Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / 'Black Widow' murders husband, then targets, kills her 'lookalike' to assume her identity! Nabbed at high-end resort scoping 3d victim? PLUS: Country music, TLC reality star child sex abuse charges

Transcript

'Black Widow' murders husband, then targets, kills her 'lookalike' to assume her identity! Nabbed at high-end resort scoping 3d victim? PLUS: Country music, TLC reality star child sex abuse charges · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:00
Speaker 1: A high school girl straight A's a hockey star across Star,
0:06
Speaker 1: is found brutally murdered and buried in a shallow grave
0:11
Speaker 1: at a local park, Lincoln Park. Her boyfriend is soon
0:16
Speaker 1: identified and he's convicted of the murder. But now after
0:22
Speaker 1: a high profile podcast called Cereal insists that he's innocent,
0:28
Speaker 1: is he getting a new trial and set to walk?
0:31
Speaker 1: To add insult to injury the victim, Little hay hay
0:37
Speaker 1: Lee's family cannot speak English. They and she have no voice.
0:43
Speaker 1: Well you know what they're getting one, They're getting a voice,
0:48
Speaker 1: Lady Justice, are you listening? A and E Thursday night,
0:52
Speaker 1: eleven pm. We want justice for hay Lee and that
0:57
Speaker 1: means to many court watchers that her killer, add Non
1:01
Speaker 1: Sayed stays behind bars. Thursday night, eleven PM. A and
1:07
Speaker 1: E Grace versus Abrams. Please join us Crime Stories with
1:18
Speaker 1: Nancy Grace On Sirius X seven Triumph one two. A
1:25
Speaker 1: man ends up dead on his farm. No one knows
1:30
Speaker 1: for about two weeks because he doesn't show up to
1:32
Speaker 1: his job what happened. He's shot multiple times and guess
1:36
Speaker 1: what's missing? Over eleven thousand dollars from his checking account
1:41
Speaker 1: and his wife Lois Reese, a platinum blonde who then
1:47
Speaker 1: turns up a at a casino having a good old time.
1:52
Speaker 1: And then in Florida and Fort Myers, she spotted on
1:56
Speaker 1: closed circuit TV surveillance video at Smoking Oyster Brewery chatting
2:01
Speaker 1: up another woman at the bar. And again she's having
2:06
Speaker 1: a great time. They're drinking, they're talking, they're laughing. She's
2:10
Speaker 1: really holding court at this bar, Smoking Oyster Brewery. It
2:15
Speaker 1: just sounds like a good time, right. Well, that woman
2:18
Speaker 1: Pam hutcheson. Guess what she bears an amazing similarity a
2:24
Speaker 1: semblance to Lois, whose husband happens to end up dead
2:29
Speaker 1: on a worm farm and lo and behold. Just hours later,
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Speaker 1: Pam ends up dead too, missing her car and all
2:39
Speaker 1: of her identity. That's right, Lois Reese on the run,
2:44
Speaker 1: assuming her doppel ganger's identity. I Nancy Grace, this is
2:48
Speaker 1: Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. I'm gonna
2:50
Speaker 1: go first to John Limley, John Crime Stories investigative reporter,
2:56
Speaker 1: start at the beginning and give me a capsulization and
3:00
Speaker 1: of Lois Reese's rampage. Nancy. It was a month ago
3:06
Speaker 1: that David Reese's business partner called authorities to ask them
3:11
Speaker 1: to check on him. The partners said no one at
3:15
Speaker 1: work had seen David Reese in more than two weeks,
3:19
Speaker 1: and after an exhaustive search at his home, they then
3:23
Speaker 1: went to his farm and that is where they discover
3:27
Speaker 1: David Reese's body, and he had been shot multiple times
3:32
Speaker 1: and they weren't able to determine how long he had
3:36
Speaker 1: been dead over that past two weeks, and another person
3:40
Speaker 1: was missing. They could not find his wife, Lois Now.
3:45
Speaker 1: They very quickly learned that Lois may have been at
3:49
Speaker 1: a casino in Iowa, but she wasn't there when they
3:53
Speaker 1: went looking for now. From there, she was believed to
3:56
Speaker 1: have made a beeline for Florida. That where investigators alleged
4:01
Speaker 1: that she killed fifty nine year old Pamela Hutchinson of Bradenton, Florida,
4:07
Speaker 1: who was in town actually to be with a friend
4:10
Speaker 1: who had just lost her husband and they were going
4:12
Speaker 1: to spread his ashes in the water there in Fort Myers, Florida.
4:19
Speaker 1: Pam was really only planning on staying in Fort Myers
4:22
Speaker 1: a couple of days, and presumably towards the end of
4:25
Speaker 1: her trip, she stopped by to grab a bite at
4:28
Speaker 1: smoking Oyster brewery just a couple of blocks from her condo,
4:33
Speaker 1: and it's there that she meets and strikes up a
4:36
Speaker 1: conversation with a visitor in the city, a woman that
4:39
Speaker 1: we now know was Lois Reese. It's around the same
4:43
Speaker 1: time that Pam's family and friends noticed something rather odd.
4:48
Speaker 1: Pam is really big on posting on Facebook, and those
4:53
Speaker 1: Facebook posts come to an abrupt halt. How do we
4:56
Speaker 1: know joining me Alexis to restart from writer online? Come?
5:01
Speaker 1: How do we know that it was Lois Reese that
5:05
Speaker 1: found her doppelganger and assumed Pam Hutchinson's identity after killing her.
5:09
Speaker 1: How do we know she ever made it to Pam
5:11
Speaker 1: Hutchinson's condo. Well, the police have evidence that she was there.
5:14
Speaker 1: She stole Pam's credit cards, her bank account information, and
5:19
Speaker 1: even her I D and leaves her condo and goes out,
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Speaker 1: goes to the bank and gets five thousand dollars out
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Speaker 1: from the bank cash by using her Pamela's I D.
5:30
Speaker 1: I guess they the teller didn't even notice that they
5:33
Speaker 1: weren't They weren't the same person. So she's caught on
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Speaker 1: camera there, they see her, they've got her, and then
5:38
Speaker 1: she goes on a nationwide what what's the word spending spree?
5:45
Speaker 1: I guess so because she's got all this money from
5:47
Speaker 1: her dead victims. To John Limley. There's also closed circuit
5:51
Speaker 1: video I think relating to the condo. Yes, Uh, this
5:55
Speaker 1: is before she gets to the condo. It's thanks to
5:58
Speaker 1: surveillance video there at the Staunt that we know how
6:01
Speaker 1: and when the paths of Lois Reefs and Pam Hudgetson
6:05
Speaker 1: first crossed. We see them seated at the bar chatting,
6:09
Speaker 1: having a great time. Lois was on the run and
6:12
Speaker 1: she saw her chance to gain more time and gain
6:16
Speaker 1: a possible cover. Lois realized that she and this woman
6:19
Speaker 1: at the bar, Pam Hutchinson, looked a lot alike. Her
6:23
Speaker 1: plan was to assume this woman's identity. So Lois quickly
6:27
Speaker 1: befriends Pam, and somehow, we're not exactly sure how, finnagles
6:32
Speaker 1: her way into Pam's condo. Two days later, after a
6:37
Speaker 1: man staying in the room above where Pam was staying
6:41
Speaker 1: started smelling a strange odor. That's when he contacted the
6:45
Speaker 1: management of the condo building. Uh. They opened up Pam's
6:49
Speaker 1: condo and discovered her body is there. She's been shot,
6:54
Speaker 1: She's covered in blood and covered with a pile of towels.
