01x02 - Duplicity

[bunniefuu]

[dramatic music]

♪♪ ♪♪

JENIFER: This was it.
It was meant to be.

- You will never
have to question

my love or devotion to you.

I am so in love with you.

And now we get
to be together forever.

♪♪ ♪♪

JENIFER: Little did I know
I was married to a man

who had done something
so horrible

that it would
devastate our lives

and change us forever.

The cops had kicked
the door down.

There's this piece of paper,

and I notice that it says
"search warrant"

on the top of it.

And then I just remember
seeing the words

"sexual as*ault"
and the word "student."

NEWSCASTER:
An educator is in jail.


facing sexual as*ault charges.

- Two days
after Spence was arrested,

I got into his email.

It was woman after woman
after woman.

My soulmate,
he was living a double life.

[tense music]

During the Betrayal podcast,

I spoke with a couple
of the women

who had an affair with Spence.

- This person who we thought
was one person

was somebody
entirely different.

- He just gave in
to the hunt for the high.

- It's manipulation
at the highest level.

- If you saw Spence,
what do you think

you would say to him?

[dramatic music]

♪♪ ♪♪

LORI WILSON:
A developing story--

a former Cobb County
Teacher of the Year

now faces
sexual as*ault charges.

Police arrested Spencer Herron
on Friday

and charged him
with three counts

of sexual as*ault
by a teacher.

- The news broke,
and people were making comments

about it on Facebook
and on his page.

So I was able to get
into his Facebook account

to take down his social media.

- And what she found,
it was like a trophy case.

[tense music]

♪♪ ♪♪

- It was, I don't know,
over 60 women

that I found
correspondence with.

When something
like this happens,

it's so hard to understand

what's real
and what's not real.

♪♪ ♪♪

[whimpers softly, sniffles]

♪♪ ♪♪

Um, I had to kind of become...

an investigator.

[sniffles]

Um, I needed to know
who this person was.

♪♪ ♪♪

At this point, he's in jail,

he's waiting for his trial,

and I couldn't talk
about the case with anyone

because it was ongoing.

So I started digging
through everything.

♪♪ ♪♪

And the person
that I was finding,

going through his emails
and correspondence

with these other women...

was not somebody I knew.

He even cheated on me
the week of our wedding.

I've made timelines.
I've made charts.

I have all the information.

Out of all
the different women,

he had two-
to three-year-long affairs

with probably six to seven
different women...

some at the same time.

♪♪ ♪♪

Knowing how many affairs
he had had,

I really got angry.

He was living a lie

the entire time
that we were married.

The entire time
he was living a lie.

- One of my biggest questions
has always been,

why--why did you feel the need
to organize everything?

- I was just looking
for all the answers.

Like, I needed a timeline.

I needed to know,
when did this start?

When did this end,
if it ever ended?

I had to see...

was it anything that I had done
at any point?

- When I started
working with Jen,

she was--she was crumbling.

She was completely
falling apart.

♪♪ ♪♪

At the beginning
of betrayal trauma,

we start to see a lot
of safety-seeking behavior...

Staying up all night,

looking at texts and emails

and phone logs...

anything to try

to make sense...

and put pieces back together
of their world

that has totally
been shattered.

- Like, I mean,
look at this list.

This is a list I compiled

that shows how many

and the dates.

- This is page 1 of 9.
- Yeah.

ANDREA:
She's trying to reconcile,

here's someone
that I thought I trusted

that valued me, respected me,

who really didn't.

That was really shocking to her
and hard for her to understand.

JENIFER: You can see,
like, how they overlap.

- Constant feelers out there.
- Yep.

I-I think that was, like,
almost his job every day,

was to figure out
who he could sleep with.

♪♪ ♪♪

KIM WIGINGTON:
When Jenifer started talking

about the multiple women,

I don't know if I said it first
or if she did,

it was like,
do you think you have an STD?

And I said,
well, I'm gonna call

and make an appointment
with my gynecologist,

and I will drive you there.

And she came out

of the, um, exam room,

and she said,
"I have chlamydia."

And it was just...
[sighs]

So real at that moment.

