S3: E8 – No More Secrets

And then, a deranged zealot willing to kill for a cause lit a fuse that would change my

life and so many others forever, rippling out for generations.

Listen to Flashpoint on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

In 2020, in a small California mountain town, five women disappeared.

I found out what happened to all of them, except one.

A woman known as Dia, whose estate is worth millions of dollars.

I'm Lucy Sheriff.

Over the past four years, I've spoken with Dia's family and friends, and I've discovered

that everyone has a different version of events.

Hear the story on Where's Dia?

Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

This could be the craziest podcast pairing ever.

The governor of California, Gavin Newsom, and Super Bowl champ, Marshawn Beastmode Lynch,

are politicking.

What does politicking even mean?

There's bridge and gaps with no politics.

Joined by their friend and agent, Doug Hendrickson, it's going to be a wild ride.

We can change the world podcast by podcast.

Listen to Politicking with Gavin Newsom, Marshawn Lynch, and Doug Hendrickson on America's

number one podcast network, iHeart.

Open your free iHeart app and search Politicking and start listening.

Hi all, we have some exciting news to share.

ABC News Studios has turned Ashley's story from Betrayal Season 2 into a docuseries.

You will get to meet the people involved.

You will hear from people who have never spoken before.

And you get to see where the story took place.

We are so proud and excited to share it with you all.

You can start streaming it on Hulu on July 30th.

Stacey has pulled herself out of a complete nightmare.

I can't even imagine finding this out.

If it had been my son, my husband wouldn't be here.

It wouldn't have been no trial.

I would have took care of him myself.

I'm Andrea Gunning, and this is Betrayal Season 3, Episode 8, No More Secrets.

In 1931, the citizens of Reading, Pennsylvania were upset because their courthouse, originally

built in 1840, was going to be demolished.

It was to be replaced by a new, more modern building, a huge granite and limestone structure

with tall vertical windows.

The budget for the new courthouse was $2 million, which is about $43 million in today's money.

The building would be 19 stories high and boast 16 courtrooms.

It was completed in 1932, and nearly 100 years later, that same Berks County courthouse stands

today.

This is where Justin Rutherford would face the final chapter of justice.

On Tuesday, February 6, 2024, he would be called to account for criminal solicitation

to commit murder in the first degree.

It was time to pay for the plot to kill Tyler.

In the vastness of the courtroom, Justin looked small.

He was dwarfed by the space and by the judge looking down on him from the bench above.

It was a stark contrast to Justin's last appearance in court.

There were no reporters and no crowds, just rows and rows of empty benches.

There were only four spectators.

The prosecutor had irrefutable evidence for her case.

A jailhouse informant had assisted law enforcement, and Justin was caught on tape explaining the

best time and method to kill Tyler.

It's what one might call a slam dunk.

The prosecutor had been hoping to reach a plea agreement, but it appeared that Justin

wanted to go to trial.

Based on the letters he had sent from jail and the absurd speeches he had given during

his sentencing, I can imagine the fantasy.

He'd like a defense attorney to stand up like he's in a TV show and enumerate Justin's

many wonderful qualities.

He's a great dad, a good provider, loved by his patients.

And the judge would say, this is a misunderstood man, and a doctor no less.

This is a miscarriage of justice.

Maybe this time, someone would get it.

He wanted a trial.

He wanted someone to say the words, not guilty.

So a few days before the trial, it was looking like he wasn't going to make a plea deal.

Until he did.

I still had to show up just in case at the last minute he would have threw a Hail Mary

and said, nope, I'm not signing this.

I want a trial.

The district attorney said that we would have went directly into one.

So to my knowledge, all of the witnesses were there.

The guy that was the informant, I think he was there.

Based on the transcripts, we've reenacted some of the court proceedings from the hearing.

Your Honor, we are here in the matter of Commonwealth of Pennsylvania versus Justin Rutherford,

docket 766.

We were listed for jury trial for today.

However, the defendant has completed paperwork for a guilty plea today.

Stacey McKayla and a victim advocate sat behind the prosecutor's table in courtroom 5A.

A familiar person sat behind Justin.

It was just Nannie.

She was the only one that went to the first case on his behalf, too.

That's just kind of how she is.

I mean, when it comes to him, there's really nothing that she won't do for him.

