents? Who is he gonna pretend to teach to fly, you know, and tell them they're so smart and so intelligent. And wow, that is so incredible for you to catch up and you hadn't been to school in so long, and you're just so amazing.

SPEAKER_04 2:19:11

Yeah, and who and he's probably some.

SPEAKER_02 2:19:14

He's still working with with youth. He's still in the church. He's still working with the youth.

SPEAKER_04 2:19:22

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 2:19:22

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04 2:19:23

Yeah.

unknown 2:19:25

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04 2:19:26

And he's probably a a faithful member of the church, considered a faithful member of the church.

SPEAKER_02 2:19:31

Yes, and he's considered a faithful member of the church. It's just absolutely wild how they deal with child sex abuse.

SPEAKER_04 2:19:41

And back then he probably didn't did he get uh so when the bishop cut you off the church, what did they do with him back then?

SPEAKER_02 2:19:50

Nothing. They just re removed him from young men's.

SPEAKER_04 2:19:55

What's young men's?

SPEAKER_02 2:19:56

Just like uh It's um it's a youth group for ages 12 to 18.

SPEAKER_04 2:20:01

Oh, okay. So they just pulled him out or something?

unknown 2:20:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:20:07

Well, he couldn't have been oh, he was the leader. Oh, I see. I was gonna say he's 28. So he was in charge of him. Oh, okay. That makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 2:20:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:20:18

Got it.

SPEAKER_02 2:20:20

So that's my story in a nutshell.

SPEAKER_04 2:20:24

That is so insane. And people think the FLDS is so much worse than the LDS.

SPEAKER_02 2:20:33

Right. And after talking to you, like your childhood was way more protected than mine was. It was. And even it seems like in the FLDS, when they come across the child file, they kick them out for the most part.

SPEAKER_04 2:20:46

They do. It's only the leaders that'll ever get away with it. One thing I'll say is like my dad, if he he's a file, right? And he should he's where he should be in prison. But I will say that he probably stopped a ton of other ones. As as much as much as I hate to say that, it's probably true.

SPEAKER_02 2:21:15

The way that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints deals with pedophiles is um once they're reported, they call a hotline. It's a 1-800 hotline that goes to Curton and McConkie. And that's a law firm in downtown Salt Lake. And from there they tell them um if they have to report or what to do. Most of the times they don't report anything, um, they don't allow bishops to participate in um any part of the the process. So, like if if um someone comes in and they tell the bishop what they did, the bishop is held by clergy, by by clergy laws. Like he can't tell what he said. So what they do is they they usually um have a prayer and then they um sometimes remove them from their calling, and other times they literally just move them, like they'll pay for them to move, like they did with my creepy brother-in-law.

SPEAKER_04 2:22:23

Yeah, I'm totally convinced the church is like a serious help to a lot of these things. I've heard plenty of stories by now. I would, in a lot of cases, I would say the FLDS was safer for some children. Oh, yeah. In a lot of situations.

SPEAKER_02 2:22:44

For sure. I mean, I think you guys even got a better education than I got.

SPEAKER_04 2:22:48

Yeah. And of course it's not true with every LDS family, but like there's LDS families that are kind of doing their own thing. They're not so much a part of the church, yeah. But you let your children go to those places where the leaders can sp they spiritually justify themselves in what they're doing with these children, and they can do it for years and years and years without anything happening. Yeah. You know, it's like they don't have the right guard guards in place, they trust their members to not be doing these things, and when they are, they just cover it up.

SPEAKER_02 2:23:28

Yeah, they are. So there's a big story right now about Wade Christofferson, and he's the brother of D. Todd Christopher. So in the Mormon in the LDS church, so there's the prophet and a first and second counselor. Well, D. Todd Christofferson, I believe, is his first counselor. Um, his brother is a pedophile. And his brother has been a known pedophile since the mid-90s. He was um he was excommunicated in 1996 for uh they excommunicated him for having an affair, but really he's a pedophile. Um so they just use the affair as an excuse to excommunicate him. Well, they rebaptized him in 1997, put him back in the bishopric, and he had access to children after that. Um someone also removed the annotation from his record to let them know there was something up with him, too. So he has, I think I saw 12 people so far have come forward to say that they're victims of Wade Christofferson.