[Eloise Weeks'
"Look What You've Done"]

ELOISE WEEKS:
♪♪ You were in love with me ♪♪

WIGINGTON: Because
she couldn't separate it

from herself anymore.

ELOISE: ♪♪ Now look
what you've done to me ♪♪

♪♪ Look what you've done ♪♪

WIGINGTON:
There was something so real

about having that STD

that he gave her that...

[sighs]
You couldn't separate

the Spencer who went out

and did
these horrible things...

ELOISE:
♪♪ I was in love with you ♪♪

♪♪ I was in love with you ♪♪

WIGINGTON:
To the Spencer who was

the loving husband at home.

It all collided
at that moment.

♪♪ ♪♪

ELOISE: ♪♪ Now look
what you've done to me ♪♪

- It f*ck you up.

You know, having sex,
it--it's--

it's so personal.

And he was having it
with prostit*tes,

escorts,

online,

in person.

♪♪ ♪♪

It was constant,
all day, every day.

♪♪ ♪♪

[dramatic music]

JENIFER:
During the podcast,

I spoke with a couple
of the women

that he had
long-term affairs with.

And what I learned
is that his behavior

follows a certain pattern.

He used his charm

to make people do
what he wanted to do.

♪♪ ♪♪

And, you know, he, like,
throws out this fishing line

to see who will bite.

♪♪ ♪♪

ANDREA: While serving
in the Air National Guard,

Spencer had a long-term affair
with one of his bandmates.

She was comfortable
with speaking to Jen

but didn't want anyone
to know her name.

And that was okay.
We changed her name.

HOPE: Out of nowhere,

I got this text message--

"Well, you're beautiful."

Here's an attractive guy
telling me I'm pretty.

At that point,
I don't even remember

really ever having
a-a conversation with him

prior to that.

JENIFER:
Some people wouldn't bite,

because they thought,
well, wait, he's married.

Oh, that just must be Spence.
He's just really nice.

You know, I'm sure
it wasn't really flirtation.

[soft dramatic music]

And I think most
of the time...

it probably was.

HOPE: And then
the next thing I know,

it's happening so quickly

that I--like, I was confused.

I was like, what is this?

I thought we were just
hanging out, talking.

And then there we were.

And I remember feeling like,
oh, my God, what's happening?

- I am a clinical psychologist.

And my focus is
on antagonistic relationships.

[tense music]

I did not have the opportunity

to meet with Spencer
and to talk with Spencer.

But personality style, we can
speculate on that confidently,

because when we're talking
about personality,

it's a set of patterns
of behavior

that all hang together.

The personality style
we're seeing here falls

in this sort of
narcissistic space.

But the danger
of any kind of narcissistic

or antagonistic
or toxic personality

is their absolute brilliance

at being able to hide
in plain sight.

HOPE: I loved the way

he made me feel about myself.

At that time in my life,

I very much needed

to feel loved and wanted.

KIM GOULD:
When someone swoops in

and makes you feel loved
and important

and attractive,

it's easy to sometimes
be vulnerable to that.

So Spence was really good
at identifying these women,

and...

they were often
receptive to this

because they learned
to trust him.

♪♪ ♪♪

- One of the women
that had an affair with Spence

was a friend of ours.

And she was one of the women

I saw pictures of
on his computer.

[inhales sharply]

[voice breaking]
That--that stings really bad.

♪♪ ♪♪

[sniffles]

[normal voice] We were friends
with the family.

Her and her husband
would come into the wine bar

all the time.

- Jen's friend was willing

to have a conversation
with Jen on the phone,

but she didn't want us
to hear her voice.

So what she allowed us to do
was use the transcription

of the recorded phone call,

and then we could use
a voice actor to play her.

[indistinct chatter]

FRIEND: I was stressed out.

I didn't feel pretty

all the time.

And I was a stay-at-home mom,
you know?

I had kids hanging off me,
breastfeeding.

I was greasy, maybe showered
every couple days.

But then I would always hear,
you know, like,

"Oh, you're so beautiful.

"You're really,
really well-rounded,

and you're a great mom."

- When Spence would work
the wine bar on his own,

I found out that he basically
used it almost like a brothel.

♪♪ ♪♪

FRIEND: He asked me if I could

help stay there for him

to close up,

like, help
carry something out.