Justin sat in the far corner of the courtroom as prosecutor Meg McCallum laid out the details of the case.

Between October 2nd of 2022 and January 17th of 2023, the defendant did solicit an inmate

who was also in prison at the Berks County Jail System,

who was going to be released from prison prior to the defendant being sentenced.

He asked him to kill Tyler, a male juvenile who was the victim at docket 3752 of 2021,

where the defendant did plead guilty and was sentenced for rape of a child and other related offenses.

The defendant did have discussions with the inmate describing Tyler and his family's schedules

and when it would be best to kill Tyler and methods to kill Tyler.

The defendant provided Tyler's address and a diagram of the home where he lived with his mother and his other siblings.

The defendant indicated to the inmate that after the murder was completed,

that he should flee to Europe and that he and the defendant would meet up with each other

after the defendant was released from prison, after his sexual assault case was dismissed,

and that the defendant would then provide the inmate with money from a secret bank account.

Tyler did not attend this hearing.

He had a job and didn't want to return to Pennsylvania and give Justin the satisfaction of seeing him again.

Stacey was permitted to make a victim impact statement.

She spoke directly to Justin.

She let him know how strong her family was and that his crimes didn't break them.

He appeared unmoved and vacant.

He looked right through her.

Then the judge asked if there was anything the defendant wanted to say.

There would be none of the wild statements from the last hearing.

This time, Justin's lawyer spoke for him.

Yes, Judge, good morning.

Mr. Rutherford has written a lot.

I'm going to try to read some verbatim and summarize some.

His last sentencing kind of went off the rails a little bit.

And I want to try to focus on the sentencing as much as I can.

I think this new lawyer was a little bit more sensible considering the first case

and knew that what he wrote up probably was really screwed up because Justin didn't read it.

He is amongst probably the more educated defendants you'll find.

He was a physician, Your Honor.

And a lot of these are not excuses, more mitigation that I'm about to present.

And not to excuse his behavior, but Mr. Rutherford was quite mentally ill in jail.

The insanity defense is not a possibility given the clandestine nature

and some of the code and some of those things.

This could have very well been a guilty but mentally ill sentence.

However, with the current sentence, it's not appropriate.

He was on and off medications.

And he, you know, did in his letter, and I'll try to read it verbatim.

He does accept responsibility for his actions.

His lawyer had the paper in front of him.

And he kind of would skim over it and be like, yeah, we're not saying that, no.

I read the letter, Judge.

I believe it's appropriate.

It put simply, what a rocky road.

I'm sorry to have put you through this stress.

I've allowed myself to be a product of my environment.

You know that's not the real me.

The man who was never violent at home.

It's no excuse.

I'm just trying to do what's right and what's honest.

I know I made mistakes, lots of them.

But I hope you will release that grudge you hold against me.

I still pray for you every night.

I'll never stop.

Take care.

Wish you the best.

Justin said those words again.

I was never violent at home.

Several months in prison had done nothing to enlighten him to the fact that rape is violence.

The idea that he was praying for Stacey revealed the arrogance he still possessed.

He always has something to say.

He always wants to make excuses for his behavior versus taking responsibility for what he did to Tyler.

But legally, he had taken responsibility.

And that's what the prosecutor wanted.

It would limit his ability to appeal or change his mind.

Your Honor, the Commonwealth made this offer of 5 to 10 years concurrent based on the length of the sentence that the defendant received at Docket 3752 of 2021.

I believe that the defendant has now taken responsibility for this.

It alleviated the necessity of a trial which we all know is often burdensome to everyone.

And Ms. Rutherford had indicated to me through our multiple discussions that she was okay with that.

And so we are asking that Your Honor go by the agreed upon sentence to bring closure to this family.

And because he's serving a sentence of 26 years, 10 months at his minimum,

he would not even be eligible for parole on his underlying sexual assault charges until he is close to 60.

5 to 10 concurrent time meant he would get no additional prison time.

The judge didn't have to agree to the plea deal.

And he let everyone in the courtroom know the only reason he did was because of the length of Justin's sentence for rape and voyeurism convictions.

The whole process took half an hour.

When it had finished, Stacey asked to meet the informant, Justin's cellmate, who had come forward to report Justin's plan to kill Tyler.

I just wanted to thank him for essentially saving my child's life.

Had it not been for him coming forward, this would have never been possible.