6:58
Speaker 1: You know, that's that's very odd. Dr Bethany Marshall l
7:01
Speaker 1: a psycho analyst joining US. I found this is just anecdotal,
7:05
Speaker 1: it's not a statistical study. Dr Bethany, that so often
7:08
Speaker 1: killers will take the time to cover up the face
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Speaker 1: of the victim. I know in one case, a girl
7:15
Speaker 1: murders her mother and puts a trash basket, a wicker
7:18
Speaker 1: basket over her head. I had cases where people were
7:22
Speaker 1: murdered in the out, in the open, and they will
7:25
Speaker 1: put leaves over the body. In this case, she put
7:27
Speaker 1: towels over it. There's also surveillance video guys of her
7:32
Speaker 1: at the condo. That's how we know she was at
7:35
Speaker 1: the condo. Surveillance video she's walking out of the condo
7:39
Speaker 1: with a plastic bag. Not only that, when she turns
7:42
Speaker 1: up at a five star resort shortly after she spotted
7:47
Speaker 1: walking across the lobby wearing Pam Hutchison's straw hat, she
7:51
Speaker 1: is actually sporting her murder victims hat. So Dr Bethany,
7:57
Speaker 1: two things in a nutshell, why cover up your dead
8:00
Speaker 1: victim face? And second, does this woman note no shame,
8:06
Speaker 1: she's even wearing the dead lady's hat. It's it's it's
8:10
Speaker 1: so perverse, you know. I often think, um, you can
8:13
Speaker 1: tell how premeditated a murder is by how well the
8:17
Speaker 1: body is covered up, and whether or not the perpetrator
8:20
Speaker 1: has prepared a dump site and a place to secrete
8:24
Speaker 1: the body. And in this case, it seems as hasty
8:28
Speaker 1: as I don't know, shoplifting a target like she finds
8:31
Speaker 1: a woman who looks like her, follows her to the condo,
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Speaker 1: shoots her. I think maybe covers her up with towels too,
8:38
Speaker 1: because she doesn't want too much blood to go all
8:41
Speaker 1: over the places, and she also doesn't want to have
8:43
Speaker 1: to see what she's done. I think, right there, right there,
8:47
Speaker 1: Dr Bethany, I don't think they give a fig about
8:49
Speaker 1: the blood. When you shoot somebody multiple times, you know
8:52
Speaker 1: there's gonna be blood. There's something about covering up their face.
8:55
Speaker 1: Dor Bethany Marshall. Sometimes I think they don't want to
8:59
Speaker 1: see the victim looking back at them. I thought a
9:01
Speaker 1: lot about this because it seems that no matter what
9:04
Speaker 1: the m O is, that the perpetrator does tend to
9:08
Speaker 1: cover up the victim's face, And sometimes I think, do
9:11
Speaker 1: they just not want to see the deceased? Do they
9:14
Speaker 1: not want to see their own handiwork? Maybe they just
9:16
Speaker 1: want to deny themselves all the destruction that they've created.
9:21
Speaker 1: You know, it goes back further even than the murder
9:23
Speaker 1: of the husband. Jason Ocean's defense attorney joining me out
9:27
Speaker 1: of the New York area. Jason, We've looked into some
9:30
Speaker 1: court records and they show that Lois Reese was kicked
9:34
Speaker 1: out as guardian for her disabled sister because every report
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Speaker 1: Lois had been transferring Lois Reese transferring funds from one
9:44
Speaker 1: account to her own account and then withdrawing the funds
9:50
Speaker 1: where else, Jason, because they know. So we got a
9:54
Speaker 1: gambling problem and the means to solve it is to
9:58
Speaker 1: steal moneys deal and then commit and then commit murder.
10:02
Speaker 1: Perfect plan. And that was in two thousand five. We
10:07
Speaker 1: got a hold of an affidavit that said thousands had
10:09
Speaker 1: been spent somewhere called Diamond Joe Casino in Iowa, not
10:14
Speaker 1: too far from her Blooming Prairie home. She was never
10:18
Speaker 1: charged with a crime, but she was ordered to pay
10:20
Speaker 1: back over a hundred thousand dollars. She was probably charged
10:25
Speaker 1: with something, and that was the plea arrangement to come
10:27
Speaker 1: up with restitutions. So, uh, you know, birds of a feather,
10:31
Speaker 1: I mean she she had to premeditate it, as Dr
10:34
Speaker 1: Bethany said, and it's just well fought out. And she
10:36
Speaker 1: has an m O in her background. Jason, birds of
10:39
Speaker 1: a feather flot together does not apply to this because
10:43
Speaker 1: she's not flocking with anybody. I think the proper one
10:46
Speaker 1: would be when you don't know a horse, look at
10:48
Speaker 1: his track record, because she's got a long track record.
10:50
Speaker 1: Different unless you know of another bird flocking with her.
10:54
Speaker 1: I hope you're ashamed. I am. Thank you for correcting me. Okay, good, good,
10:58
Speaker 1: good to know good. Jason, always so right. I have
11:00
Speaker 1: to use anything. I have to fight you. Okay. So
11:04
Speaker 1: Joe's got Morgan. Okay, Joseph's got Morgan. Help me out now.
11:11
Speaker 1: Because it's like there's no shame and no fear when
11:16
Speaker 1: you go into a casino. There are more surveillance video
11:20
Speaker 1: cameras than NASA, for Pete's sake, and she's killing and
11:24
Speaker 1: murdering and stealing and then going to casinos and tromping around, flouncing, flouncing.
11:32
Speaker 1: Let me pull that out of the drawer, flouncing, as
11:35
Speaker 1: my grandmother used to say, across the lobbies of five
11:39
Speaker 1: star resorts and casinos, wearing the dead victims hat Joe Scott. Yeah,
11:46
Speaker 1: isn't that? Isn't that kind of bizarre. We're talking about
11:48
Speaker 1: face covering for a moment where in my experience, they
11:52
Speaker 1: have this this period of time where they don't want
11:55
Speaker 1: to look at the face because they're kind of ashamed
11:58
Speaker 1: of what they've done. But yet she goes and puts
12:00
Speaker 1: on this woman's hat and goes to one of the
12:02
Speaker 1: most public locations she possibly could, which she can be
12:05
Speaker 1: observed from multiple points, and walks around as this person.
12:09
Speaker 1: It's very bizarre, and also she it's almost like she's
12:13
Speaker 1: she's jacked up in a sense that she's on a
12:16
Speaker 1: rush or something. She's got all this money, she's traveling
12:19
Speaker 1: across the country under an assumed identity, and she's blowing it.
12:23
Speaker 1: She's blowing it every It's like she has nothing else
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Speaker 1: to live for, and it's it's it's scary. It's scary
12:30
Speaker 1: in the in the fact that thank God that no
12:33
Speaker 1: one else has gotten into her path who she could
12:36
Speaker 1: destroy their lives. A woman who investigators believe murder her
12:41
Speaker 1: husband in Minnesota, then goes to Florida, where she uses
12:46
Speaker 1: the very same gun, according to the AMMO comparison, to
12:50
Speaker 1: slay her doppel ganger, her look alike to assume her identity.
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Speaker 1: Pam Hutchison has been captured where else? At a South
13:01
Speaker 1: Texas resort to John Lemley Crime Stories investigative reporter tell me,
13:07
Speaker 1: how was Lois Reese finally captured? Where is she now? Well?