SPEAKER_04 2:24:36

Interesting. Yep, and the church will know that you did it, they'll forgive you, and then they'll put you in a position to do it again.

SPEAKER_02 2:24:44

Yeah, they will. They will. They absolutely will. My creepy brother-in-law, he was taken. Um, I think he was actually in the nursery when he was here in in Harmony Park. I think he was a nursery there. And um after he assaulted me, he was put back into the nursery in his new ward.

SPEAKER_04 2:25:04

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_02 2:25:06

With children who can't speak. So you just you took him from the the one that screams, right? And and you you put him in with with kids that can't verbalize what he's done to them.

SPEAKER_05 2:25:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:25:20

You know, it just it baffles me. They don't protect the children at all. I am not the only person who's been through this. I'm not the only person who has as many abusers as I have. I've had four men who were prosecuted who were convicted of rape for me before I was 16 years old. Four men. Okay? That means there's still three that didn't get charged for me. For me, okay? If that's just me, how many other people are there who have experiences just like mine? Well, not necessarily just like mine, but similar to mine, you know?

SPEAKER_05 2:25:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:25:59

There's gotta be millions of other people, you know, with with similar stories. I mean, if there's 82,000 Boy Scouts, 82,000 Boy Scouts that we know of, how many thousands and thousands of girls? And that's not even counting the worthiness interviews because I consider the worthiness interviews to be kind of like assault. I mean, you're verbally assaulting a kid.

SPEAKER_04 2:26:25

Yeah, and I personally, I feel like I understand how this happens in the minds of these men so well that I know it's true. Like, I know it's true. I know exactly what's happening in their minds. I've seen it up so close, and it's just insane. And like when I was saying uh there's a chance like children might even be safer in the FLDS, I don't mean like, yeah, the girls that got sexually assaulted. I'm not talking about them, right? I'm not talking about exactly. I just think that in the smaller group that we had that was more controlled, there was just probably less. You know, I'll bet there was less sexual assault or anything. And of course, like that gets complicated, right? But for the young for the young women, a lot of them, if they didn't get abused, and of course they're getting their minds messed with. So I'm not necessarily saying it's better. I'm just saying the LDS church, the spirituality and the system, it promotes these things. Like if you took uh a blank slate and started a brand new branch of the LDS church somewhere, like it and you took normal people and put them there, it's the structure just promotes this kind of thing. It makes so that men don't understand how accountable they should be, and it puts everybody in a situation where these men are doing these things and they're spiritually justifying it, and I know this is happening in the church.

SPEAKER_02 2:28:09

But why is an affair viewed worse than child sexual abuse?

SPEAKER_04 2:28:14

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 2:28:15

I can't wrap my mind around that. They will excommunicate you for an affair, but not for child sexual abuse.

SPEAKER_05 2:28:22

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 2:28:23

You have two consenting adults, or you have a massive power dynamic between a child and an adult.

SPEAKER_04 2:28:29

And I'll tell you what. What's going on in the top leaders' minds? What's going on in their lives? What's going on behind those closed doors of some of the most powerful people? The church is worth several billion dollars.

SPEAKER_02 2:28:47

About 400 billion by now.

SPEAKER_04 2:28:48

It looks good. On the outside, it looks right. You think you know, those men say they take like what a hundred or two hundred thousand dollar salary? That's what they claim. You think those men are some righteous people?

SPEAKER_01 2:29:03

They're not.

SPEAKER_04 2:29:04

Like, if if they down here where you are, like you saw this all through your life. Men get away, like they have an affair that'll get cut off the church. They abuse a child, it gets covered up. It gets covered up, and they usually get back to a bishopric position or something.