What his crimes were is irrelevant to me.

What was relevant was that he saved my child's life.

The prosecutor declined to make that introduction.

But she did promise to convey Stacey's gratitude to the informant.

It would have to be enough.

And with that, after three years, it was all over.

They were finally, really done with Justin.

It started with a backpack at the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games.

A backpack that contained a bomb.

While the authorities focused on the wrong suspect, a serial bomber planned his next attacks.

Two abortion clinics.

And a lesbian bar.

But this isn't his story.

It's a human story.

One that I've become entangled with.

I saw, as soon as I turned the corner, basically someone bleeding out.

The victims of these brutal attacks were left to pick up the pieces.

Forced to explore the gray areas between right and wrong.

Life and death.

Their once ordinary lives, and mine, changed forever.

It kind of gave me a feeling of pending doom.

And all the while, our country found itself facing down a long and ugly reckoning with a growing threat.

Far-right, homegrown, religious terrorism.

Listen to Flashpoint on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

In the summer of 2020, in the small mountain town of Idlewild, California,

five women disappeared in the span of just a few months.

Eventually, I found out what happened to the women.

All except one.

A woman named Lydia Abrams, known as Dia.

Her friends and family ran through endless theories.

Was she hurt hiking?

Did she run away?

Had she been kidnapped?

I'm Lucy Sheriff.

I've been reporting this story for four years,

and I've uncovered a tangled web of manipulation, estranged families, and greed.

Everyone, it seems, has a different version of events.

Hear the story on Where's Dia?

My new podcast from Pushkin Industries and iHeart Podcasts.

Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

This could be the craziest podcast pairing ever.

The governor of California, Gavin Newsom, and Super Bowl champ, Marshawn Beastmode Lynch, are politicking.

What does politicking even mean?

There's bridge and gaps.

With no politics.

Joined by their friend and agent, Doug Hendrickson, it's going to be a wild ride.

We can change the world podcast by podcast.

Listen to Politicking with Gavin Newsom, Marshawn Lynch, and Doug Hendrickson on America's number one podcast network, iHeart.

Open your free iHeart app and search Politicking and start listening.

With the legal proceedings in the rearview mirror, Stacey and Tyler are holding their community close.

And it might surprise you, some of those closest to them today are members of Justin's family.

In previous series, I've seen examples where blood relations take sides.

But that has not happened here.

They support Stacey and accept that it's Justin who caused all the damage.

Here's Justin's aunt, Nancy.

It is extremely hard to accept that the little baby, the little boy I knew, did something like that to another little boy.

I just, I couldn't understand it and I still can't understand it.

Another relative who wishes to remain anonymous, we'll call her Susan, recalls finding out what happened.

I actually threw up because I'm like, what is he doing?

Not to mention the first thing, but I don't understand how he came to that point.

You're born innocent.

How in the world do you get so wired up where you want to kill somebody?

And playing it out, he's so arrogant.

He wants to actually see me for two hours straight to explain everything.

He thinks I'm an idiot.

When I walk in there, he's going to look me in the eyes and tell me why.

I wondered if Nancy thought about seeing Justin and what she would want to say to him.

I would ask him why.

Tyler's a great kid and I don't understand why he did that to that little boy.

What was done to him was wrong.

I would ask Justin on what planet he thought that was even remotely right.

And then to hook up cameras.

What was he thinking?

I know in his mind he's justifying this.

I was in love, he was my boyfriend.

But you and I know that is just plain ass wrong.

Susan wrestles with going to see Justin in prison.

He can't expect he's going to turn me on his side.

I can't imagine Tyler lying all these years and then you want to kill him too?

Nah.

I want to see him because I want to say goodbye before something happens to him.

Both women have very strong feelings about justice.

Stacey has pulled herself out of a complete nightmare.

I can't even imagine finding this out.

If it had been my son, my husband wouldn't be here.

It wouldn't have been no trial.

I would have took care of him myself.

Justin's Aunt Nancy admires Stacey's restraint.

Stacey's a stronger person than me, I'd have attacked him.

Yep, when I found out what he did to my child, it would have been all over.

I'd have probably been the one in jail.

Susan loves Tyler and has been looking for signs that he's okay.

Our last meeting, our last dinner, we have the kids.

Me and him talked and he literally, he got up and gave me a hug

and I said this is the first time I've seen you smile.