13:10
Speaker 1: The man who actually recognized Lois Reese, who was wanted
13:15
Speaker 1: for these murders of her husband and the woman that
13:17
Speaker 1: she resembled. I told authorities that it was her hair
13:21
Speaker 1: that gave her away. She was spotted sipping a drink
13:26
Speaker 1: at the bar inside the Sea Ranch restaurant in South
13:30
Speaker 1: Padre Island, Texas. From all accounts, it appears she was
13:34
Speaker 1: cool as a cucumber until the marshals arrived to take
13:38
Speaker 1: her into custody. Um The restaurant's manager, Becky Galvin, told
13:43
Speaker 1: the Washington Press that they had received a call from
13:47
Speaker 1: another restaurant before that that she had been spotted. They
13:52
Speaker 1: authorities just missed her there, but they were able to
13:56
Speaker 1: catch up with her realized she was on her way
13:59
Speaker 1: into this restaurant and alerted the restaurant staff that she
14:03
Speaker 1: was coming in. Well, this is what we know. We
14:06
Speaker 1: know that she was only twenty seven miles from the
14:09
Speaker 1: Mexican border, Alexis. While there is a lot, a lot
14:14
Speaker 1: you have to go through to go from come from
14:17
Speaker 1: Mexico into the US, to go from the US into Mexico,
14:21
Speaker 1: people just fly right across the border twenty seven miles
14:24
Speaker 1: from the Mexican border, Alexis. Absolutely, it's fairly easy to
14:29
Speaker 1: get into Mexico. I've been in the car asleep one
14:31
Speaker 1: time when we drove through, So she could have done
14:34
Speaker 1: it very easily. And she had thousands of dollars. She
14:36
Speaker 1: actually she stole eleven thousand dollars from her husband. I
14:41
Speaker 1: don't know if that's stealing, but I'm gonna call it stealing.
14:43
Speaker 1: And then she had another five thousand dollars from Camela,
14:46
Speaker 1: so she was flushed with cash. She could have easily
14:48
Speaker 1: made over word. But she was so brazen in these restaurants,
14:53
Speaker 1: just eating out in public, not even like drive through
14:55
Speaker 1: fast food, where there maybe would have been less cameras,
14:58
Speaker 1: but she just was not afraid to be out in public. Well,
15:01
Speaker 1: you know what's freaky cash. This, uh, tell me where
15:05
Speaker 1: you think this is headed. Dr Bethany Marshall, I'm looking
15:08
Speaker 1: at the video right now of when Lois Reese is
15:11
Speaker 1: arrested by fugitive magistrates. The video shows her walking into
15:16
Speaker 1: the restaurant and taking a seat at the edge of
15:18
Speaker 1: the bar where she always does. She orders a glass
15:22
Speaker 1: of wine and an entree, and she eats for over
15:27
Speaker 1: an hour, befriending another woman at the bar in the process.
15:35
Speaker 1: You know what that was, how that was going to end, right, Bethany, Absolutely,
15:39
Speaker 1: this is her offending pattern. Right. She finds someone who
15:42
Speaker 1: looks just like her, kills that person, assumes their identity,
15:46
Speaker 1: steals their money, and then runs out of cash. Then
15:50
Speaker 1: she has to find a new victim. Nancy. I read
15:53
Speaker 1: one report where apparently she and her husband had some
15:57
Speaker 1: couple of friends and the wife of the couple was
16:00
Speaker 1: in the garage and looked up and there was Lois
16:03
Speaker 1: Reese writing down the address numbers to that couple's house.
16:09
Speaker 1: And I don't know if you read that report, and
16:11
Speaker 1: that that she felt very freaked out. She had heard
16:14
Speaker 1: that that Lois was on the lamb, and she became
16:18
Speaker 1: afraid that that perhaps she was going to be Lois's
16:21
Speaker 1: next victim. Sounds like Lois hung around their neighborhood for
16:24
Speaker 1: about a week before moving on to another bar. Uh
16:27
Speaker 1: and like serial killers do, looking for another victim. She
16:31
Speaker 1: was befriending another woman at the bar, Alexis Tourez Chuck,
16:36
Speaker 1: just like she did Pam Hutchinson before she gets access
16:41
Speaker 1: to her condo and murders her to steal her identity.
16:44
Speaker 1: I guarantee you she was there to kill the woman,
16:47
Speaker 1: get her identity, and cross over to the Mexican border.
16:50
Speaker 1: I'd be very interested to find out what that woman
16:53
Speaker 1: looked like exactly. This is exactly what she does, and
16:56
Speaker 1: that's why she It's so strange that she didn't change
16:59
Speaker 1: her hair her because the platinum white blonde is so noticeable.
17:04
Speaker 1: If she'd gone brown, she probably could have found a
17:06
Speaker 1: lot more people that looked just like her that could
17:08
Speaker 1: have been her victims. Luckily, these guys, these barteners, were
17:11
Speaker 1: so smart and they noticed this. I don't know that
17:14
Speaker 1: I ever noticed anybody sitting next to me in a restaurant,
17:16
Speaker 1: so I really give them a lot of thanks for
17:19
Speaker 1: catching this lady. Well, we also know this to John Limley.
17:23
Speaker 1: Crime Stories investigative reporter. It never ends with this woman.
17:25
Speaker 1: When police searched her hotel room, they find a twenty
17:28
Speaker 1: two and a nine both in her room. What about
17:32
Speaker 1: that it was not over yet for her. She had
17:35
Speaker 1: a lot of plans of murder and embezzling and stealing
17:38
Speaker 1: money ahead. Absolutely, And when they were able to get
17:43
Speaker 1: into Pam Hutchinson's room, discovered that a lot of the
17:49
Speaker 1: items that Lois had with her when she was found
17:52
Speaker 1: intent that woman's credit I d s uh. That's and
17:57
Speaker 1: her vehicle as well. She swapped vehicles. They're in Fort
18:01
Speaker 1: Myers before she started the dred mile trip that as
18:07
Speaker 1: of last Friday had her in uh, had her in
18:11
Speaker 1: Texas very close to the border, then making the jump
18:16
Speaker 1: to the island, and she was staying there in South
18:20
Speaker 1: Padre Island in a fifty nine dollar a night roof
18:24
Speaker 1: at Mostel six. Yeah, she left the fancy resort and
18:27
Speaker 1: was scoping out her next victim. Take a listen to this.
18:31
Speaker 1: The detectives from both here and the other two states
18:36
Speaker 1: are still collecting and comprising all the evidence and it
18:42
Speaker 1: looks like she'll be transferred to County for a short
18:46
Speaker 1: stint and as soon as the extradition takes place, it
18:50
Speaker 1: looks like it looks like it's she's going to be
18:52
Speaker 1: going to Florida first, and they're also trying to move
18:56
Speaker 1: some of the evidence, like the car, towards Florida. We
18:58
Speaker 1: also know when she goes into a court, she's wearing
19:02
Speaker 1: hot pants. Okay, I mean this woman, I mean this woman,
19:07
Speaker 1: Lois Race has just been apprehended after her murder and um,
19:12
Speaker 1: let me just say pilfering spree. She would find a victim,
19:16
Speaker 1: still all their money, kill them and assume their identity.