SPEAKER_00 2:29:26

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 2:29:27

Right? So if that happens there, what what happens at the president? You know, what happens at the 12 apostles? What happens at the 70s? Who are they really? Are they really after the promotion of good? Are they are they fighting evil?

SPEAKER_01 2:29:46

No.

SPEAKER_04 2:29:47

Or why do they excuse the bishops? Why are those men almost always promoted back to bishopric positions? Look, I'm not accusing anybody, I'm just asking why.

SPEAKER_02 2:29:58

Yeah, right. Why? Why? Exactly. Um, and if they didn't want the predators in their churches, they could easily remove them just like they did me as a 17-year-old girl.

SPEAKER_04 2:30:09

Yep. Why did they push you out and leave him there? See, that's what I'm saying, though. I'm saying it starts at the 12 apostles, it comes down from there. And I'm telling people, what do you need to do to be one of the 12 apostles? What do you really need to fucking do? Like if the bishop he kicked you out when you were 17 because the other guy was having an affair because he was 28 and he was and he was you know having an affair with you, they kick you out. See, that's the bishop doing that. Now, the people above him, what have they done for him? The people above them. I know how the structure of the church works perfectly. I understand it perfectly.

SPEAKER_02 2:30:50

What are they hiding for these other people?

SPEAKER_04 2:30:52

Right. And that's why when I talk to people about the Mormon church, when I see the missionaries come over, I'm nice to the missionaries, right? I'm I'm not upset at them. But when I see men in leadership positions in the church, I'm like, fuck you, because your spirituality is so blinding to you that you support this. You support this.

SPEAKER_02 2:31:15

They think they're so holy. But here's the other thing that bothers me so badly. Okay, so the LDS church right now is targeting Africa for recruitment. And I'm saying targeting for recruitment because that's what they're doing. Okay, so they're going into Africa, like Ghana, places like this, and they're building church buildings. And you know what they're asking them to do? Pay tithing. These people don't have floors, they don't have electricity, they don't have running water, they don't have school for their children, they don't have clothes for their children, they don't have food for their children. And then this multi-billion dollar church comes in and starts saying, Well, if you give us just 10% of your income, we will help you beyond belief.

unknown 2:32:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:32:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:32:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:32:04

And then they don't help them.

SPEAKER_04 2:32:08

Yeah, not unless they pay their tithing.

SPEAKER_02 2:32:10

Yeah. And then they'll help them minimally.

SPEAKER_04 2:32:13

Right.

SPEAKER_02 2:32:14

As long as they're going to church, as long as they're faithful members, but you have to follow their directions. You have to, first of all, be approved by the bishop to get that aid. Okay? He has to determine that he likes you, number one, well enough. Number two, that you're worthy and that you paid your tithing.

SPEAKER_05 2:32:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:32:34

And um, there is so there's a couple quotes. There's one from Spencer W. Kimball that I I find really impactful. It's something that I heard actually quite a lot growing up that it's better to be dead than unclean. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 2:32:51

Absolutely. Yeah, that's what we're taught.

SPEAKER_02 2:32:54

That I grew up with. It's better to be dead than unclean. I was an infant when it happened to me. How the fuck was I supposed to fight back?

SPEAKER_05 2:33:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:33:03

You know? So and then the other thing is they expect you to pay tithing, no matter how poor you are, right? And it's just it's so ass backwards that they're getting these poor, poor people to pay before they're giving aid.

SPEAKER_04 2:33:23

And claiming that it'll help you. Yeah. You pay your 10%, it'll help you. Well, fuck you.

SPEAKER_02 2:33:28

It's the second richest church in the entire world, not just in the United States, in the entire world. The Mormon religion is less than 200 years old, and it has at least $400 billion in assets. At least. And that was at the last check in 2025. So that was over a year ago. I mean, how much, how many more billions did they acquire since then?

