Thank You For Your Time | EP 8 | Jenifer's Story

00:00:00
Speaker 1: This podcast discusses sexual assault. Please take care while listening.

00:00:05
Speaker 2: Step charged and consent to this recorded call Press one.

00:00:09
Speaker 3: Thank you for using securist.

00:00:12
Speaker 2: You may start the conversation now, Hey.

00:00:15
Speaker 4: How are you?

00:00:16
Speaker 5: I'm good? How are you?

00:00:18
Speaker 4: I'm making it good.

00:00:21
Speaker 5: It's been so long since he's so oh gosh, but forever.

00:00:27
Speaker 1: That was Spencer heron the real Spencer heron on the phone from President. I'm Andrea Gunning and this is Betrayal, Episode eight. Thank you for your time. Spencer was apprehensive about going on the record with Jennifer, citing concern for his family and publicity.

00:00:57
Speaker 6: However, he did agree.

00:00:58
Speaker 1: To speak with Jennifer and spoke on a recorded line. They spoke for nearly an hour after not having talked to each other for more than two years. This was an important conversation for jen for her personally, but also to hear how we've used the situation four years later, and there was some curiosity. Has his incarceration changed his perspective and what does he plan to do when he's released. Here are excerpts from their call.

00:01:26
Speaker 5: I just wanted to see if he's be willing to answers some questions.

00:01:32
Speaker 4: Well, it's the realization. Okay, since I know you're gonna obviously you're going through with.

00:01:38
Speaker 1: It, and he says it he is referring to this project, the podcast what you're listening to right now.

00:01:45
Speaker 4: The realization of not being over for me. And it's hard enough trying to imagine the difficulties I'm going to face anyway, and then this seems just like another layer of it, and that it freaked me out.

00:02:01
Speaker 1: Essentially, Spencer is concerned that making more people aware of his story will make post prison life more difficult for him.

00:02:09
Speaker 4: But I can't obviously keep you from doing what you need to do to feel better for yourself.

00:02:15
Speaker 5: Yeah, I know, I keep getting back to this, but I'm just so curious. Is to like what you think about that life you were living.

00:02:27
Speaker 4: The main thing I can say is that it had gotten so out of control that it was, I don't want to say living a life of its own, because obviously I was in control of it, but it had taken on the dominance in my life that I didn't see coming. You know, even with the warnings that I had, it obviously wasn't enough to stop everything.

00:02:53
Speaker 1: Warnings like Jennifer's friend's husband calling him Spencer knew he could tell Jen at any time.

00:03:00
Speaker 5: Right, But you say didn't see coming, but like it was happening before we got married.

00:03:08
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was happening all those years before he got married.

00:03:14
Speaker 5: So knowing that you were like this, why get married?

00:03:21
Speaker 4: Well, that's the part that's going to be difficult for you to understand or believe. I didn't intended to keep going, but you never stop.

00:03:31
Speaker 5: Correct, So at what point did you intend for it not to continue?

00:03:38
Speaker 4: Oh, from the day that we got back together.

00:03:41
Speaker 5: Okay, But knowing it was continuing and that you didn't stop, why did you get married?

00:03:48
Speaker 4: The intentions were always on the positive side, but my actions would went over those intentions. And the main thing is I can explain is the ease of the way I found myself in those situations. I'm trying to use an analogy. I've been to three different grocery stores. Even though you don't want to go shop there anymore, it's easier to go to those stores. You've already been to those stores. You're not looking for another store to go to, it's just that store still open. What I'm just trying to say is that you know, once, once you had been fooling around for so long. It's not like you got to figure out how am I going to fool arount.

00:04:36
Speaker 1: I'm not sure how all those women would feel about the grocery store analogy. A few years earlier, in his letters like the ones we heard in episode seven, Spencer seemed to deny culpability by saying women just made themselves available to him. Had time changed the story?

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Speaker 5: In one of the letters that you wrote me, and you said that you never thought after Do you still feel that way?

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Speaker 4: Well? Yes, in this I have to answer this in two ways. Yes, meaning that I was never on a long half that I chose to seek it out. It's just an opportunity with percent itself, and then before I knew it, I was pursuing it. It's probably not an answer that it makes much sense.

00:05:25
Speaker 5: Yeah, it doesn't just about editing with you. I have seen so much correspondence that I do feel like you thought after it.