I went into the bathroom,
and when I came out,

he was there
and mentioned, like,

"You know we have
this thing together.

You know, you're
feeling this too, right?"

And then he came in for a kiss

and then held my hand,

then touched his crotch

with my hand
on the outside of my pants.

- He would put a sign
on the door sometimes

that said
"back in five minutes,"

because he took some woman
to the bathroom

or to the basement
to have sex with them.

FRIEND: I felt like I knew him

and trusted him

for at least six months

to a year,

and I felt like somebody
got me in that moment.

So I guess in a way
I almost felt

like I owed him something.

- With Spencer,
there was no empathy.

There was
tremendous manipulation

and, frankly,
a lot of entitlement,

entitlement to,
I get to have my attention.

I get to have multiple lives.

I get to do all of this.

HOPE: I felt just like

I was being used

whenever there was a need.

Two or three months
would go by,

and I wouldn't hear anything.

And then all of a sudden,

here--here we are again.

ANDREA: Every time
you would open an email

or look at a text message,

were you numb at that point,

or was it like a dagger
every single time?

- Every single time.

ANDREA: What's so wild to me
is just the volume of women

and the different versions
of himself.

They must be encountering

a different mask,
a different person,

and different masks...
- Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

ANDREA:
For different vulnerabilities.

And that's scary.

JENIFER:
Totally, yeah.

I didn't know

how manipulating Spence was
at that point.

RAMANI: Spencer actually
seemed like a great guy

to everybody in his life.

Unfortunately, when it comes
to manipulative behavior,

the manipulation gets rewarded.

Anytime manipulation
is rewarded,

we will always see escalation.

And, basically, Spencer had
absolutely no consideration

for the needs and feelings
of others.

When you're running
a system like that,

it's manipulation
at the highest level.

FRIEND: I could see the way

he would look at people

in public situations.

If I were off in the distance

or he was exchanging money
with somebody,

his hand would linger on hers
a little bit longer.

It was a challenge.

It was a game.

♪♪ ♪♪

LAUREN: I met Spencer
when I was interviewing

for his fill-in position.

He was leaving
for military leave.

And--and the interview
went very well.

I really didn't think
much of it,

but he seemed like he wanted

to continue a conversation
outside of the interview.

And I could tell at that point,
things shifted.

And I don't even remember
how I ended up

giving him my phone number.

And then
the next thing I knew,

we were in a parking lot
at Home Depot.

[scoffs] Sounds so lovely.

And...

we had sex.

He was very persistent
and pushy.

He wouldn't give up.

I knew he was married,

and it made me feel even--

you know, just horrible
about myself.

But yet I continue
to communicate with him

for however long it was.

♪♪ ♪♪

He exudes charm, so...

shame on me, you know.

HOPE:
There was a very dominating

side to him.

There were things

that were asked of me

that I was absolutely not

comfortable with.

He had a lot of fantasies

that he wanted played out.

[dark music]

- I think he must think
about sex

or fetishes, whatever, often

and very determined
to get an answer as to meeting

or wanting to talk
about his fetishes more.

- He would talk
about having a threesome

and send photos
of what he wanted to happen

during the threesome.

I found disgusting videos

that these women took
of themselves and sent to him

because he asked for them.

- Spencer liked to refer
to me as "Mommy"

and wanted to be known
as "Daddy,"

even wanting to do things
that an infant would do

with a mother,
uh, such as nursing.

And at some point,

he said he wanted
to be on a leash

and walked around a room
like a dog.

- He wanted one woman
to hit him

while they were having sex.

♪♪ ♪♪

And that's a turn-on for him.

WIGINGTON:
You know, to know that he had

that dangerous side,

it was really scary to think

what could have
happened to Jen.

♪♪ ♪♪

[dramatic music]

RAMANI: Spencer's so arrogant,
so willing

to capitalize on other people's
vulnerabilities

merely for his own sense
of validation

and gratification.

There wasn't even an awareness
of people getting hurt.

JENIFER:
This is Hope.

"Baby, I'm ready.
I can't wait."

"Oh, my God, baby girl,
you are perfect.

"Wow. I'm speechless.

Except that I want to decorate
your whole back..."

- I can't.
- "With"-- I can't.

