02x02 - Sins of the Father

[bunniefuu]

[somber music]

♪ ♪

ASHLEY:
When Jason moved in with me,

he was phenomenal
with my children.

We'd been married
for 10 years.

I saw Jason's hidden folder,

and I couldn't believe
my f*cking eyes.

There were hundreds

of inappropriate photos
of children.

ANNA:
I saw some of them.

It's still upsetting to me.

ASHLEY:
Justin, Jason's brother,

works in law enforcement.

Justin said, "I'm going to
meet Jason at your house.

He's going to come stay
with me for the night."

My shoulder hurt and, like,
my chest physically hurt.

I was having a panic attack.

- I said, "Just go to the ER
and I'll meet you there."

ASHLEY: A police officer
walked into the room,

and I was like,
"We need to report a crime."

[suspenseful music]

♪ ♪

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

[suspenseful music]

♪ ♪

[somber music]

♪ ♪

I had a perfect life.

We're raising three healthy,
beautiful children.

We have this beautiful home.

And we have wonderful jobs.
We're starting this business.

♪ ♪

Then I found inappropriate
photos of children

in my husband Jason's
iCloud account.

The type of material
Jason was viewing

has always been known
as child p*rn*graphy,

but now it's called
child sexual abuse material.

♪ ♪

I made a tough decision

to go to the Riverton City
Police Department

to meet Detective Rue.

When I spoke to Detective Rue
in the afternoon,

I had given him
the username and password

to the iCloud account.

And he lets me know that

he's gone through
what I sent him.

OK.

♪ ♪

The reality of
what was happening

didn't hit me

for another hour or two.

It's almost like I'm having
an out-of-body experience

at that time because I can,
like, see myself sitting there

all alone with this man
I don't know

telling me that somebody
that I think I really do know

and I really do love

and I'm going to spend
the rest of my life with,

but they're trying to convince
me that he's a monster.

And I asked him
how many there were.

And he told me there
were over 1,500 photos

of child sexual abuse material.

♪ ♪

As I'm sitting
with Detective Rue,

I remember
this specific video

that I had found
earlier in the day

when I was doing
my investigation.

ANNA:
I remember her saying,

"There's one of the girls,"

but not really realizing
what that meant.

And I think she kind of
wrote it off as like,

oh, that's like
a weird recording

because it looked like
it was like

almost an accidental recording.

Avaya is...



Maybe 14.

ANNA:
They were at Disneyland,

and they were changing
in the hotel.

ASHLEY: And when I saw it
earlier in the day,

I didn't think anything of it.

It wasn't even he accidentally
recorded us changing.

It was, oh, he--but recorded us
going to the swimming pool.

As I was sitting there with
Detective Rue in that moment,

I realized, maybe he was
recording the girls changing.

None of us knew
he was recording.

Then Detective Rue told me that
there were many like that.

- I was like,
"What does that even mean?"

And he said, well, let me
tell you about one that I saw.

ASHLEY:
He asks Avaya to come over

and look at what
the cat's doing.

And as Avaya leans over,

he's recording up her shirt.

♪ ♪

There was over 100 videos

of our daughter, Avaya.

I don't know why I thought
it was possible for him

to have those other photos

and not have a video that
films up our daughter's shirt.

But I was shocked.

Jason was somebody
she called Dad.

How could he do this?

♪ ♪

[tense music]

♪ ♪

ASHLEY:
The detective told me

that there were over


Avaya was amazing.

She was 15.

Had a steady job.

She's very responsible,
very organized.

ALL:
♪ Happy birthday to you ♪

♪ Happy birthday dear daddy ♪

ASHLEY:
Not only was she beautiful

on the outside,
she was incredibly intelligent.

She always had straight-A's
her whole life.

And also, she was a beast
on the soccer field.

Again, sis!
Go get it, sis!

I mean, you just
wanted to be near her.

Knowing Jason
had recorded her,

that's when that fire started

going from, like,
a smolder to, like,

a real flame inside of me.