00:05:37
Speaker 1: Thought after might include come by the wine bar. I'm single for the next few days.

00:05:43
Speaker 4: I understand that, and I would never argue that that's how you saw it. And I'm sure that no matter how much we talk, there's gonna be some things that won't make sense. They don't make sense to me either, and I was the one involved in As much as I want to make it better, no, there's gonna be a lot of things that aren't, and they're what I say. It's not gonna make it better.

00:06:05
Speaker 5: No, no, no, no, nothing will ever make it better. Not after everything I've read and seen and the amount I'll never understand it. I am baffled at how you managed so many different people at the same time, like a year, two years, three year long affairs, multiple at a time. When you look back, do you think you might have a problem? And I'm not being facetious.

00:06:52
Speaker 4: Well, my opinion doesn't matter until I get out there. You can say if you don't think you ever found an alcohol, if you never have alcohol around you. I'm dealing with guys who've been in for decades. To the guys that's just come in a year. You know, most of the fact and the Princess are females, and they're they're not trying to with it, you know. I mean to be me, I mean, I need to paint a picture for you, right, and these guys will go crazy. Guys in in the county jail were going crazy and masturbating publicly masturbating that still happens in years now, that's a problem. Maybe it's a different problems, but it's definitely what I don't have.

00:07:41
Speaker 5: Oh, I don't I don't care. The last time we talked, I think you felt as if you were fine and cured, and it has gone away.

00:07:54
Speaker 4: I still feel that way, but that's only how I feel. I don't know. No one knows what anything's gonna be tomorrow.

00:08:00
Speaker 5: But the thing is, I guess you and I think of your situation differently because I look at what you were doing our entire marriage, from before and the entire every single day of our marriage, you look me in the eye and lied to me. There are probably days, and I hope to God not many, where you ended up having to sleep with me and another woman on the same day. You've brought women into our home.

00:08:42
Speaker 4: Your sense of betrayal is not a sense at all. It is a very real thing, and I would expect you to deal with it no differently. Any any sane person would deal with ith the way you're dealing with it, which is to be dumbfounded and to be angry and everything else that you felt. Now I'm never going to get words in your mouth or emotions in your personality. But all those things make sense that I couldn't skirt around that if I wanted to. Why would I want to?

00:09:15
Speaker 5: But do you not see an is you that might need some work? You got to the point where you were breaking the law, not to mention the disgustingness of it. Do you ever think about the victim?

00:09:41
Speaker 4: Yeah, of course, I'm sure That's why I'm still here.

00:09:45
Speaker 1: No immediate expression of remorse. Rather, he thinks of the victim's impact on his parole.

00:09:51
Speaker 4: I'm not tooting my own horn. I just look at the facts. Anybody makes parole as somebody like.

00:09:55
Speaker 5: Me, I just don't know what to say. I mean, I guess good for her.

00:10:01
Speaker 4: Yeah, there are guys in't here that have been back three, four or five six times and to get out on parole every time. And I'm not bitter about that. I don't even think about the TC anymore. I don't think about parole anymore. Do the I do the next thing I'm supposed to do that hour, I do the next right thing every hour, and then the next thing after that, and then I go sleep and I can do it all over again.

00:10:25
Speaker 5: Are you surprised that she would do that.

00:10:29
Speaker 4: I'm surprised at the system more than I'm surprised to her. I'm surprised that the system gives false hope and tells you something's going to happen and then takes it back. That's that's what I say.

00:10:42
Speaker 5: Yeah, that they couldn't know that she was going to come forward.

00:10:45
Speaker 4: Well, we don't know. We just were assuming, and that's a really good assumption, you know, I about one hundred bucks on it.

00:10:51
Speaker 1: Actually we do know, and in an earlier episode, we learned that the victim wrote and delivered a letter to the parole board herself.

00:10:58
Speaker 4: So no, I'm not surprised. I'm sure was her failing when it was her?

00:11:01
Speaker 5: Why do you think that she's an adult zone?

00:11:05
Speaker 4: That doesn't matter. That's all this, you know, interesting drama for the story. What matters is that she is hopefully moving on. And as much as I wish I could take it back, I can't take it back. So all I can do is hope, pray for everybody involved.

00:11:23
Speaker 5: To be.

00:11:25
Speaker 4: Okay and move on.

00:11:29
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's taking a long long time.