That is not the person
that I knew.

- Mm-hmm.

[tense music]

FRIEND: He texted me a picture

of his d*ck.

Right--right out there,

not--not even expecting it,

right out there on my phone.

And at one point, then,

requested me
to send him a picture.

I felt like that was better

than actually
getting together with him.

RAMANI: Spencer keeps
pushing the envelope,

keeps pushing the limit.

Attention seeking combined
with lack of empathy

can be really dangerous,

because then you're saying,
I need to get attention,

and I don't care who I hurt.

- Spencer Herron
at Kell High School.

How's it going?

NEWSCASTER:
Herron now has three charges

of sexual as*ault
by a teacher.

The 48-year-old was arrested
Friday afternoon

at his home.

JENIFER:
Up until he was arrested,

I had a great marriage.

[soft dramatic music]

And you don't realize...

how quickly life can change.
[sniffles]

♪♪ ♪♪

ANDREA: There's
many different versions

that he would
present himself to be.

Even in his marriage,
he wore a really strong

and powerful husband mask.

- His other life was devious

and deceptive.

HOPE: I feel like I was

forced to play a role

that was not me.

There would be certain looks

that just made me
feel different

and cunning words.

So I didn't know how to be
other than just comply.

JENIFER:
And he lied to people.

He would tell some
of these women, "I love you.

You're the only one."

HOPE: I really thought

that he loved me.

He had me convinced

that he did.

I mean, he--he told me.

♪♪ ♪♪

ANDREA:
Do you remember the first time

you saw him say "I love you"
to somebody else

and what that was like?

- Yeah, because he said it
to Hope, I think.

I-I wrote him a lot of letters
when he was in jail.

I only sent two.

But I needed to write them
for myself.

And I just remember asking him,

did you really love
this person?

Like--and his response,

"I don't remember ever
telling them I love them."

♪♪ ♪♪

- But I'm sure
you have evidence

of him saying it first.
- Right there.

ANDREA:
Mm-hmm.

♪♪ ♪♪

GOULD: That was just
another manipulation.

Love is something

that brings kindness

and true goodness
into someone else's life.

Love is not bringing harm
and destruction.

♪♪ ♪♪

HOPE: I just felt like

my world was literally

crashing down around me--

the shame, the guilt,
the fear.

- There was nothing about this
that was love.

♪♪ ♪♪

- Spence and I spent time
on the phone together

when he was in jail.

The calls were being recorded
by the jail.

And he was so concerned
about himself

and about anything
we'd discuss being used

against him or against
his character in his trial.

So I wasn't able
to really express myself

as much as I wanted to
about what he had done.

GAIL:
I was concerned

that she was gonna
lose it completely.

She got stuck.

♪♪ ♪♪

She kept going back to it.

"Mom, you're not gonna
believe this.

"This is what was being said.

Mom, you're not gonna
believe this photo."

She couldn't--
she was, like, spinning.

She just kept going around
and round and round.

- Nobody knew what to feel

or what to say or what to do.

GAIL:
It was like watching a movie.

RAMANI: It was the death
of her future.

It was the death of her dreams.

It was the death of a person
she thought she knew.

There is something
almost harder

about someone still being alive
and having to lose

what you believed
to be true of them

than someone actually dying.

♪♪ ♪♪

GAIL:
Jenifer is so distraught,

she's not thinking,
how am I gonna pay the bills

with one income?

You know, what about the house?
What about your job?

What about all of these other

logistical things for you,

how are we gonna fix that?

[Nik Ammar's "Come to an End"]

WIGINGTON:
And, of course, you know,

there was depression.

And she didn't feel
like she was good enough.

NIK AMMAR:
♪♪ Our love turned to rust ♪♪

♪♪ Broken hearts to dust ♪♪

♪♪ Nothing left of us
but memories ♪♪

- I lost my sense of trust.

I started questioning
my decisions.

And being a producer,

I-I live by my instincts.

And all of a sudden, I-I just
questioned all of that.

I lost work because of it.

NIK:
♪♪ Never felt so low, so long ♪♪

WIGINGTON: Jenifer had gotten
to the point where,

if she'd kept her house
for another month,

the bank would've taken it.