I really started
feeling f*cking angry.

ANNA:
Learning that he had videos

of Avaya and the manner
in which he took them

was shocking
and really disturbing.

It's hard to describe
the amount of anger

that I feel even today.

CATHIE: I always thought
he looked at her

like she was his child
and he was her dad.

I had to go, like,

outside away from people
to have a breakdown because...

He took video
of our granddaughter

in a trusted space.

Avaya trusted him.

- I remember just listening for
what seemed like an eternity

to all of the things that--
that were found.

It was just gut-wrenching.

♪ ♪

I was just overwhelmed

knowing that he was doing
this to his own daughter.

ASHLEY: As I was sitting there
with Detective Rue,

I told him all of the
so-called red flags

that I saw through the years.

I even accused Jason
of having an affair.

He had left one night to go
pick up Avaya from dance,

but he'd left his phone.

[phone dings]

His phone dinged,
and I looked over.

It said, "I can't wait
to see you tonight."

I know who this girl is.

And she was barely 18.

[tense music]

And Jason was 32, 33?

Jason swore up and down

that it was only
an emotional affair.

He told me it wasn't sexual.

I thought otherwise.

I was like,
"I thought we were happy.

Like, what happened?"

And he talked me into
letting him stay.

And I did.

We're going to have this baby.

I don't think I had
the mental capacity

to give birth to a new baby
and have two children

and work a full-time job
and do this all by myself.

- My name is Jessica Baum.
I'm a psychotherapist.

I specialize in trauma.

And I worked for many weeks
with Ashley one-on-one.

Once you're hooked into
a relationship like this

and you've had a lot of
good years or good times,

when bad things come up,

you're less likely
to really address them.

So she started to see
quite a bit of dysfunction

come from Jason,
and she felt pretty helpless.

And her way of surviving
was to focus on the kids

and just staying busy.

♪ ♪

It is really hard to
confront something

when we know our whole reality
is going to fall apart.

Her brain kind of let her
live in a little bit of denial

and just kept going.

ASHLEY: I had always
thought it was me.

Tried to be sexier.
Tried to be more appealing.

Tried to be all these
different things.

I knew he was
consuming p*rn*graphy

throughout our marriage.

You know, almost an addiction.

JESSICA:
He was in his addiction

and he was in his own world,
but she just kept trying.

Trying to get back
to the fantasy,

trying to get back
to the way they were.

ASHLEY: I remember
thinking that night,

as I'm trying to
make sense of everything,

about one incident
in particular.

♪ ♪

So my youngest daughter and I
are asleep

in the bed right next to him.

And he's looking at
his phone next to us.

I'd seen the light.

And I remember
looking over and, like,

laying down real quick.

And being like,
"What the f*ck did I just see?"

I was embarrassed,

but I was also, like,
really grossed out.

To be comfortable enough
to do that

while his wife and his daughter

are sleeping


that was just
a level of escalation.

And as I have looked back,

I've noticed different levels
of escalation.

But it all made sense,
finally.

Like, I wasn't crazy
this whole time.

In hindsight,
had I put this puzzle piece

with this puzzle piece
and this one from this year,

you know, if I would have
been able to kind of

put all of them together
to make this portrait

of a monster, perhaps I could
have seen it sooner.

I think the realization
at what he had taken from us

and what the children and I
were losing

started coming
to the forefront,

but also that

all of those other children
in those photos,

somebody is their mother.

Somebody is their father,

their grandfather,
their auntie, their cousin.

Somebody is that to them.

How come Jason had that?

I guess it still infuriates me
to think about that.

He just really didn't think

that I had it in me
to do something.

And so I did.

♪ ♪

[tense music]

♪ ♪

- Detective Rue started
working with his people

to take on Jason's arrest.

Jason was staying with
his brother Justin.

Detective Rue asked me
if I'd help

set up a situation
where I could

lure Jason away from
his brother's house.

You know,
Justin was a police officer,

and he had firearms
in the home.

And they didn't know
how he would react.

So I agreed that I would help
lure Jason to a public place.