SPEAKER_04 2:33:56

Yeah. One of the biggest things I hate about the Mormon church is how much it helps you look right and even to yourself look right when you are harming other people. That's what I hate so much about the church. Even the people, some of the people in the top, probably think they are doing right.

SPEAKER_02 2:34:18

They do.

SPEAKER_04 2:34:19

Right.

SPEAKER_02 2:34:19

They do. They think it's right to marry off a 17-year-old girl or to marry off a 15-year-old girl because she got pregnant.

SPEAKER_04 2:34:27

They believe that they're doing right. That's what they believe.

SPEAKER_02 2:34:32

The young women's leader. Um, oh, I told you, but I didn't say it on here. Um, the young woman's leader that helped me make the police report against my creepy brother-in-law, she found me on TikTok because of one of my posts. And I am so, so excited to reconnect with her. It's been like four days.

SPEAKER_05 2:34:54

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_02 2:34:55

Yeah. And I am just, I'm so excited to reconnect with her. And I mean, I didn't know, but she was telling me she was a child bride too. She she said that her life was similar to mine, and you know, she was hoping that her teaching young women's in her young 20s with all those kids, you know, she was hoping that it didn't, I guess, impact me in wanting to get married young. And it it didn't, that's not what it was. It's it's it was being taught from the age of 12 that that's our only, you know, that's our only goal is to get married. Like, that's it. That's what you gotta look forward to, getting married and and having babies.

SPEAKER_04 2:35:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:35:37

But yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:35:38

It's so she's just an LDS and she was married at 15. She was married at 15. That is just crazy.

SPEAKER_02 2:35:44

And it was her bishop's idea, also.

SPEAKER_04 2:35:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:35:47

Mm-hmm. And she's not that much older than I am.

SPEAKER_04 2:35:51

Yeah, and that's what I'm saying. Like, people think the FLDS is so crazy. You fucking Mormons.

SPEAKER_02 2:35:57

Yeah, it's the look, the LDS and FLDS are so close. The only difference is we don't have plural wives and we have a different profit. I swear that is the big difference.

SPEAKER_04 2:36:10

Yep, and the FLDS have had so much negative press, and the LDS control their press. That's pretty much the difference. They're the same thing.

SPEAKER_02 2:36:20

The exact same thing. Yeah. Like, um I've I've noticed, like, because I watched Amanda Ray a lot, I really like her. She's hilarious, and she makes me feel so much better about my own family. Yeah. Um, but it seems like even the church structures are very similar. Like the buildings look similar. Yeah. And they have everything arranged in the same way, and they just have different names for things.

SPEAKER_04 2:36:56

Oh, yeah. It's so much the same. It's interesting that Tim Bollard is a it you met him, huh?

SPEAKER_01 2:37:05

I met him, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:37:06

Yeah. He I was reading about him. He was like, he's like was a advisor in the White House, wasn't he?

SPEAKER_02 2:37:14

He was all buddy buddy with with M. Russell Ballard, who was in the first presidency of the church. Like he had the church backing.

SPEAKER_05 2:37:24

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_02 2:37:25

And then um, yeah, and then it started going around Lehigh that their rescue missions weren't rescue missions at all, that they were party trips. They were basically um, like they would go to Haiti and they would get a bunch of prostitutes and a bunch of drugs, and they would party, and then they would go around and say, Hey, do you have any kids you want to sell? And so, I'm not kidding, they actually created traffic for child trafficking because they were going to these areas like Costa Rica and Haities and Haiti and they were asking for children. So, in one case, um, this one boyfriend and girlfriend couple, she was like 16, um, he decided that they decided that they were going to sell her to them to make money because it was life-changing money. Another one that they were caught that was caught by OER is a mother that they essentially entrapped into the position into bringing her daughter.

SPEAKER_04 2:38:33

So do we need to say allegedly?

SPEAKER_02 2:38:35

Allegedly, well, there's proof of it. There's court cases.

SPEAKER_04 2:38:39

Um I know, like, I'm somewhat familiar with power. And like I don't want to.