19:19
Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, take a listen to her
19:21
Speaker 1: at Come and Go gas station in Iowa. This is
19:25
Speaker 1: the day her husband's body was found. But she had
19:27
Speaker 1: something else on her mind. All right, anyway, if you
19:41
Speaker 1: want start heading stout, would you take so just to
19:46
Speaker 1: keep going on down to the next day? Is that
19:52
Speaker 1: the way to go here? That golden I'm gonna go
19:59
Speaker 1: down there all like that. I mean, she really just
20:05
Speaker 1: caught Morgan. Like so many other killers we've dealt with,
20:08
Speaker 1: she really knows how to put on a facade. Okay,
20:11
Speaker 1: thank you, And I'm sure she's sashayed right out of
20:14
Speaker 1: those hot pants straight to her car. I mean really, yeah,
20:18
Speaker 1: that's what's scary for people out in the general public.
20:20
Speaker 1: I think that that a lot of the people out
20:22
Speaker 1: there think that these people are just gonna be monsters,
20:25
Speaker 1: they're gonna have things, and that they're you know, with
20:28
Speaker 1: blood dripping from the tips of their fingers, And that's
20:30
Speaker 1: not it. This one's very disarming. You listen to the
20:33
Speaker 1: way she's having this conversation with gentlemen that station there,
20:37
Speaker 1: just calmly getting directions, just like any of us would know, Hey,
20:40
Speaker 1: what's the best route to take? And she even thanks
20:43
Speaker 1: him as she's walking out the door. This lady does
20:46
Speaker 1: not come off as a monster. No, not at all.
20:49
Speaker 1: Well take a listen, guys, you're safe from what was
20:52
Speaker 1: Reese for now. Anyway, I wouldn't put her in a
20:56
Speaker 1: transport van to save my next she'll charm the driver,
21:00
Speaker 1: split his throat, and drives straight to the slot machines
21:03
Speaker 1: if she gets the chance. Take a listen to Lee County,
21:05
Speaker 1: Florida undershareff Carmine Marcino. This case from the very beginning
21:10
Speaker 1: struck me as odd. We look at her appearance. She
21:16
Speaker 1: looks like anybody's mother or grandmother, yet she's an absolute
21:19
Speaker 1: cold blood and murderer. So today is a huge win.
21:22
Speaker 1: She can't strike again. That was our main concern. We
21:26
Speaker 1: bring a killer off the streets, very very important our detectives.
21:31
Speaker 1: Right now we're working as we speak because everything is
21:33
Speaker 1: so fresh and new, but we want her back here
21:35
Speaker 1: in Fort Myers. Will she be taken to Minnesota or
21:39
Speaker 1: here first? Again? Right now, everything's fresh and new. Our
21:43
Speaker 1: detectives are on the ground right now working to see
21:45
Speaker 1: exactly where she's gonna be. So there is a legal process,
21:48
Speaker 1: so it's just take a little bit of time. But
21:50
Speaker 1: again we want to hear in Fort Myers to face
21:51
Speaker 1: the charges she has. But when we see her mug
21:54
Speaker 1: shot that was most recently taken, I asked the both
21:56
Speaker 1: of you. Sometimes when people run, they try to alter
21:59
Speaker 1: their appear her it's changed their hair color, do something.
22:02
Speaker 1: None of that here absolutely, as you can see in
22:06
Speaker 1: our video surveillance when she befriends Pam Hutchinson, our victim. Unfortunately,
22:11
Speaker 1: she's smiling. So what does that tell you about her? Okay,
22:14
Speaker 1: she's not she's running, but guess what, she's not changing
22:17
Speaker 1: her appearance. She's living life. One day signing the victims
22:20
Speaker 1: credit card in her name, the next her own. So
22:24
Speaker 1: this is a stone cold killer. They climbed to the
22:27
Speaker 1: top of the country music charts. I'm talking about the
22:32
Speaker 1: Willis Clan. There were twelve Willis Clan siblings and to
22:38
Speaker 1: look at them, it was picture perfect. Consider the country
22:43
Speaker 1: music answer to the von Trapp family from the sound
22:46
Speaker 1: of music. There were also a real family. They seemingly
22:51
Speaker 1: had it all, beautiful home, wonderful career, hit country music
22:58
Speaker 1: over and over and over. But one of the daughters
23:03
Speaker 1: now rights the truth of what I was living every
23:06
Speaker 1: day was nothing like what people saw on the outside.
23:12
Speaker 1: What we are learning now The Willis Clan sister Jessica
23:16
Speaker 1: now describing how she says her father began molesting her
23:21
Speaker 1: when she was just three years old, and explained what
23:27
Speaker 1: finally drives her to escape the family. The Willis Family
23:33
Speaker 1: with their own reality show on TLC, a thriving business
23:38
Speaker 1: in the country music world. But it wasn't worth it.
23:43
Speaker 1: I Meancy Grace, this is crime Stories. Thank you for
23:46
Speaker 1: being with us. Take a listen to this. I didn't
23:48
Speaker 1: speak up is because it was like this is so
23:52
Speaker 1: insane and crazy, Like, who's gonna believe me? How are
23:56
Speaker 1: people going to deal with this. What helped me back
23:59
Speaker 1: from Kim. I mean, all for the years and growing
24:02
Speaker 1: up was the unknown. I didn't know what was going
24:05
Speaker 1: to happen, and everything that I could have had as
24:09
Speaker 1: a kid could have been taken away instantly. I had
24:12
Speaker 1: no idea what was gonna happen. I didn't know if
24:15
Speaker 1: I was going to have my mom and my siblings
24:17
Speaker 1: there for me. I think held a black box in
24:20
Speaker 1: our hearts of memories, regrets, um fears, and we hit
24:30
Speaker 1: them pretty deep. That are some of the Willis family
24:32
Speaker 1: siblings speaking out exclusively to Daily Mail dot com Straight
24:37
Speaker 1: out to Heavy dot COM's reporter Jennifer Zikowski, Jennifer, thank
24:42
Speaker 1: you so much for being with us. I'm a huge
24:45
Speaker 1: country music fan. In fact, highlight for me was when
24:49
Speaker 1: I took my mom and dad to the Grand Old Opery,
24:52
Speaker 1: and in planning to take my children back to the
24:54
Speaker 1: Grand Old Opery in May. I mean, that's just one
24:57
Speaker 1: of those incredible thing you just don't want to miss
25:01
Speaker 1: in a lifetime. Right. It's hard to take in because
25:04
Speaker 1: we've been seeing the Willis Family and their reality show
25:09
Speaker 1: on TLC for such a long time. They've had one
25:12
Speaker 1: hit after the next, with their band, the Willis Clan.
25:16
Speaker 1: But according to Jessica, it's all a big and horrible lie.
25:21
Speaker 1: That is true. That's exactly what Jessica Willis Fisher laid
25:26
Speaker 1: out in her recent blog um. Jessica was the lead
25:29
Speaker 1: singer in the Willis Clan, and she opened up in
25:34
Speaker 1: her blog post about the abuse, both sexual abuse and
25:38
Speaker 1: physical abuse that she endured for over twenty years at
25:43
Speaker 1: the hands of her father. Told me Willis, what does
25:45
Speaker 1: she say? In her blog with me heavy dot Com
25:47
Speaker 1: reporter Jennifer Skowski. Okay, so, Jessica said her father, who
25:52
Speaker 1: was really the patriarch of the family, he controlled every
25:55
Speaker 1: aspect of of her life. For her and her twelveth sibilly,
26:00
Speaker 1: She said there was a constant current of manipulation, domination, fear,
26:05
Speaker 1: in favor. Toby Willis was so manipulated and quite honestly,
26:10
Speaker 1: it seemed to be a master of brainwashing because he
26:13
Speaker 1: got all of his victims, his own flesh and blood daughters,
26:17
Speaker 1: to believe that they individually were the only victim. Jessica
26:22
Speaker 1: said she believed her father began sexually abusing her at
26:25
Speaker 1: a round age three years old, just three years old,
26:30
Speaker 1: and she added that the horrifying acts began as far
26:34
Speaker 1: back as she could remember. In her own words, Nancy
26:38
Speaker 1: Jessica said, the abuse developed an abbs at various intervals
26:43
Speaker 1: over the years and into puberty. The most graphic sexual
26:47
Speaker 1: abuse faded off for me when I was around seventeen
26:51
Speaker 1: years old, but many inappropriate actions and attentions continued. Now
26:56
Speaker 1: what exactly those actions and attentions are we don't um.