♪ ♪

At this point, I hadn't even
given Jason a text back.

And his text messages
that I did read were...

[message pings]

"Ashley, I'm really sorry."

"I love you."

"I'm going to get help."

I mean, just over and over
and over were those messages.

So I called Jason

and I said,
"I'll talk to you,

but it has to be
in a public place.

I don't want you to
come to the house.

The children are sleeping.

I don't want to go
to Justin's house.

Meet me at the Walmart
in 15 minutes."

And he said, "OK, thank you.

Thank you.
I just want to talk to you."

♪ ♪

It was late.

It was like 11:00,


I called my siblings
and I told them

that they might have
to go get the kids for me

because I didn't know
what I was going to do

when I saw Jason.

I pull into the
Walmart parking lot.

I got there before
the police officers did.

I was scared.

Because I thought--I'm like,
this would be perfect.

Jason lures me into his van,
and then

kills me
and drops me off somewhere.

I'm like,
where are these police?

And then I see Jason's
white van pull in.

And that's when I was like,

"It's f*cking on."

[soft dramatic music]

♪ ♪

We're taking you to where

I had helped

get Jason set up
to be arrested.

I pulled in here.

As he's pulling up,

I'm trying to figure out
what I'm going to do next.

So I get out of my car

and I start walking
towards him.

The only thoughts
in my mind at that moment

was how bad
I wanted to k*ll him.

I wanted to take away
his eyesight

so he couldn't look at
my daughter

or anybody else's daughter
ever again.

ANDREA: He was desperate
to talk to her.

He's saying, "I'm sorry,"
and crying,

pleading with her that, like,
he needs to get help.

I put my hands together

and just asked God
to be with me.

And I opened my eyes
and I looked at him.

And just started yelling.

I was like,
"You f*cking look at me!

How dare you.

You filmed our
daughter's breasts!"

[dramatic music]

I was crying.

And I was mad.

He started crying.

He said, "I know.

I've done a horrible thing,
and I'm sorry."

ASHLEY:
As I'm yelling and cursing,

the whole police squad
pulls up.

And I just was yelling that
he was a f*cking pervert,

and how dare he do this
to our family,

and that he's ruined
our lives.

I'm just yelling
all of these things.

At that point, you know,
I have a police officer

kind of like pushing me back
because

without even
really realizing it,

I was trying
to get closer to him.

You know, I really wanted to,
like, beat the sh*t out of him.

- You are a mama bear.
- Yeah. I was.

And not just for Avaya.

Because the sh*t that
I saw on those photos

are things that are burned
in my brain forever.

[somber music]

- While police officers are
still trying to talk to me,

I was like tunnel vision
straight to Jason,

and we were, like, locked eyes.

And they put his hands
behind his back.

♪ ♪

And he dropped his head.
He just dropped his head.

♪ ♪

And didn't look at me.

And I kept telling him
to f*cking look at me.

He wouldn't.

He was a coward.

I'd also called
his brother Justin

and told him he needed
to come get Jason's van.

[suspenseful music]

♪ ♪

And Justin was like,
"What did you do?"

♪ ♪

"What did you do?"

I said to Justin,

"I did what
you should have done.

And Jason's being arrested."

SINGER:
♪ Your wicked, wicked ways ♪

[soft dramatic music]

♪ ♪

ASHLEY: You know, Andrea,
sitting here,

it's like, I can--
I can see it, like,

replaying in my mind,

that whole process.

It wasn't even an option
to not tell authorities.

I don't think that I realized,
though, what that meant.

I didn't know what was
going to happen next.

[tense music]

♪ ♪

- You were oblivious
to the aftermath?

ASHLEY:
Yeah, I had no idea.

I had no idea
what he had gotten us into.

ANDREA: Up until this point,
you were in survival mode.

You were just holding down
the fort for your family

and just trying to
keep the status quo.

And the minute that
you got out of that car,

all of that
went out the window,

and reality, true reality
sunk in for you.

Yeah.

