Yeardley: Hey, Small Town Fam. It’s Yeardley. How are you guys? I hope you’re all well. Today’s episode is a child sex abuse case that new guest Detective Carrie investigated. I know these cases are by far the most difficult to listen to. The hard truth is they are also a huge part of law enforcements day to day. So, even as we often steer potential guests away from giving us cases like this, we feel it would be disingenuous of us to exclude them altogether because these cases are an important part of how our guests strive to keep their communities safe.

I will say, as difficult as it is for us to listen to the details of these crimes, it’s equally, if not more difficult for the detectives who investigate them to recount the horrors they’ve had to pour over again and again in an effort to get justice for the victims. And of course, all of that pales in comparison to the trauma the victims themselves have to bear once they’re ready to disclose. Hear me when I say there are some graphic descriptions in today’s episode of what the victim Emily had to endure at the hands of her stepfather, Edward.

But after Emily’s first disclosure, as Carrie gathers more evidence, I’m going to step in and paraphrase the rest of Edward’s heinous crime because it only gets worse. And the most important part of this story is the courage and dedication shown by Emily and Carrie respectively. They are absolute heroes. And that’s what matters. Here is “Time’s up.”

Hi there. I’m Yeardley.

Dan: I’m Dan.

Dave: I’m Dave.

Paul: And I’m Paul.

Yeardley: And this is Small Town Dicks.

Dan: Dave and I are identical twins-

Dave: -And retired detectives from Small Town, USA.

Paul: And I’m a veteran cold case investigator who helped catch the Golden State Killer using a revolutionary DNA tool.

Dan: Between the three of us, we’ve investigated thousands of crimes, from petty theft to sexual assault, child abuse to murder.

Dave: Each case we cover is told by the detective who investigated it, offering a rare, personal account of how they solved the crime.

Paul: Names, places, and certain details have been changed to protect the privacy of victims and their families.

Dan: And although we’re aware that some of our listeners may be familiar with these cases, we ask you to please join us in continuing to protect the true identities of those involved-

Dave: -out of respect for what they’ve been through.

[unison]: Thank you.

[Small Town Dicks theme]

Yeardley: Today on Small Town Dicks we have the usual suspects. We have Detective Dan.

Dan: Hello everyone.

Yeardley: Hello. We have Detective Dave.

Dave: Greetings, Yeardley.

Yeardley: Greetings. Greetings Dav as I like to call you. And we have the one and only Paul Holes.

Paul: Hey, hey, how’s it going?

Yeardley: Hey, P. That’s my nickname for Paul, by the way. I call him P or PH. Small Town Fam, we are very excited to welcome a new guest to the podcast today, Detective Carrie.

Carrie: Hi, how are you?

Yeardley: Oh, Carrie, it’s so great to see you. Thank you so much for joining us today for giving up one of your very precious days off.

Carrie: Thank you for having me.

Yeardley: We’re delighted. So, Carrie, we like to get a little thumbnail from our guests before we dive into the case that you have for us today. Tell us a little bit about your career and your jurisdiction, how we have the great pleasure of meeting you today.

Carrie: I have been in law enforcement for 20 years. I started the academy in 2003. I was 23 years old. Well, about to be 23. I wasn’t really doing well in school. I actually started college wanting to be a marine biologist. Failed biology a couple of times. Didn’t do so.

[laughter]

So, great at that. So, I was like, “Well, I probably should find something else to do.” [Yeardley laughs] I looked a little bit into the military and law enforcement, and at the time, law enforcement, I think still law enforcement pays a bit more. And it was something I could be around my family and stay local. But I think I shocked my family because there’s no one in my family in law enforcement. My parents are quite the hippie type, so I think I sent a little shockwave their way. [Yeardley laughs]

So, I started with my first agency. I was there for five years from 2004 to 2009. During that time, I was on patrol and on street crimes. And then I came over to my current agency in 2009, where I’ve been since. I was on midnight’s patrol for nine years. I was a field training officer for a portion of that time. And then in 2018, I became a detective. I did a little temporary assignment as a detective in our Internet Predator unit, which is just crimes against children that are Internet based regarding child pornography. About a year and a half after I was there, a floor position opened up in special victims as a floor detective. So, I came to the floor and I’ve been there since.

Yeardley: What’s the floor?

Carrie: A floor detective? It’s just kind of a term that we use. So, Special Victims is one big squad. At the time, the Internet Predator unit was within that squad. They had their own room, but they were within that squad. So, moving from IPU to a floor detective position, which is Special Victims Detective. So, probably some of the newer young-ins wouldn’t call it that, but that’s what it is.

[laughter]

Dave: I was going to say it’s like going from the kids table to the grownups table at Thanksgiving.

Carrie: Yeah, yeah. Now I get to sit with the adults.

[laughter]

Yeardley: So, after that. Got it. So, Carrie, please tell us how this case came to you.