♪♪ ♪♪

JENIFER: Literally,
at that point, I had no money.

I had already borrowed
from everybody I know.

♪♪ ♪♪

- And so we said, well,

why don't you come live
in our basement apartment?

- I had to put my pride aside.

NIK: ♪♪ Used to be
the two of us together ♪♪

JENIFER:
So I sold our beautiful home

and moved into a basement.

NIK: ♪♪ So distant,
and I've never felt so low ♪♪

♪♪ So long ♪♪

- We're learning more
about what landed a former

Cobb County Teacher of the Year
nominee in jail.

The educator is facing charges

of sexual as*ault
involving a student.

- It's just
such a f*cked-up place to be.

You're trying to figure out,

like, who is this person?

Is it the one I know,

or is it the one
that I'm learning about?

In the early days
when he was in jail,

he would write me letters.

And he wrote me letter
after letter after letter.

I would always check
the mailbox,

because I was just hoping
that he would send me a letter

that would somehow explain
everything.

Ugh!
I hate these letters.

They're all handwritten
from prison,

and they're in order
of how he sent them to me.

"My prayer for you is to think
about it less and less each day

so that your life will be
better and better each day."

ANDREA:
Wow.

"Think about it less and less
every day."

You want me to think about it
less and less every day

so it goes away.

- Right.
ANDREA: Let's just hit

the delete button.
- Yeah.

"I want to restore
our marriage.

"I'll do whatever it takes

for you to believe me
about that."

- Up until that point, had
you given him any indication--

- No.

No.
- Right.

[dramatic music]

JENIFER: I think
all he knows is how to try

to get on someone's good side
or knows the right things

to say to try
to get somebody back.

- He was just trying to, like,
write his way through it.

- I mean, why not?
Let's go for it.

ANDREA: Yeah,
what else is there to lose?

- There's nothing to lose.
Let's see if she'll come back.

[cell phone chimes]

One of the women was
in running club with him.

And I had found
so many photos of her.

Taking photos of her as*h*le

and sending them
to a married man.

A-a picture of her

giving him a blow job
in his car.

I couldn't understand...

what type of woman
would do that.

And that sounds judgmental,

but I have some empathy
for the women.

- Right. But it took you
a little while to get there.

JENIFER:
Oh, yeah.

And--and in a way,
rightfully so.

I mean, at the time,

I was learning
that these adult women,

some that I knew,

were carrying on a relationship
with my husband.

[dark music]

JENIFER:
Everyone wondered

where this kind
of behavior came from.

♪♪ ♪♪

- After Spencer
and his first wife split,

he joined my husband's band.

- ♪♪ Sweet home Alabama ♪♪

- It seemed like
he kind of was...untethered.

[rock music playing]

He was finished
with a chapter of his life

that hadn't been
what he had planned.

And it felt like there was

a lot of making up
for lost time.

I had seen him sow his oats,
so to speak.

Like, he didn't get
the 20s freedom

that he was planning to have,

and so he did that in his 40s.

♪♪ ♪♪

ANDREA: You're talking
to another woman.

JENIFER:
Yeah.

- One of the affairs?
JENIFER: Yeah.

MISTRESS: Hi.
- Hi.

Thanks for being here.

You knew him
through his first marriage.

MISTRESS:
Yes, I did.

- It feels like
there was a shift,

that when he got
to his single state

that he just gave in

to the hunt for the high.

♪♪ ♪♪

MISTRESS:
Something did change

once he did, uh,
get a divorce.

Um, there was, uh,
more than a friendship.

RAE: And from there,
it evolved and--

knowing
that he could do things

and get away with stuff.

- Do you remember him talking

about getting married again?

MISTRESS:
I do.

I-I do recall that being

just a joyous time
for him, Jen.

- Wow.

MISTRESS: I certainly
can't speak for him,

but perhaps he felt like,
okay, this is--this is it.

All this is gonna stop now.
JENIFER: Right.

MISTRESS: I'm gonna focus
on this person.

JENIFER:
But it didn't stop.

MISTRESS: Right.
- Right.

MISTRESS: He's like, well, my
wife is gonna be out of town.

Why don't you come
check out the wine bar?

I thought, okay.
Why not?

It's gonna be harmless.