- And it just
exploded in anger.

- That was the
beginning of the after.

That is the defining moment
of, you know,

the after and then the before.

And anyone who knows me knows
that's how I refer to my life.

- Yeah.
- Is the before.

[laughter]

PERSON:
So thank you for coming--

- And in this parking lot
was the end of the before?

Yeah.

It was the end of
every single thing

I have ever absolutely known.

ANDREA:
Can you imagine the day?

9:00 a.m., you see the
secret of your husband's.

All in the matter
of 13 hours,

you're seeing that, then
you're going to the hospital,

and then you're watching
your husband be arrested?

I mean, it's unbelievable.

Yeah.

ASHLEY: I wasn't ready to
explain to the children

that their father
is a pedophile.

[somber music]

I had decided already that I
wasn't going to tell the kids.

I don't think
I really fully grasped

what this all entailed,
like, all the way.

So I was like,
"I'm not going to tell the kids

what he's done ever.

This will ruin them."

- She was just
digesting what happened.

She wasn't prepared to make
this her kids' reality.

- I had come up with an idea
that I was just going

to tell the children that
he was at a mental hospital

getting help
for his mental health.

And they were like,
"Oh, can we go see him?"

"No, we can't go see him
at this type of hospital."

JOHN: Me and my wife Cathie
went to her house.

And all I could think of
doing was just holding her

and hugging her, and just--

I couldn't tell her
it was all right.

All I could tell her was I--
I'll be there.

You can always lean on
my shoulder, honey.

ASHLEY:
I just wanted to fix it.

And control and contain.

- Mm-hmm.

- But there was no controlling
and containing this.

ASHLEY: So I'm driving home
from work the next day.

And I had Anna with me.

And Anna and I
had discussed...

just about 10 minutes prior

what the odds of the news
catching on to this.

- Are we going to come back?
KIDS: Yeah!

ASHLEY: Jason's a predominant
member of our community.

He's a head coach.

He's your All-American
middle-aged dad.

And so she said
that she thought

there was a good possibility,
and I didn't think so.

And so I looked
at our local news.

[tense music]

[sighs]

The headline said,
"Riverton man arrested

for child p*rn*graphy."

♪ ♪

And the next thing I know,
I hear the most awful sound

I've ever heard.

Like, blood-curdling, scary,
out-of-this-world scream.

And I realize
it was coming out of me.

♪ ♪

- A man from Riverton has
been arrested for 100 counts

of sexual exploitation of a
minor after someone allegedly

found hundreds of pictures of
young naked girls on his phone.

- The news of Jason's arrest
hit the wire.

It was in that moment
that Ashley broke down.

ANNA: She kind of started
rocking back and forth

and shaking her hands.

And I just don't think she
knew what to do with her body

and with the emotions
that she was feeling.

- When I spoke to Anna, she
said it was like animalistic.

But she was so physically
affected by the fact

that this news was
just now out there.

She felt exposed.
She wasn't ready for it.

- The realization
that all these people

were going to know this
terrible, ugly, dirty thing

about my husband.

ANDREA: And I truly believe
that she thought that

she had time to
really figure this out.

- So my first thought
was to protect my kids.

But it was too late.

[eerie music]

♪ ♪

May interview, take 1. Mark.

AVAYA: My mom calls me,
and she's like,

"Jason's never coming home,
and I'm leaving him."

And I was like,
"What's going on?"

She had then asked me, "Has he
ever been creepy with you?"

I was like, "No, never. Why?"

She was like, "I found pictures
of little girls in his phone."

And I remember
just feeling like,

"What the hell?
That was my dad."

I didn't think it was real.

It did not feel real.
It felt like a literal dream.

It felt so shocking that
I was like, "What is going on?"

I didn't really believe it
at the same time.

And I felt sad, too.

I felt really sad
knowing the night before,

I didn't know that, like,
that would be the last night

that I would go up and give
Jason a hug and be like,

"Hey, good night."

- Good job!
Oh, oh!

[laughs]
That's good.