SPEAKER_02 2:38:48

But Tim Ballard, it's it's allegedly. Um but yeah, so allegedly with Tim Ballard, um, they entrapped this mom and they offered her life-changing money, and she brought her daughter. So they caught one person. One person. And then in Coast, I think it's Costa Rica believe, they are in a lawsuit right now. Um there is a woman there that they kind of entrapped, also, and um she was charged with pimp. So she was convicted of pimping, and that's where you get somebody to come. And they're willing. They're willing and they're they're age appropriate and stuff. So um she became an attorney and was trying to fight all that, and um, trying to fight OUR, and so now they're caught in a legal battle right now.

SPEAKER_03 2:39:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:39:51

Where they are still trying to get her for human trafficking, and she's like, um, it was pimping, and I'm an attorney now, so let's go, bitches. You know? Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:40:00

Um, the world is not what it appears.

SPEAKER_02 2:40:04

There have been no trafficking survivors that I can find that have received help through OUR. Any type of recovery services, none.

SPEAKER_04 2:40:20

Interesting.

SPEAKER_02 2:40:21

Again, if Little B didn't qualify, who fucking qualifies?

SPEAKER_04 2:40:25

Right. And she didn't get any monetary help or anything.

SPEAKER_02 2:40:30

No, no. And her exploitation material was bounced from servers from the US to Russia, Romania, to Portugal, and back to the US? So, is that not child trafficking? Is that not what Tim Ballard wants to fight? And then I think, did Tim Ballard and the LD's church help create this? This need for trafficking? You know, I wonder?

SPEAKER_04 2:41:00

Not saying the Masonic lodges are still going, but they might be.

SPEAKER_02 2:41:05

I mean, well, hey, if you think about it, if you think about it, we have all of these in our church, right? All of them in our church, and they're sitting in our church pews. They are. They're probably sitting four people down from you, and you don't even know it. Um, but Tim Ballard sold us this story that sex trafficking happens in Haiti and in other countries, and not here, when it's really the people in his ward, like Charles Hill Grenier, who are taking little girls like little B, and they're creating this material that Tim Ballard is so, you know, is is searching for.

SPEAKER_03 2:41:50

Right?

SPEAKER_02 2:41:50

So, so who's creating this need really? Is it the church and them covering it up? Or is it the actual people out there creating the demand? I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 2:42:02

I think the church is so focused on looking right on the outside, and they put so much effort into it that, but also one of the reasons, like I was saying, I hate it, is a lot of times the people doing it can't always see it.

SPEAKER_02 2:42:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:42:21

I don't it's like my dad. I don't think he saw the harm he was doing totally.

SPEAKER_02 2:42:26

Probably not.

SPEAKER_04 2:42:26

It's very similar. But some of them know. Some of them do it on purpose. Yeah. You know, the more sinister ones.

SPEAKER_02 2:42:35

My goal with with telling all this isn't just to make you feel sorry for me.

SPEAKER_04 2:42:40

Um no, I you've you've been great.

SPEAKER_02 2:42:44

I want to make it a law that when a child goes to a church leader and says I'm being sexually abused, they call 911. Okay? You don't call the person and bring them in your office, you call 911 because it's a fucking emergency. Yeah. You know, treat it like a goddamn emergency.

SPEAKER_04 2:43:02

The church should use its funds to investigate that.

SPEAKER_02 2:43:06

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. If every single time the police were called, we wouldn't have these fucking issues.

SPEAKER_04 2:43:15

Yeah, and uh the other thing though is here in Utah, who do you think is the judges? Who do you think?

SPEAKER_02 2:43:24

They're Mormon. Who do you think they're all Mormon, just like the police. Okay, and Tremontin. The judge, the fire chief, and was it a police officer also? Those three that were arrested in Tremontin? The judge just pled guilty to child exploitation material, and so did the pol the fire captain in Tremontin.

SPEAKER_05 2:43:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:43:46

Okay, so he was like over Tremontin, and he's Mormon.