27:02
Speaker 1: So Koby willis he? She goes on to say that
27:06
Speaker 1: he was physically abusive. According to Jessica, this monster of
27:11
Speaker 1: a father had forbidden her to to your boyfriend who
27:15
Speaker 1: is now her husband, and that boyfriend had figured out
27:19
Speaker 1: that something wasn't right. You know, I'm interested in something else, Jennifer,
27:23
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna get you to pick up where you're
27:25
Speaker 1: leaving off. But I want to ask you a quick
27:26
Speaker 1: question with me from Heavy dot com reporter investigative reporter
27:30
Speaker 1: Jennifer Sikowski, and we are talking about the highly popular
27:34
Speaker 1: Willis Clan country music band, also the subject of the
27:40
Speaker 1: TLC reality showed the Willis family a big hit for TLC.
27:45
Speaker 1: I want to think about the mother for a moment.
27:47
Speaker 1: The mother in this scenario, so if the abuse started
27:51
Speaker 1: happening when the little when the child was three years old.
27:55
Speaker 1: With Jessica is just three years old. Just let that
27:59
Speaker 1: sink him for a moment, and then it started waning
28:03
Speaker 1: when she was seventeen. Sexually anyway, that's fourteen years. The
28:09
Speaker 1: mom didn't know what was going on. She states that
28:14
Speaker 1: she became aware she Jessica that what was happening to
28:18
Speaker 1: her was not appropriate when she was about nine years
28:21
Speaker 1: old and her mother got suspicious. Um around nine years old,
28:27
Speaker 1: she writes, quote something, I'm still not sure what caused
28:31
Speaker 1: my mother to become suspicious of my father's interactions. I
28:35
Speaker 1: didn't realize there was zero evidence of anything specific, and
28:39
Speaker 1: all I did was nod when a few general questions
28:42
Speaker 1: were asked by my mother. I heard my mother raised
28:45
Speaker 1: her voice to my father for the first time in
28:48
Speaker 1: my life, and I thought the adults would figure it out.
28:52
Speaker 1: I didn't understand. My father simply denied wrongdoing and became
28:56
Speaker 1: more secretive and dangerous from then on. So the mother
29:02
Speaker 1: suspected but apparently did nothing. For let's see, that would
29:09
Speaker 1: mean the next eight years. As Jessica as he gets older,
29:13
Speaker 1: she began suspecting her father is abusing her sisters, but
29:18
Speaker 1: none would ever come out and say that. So to
29:22
Speaker 1: Troy Slayton, defense attorney joining me right now, were what
29:26
Speaker 1: position does that leave the mom in? I mean, the
29:28
Speaker 1: mom is not abusing her, but the mom suspects, according
29:32
Speaker 1: to Jessica, that she as a little child, as being
29:36
Speaker 1: sex abused by her country music star dad and does nothing.
29:41
Speaker 1: Is that okay? Troy? It's certainly not okay, and it
29:44
Speaker 1: places her in not only uh criminal jeopardy, but civil
29:49
Speaker 1: jeopardy as well. A parent is in a special relationship
29:54
Speaker 1: with a child, like a doctor and a patient, or
29:57
Speaker 1: a teacher and a student. If one of those people
30:01
Speaker 1: who you are duty bound by law to protect, if
30:05
Speaker 1: you fail to protect and report that person, then you're
30:11
Speaker 1: guilty of a crime. Well, here's the other issue. To
30:14
Speaker 1: Ashley Willcott, juvenile judge and founder of child crime watch
30:18
Speaker 1: dot com, Ashley, the mother did not abuse her from
30:23
Speaker 1: what we know, neither beating nor sex abusing. Okay, But
30:28
Speaker 1: we do know according to the victim. The alleged victim, Jessica,
30:33
Speaker 1: that her mother became suspicious after six years of sex
30:36
Speaker 1: abuse by her dad, starts asking questions, has a fight
30:40
Speaker 1: with the dad, about it, but the dad stays in
30:43
Speaker 1: the home. I mean, how can the I mean the
30:46
Speaker 1: mom their country music stars, they're pictured on the stage.
30:52
Speaker 1: How can the mom be afraid to speak out? Take
30:54
Speaker 1: a listen to America's Got Talent where the Willis Clan
31:01
Speaker 1: We're big hits. Listen the rain drops on goes and
31:05
Speaker 1: he says, because on kittens, round at the food, all
31:12
Speaker 1: round papers back, got is tied up the strings? These
31:16
Speaker 1: are a few are my favorite dadaaaa be my favorite things,
31:28
Speaker 1: singers and dressing, sensashions, no things a norrible wrong to
31:37
Speaker 1: my winter round? You are my favor When when the
31:48
Speaker 1: fees say, when a f said the worsening thender my
31:55
Speaker 1: favorite things? And yeah back to you? Actually will got
32:04
Speaker 1: What about the mom in this scenario? Listen, Nancy. All
32:06
Speaker 1: I can say is when I'm on the bench, I
32:08
Speaker 1: see this all the time. I don't understand it. But
32:12
Speaker 1: a parent, instead of protecting their own children, says nothing
32:16
Speaker 1: and sides with the abusive spouse father mother in the home.
32:21
Speaker 1: I don't get it. I don't know why, but this
32:24
Speaker 1: woman failed to protect the children. She could have had
32:27
Speaker 1: the children taken away from her, had anyone disclosed when
32:31
Speaker 1: they were younger, and in fact she can be criminally
32:33
Speaker 1: charged well. While on tour in the past a couple
32:39
Speaker 1: of years, she Jessica says she arrives in her hotel
32:42
Speaker 1: room to find her sisters and mother gathered and distraught
32:46
Speaker 1: after one of them had been molested. Quote. I came
32:50
Speaker 1: into my hotel room that night to find my mother
32:53
Speaker 1: and some of my sisters sitting on the big crying,
32:55
Speaker 1: with that look on their face I had seen so
32:58
Speaker 1: many times before. Quote, The coldest, blackest pit opened up
33:03
Speaker 1: in my stomach because no words needed to be said
33:06
Speaker 1: for me to know something had happened. How was I
33:09
Speaker 1: hear again? Things were not over. They had never been over.
33:14
Speaker 1: Sex abuse was still happening, and I knew it, She wrote.
33:20
Speaker 1: She confronted her father and threatened to leave, but carried
33:23
Speaker 1: on living with them, and the tour kept going on.
33:29
Speaker 1: They quote put on their show faces. Lauren Howard's psychologist,
33:33
Speaker 1: You know, as much as we want to trash the
33:36
Speaker 1: whole family that stood by and let this happen, many
33:40
Speaker 1: of some of them may have been sex abuse victims
33:44
Speaker 1: as well. How do these victims, these children carry on
33:48
Speaker 1: as if nothing's happening, Everything's fine, And what about the mom.