AVAYA:
He was always super fun.

And in the mornings, like,
if I'd asked my mom,

I'd be like,
Mom, can we go get food?

And Jason would be like,
"Let's go to the store,"

and we'd go to the store
and we'd, like, go get,

like, donuts,
we'd go get, like, eggnog.

We'd just go get, like,
a bunch of junk food,

and then we'd just come home
and eat it

and watch movies
for a couple hours.

Like, he was such
a good, fun dad.

I remember when I was little,

he would always come to,
like, my games,

and would always, like,
pick me up from practices.

We would always do
just fun things.

- So they didn't know
the details about the videos.

She just knew that
he got arrested.

But one of the
local news stations decided

it would be appropriate
to somewhat incorrectly

say that Jason's victims

were his own daughters
and that he recorded them.

ANNA:
We were working really hard

to get the articles
to take down the fact

that he had videos
of his daughter.

AVAYA:
When I got home,

my mom had my grandpa
come and take our phones.

She was like, "I don't want you
guys looking at your phones.

I do not want you guys
going on social media.

I do not want you guys
doing nothing,"

because they had hit the media.

Everything had hit the news.

ASHLEY: And I had already
gotten a couple of phone calls

asking if Jason
had recorded her.

They had asked me
several times,

"Was I in any of those photos?"

And I told her no.

"That was misconstrued.

That's not what happened.

He didn't record you."

I lied to her.
I couldn't tell her.

I don't think I still believed

that the recordings of Avaya
were on purpose.

AVAYA: A couple of weeks
later, my mom was like,

"I want to talk to you
about something."

- I decided to
tell her the truth.

And I tell her

that I lied,
and that I was sorry.

And that I didn't know

what was safe and what was
healthiest for her.

- She's like, "You can be
as mad at me as you want."

She's like,
"I didn't know how to tell you.

In his pictures were you."

My stomach just dropped.

The feeling of knowing
that he was watching me

and, like, I loved him like
a father was so tearing.

I literally had
felt so betrayed.

I remember looking
at my little brother.

This was like the worst
I've ever heard my brother cry.

He was, like, screaming.

Could not hold
his head together.

Like, he was losing his sh*t
crying in my arms.

And he didn't want it--like,
he didn't want to hug my mom.

He didn't want to hug Olivia.

He didn't want to
hug my grandpa.

He didn't want to
hug my grandma.

He just was like,
where is Avaya?

- What a lot of people
don't really think about

is the impact that all
of this has had on him.

EMMY:
Jason was his dad.

Biological or not,

everything was about Jason.

Jason was his entire world.

And he struggles
every single day.

He struggles with trying
to find a sense of identity

because his whole identity
was tied to his dad.

It's horrible.

♪ ♪

- I knew my mom was
struggling really bad.

Like, I knew she
was struggling.

I could tell
she was struggling.

And it was hard for me
to be around that, too,

because I was struggling.

Ever since everything
has happened with Jason,

I socially am not the same.

I cannot go places by myself.

I cannot go in
stores by myself.

JESSICA: Her sense of safety
was completely taken away.

This is going to deeply impact
her trust in reality,

her trust in men,
her trust in relationships.

But she struggled because
she needed to believe

the good in him
to kind of survive.

AVAYA: I was mad at myself
for missing him.

I was like, "Why?

Why are you missing this dude
that did you so wrong?

That has completely
flipped your life around?"

But then in the same
back part of my head,

I was like, "That was my dad."

There was good parts to him,
too, that I knew

that all these people
had never seen.

He was a really
genuinely sweet guy

when he wanted to be.

He was a good dad when
he wanted to be one.

But there was also,
like, this dark side

that I just had never
even knew about.

[soft dramatic music]

♪ ♪

ANNA: We come from a pretty
tight-knit community.

Everyone knows
what's going on,

and I think
that's what happened.

- My ex-husband actually
received a phone call

from a friend of the family.

And he had asked if my
ex-husband had heard

about what was going on
with Jason.