00:11:46
Speaker 1: Jen was curious about the letter, so she put in a call to the victim and asked if she would be willing to share it with the podcast.

00:11:53
Speaker 2: Do you remember when he was first supposed to be pulled?

00:12:00
Speaker 3: It was last year? It was I think either around September or October.

00:12:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, of twenty one. Right, So when you found this out, you decided to write this letter? Do you mind reading it?

00:12:17
Speaker 3: Yeah? And I was thinking of actually just saying my first name only because this podcast has gotten so much attention, and I thought maybe this could be an example for other people or kids to not be afraid.

00:12:33
Speaker 5: What you did was so brave and incredible.

00:12:37
Speaker 2: It's obviously up to you.

00:12:39
Speaker 3: I just thought it's one thing to say, oh, the victim.

00:12:43
Speaker 2: Right, It's so hard for me, and you know, I'm so protective of you and your identity, but like calling you the victim, you know, it's just I get it, obviously, but you know you're just so much more than that to me.

00:13:03
Speaker 3: Thank you. So I wrote to whom it made concerns.

00:13:08
Speaker 1: First.

00:13:09
Speaker 3: I would like to say that I don't know what to say other than I am still in my process of healing from what Spencer Heron did to me, starting from when I was fifteen up until the very early stages of my adult life. At first, when I received the letter with news of him being up for parole, I didn't want to respond or say anything, because all I would like to do is move on with my life. However, I realized then that is exactly what he would want. It would have been a disservice to myself and all the young girls out there had I not come forward in the first place, And even now, years later, I am responding to this because I believe he should not be granted parole. People like Spencer Heron, who prey on the innocence and trust of adolescence, do not wake up one day and decide to sexually assault these children. People like him take the time to select their victims and begin the grooming process, just as he did with me. This takes strategy, time, and effort on their part. I wasn't the first victim, and I will not be the last if he is released. Predators such as Spencer Heron cannot control their perversions, nor are they willing to. This ends up hurting not only the victims but their families as well, just like he did to mine. I know a side of him that not many do, and I still live with those images in my mind every day. He is cool, calculated, manipulative, deceitful, and violent. He has no regard for who he hurts, and I am afraid that there will be more victims if granted prole. I'm also afraid for myself. I hope this letter will be taken into consideration. Thank you for taking the time to read this, sincerely.

00:14:58
Speaker 1: Rachel, such a powerful letter to the parole board and on this podcast, bravely putting her anonymity behind her, claiming her strength because she's more than a victim.

00:15:12
Speaker 6: She's Rachel.

00:15:16
Speaker 1: Whether you would get paroled or not, Spencer would eventually be released, Jen wanted to know was he prepared.

00:15:24
Speaker 5: If you want to be successful, don't you think you should think about getting some help.

00:15:29
Speaker 4: I am, but I can't say that I'm going to until I know what I'm going to be up against when I get out.

00:15:36
Speaker 5: For do you guys have therapy and stuff in prison?

00:15:43
Speaker 4: Nothing even close to anything you might even possibly imagine.

00:15:48
Speaker 5: Well, that's why I was wondering what your plan is for after you get out.

00:15:53
Speaker 4: My first plan and only real plan, is to make sure I'm successful on premation of parole, because it's not outlanded right back here.

00:16:03
Speaker 5: So since we last, like, have you thought more about what kind of life you had been leading?

00:16:12
Speaker 4: Of course, I mean that's that's what you do when you're when you have all this time and year, you can reflect on everything and then hopefully, if you're a person wants to change, then you figure out how to do it. How how do you change it to the best of your ability really spent. Yeah, maybe that's the part that you don't understand because you've never been to prison, because let me tell you, no same person would ever come back here. Ever, I've earned my time, I've done it. Well, I haven't finished it yet, but I will have done it. To your point about how I'm going to deal with things, I'm going to look at some of my square in the eye and go, I've done, but I was too what I had to do, And if you aren't cool with that, then we just won't have to We don't have to be cool. And I know that's going to be the majority of my want I say, majority of my past contacts, and I'm going to use the word friends.

00:17:15
Speaker 1: He had done what he was told he had to do, a clean slate, that's what he was after. However, he'll still serve fifteen years probation. He will be registered as a sex offender.

00:17:27
Speaker 4: I mean almost everyone, as you know, the people who have come out to support me, outside of one or two people have been all surprised. So I've seen the miracle and how God has used people to get me through this. I've witnessed it, I've experienced it, and I know it's going to be the same on the out there. I don't have to have as many friends as I had before. What I'm saying is I understand, and we'll all understand why people are gonna forever pull back.