33:52
Speaker 1: This is a cult. It is the fact that they're
33:56
Speaker 1: genetically connected is irrelevant. This is a cult and they're
33:59
Speaker 1: being trolled by the leader of the cult, which is
34:02
Speaker 1: the father. To blame the mother for not taking care
34:06
Speaker 1: of her children is to not understand that she also
34:08
Speaker 1: is a victim of a deuce, whether it's physical or psychological.
34:13
Speaker 1: This is you have to understand that. This is It
34:16
Speaker 1: takes a village for good to prevail. It also takes
34:18
Speaker 1: a village for evil to prevail. This is people gathered
34:22
Speaker 1: together saving face shamed. The older sister, Jessica, has enormous guilt.
34:29
Speaker 1: She doesn't want to destroy her family, destroy her mother.
34:32
Speaker 1: She now is dealing with the fact that had she
34:34
Speaker 1: called it out earlier, if she could have perhaps prevented
34:37
Speaker 1: this from happening to her younger siblings. Believe it or not, Nancy,
34:41
Speaker 1: I have seen this in families way too often for
34:45
Speaker 1: my for my lifetime. And usually they're smaller families about
34:50
Speaker 1: you know, not that many families have twelve twelve kids,
34:53
Speaker 1: But I have seen it in the families before, and
34:55
Speaker 1: everybody ducks and covers and and that's what that is.
35:00
Speaker 1: Why it takes so long understand. Also with Jessica, when
35:03
Speaker 1: she was three years old and this began, she didn't
35:06
Speaker 1: understand that something was wrong. She was a three year
35:08
Speaker 1: old Daddy was playing with her. She didn't know what
35:11
Speaker 1: that all meant. It wasn't until she was nine that
35:13
Speaker 1: she started to realize this is actually not okay. Because
35:16
Speaker 1: they're homeschooled, they're very much contained, kept away from the
35:20
Speaker 1: rest of society. Their privileges are very controlled. Their entire
35:24
Speaker 1: being is controlled. So really the only positive thing they
35:28
Speaker 1: have in their life is their performance and their you know,
35:31
Speaker 1: their showmanship. So you can't bring the mother and you can't.
35:36
Speaker 1: You have to understand the other piece of it, which
35:38
Speaker 1: is the child has made to feel that they are
35:41
Speaker 1: really special, that daddy favors them, and this is what
35:46
Speaker 1: they know is lost. Well, you know, Ashley will caught
35:49
Speaker 1: with me, jeven, I'll judge also with me. Dr Carol Lieberman,
35:52
Speaker 1: forensic psychiatrists and author of a brand new book on
35:55
Speaker 1: Amazon Lions and Tigers and Terrorists of My How to
36:00
Speaker 1: Keep your Kids Safe. You know, Dr Carol, I hear, Lauren.
36:05
Speaker 1: But as far as your own safety, that's one thing.
36:09
Speaker 1: If you're afraid of the husband. But when multiple children
36:12
Speaker 1: of yours are being beaten and sex molested and you
36:16
Speaker 1: stand by and do nothing, I got a problem with that, Carol, Yes, absolutely,
36:20
Speaker 1: I really don't agree with that. Um. You know, it's
36:24
Speaker 1: it's interesting how Jessica tries to protect her family, her mother,
36:28
Speaker 1: her siblings. You know, she talks about her siblings in
36:31
Speaker 1: a very interesting way that like they were, they each
36:33
Speaker 1: came from different perspectives, they were all each different ages,
36:37
Speaker 1: so they couldn't really explain to each other what was
36:39
Speaker 1: going on. She tries to protect them all. But um,
36:43
Speaker 1: but really, I mean, if the mother suspected something, I mean,
36:46
Speaker 1: certainly she should have suspected before nine, before Jessica was nine.
36:49
Speaker 1: But given that she didn't until nine, Um, that is
36:53
Speaker 1: when she should have absolutely done something about it. And
36:57
Speaker 1: you know what hasn't been said yet is about you know, yes,
37:00
Speaker 1: the father, Jessica said, the father was very violent and
37:03
Speaker 1: the mother was you know, probably be threatened, the mother
37:07
Speaker 1: possibly with hurting the children if she told and so on.
37:10
Speaker 1: That's still no excuse. But there's also the issue of
37:13
Speaker 1: show business and fame. These people didn't want to wreck
37:17
Speaker 1: the app, you know, because they didn't want to get
37:20
Speaker 1: out of being famous. Take a listen to the Willis Clan.
37:25
Speaker 1: The first time I was able to tell my story
37:26
Speaker 1: was after one of my sisters told her story, and
37:29
Speaker 1: it was like, wow, oh my gosh, I'm not the
37:33
Speaker 1: only one. We are talking about a country music star
37:36
Speaker 1: in her own right. Her name is Jessica Willis. She's
37:41
Speaker 1: from the Willis Clan band and from the reality show
37:44
Speaker 1: on t l C, the Willis Family Show. I mean,
37:48
Speaker 1: did Jennifer Tzikowski with heavy dot com? What is it
37:51
Speaker 1: with TLC? First there was the Dugger family. What was
37:55
Speaker 1: that twenty one in counting or eighteen in county or
37:57
Speaker 1: someththing in counting, And there was abuse, alleged sex abuse
38:03
Speaker 1: in that family. It was one of the siblings, male
38:06
Speaker 1: siblings allegedly abusing the sisters. Okay, there's that one. And
38:12
Speaker 1: now this what's with that, Jennifer? It's absolutely crazy, absolutely
38:16
Speaker 1: ludicrous that both happened to be covered by TLC. And
38:21
Speaker 1: there are so many similarities between the Duggers and the
38:25
Speaker 1: Willis family, so obviously they were bolt very large families.
38:30
Speaker 1: The Duggers had nineteen children, the Willis's had twelve, um
38:35
Speaker 1: they all homeschooled their children, and both had the TLC
38:41
Speaker 1: shows and both were connected with sexual abuse. Um. They
38:46
Speaker 1: were also all the children with n were named with James,
38:50
Speaker 1: which is that was just another interesting part of it all, Um,
38:56
Speaker 1: the differences the Duggers seemed to forgiven for the most part.
39:02
Speaker 1: Josh Dougger, you know, saying that he was only fourteen
39:06
Speaker 1: and fifteen years old when he molested his sisters and
39:11
Speaker 1: also a babysitter, whereas the Willis family um is standing
39:17
Speaker 1: behind the victims and Brenda immediately divorced Toby. But like
39:23
Speaker 1: you said in the past, you know whoa whoa whoa
39:27
Speaker 1: whoa immediately divorced this child. Jessica, now an adult female,
39:36
Speaker 1: started being molested according to her at age three. The
39:39
Speaker 1: mom only started asked a couple of questions when she's
39:42
Speaker 1: aged nine, and then, according to reports, chose to believe
39:46
Speaker 1: the dad over children. That is not getting a divorce immediately.
39:53
Speaker 1: Now I know you're the investigative reporter, but uh, that
39:57
Speaker 1: doesn't sound immediate to me. I mean that it goes
40:00
Speaker 1: from age three to age seventeen when the sex to
40:04
Speaker 1: be started weaning off. That's fourteen years Jennifer, very true.