And, well, you know,

it wasn't just
a harmless, friendly visit.

It was an intimate visit.

And, um, he certainly sold it

as though you were still
on paper married,

but, emotionally,
you guys were not together.

♪♪ ♪♪

- This is really personal,

but did most
of the interactions happen

at the wine bar?

MISTRESS: They did not happen
at the wine bar.

♪♪ ♪♪

But they did happen
at your house.

♪♪ ♪♪

- It--it's such a mind-f*ck.

♪♪ ♪♪

ANDREA:
There were no boundaries.

It's whatever he wanted,

wherever he could get
the opportunity,

and he would take it.

- [crying]
Uh, it's hard, you know,

to hear that he brought
other women into our house.

♪♪ ♪♪

Well, thank you so much.

MISTRESS: Yeah, I'm glad that,
um, we could speak today.

- Me too.

Speaking
with these other women

was a really hard
conversation to have.

It was cathartic...

but it was also draining.

Okay.
- Are you okay?

- Yeah, it's just, I mean...

f*ck.

- The whole time,
I just wanted to hug you.

So can I hug you?
JENIFER: Aw, of course.

- I'm so sorry.
JENIFER: It's okay.

- That must not have been easy.

♪♪ ♪♪

JENIFER: You know, hearing
he brought a woman in there

and had sex with her...

and didn't give a sh*t.

And she's not the only one.

- No.
JENIFER: We know that.

- No, we know.

FRIEND:
I came to your house once.

He talked me into going,

and I was just like, yeah,

I'll come over quick.

Whatever, you know?

He said that you were
traveling or something.

He took my hand,
and he took me upstairs.

He had things set up
in the upper bedroom

with, like, candles and sh*t.

- Consequences shape behavior.

FRIEND: He made me feel
like I was the only one.

RAMANI: In this case,
the rights of more

and more people
are being violated

because there's
no consideration of consequence

because there's not been
a consequence.

FRIEND: He knew he was taking
advantage of that.

ANDREA: One of Jen's friends
was having an affair

with Spencer.

But it didn't
sit right with her.

FRIEND: I was blindly

taken advantage of.

ANDREA:
And there was this moment

that kind of dawned on her
that...

I'm not the only one.

FRIEND: That was the point

where I-I couldn't,

and I told him no.

And we got into an argument.

I felt like I just couldn't do
this because of the regret

I had for what I was doing
to you and my family.

[dramatic music]

♪♪ ♪♪

I ended up telling my husband
on my own

without him ever even
finding anything out,

because it was just
eating at me.

♪♪ ♪♪

I'm like, I did something
really horrible.

And he's like,
did you have sex?

And I said yes.

And that was
the utmost hardest thing

I've ever had to do.

[tense music]

- Then her husband
confronted Spence.

- And there was an extremely
heated conversation.

♪♪ ♪♪

FRIEND:
Just yelling and screaming.

And he wanted
to rip him apart.

JENIFER: Then years later,
after I found out,

her husband calls me and says,

"I have to tell you something.

"I've known about this
for a few years now.

"I found out
that something happened

between the two of them."

These are people living
in my town.

And somehow Spence is able
to convince this husband

not to say anything to me.

♪♪ ♪♪

You know, when you find out

that not only
were you betrayed

by someone you love

but then betrayed
by other people

that you thought
care about you,

it's double the betrayal.

It's double the hurt.

♪♪ ♪♪

How somebody is able to manage

so many different people
at one time

and then also come home and act
like the perfect husband...

that is a answer

I don't know
that I will ever find.

JENIFER:
In doing the podcast,

I had to relive things
again and again.

ANDREA: One of the big things
that we've talked about was

you really trying to figure out
the man you married.

And so the purpose
and the decision

for you to sit down
with the other women

and just talk to them
was about...

working through shame
and giving each other time...

to release that shame.

- Yeah, I think
those conversations...

were great,

and they held answers
to the questions I had.

- What's important about your
journey is that you want to see

the raw, ugly truth,

and you're brave enough
and strong enough to face it.

JENIFER:
Yeah.

♪♪ ♪♪

I think what I learned most

from talking with the women
in the podcast...

Was to have compassion
for them.

Yes, they made a mistake.