He ends his phone call and
I'm like, was everything OK?

And he kind of looks up and--

and he says, no, it's--

it's not OK,
Jason has been arrested.

I was flabbergasted.
Arrested for what?

A speeding ticket?

Did he have, like, a pile of
in his glove box or something?

Never would have expected that
from Jason.

My ex-husband
put his phone down.

And he fell to his knees

and just started to sob.

Told me that he feels like
he's burying his best friend,

but he's burying him alive.

[somber music]

♪ ♪

ANNA: Ashley's phone
was blowing up.

She was getting texts
from so many people.

- I had all these people
wanting to come

and console us
and be around us

and be with us,
which was really nice.

But I still felt
really, really alone.

And I felt ashamed
that I couldn't

protect my own children.

My own daughter.

ANDREA: Ashley is a huge part
of the community

just through athletics.

And everyone knows
Jason through football.

So, like, Ashley's house
was the safe house.

ASHLEY: My house was always
the get-together.

All the kids are welcome.

ANDREA: And so when
the news came down,

I think a lot of parents were,

were my kids exposed?

Were my kids videotaped?

My mind went

to every single moment that
he was around my children.

Constantly trying to think,

was there ever a time
that Jason was ever alone

with one of our daughters?

Just racking my brain.

What did I miss?

None of the kids
can understand it.

They're scared
that at some point,

is there going to be
a photograph

or a video of them
that somehow surfaces?

And how do we handle that
when and if it does?

- The kids' friends
weren't allowed

to come over
to Ashley's house anymore.

ASHLEY:
There's a situation where

all the neighborhood kids
were invited to go into

this one little girl's house
but my daughter.

She was told she couldn't
come into their home.

- The rumor mill
worked over time.

There were stories of cameras
being all over the house.

Ashley did her best
to defend the situation.

I mean,
they searched that house,

like every nook and cranny.

They found nothing.

I mean,
as far as we know,

there was no evidence
of any other kids

being in Jason's videos,

but you can't help
what people think.

EMMY: We have tried our best
to reassure our kids

that they weren't
part of this.

No matter how many ways we--we
tried to reassure them of that,

they're terrified.

Jason's actions are the drop
on a calm lake.

That one drop causes

hundreds of thousands
of ripples

that spread far and wide.

We're only in
the very first group

that has been touched by it,

but there are hundreds
of thousands of people

here in our community that
have been touched by this.

And that ripple will
continue to go on forever.

♪ ♪

When Avaya found out that

she was a part of

Jason's crime, it was too much.

I could not be in public.

I could not sit in a classroom.

I could not be around
other kids either.

I told her, like, "Mom,
I can't go to school anymore.

I have to do homeschooling.
I have to."

It felt really alone
at the beginning of it

because no one was ever like,
"Vaya, are you good?"

Like, "He was filming you,
are you good?"

And, like, no one ever
said that to me ever.

♪ ♪

- She quit everything.
She quit school.

She quit her club team.

She quit the high school team.

She quit her job.

She quit coming home.

ANNA: She didn't feel safe
in her own room.

I wouldn't either.

I mean, knowing
what happened there.

ASHLEY:
She tried.

She tried to move her bed
all around her room.

There wasn't a safe place
in her room.

♪ ♪

Even though we had
covered the windows,

I had cameras
installed outside.

Put new locks on.

She wasn't safe anymore.

She wasn't safe
in her own skin.

AVAYA:
And I moved in with my dad.

My biological father.

[dramatic music]

- I think it's inevitable that
you're going to blame someone.

Her mother chose this man
that did this.

♪ ♪

I missed her so much.

Since the kids were little,
I don't--

I don't like them
having sleepovers.

I don't sleep at night
if they weren't all home.

I wanted them to just be home.

And she couldn't come home.

And she couldn't
talk to me about it.

I was afraid I was
going to lose her.

♪ ♪

I had spent the last few months
losing so many things.

My husband,
my way of life,

my routines,

my friends, everything.

I couldn't afford
to lose her, too.

♪ ♪