40:10
Speaker 1: Very very true. And you know what just goes back
40:13
Speaker 1: to how controlling and manipulative this man was. Toby Willis
40:19
Speaker 1: was and was here waiting whoa, whoa, whoa, Jennifer. I
40:24
Speaker 1: agree with you on that controlling, violent, and manipulative in
40:28
Speaker 1: the worst ways to his own family. But I mean,
40:33
Speaker 1: I gotta tell you, I want to believe that if
40:35
Speaker 1: I thought my child was being abused or beaten, that
40:39
Speaker 1: I would put my own safety aside and a kill
40:45
Speaker 1: is okay, never mind, not not kill, take that back,
40:48
Speaker 1: race race, report him and kick him out with my
40:53
Speaker 1: cowboy boot. I've got on my foot right now, straight
40:56
Speaker 1: up his rear end, and then I'd give him to
40:58
Speaker 1: the cops. I mean, I'd like to think. I believe
41:01
Speaker 1: that's what I would do. I'm pretty sure that's what
41:03
Speaker 1: I would do. I mean, at a certain point, when
41:07
Speaker 1: does the when do the other adults in the scenario
41:10
Speaker 1: become complicit? Too high profile defense lawyer out of l
41:14
Speaker 1: a Troice Latton when you can't there is no playbook
41:18
Speaker 1: for this sort of horror. And you know, the mother,
41:23
Speaker 1: although she does have potential criminal liability, none of us
41:28
Speaker 1: know what type of stresses she was under, what type
41:32
Speaker 1: of fear she was under. So we can't even imagine
41:37
Speaker 1: the house of horrors where she's trying to hold her
41:40
Speaker 1: family together, protect her children and do everything she can.
41:46
Speaker 1: I can't even start to imagine what stressed she was under. Okay,
41:52
Speaker 1: I agree with you on that. Troice Letton, I agree
41:55
Speaker 1: with you on that. To Vincent Hill, private investigator joining us, uh,
42:00
Speaker 1: former cop Vincent, you know, the the homeschooling thing comes
42:07
Speaker 1: up again in this scenario. I'm not against home schooling.
42:12
Speaker 1: I have relatives at home school and when my children
42:15
Speaker 1: were learning about um, let's see what were they learning
42:19
Speaker 1: A B, C, D, E F G. Her children were
42:23
Speaker 1: learning the works of Shakespeare and their homeschooling cluster group. Okay,
42:29
Speaker 1: So not knocking home schooling. However, Vincent having trump through
42:35
Speaker 1: so many public schools in inner city Atlanta looking for
42:38
Speaker 1: witnesses and defendants. Public schools, all schools, actually do provide
42:45
Speaker 1: a certain degree of monitoring because if a child comes
42:49
Speaker 1: forward and says I'm being molested or my dad did this,
42:52
Speaker 1: or my brother did this, or my uncle or the
42:54
Speaker 1: janitor or whoever, or they see the child as malnutrition
42:58
Speaker 1: or beaten or unkempt or wearing the same clothes every day.
43:02
Speaker 1: The school has a duty to report that to police,
43:07
Speaker 1: and if you're being homeschooled, you lose that protection. Explain
43:11
Speaker 1: to me, Vincent Hill, You've dug up a lot of
43:13
Speaker 1: witnesses in public schools, including teachers and administrators. Explain how
43:18
Speaker 1: that works, Vincent. Now, you're absolutely right, Nancy. The benefit
43:21
Speaker 1: of going to a public school. Although a lot of
43:23
Speaker 1: people don't like public schools, you know, for crimes or whatnot.
43:28
Speaker 1: And I went to a public school, Dr John hur Hey,
43:33
Speaker 1: I did too, I graduated in Milwaukee. Um, but it
43:36
Speaker 1: does get a child to benefit to say, hey, this
43:38
Speaker 1: is going on in the home. Even if they don't
43:40
Speaker 1: say it, there's always signs, Nancy. And that's why I'm
43:43
Speaker 1: not a big advocate of home schooling, because you never
43:47
Speaker 1: know what's going on inside someone's home, and everyone, especially
43:50
Speaker 1: in the entertainment field, will put on a good front
43:53
Speaker 1: to make it look like everything is peachy when that's
43:56
Speaker 1: not actually the case. I mean, we talked about the
43:59
Speaker 1: Heart kids, they were homeschool Look what happened in that case.
44:03
Speaker 1: And in a lot of these cases, you have the
44:04
Speaker 1: spouse and you, Nancy, being a mother, you know, nothing
44:07
Speaker 1: goes on in your house that you don't know about,
44:10
Speaker 1: So to that, I say that she was likely a
44:12
Speaker 1: victim of whether it was physical abuse, verbal abuse, or
44:16
Speaker 1: maybe even sexual abuse, because just because you're married doesn't
44:20
Speaker 1: mean you can't be sexually assaulted by your spouse. So
44:23
Speaker 1: we don't know what was going on in that home.
44:25
Speaker 1: But had these kids been in a public environment, someone
44:29
Speaker 1: would have seen those signs. She writes, this is Jessica's post, uh,
44:34
Speaker 1: and I'm talking about Jessica Willis the star of the
44:37
Speaker 1: Willis Clan band and the Willis Family on TLC. I
44:42
Speaker 1: was twenty three years old and known as the blonde
44:44
Speaker 1: lead singer, fiddle player, and principal songwriter of the Willis Clan,
44:49
Speaker 1: the eldest sister of twelve kids. We performed on tour frequently,
44:53
Speaker 1: and we're finishing up a second season of reality TV
44:57
Speaker 1: show about our family, a fourth album in the works,
45:00
Speaker 1: and there was always something exciting and challenging coming up
45:04
Speaker 1: on the calendar. But that year was also the darkest
45:08
Speaker 1: period of my life. The truth of what I was
45:11
Speaker 1: living every day was nothing like what people saw on
45:15
Speaker 1: the outside. Speculation and confusion has muddied the waters of
45:21
Speaker 1: late and I found the longer I go without speaking up,
45:24
Speaker 1: the longer I feel trapped in the continued power of
45:29
Speaker 1: my past. When I did eventually come to realize I
45:34
Speaker 1: was being molested, I had no way to accurately express
45:38
Speaker 1: what was happening to me. There followed intense shame, distrust,
45:42
Speaker 1: and hurt throughout my childhood, even in the happy times.
45:48
Speaker 1: Thus ran the two parallel storylines that became my life.
45:55
Speaker 1: You know, as she willcott, that just breaks my heart
45:59
Speaker 1: to even eat her words. It's um sadistic, and this
46:03
Speaker 1: father held the entire family captive. One thing I would
46:07
Speaker 1: say to parents again, seeing these cases all day, every day,
46:11
Speaker 1: and my job is trust your gut. And so while
46:14
Speaker 1: the mother arguably may have been a victim, obviously, I
46:19
Speaker 1: think if you trust your gut early on in a relationship,
46:22
Speaker 1: if you think something's wrong, if you think something's going on,
46:26
Speaker 1: do not ignore it. She's so right about trusting your gut.
46:30
Speaker 1: Take a listen now to a Daily mail dot Com
46:34
Speaker 1: exclusive interview with the Willis families six oldest children. Looking back,
46:41
Speaker 1: the older girls now wish they've been able to speak
46:43
Speaker 1: up before their father had a chance to pray on
46:46
Speaker 1: their younger sisters. The truth is all of us at
46:48
Speaker 1: different times. Could have you know um spoken up and said,
46:54
Speaker 1: you know, this is my truth, this is what you know.