Yet they were also
very manipulated

and used.

♪♪ ♪♪

GOULD:
But not only did Jen find out

that Spencer was leading
a secret life

and was lying
for all of these years

and was cheating on her,

but he also escalated
so much in his behaviors...

That he became a predator
and a criminal.

[school bell rings]

WIGINGTON: Slowly I just
began to realize,

okay, he cheated on her
every day.

If he is this addicted,

yes, he did.

He did it.
He had sex with a student.

[dark music]

♪♪ ♪♪

- I would go online and look up
every police report...

Anything that they posted
that was public record,

because I wanted
to know the truth.

I found out that he had been
sexually assaulting

the student for two years.

The grooming started
when she was 15.

The sex might have started
when she was 16.

ANDREA: The age of consent
in Georgia is 16,

but the way that it works
in Georgia

is that it is ill*gal
for a teacher

to have any sexual relationship
with a student,

no matter what age--
even if you're 18.

So Spencer was not arrested
for statutory r*pe.

He was arrested for sexually
assaulting a student.

Spencer was in jail,

between the arrest
and the court date,

about six months.

JENIFER: He couldn't afford
a defense attorney,

so he had a public defender.

And he did not like that
one bit.

♪♪ ♪♪

FLYNN BROADY JR:
Normally what will happen is,

based on the case,
based on their history,

we'll make
a plea recommendation

to the defense attorney.

And then the defense attorney
takes that to the defendant

and then makes the decision

whether they want to go
to trial.

- And so he pled guilty.

♪♪ ♪♪

WIGINGTON: And I think
that people just were shocked

in that moment.

There were still people

who just didn't believe
that he did it

and thought he was just
kind of taking an easy way out.

And they were like,
well, why did he do that?

♪♪ ♪♪

- In Cobb County, they found
evidence for five events

where they actually had
sexual contact.

He would probably
be easily found guilty

based on, um, the evidence
that came forward in the case.

♪♪ ♪♪

- In court,
Spencer made the request

to talk
to the victim's parents.

JENIFER: Maybe he thought,
I bet I can convince them

that I'm too good of a guy
to--to go to prison.

They said, we don't want to
hear anything you have to say.

And...

good for them,

because I really believe
that Spence thinks

that he can talk himself
out of things.

[dark music]

Spence had sent out
this letter

to all of our friends
and family,

asking for people
to write references for him.

A couple of his friends wrote
letters of support.

"He's such a great guy.

"He's the Eagle Scout,

dad, Air Force,
Teacher of the Year."

I couldn't do it.

How do you write a letter
about someone

and say that they're
a good person

if you know that they...

sexually assaulted

a 16-year-old girl
at 48, 49 years old?

♪♪ ♪♪

NEWSCASTER: In Cobb County,
Spencer Herron,

the former
Teacher of the Year,

is headed to prison
for having sex with a student.

SINGER: ♪♪ I'm praying
for an angel to come ♪♪

♪♪ I'm waiting
for a star to fall ♪♪

♪♪ Standing at the edge
of the shore ♪♪

♪♪ Oh, yeah ♪♪

♪♪ Waiting for the rain
to fall ♪♪

- Spence was sentenced
in January of 2019.

SINGER:
♪♪ You know the damage is done ♪♪

♪♪ ♪♪

- He was sentenced to 20 years,


and then 15 on probation.

- I stayed in touch with him
until the day he was convicted.

SINGER: ♪♪ Through the dark,
I see your eyes ♪♪

♪♪ Calling me
into the half-light ♪♪

♪♪ All I can see is an outline ♪♪

JENIFER: That same day,
our divorce was finalized.

SINGER: ♪♪ I lay it to rest
for the last time ♪♪

♪♪ You know the damage is done ♪♪

- There is a distinction
between what he did

with Jenifer and breaking
that marriage vow...

and making
a conscious decision

to engage in that behavior
with a student.

♪♪ ♪♪

As 16-year-old kids,

we don't know what the f*ck's
going on with the world.

And we don't know what's even
going on in our heads.

There's so many things
that are just happening

that we just don't understand.

- Go and have as many affairs

with as many women as you want.

But why would you prey
on a child?

♪♪ ♪♪

[music ends]