SPEAKER_04 2:43:50

And what do you think they do to people that are trying to stop that?

SPEAKER_02 2:43:54

Yeah, yeah, right? I'm wondering how have you heard that Mormon Stories is being sued?

SPEAKER_05 2:44:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:44:00

I'm wondering how that's gonna go because all the judges are Mormon. Who are they gonna side with? Is it gonna be the law or are they gonna side with the church? Yeah, you know, like I think Mormon Stories is amazing. It it's helped me.

SPEAKER_04 2:44:15

My mom loves it. She listened to it all the time.

SPEAKER_02 2:44:18

It has really helped explain some of my backwards thinking. Like it really helped me understand how things happened. You know, it really was great for my deconstruction.

unknown 2:44:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:44:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:44:34

But I'm I'm hoping that they don't just get a Mormon judge that does the church's bidding.

SPEAKER_04 2:44:41

Yep. I appreciate you coming and sharing your story. Maybe we'll have to talk again sometime.

SPEAKER_02 2:44:48

Absolutely. Absolutely. And for real, like my goal is to change laws. That's what I want to do. If my story can change laws, then I'm not saying it would be worth it, but it wouldn't be as painful, you know?

SPEAKER_04 2:45:04

Yeah. We need to change the laws, but also I would just say the hardest thing to change is the culture of not the culture of doing this.

SPEAKER_00 2:45:15

These men the culture of not reporting. These men we have to report it every time.

SPEAKER_04 2:45:19

Yes, they do it because they think it's right. That's what you don't understand, and that's really hard to change.

SPEAKER_02 2:45:27

Mm-hmm. It's yeah, it's power, it's control, and they think they're right. They think that they are above everyone else, and they think that they're not gonna get caught.

SPEAKER_04 2:45:38

Yeah, and that's why all these Mormons that say, oh, you were in this bad situation in the FLDS, and that's why you don't like Mormons, you know, it's okay, like whatever. It's like you support that as much as anybody ever did. So fuck you.

SPEAKER_02 2:45:55

Mm-hmm. And the FLDS is the LDS. Like what uh they just some of them dress differently.

SPEAKER_04 2:46:02

It is.

SPEAKER_02 2:46:03

Yeah, it's um it's the same.

SPEAKER_04 2:46:06

A hundred times more powerful.

SPEAKER_03 2:46:09

Mm-hmm. So yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:46:16

Well, any last words before we finish this one up?

SPEAKER_02 2:46:21

If we can get another march together, like Sam Young did, would you march with me?

SPEAKER_05 2:46:26

What's that?

SPEAKER_02 2:46:27

Sam Young, he's a bishop that was excommunicated from the Mormon church for um standing up against um the worthiness interviews.

SPEAKER_04 2:46:37

Oh, I see.

SPEAKER_02 2:46:38

Asking explicitly explicit questions behind closed doors. Yeah, that's what he wanted to do. I want to make it a law. So every church has to report every time.

SPEAKER_04 2:46:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:46:52

Every time.

SPEAKER_04 2:46:54

Yeah, yeah, I'll mark choice, yeah. Yes. You bet.

unknown 2:46:57

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 2:46:59

You're the best.

SPEAKER_04 2:47:01

I'll even uh tell people, you know. So yeah, you bet.

SPEAKER_02 2:47:08

Yeah, thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_04 2:47:12

Oh, I'm glad to be here, you know. I'm just I'm lucky that I can had enough pain to see, to see what's going on. That I'm not there like, you know, being one of those men. Yeah. Like I am lucky that I had as much pain as I did. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:47:30

So I think I think it starts in the teen years, honestly.

SPEAKER_04 2:47:37

L, I have a really good mother.

SPEAKER_02 2:47:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:47:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:47:40

Yeah. Sounds like you have a really good mother. I wish I did. Yeah. So I just I'm trying to teach my children that if they can be just a little bit better of a mother than I was, that that's how we change the world. I did my best. I kept them safe.