46:58
Speaker 1: I'm experiencing. The boy feel guilt, wishing they'd known and
47:02
Speaker 1: could have somehow rescued their family. It's been hard for me,
47:05
Speaker 1: and I hear stories around me, and I look at
47:08
Speaker 1: those people and I would I can't even fathom the
47:12
Speaker 1: pain you're going through. I was all of this affected
47:15
Speaker 1: your relationship with your mother. I knew that if I
47:18
Speaker 1: told my mom thinks that I was experiencing, she would
47:21
Speaker 1: take up for me. She would fight for me, and
47:23
Speaker 1: she would, you know, defend me. But I was scared
47:28
Speaker 1: your father was watching this and watching you'll speak. Is
47:31
Speaker 1: there anything that you would say to him? I would,
47:34
Speaker 1: I would say no. I think our actions speak way
47:37
Speaker 1: louder than our words. It's a very liberating thing to say,
47:41
Speaker 1: you're not going to affect me anymore. You don't have
47:43
Speaker 1: that power over meat. That door closed to your father
47:46
Speaker 1: ever having a sort of a part in your life,
47:48
Speaker 1: or is it something that might be re established. There's
47:50
Speaker 1: no question. I mean the door is definitely closed on
47:53
Speaker 1: him ever being a father figure. But door is definitely
47:58
Speaker 1: very formally closed. You know, of the earlier comment I
48:01
Speaker 1: believe by Lauren Howard's psychologists joining us today out of
48:04
Speaker 1: New York that this was a cult um. I don't
48:07
Speaker 1: know that I would call it a cult, but it
48:09
Speaker 1: does have cult like aspects to it. To me, it's
48:12
Speaker 1: a father who's sexually abusing all of his children and
48:14
Speaker 1: they're too afraid to say anything, and the mom is
48:17
Speaker 1: afraid and also stands by and let it happen. She
48:20
Speaker 1: doesn't want to know, so she doesn't know. Jessica writes
48:27
Speaker 1: that the innocent, hurt, curious, hopeful child hidden within me
48:35
Speaker 1: gravitated to the magic of storytellings, truth, and wisdom. She
48:42
Speaker 1: could connect with others through music when words failed. Speaking
48:47
Speaker 1: to the cult life aspect, my daily life transformed dramatically
48:52
Speaker 1: as my family became more and more public. Quote. My
48:55
Speaker 1: father shaped us from child students to child performers, and
49:00
Speaker 1: at some point we became a touring dance troupe and band.
49:04
Speaker 1: He always promoted his philosophy, showcasing the family as living
49:08
Speaker 1: proof of the validity of his methods and beliefs. Mm hmm.
49:16
Speaker 1: I remember being a model member of this strange and
49:19
Speaker 1: highly performance oriented group, complete with a belief on the
49:24
Speaker 1: only every subject and constantly ready to make a range
49:30
Speaker 1: of demonstrations on cute. It does sound like Lauren Howard
49:36
Speaker 1: that he has brainwashed them. There's absolutely and Nancy, I
49:40
Speaker 1: have to just send the mother again. You know, if
49:43
Speaker 1: you'd say that, if you if you believe there's something
49:46
Speaker 1: awful with happen to your children, you put your own
49:48
Speaker 1: welfare behind there. What if and it's hard to you
49:51
Speaker 1: to imagine this because you're a strong, smart, independent woman
49:55
Speaker 1: who has had a life full of experiences and exposure
49:58
Speaker 1: to reality. This family did not have. What if you believe?
50:03
Speaker 1: What if your husband major believe if you don't call,
50:06
Speaker 1: if you do anything about this, I will kill you
50:09
Speaker 1: and then I will have the children to myself. I
50:11
Speaker 1: will get rid of you. I will ruin I've already
50:14
Speaker 1: thought about that. I've thought about that, about the father
50:17
Speaker 1: threatening to kill the wife and the children if it
50:21
Speaker 1: became public. But as she Wilcott uh juvenile judge and
50:25
Speaker 1: found a child crimewatch dot com. He's not with them
50:29
Speaker 1: seven three sixty five. They're on tour. Somebody has to
50:32
Speaker 1: go to Walmart. Somebody has to pump gas. Somebody has
50:36
Speaker 1: to be on the stage introducing them. There were a million,
50:40
Speaker 1: two million, three million moments when police could have moved
50:44
Speaker 1: in on him and arrested him while he was away
50:48
Speaker 1: from the children. Bam, that's true. Also, you know, you
50:52
Speaker 1: have to think about the fact that yes, a parent
50:54
Speaker 1: maybe a victim, but it doesn't mean then there aren't
50:58
Speaker 1: other opportunity to get other people involved and seek out help.
51:03
Speaker 1: They're all kinds of victim advocates and people who are
51:06
Speaker 1: there to help these very issues. You just have to
51:09
Speaker 1: be brave enough to take a step and strong enough
51:12
Speaker 1: and knowledgeable enough. You have to you have to understand
51:15
Speaker 1: that you have a way out and when you were indostrinated,
51:18
Speaker 1: in controlled and helped captives and listen to this, I'm
51:22
Speaker 1: going to go back to what Lauren Howard is saying
51:25
Speaker 1: as she will cut way in on this in Troye Laton.
51:28
Speaker 1: Four months later, another friend steps forward to save the
51:31
Speaker 1: rest of her family after she manages to escape. He
51:35
Speaker 1: reported my dad for suspicion of sex abuse and the
51:38
Speaker 1: investigation started. The case was given to the t b
51:42
Speaker 1: I Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. When they contacted me, I
51:48
Speaker 1: went in and spoke with them the whole rest of
51:51
Speaker 1: the day. I gave them a long, confident testimony which
51:55
Speaker 1: was used to create the arrest warrant. I was war
52:00
Speaker 1: or not to speak to my family, and if they
52:02
Speaker 1: reached out, I should let the tb I do their job.
52:06
Speaker 1: There was great concern on how to keep everyone alive
52:10
Speaker 1: and safe while trying to apprehend my father. It was
52:14
Speaker 1: no exaggeration to fear a violent confrontation, standoff, kidnapping, or worse.
52:21
Speaker 1: It was a harrowing few weeks, but my father was
52:27
Speaker 1: finally arrested Ashley Willcott juvenile judge way in, Thank God
52:36
Speaker 1: for law enforcement. People who want a bad mouth law enforcement,
52:39
Speaker 1: listen to what they just did. They saved that girl
52:44
Speaker 1: and the siblings because of the way they handled it.
52:47
Speaker 1: To Troice Leighton, what now? So he is now sentenced
52:54
Speaker 1: two four counts. He's been convicted four times for child rape.
53:01
Speaker 1: He's going to serve to five year terms and to
53:05
Speaker 1: forty year terms all concurrently, which means a total of
53:10
Speaker 1: forty years in prison based on those convictions. You know, um,
53:16
Speaker 1: I want everyone to know that the family is going
53:19
Speaker 1: on and they are performing for the very first time
53:24
Speaker 1: since their dad's conviction and Shower Arts and Activities Center
53:29
Speaker 1: in Wisconsin on May two thousand eighteen. Repeat they're performing
53:36
Speaker 1: as a family together. Another thing that Jessica writes is
53:45
Speaker 1: writing and sharing. This is an important step from me
53:49
Speaker 1: in owning my story, loving myself and others, and moving
53:56
Speaker 1: forward to live the life I truly want to live.
54:02
Speaker 1: She says. If you two are a survivor, you are
54:09
Speaker 1: not alone. Nancy Grace signing off goodbye friend.