So he's going to help somebody.

Somebody that's scared to death is going to hear this

and he's not going to be scared anymore

and he's going to think it's okay for she to go get some help.

She is particularly concerned for Stacey's youngest daughter,

Justin's biological child.

I'm really worried about her down the future because that's her dad.

You're going to have dad and daughter dances.

You're going to have school with them bringing their dads.

That's going to torment her because someone's going to always ask,

where's your dad?

And that's going to really be harder as she gets older.

But she knows Stacey is on top of all of it.

I'm really proud of Stacey.

She's just going to have a long road.

When I visited Stacey and Tyler in West Virginia,

I noticed how long it would take to travel a mile.

The terrain was so different from what I normally see.

My Airbnb was just a mile and a half away,

yet it still took 25 minutes to reach Stacey's home.

There were winding roads and out-of-the-way passes

I had to drive through in the other direction.

And I realized it was such a good metaphor for living with betrayal.

In the aftermath, rebuilding is a process.

It takes you in different directions.

It's not linear.

For Stacey and Tyler, it's been three years

and they've made a lot of progress.

But sometimes it doesn't feel like you've traveled very far at all.

It's a reminder that when you're climbing a mountain of grief,

it just takes time.

What grounds you is taking stock of what's around you or in front of you.

During those drives, winding up and down across the mountain range,

we would drive in and out of rainstorms.

I would look far out to see light beaming onto the vast pastures in the valley.

And I thought of Stacey, Tyler, and their family.

The love they have.

The closeness they share.

Their laughter and sense of humor.

It's unique, beautiful, and rare.

It radiates like the light shining down on the valley.

Hope while navigating a mountain in a storm.

I knew when we wrapped up this story that it wasn't finished.

They aren't finished.

But they are going to be okay.

I wanted to sit down with each of them to reflect on the experience

of putting their story out there.

What was your main purpose for doing this?

Just to help people and hopefully reach some man out there

that felt like I did and felt alone.

And let him know he's not.

And actually at the start, I was definitely a little nervous to talk about it.

Yeah.

I think it will always be hard to talk about somewhat.

But it also feels relieving.

Like you're breaking out of chains.

Even Tyler's friends are seeing him differently in a good way.

You know, the stigma around boys and how nothing's serious.

Like I have this one friend who, when we're hanging out,

he's always saying something stupid, doing something stupid.

Goofball.

Yeah, there we go. Goofball.

He was like, you know, we joke around with each other.

But listening to that was crazy.

Because I didn't understand, like, really how it was.

So, like, I've had a few friends come to me and just really open up to me

about, like, how appreciative they were that I did that.

Tyler is grateful for the betrayal community.

Thank you for listening.

Thank everyone for listening.

If they made it this far, because I hope if they made it this far,

that means they liked it.

And I'm glad they stuck to the end

because I've even had some relatives tell me it was kind of hard to listen to

and they had to stop it.

So I appreciate the people that wanted to hear my story out and just listen.

No one can ever find out my secret because it's not a secret.

Stacey, when we first started

and when you were thinking about why you would want to do this project,

what were the reasons?

Like, why did you want to do this?

You know, it was really hard for me to find people to relate to.

So I felt very much alone.

And when I heard the first two seasons, it made me feel not so alone.

And I wanted to be that for someone else.

I also wanted Tyler to heal through this, too.

I knew that there would be a lot of healing in talking about this for our family,

and there absolutely has been.

I've seen such a huge change in our interaction with each other

and how we've handled things.

And I wanted that for someone else.

I have watched you and your family since we started working together,

and I definitely acknowledge this need and want from you to feel seen.

And I think so much of your connection to Justin

is this was a person that felt like he saw you.

He felt very seen in that relationship.

And the grieving of not having that has been really difficult for you.

But the one thing that I just want you to have is

I want you to be able to see yourself as an incredible person the way that I see you.

I left Boston being like, who wants a ready-made family?

I do.

Like, I want to be part of Stacey's family.

So we reached out to people who wrote in,

and they have some messages for us.

Okay.

I haven't heard these, so both of us are listening to this for the first time.

My name is Anna.

I was driving and just kind of going through the episodes,

and my fiancé happened to be in the car with me.

Tyler was talking about how he ended up coming forward

and how he really, really didn't want to do it.