00:18:05
Speaker 5: They're going to probably a full back spence because of what you did.

00:18:10
Speaker 4: I'm just I'm making the point that it's it's the betrayal it hurts sometimes more than the action. I'm not opposed to help. I'm not opposed to any of that kind of stuff. I'm not saying I don't need it. What I'm saying is I have to I have to take one thing at a time, and the first thing you have to take control of is making sure I'll ever get in this trouble yet.

00:18:31
Speaker 5: But how do you do that?

00:18:34
Speaker 4: You stay under the radar.

00:18:37
Speaker 5: You couldn't stay under the radar before. You've got lucky that you got away with it for so long.

00:18:46
Speaker 4: I know you, I know you're being facetious when you say that.

00:18:49
Speaker 5: What do you mean?

00:18:51
Speaker 4: Well, I wasn't lucky you got away with it. I was unlucky that I was getting away with it. It's been better for the all gone to ship the first time. That's the truth.

00:19:02
Speaker 1: Was he saying that if he had just gotten caught having a consensual affair, he wouldn't have committed sexual assault on a teenager.

00:19:10
Speaker 2: You have one minute left.

00:19:12
Speaker 1: The call ended. It was polite, Kurt, thank you, thank you for your time.

00:19:19
Speaker 5: Hi.

00:19:30
Speaker 6: So let me get this straight.

00:19:32
Speaker 1: You hadn't talked to him, You hadn't heard his voice in what was it two years?

00:19:37
Speaker 6: Yeah, when he got convicted January twenty nineteen, I cut off all communication with him. I was done. You know, he was sent to prison and I was done. I didn't feel like I needed to talk to him anymore. It wasn't doing me any good. And then when we started this podcast, you know, I wanted to talk with him.

00:20:00
Speaker 1: Were you nervous about talking with him?

00:20:03
Speaker 5: Like?

00:20:03
Speaker 1: What were you feeling when you had to answer that phone call? Because he had to call you.

00:20:07
Speaker 6: Well, I see the call coming in and it says Wilcox State Prison, and my stomach just turns and I get so nervous. And part of it was I knew when I answered that he was going to be all happy and excited to hear from me and everything, and that just it doesn't sit well with me, Like does he not understand? Yeah, he's just I guess it's denial.

00:20:38
Speaker 1: Do you recognize the person on the phone on the other side.

00:20:41
Speaker 6: Yes, definitely. He sounds the same, talks the same, tries to spin everything into a positive almost. And the thing is, I'm sure you notice this. He avoids answering any questions.

00:20:58
Speaker 1: And how did you feel after the call?

00:21:00
Speaker 6: I got off the phone with him and realized that I never need to speak to him again.

00:21:08
Speaker 1: Wow.

00:21:10
Speaker 6: I just feel like I can wash my hands of it, partly because I'm never going to get the answers. He's not capable and it doesn't matter. It's not my problem, it's his problem. I feel like I have put the final piece in a box that I can pack up, tape up, and put away in the attic.

00:21:40
Speaker 1: We haven't even talked about this yet, but you reached out about an update on his parole.

00:21:47
Speaker 6: Well, I have a friend that has been so amazing the last four years at always searching to see if dates have changed for parole or whatever. And so I woke up when warning to a text just the other day that said he's getting released June twenty twenty two.

00:22:07
Speaker 1: So within the next three weeks he's going.

00:22:09
Speaker 5: To be out.

00:22:09
Speaker 6: Oh, he could be out tomorrow, right, Andrea, do you remember last summer when we talked on the phone and I was telling you about how Spence was supposed to get paroled like in October.

00:22:23
Speaker 1: You were in the car, like hysterically crying.

00:22:25
Speaker 6: Yes, And I was really scared. So then when the parole got revoked because the victim wrote the letter, you know, I thought he was going to be in there until June twenty twenty three.

00:22:40
Speaker 1: How does June twenty twenty two differ from June twenty twenty one.

00:22:47
Speaker 6: I think I've just done a lot more work on understanding this mess that I was in in this relationship, and I've healed a lot. And I have to say the first time that we were in the studio together, I was really angry. I mean it was still raw and I was angry at the women, and you looked at me and you said, Jennifer, you're really angry at these women, and I think you need to take a look at that. I was pissed. I was like, what is she talking about? But I thank you for that because I got there and you seeing that from the beginning, and then seeing it when I was able to talk with some of these women and the compassion that was there, I just I felt it.