SPEAKER_04 2:48:03

Well, you've done a lot better than your mother.

SPEAKER_02 2:48:06

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. My children have never been homeless. They've never been taken away from me.

SPEAKER_04 2:48:12

Um never been left in predatory situations.

SPEAKER_02 2:48:14

Never been left in predatory situations.

SPEAKER_04 2:48:17

No, I'm proud of you.

SPEAKER_02 2:48:19

Thank you.

SPEAKER_04 2:48:20

Well, everybody like and subscribe. Uh I would I would say like be careful with the organizations that say they they are fighting child sex trafficking and stuff. Like, those guys don't they'll make movies, they do all kinds of things. A lot of it's bullshit.

SPEAKER_02 2:48:39

Tim wants to be a white savior. He wants to be a movie star. That's what he wants. He wants to be president of the United States and prophet of the Mormon Church at the same time. And I am just waiting for him to form his own branch of Mormonism.

SPEAKER_01 2:48:54

Really?

SPEAKER_02 2:48:55

I am. I have a I have a running bet with someone that Tim Ballard is going to start his own offshoot.

SPEAKER_04 2:49:04

That's funny. Uh I don't know. He's probably too good of friends with the with the uh Mormons.

SPEAKER_02 2:49:14

No, they kicked him out. Did you not know that they excommunicated him?

unknown 2:49:17

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 2:49:18

They excommunicated him. Why? Because of his affair. Yeah. Because, okay. So Tim Ballard has a lot, a lot of legal stuff going on. Um, I think in 2022 or 2023 is when the six women came out and um alleged that Tim Ballard had assaulted them.

SPEAKER_04 2:49:45

Okay. So how every one of these organizations that does that, then the leader comes out and it's like, what the Do you know what Tim Ballard said?

SPEAKER_02 2:49:57

The God told me that if you want to save children, you have to get naked with me in the shower. He literally said stuff like that. So he literally, literally told these women that in order for them to be believable to these bad guys that they were trying to trick, that they had to do what was called the couple's ruse. And the couple's ruse is to act like a married couple, and he wanted them to shower with them and do everything but have intercourse. Um he spiritually manipulated these women who were mostly Mormon.

SPEAKER_04 2:50:36

And um it's so easy to do that when you're Mormon. So easy.

SPEAKER_02 2:50:42

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:50:43

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 2:50:45

But he's an interesting one. Cara Burrell has a great podcast. Um was it? Timmy Did What? I think is the name of the podcast. Oh, really?

SPEAKER_04 2:51:01

Like about him? Yeah, yeah. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 2:51:03

But it's um Cara Burrell and then Ryan Fisher, and Ryan Fisher actually helped Tim Ballard get his start and everything. So he was his buddy for like eight years and helped him film. It's a really, really good podcast. Like I suggest looking into it and looking at all the stuff. And Ryan is one of them that actually says he's one that actually um says that they created a need for trafficking in these places that they went because of how they went asking for them. It's insane. Yeah, so don't trust the woman church and don't trust anyone who says that God told them to do this and that.

SPEAKER_04 2:51:48

Yeah, it's bullshit.

SPEAKER_02 2:51:50

That's bullshit because God doesn't talk to anyone. Right.

SPEAKER_04 2:51:55

And if he's talking to you, then we're gonna do it. You need to get your head checked.

SPEAKER_02 2:52:00

There's meds for that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:52:06

Like and subscribe. Uh, do you want to shout out your TikTok or it's Culty Stuff on TikTok.

SPEAKER_01 2:52:12

And I look just like me. So if you can't do it.

SPEAKER_04 2:52:13

Culty stuff? Yep. Culty stuff.

SPEAKER_01 2:52:16

Culty stuff on TikTok.

SPEAKER_04 2:52:17

Okay. Okay. Thanks everybody. Like and subscribe, support the channel, and go follow Culty Stuff on TikTok. We'll see you guys next time. Peace out.