And then he ended up deciding to be that voice.

And my fiancé, he made a comment like,

you know, yeah, this happens a lot more than people think.

Later, I couldn't get it out of my mind, that comment he had made.

And so we were getting ready for bed,

and I asked him about it.

I was like, have you ever experienced something like that?

He was really, really quiet.

And he goes, yeah, like when I was seven,

an older cousin was at the house, and some sexual abuse transpired.

Sometimes something happens, and it reminds you,

and it all comes rushing back.

And he said that that was kind of a moment that he had

after hearing Tyler tell his story.

It was extremely, extremely emotional.

I mean, I feel horrible that this person I love so much

had to go through this.

But I know he said that talking about it after all this time

was like a huge burden off of him.

It just made me grateful that he ultimately told me about it.

I'm glad that I know this about him,

and that it's something that we can now speak about openly.

You guys sharing your story truly is life-changing.

Something as simple as riding in the car

and just listening to it to pass the time.

You never know what kind of conversations it can spark.

I just commend you so much for your strength,

and I cannot say thank you enough.

After the break, a male listener shares how Tyler's story

has helped him to confront his own past.

It started with a backpack at the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games.

A backpack that contained a bomb.

While the authorities focused on the wrong suspect,

a serial bomber planned his next attacks.

Two abortion clinics and a lesbian bar.

But this isn't his story.

It's a human story.

One that I've become entangled with.

I saw, as soon as I turned the corner,

basically someone bleeding out.

The victims of these brutal attacks were left to pick up the pieces.

Forced to explore the gray areas between right and wrong.

Life and death.

Their once ordinary lives, and mine, changed forever.

It kind of gave me a feeling of pending doom.

And all the while, our country found itself

facing down a long and ugly reckoning with a growing threat.

Far-right, homegrown, religious terrorism.

Listen to Flashpoint on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

In the summer of 2020,

in the small mountain town of Idlewild, California,

five women disappeared in the span of just a few months.

Eventually, I found out what happened to the women.

All except one.

A woman named Lydia Abrams.

Known as Dia.

Her friends and family ran through endless theories.

Was she hurt hiking?

Did she run away?

Had she been kidnapped?

I'm Lucy Sheriff.

I've been reporting this story for four years,

and I've uncovered a tangled web of manipulation,

estranged families, and greed.

Everyone, it seems, has a different version of events.

Hear the story on Where's Dia,

my new podcast from Pushkin Industries and iHeart Podcasts.

Listen on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

This could be the craziest podcast pairing ever.

The governor of California, Gavin Newsom,

and Super Bowl champ, Marshawn Beastmode Lynch,

are politicking.

What does politicking even mean?

There's bridge and gaps.

With no politics.

Joined by their friend and agent, Doug Hendrickson,

it's going to be a wild ride.

We can change the world podcast by podcast.

Listen to Politicking with Gavin Newsom,

Marshawn Lynch, and Doug Hendrickson

on America's number one podcast network, iHeart.

Open your free iHeart app and search politicking

and start listening.

I'm with Stacey and Tyler

for our final episode of Betrayal Season 3,

and we're hearing some feedback from listeners.

Okay, so here's another one.

My name is Charlie,

and I am from the Houston, Texas area.

It wasn't until I got married,

started having some issues,

got addicted to pornography and stuff like that,

I finally went to talk to a therapist

and finally realized as a child that I was assaulted.

Going back to when Tyler first opened up about what happened

took me back to when I first had discovered

what the root of the problem was.

It's uncanny how your memory just unlocks.

You hear stories and you wonder,

how can that be true?

But when you hear it,

and then all of a sudden you're reliving it.

Wow, that happened to me.

Wow, he said that exact same thing.

And then my wife and I were sitting there one evening

and my daughter who was just finished

her junior year of high school comes in crying.

And that's when she told us that

she had been assaulted by my father.

I worshipped that man.

The rage I had,

finding out that it happened to her,

the anger came back.

I said, I know exactly what you're going through.

And she said, how?

And I told her what happened to me.

Tyler spoke to him in court,

talking about how stone-faced he was.

He decided to speak on the fly

without having anything written down.

That's kind of how I felt when

they sentenced my dad.

I was like, I'm not going to speak

because I'm afraid I'm going to jump over the wall