00:23:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I said like, I will not do this project with you if it's coming from a place of anger. I needs to be coming from a place of curiosity and trying to reclaim your life. And you made a commitment to me that day that you would get there.

00:24:06
Speaker 6: I just I hadn't learned it at that point. I was still researching and there was so much to read, and then the same story over and over and over and over again, with so many different women. I just had to learn. So thanks for sticking it out with me.

00:24:25
Speaker 1: Absolutely, thanks for sticking it out with me. Heck, yeah, I want to play you something from episode three when you were talking to Rachel. You said something really important and she said something similar.

00:24:40
Speaker 4: I just hope that this will help someone out there.

00:24:44
Speaker 3: I just want this to help someone who's going through the same pain that you went through and that I went through.

00:24:50
Speaker 5: That's all.

00:24:52
Speaker 6: I think we've both learned that just sharing this stuff if it can help one other person, Bere.

00:25:01
Speaker 1: I just know that helping other victims, you know, of betrayal, trauma, grooming, abuse of power was a big part of embarking on this project for you, for Rachel, for me, and our other producers. And I think that's why she told her story and felt comfortable coming to you. So I hope it's okay, but I wanted to spend some time to read you some of the letters that we've received from our audience, if that's okay, sure. Listening to Jennifer's story helped me realize more about an experience I had when I was in high school. I had still not fully made the connection between my experience and being a victim of grooming as a teenager. Putting those missing pieces together has helped me process and untangle some things and really shame I didn't realize was still there. Jennifer, thank you for being courageous and sharing your story.

00:25:59
Speaker 6: Oh my gosh, I'm gonna cry well, I am crying.

00:26:04
Speaker 1: Here's another one. In two thousand and eight, I was twenty two years old and my fifty five year old boss did many of these exact same things. He somehow talked me into having an affair. I felt beyond sick and uncomfortable about it ever since. I didn't say no, but I wanted to. He made me feel special all the shitty things. It was a type of an assault on my psyche, my mind, my heart, and my conscience. It took me until this podcast, at thirty seven years old to finally forgive myself. Thanks for giving me space to sit with my feels and open the door to something I didn't think I could heal from. Oh gosh, here's the last one I wanted to share. I discovered my husband calling and visiting massage parlors offering sexual favors my underage girls, whom I believe are victims of trafficking, relate to the fairy tale, picturesque life of dreams to come in history, proposed to at a castle in Germany. I've never been a princess type, but he sure made me feel like one. My family loved him as he offered a helping hand to anyone in need, total boy scout, do good or facade? That was all in genuine.

00:27:19
Speaker 6: And too good to be true.

00:27:21
Speaker 1: Jennifer, your story is exactly what I needed to hear at this moment in my life. It has truly impacted my life in the best ways and restored my hope and the potential resilience and recovery and healing the human spirit.

00:27:33
Speaker 6: Much love and gratitude. You know, I was really scared to put this out there. It's so personal, it's not a comfortable topic.

00:27:46
Speaker 1: What do you think you've learned from this.

00:27:51
Speaker 5: Man?

00:27:52
Speaker 6: How to be patient, how to be resilient, how to just have faith that the son would come up the next day, and so hearing that it has helped other people, that's it. That's the whole reason that I did this. I feel like you did your job.

00:28:13
Speaker 1: Jen We're beyond grateful to our listeners for the outpouring of support since we've started. So many of you have written into betrayalpod at gmail dot com with your personal experiences and questions associated with this story. Our plan is to address them, so we're taking a few weeks off a plan to bring you new episodes with new insights very soon. Stay tuned. If you'd like to reach out to the Betrayal team, email us at Betrayalpod at gmail dot com. That's Betrayal Pod at gmail dot com. Betrayal is a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group and partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show was executive produced by Nancy Glass and Jennifer Face. It hosted and produced by me Andrea Gunning, written and produced by Kerry Hartman, also produced by Ben Fetterman. Our iHeart team is Ali Perry and Jessica Crinchick. Sound editing and mixing done by Matt Taveccio. Betrayal's theme was composed by Oliver Baines. Music library provided by my Music and For more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.