Carrie: Okay. So, I got this case in September of 2018. I will say patrol did a phenomenal job. The patrol deputy that wrote the report, he was able to gather all the information that I needed up until that point. But he went, he responded. The employer of a man named Edward contacted the sheriff’s office after he was fired from their business. And each individual employee has a computer where they have their own private drive on the computer. It is accessed only by that employee. It’s password protected. It’s something that only that employee can store their own files in. So, when they were doing an audit and basically removal of his paperwork from that computer, they found some photographs. Those photographs included some family photographs and also included some nude photographs of a female. So, he had been employed there for a while.

Yeardley: Edward had been employed there for a while?

Carrie: Yes, ma’ am. Edward was the person who was employed who had that drive. After Edward was fired. They look through the drive and they find some photographs of a young girl. Now, the employer of Edward knew some of his family, so they recognized this young girl that is in the nude photographs to be Edward’s daughter. At that time, they didn’t know her name. However, with those photographs, there was a family photo, and they recognized that the girl in the nude photos was also the girl in the family photo. Now, this family photo is appearing to be a husband, a wife, maybe some adult children, and then there are some younger children in the photograph as well.

So, the deputy that responded gathers all that information and actually captures the photographs and takes the device. The photographs were labeled individually as different names, as if whomever had the photographs, I would think Edward at that time, so did the deputy, went in and named them specifically. So, the nude photographs were named Emily1, Emily2, things like that. And those nude photographs were very, very explicit. They were obviously photographs that she had taken willingly. She was posing in the photographs. So, there was concern at that point that there may have been some, inappropriateness between Edward and Emily or something like that. And there was concern as to why he had those photographs.

So, the deputy gets all of the information from the employer and it then gets sent over to the Special Victim’s section. So, when we’re assigned our cases, the supervisors will go through the case. They’ll just give a brief overview and then assign it out to a detective and I ended up getting assigned this, probably because I had just come from the Internet Predator unit and I had a little background with images and things like that.

Yeardley: And Carrie, Emily is obviously underage. Is she a young teenager? Is she preteen? What sort of age range are we talking about?

Carrie: So, at that time, we didn’t know. She did look young in the photos. She has some tattoos. They’re pretty distinct tattoos. So, I didn’t know if she was over the age of 18. Parents can sign consent for their children to get a tattoo if they want, before they’re 18. So, we looked into some previous calls and found that she was at that time, 21 years old.

Yeardley: But if Emily is 21 in these photos that you find on Edward’s computer, his work computer, what recourse do you have? You could say she’s a consenting adult, right? Even though it’s weird as fuck.

Carrie: If she’s an adult in the photographs, I have nothing. There’s no child pornography. There’s just inappropriate, weird stuff that we can just put our opinion out there. But other than that, there’s no criminal violation whatsoever. So, I was assigned the case. I reviewed the report and did a little background checking on Edward. We have a database that we can use to search and see if there’s any previous reports of abuse. So, I did that and I found that there were a couple of previous cases involving Edward and Emily where there were allegations of physical abuse. And there were also allegations of physical and sexual abuse.

Two separate cases, both in 2009, both of which were closed with no indicator. That is Child Protective Services manner in which they close their reports. They either substantiate them or they’ll close them with no indicator. These two cases had been closed with no indicator.

Yeardley: And what does that phrase refer to? What does that describe? No indicator.

Carrie: So, that means basically that Child Protective Services at that time didn’t find any evidence to move forward, doing anything to safeguard the children. So, basically nobody made a statement to say that there was any actual physical or sexual abuse.

Yeardley: Do you know how then that report got made if there was no evidence found by Child Protective Services?

Carrie: So, the family believed at the time that Edward’s ex-wife made that report. So, I know that her children that she previously had with Edward went to visit over the summer and they made some statements to his former spouse and they were concerning enough for her to call in. Those statements were about Emily.

Yeardley: I see. Is Emily Edwards biological child.

Carrie: Emily is not. Emily is his stepdaughter.

Yeardley: Okay, so Edward’s children with his ex-wife went to visit their mom, who lives in another state and said, “We think this abuse is happening to Emily.”

Carrie: Correct.

Yeardley: I’m curious that Edward’s ex-wife, who has no connection to Emily, is the one who called the cops about this alleged abuse.

Dave: This happens all the time where you have child welfare, family services. They get, sometimes it’s anonymous, sometimes it’s a named person saying, “Hey, I have information that says this person is doing this to this child.” They go do follow up. If they get a disclosure or have evidence that’s happening, then they will enlist the police. But if there’s nothing to go on, there’s really nothing to hand off. So, it just gets filed away as this is info. But it’s a great little place-keeper for, “Hey, we know that they were together at this time in her life and that there were suspicions about this.” So, even when there’s nothing to them, they’re valuable.

Yeardley: Sure. And in 2009, when this initial report was made by Edward’s ex-wife, that’s nine years prior to you getting this case, Carrie.

Carrie: Correct.

Yeardley: So, that would mean that Emily was 12. So, that’s very concerning, of course.

Carrie: Yes. And I actually read the Child Protective Services report and the deputy’s report from 2009. And at that time, she did not make any disclosure, but the allegation was in regard to physical and sexual abuse on Emily by Edward.

Yeardley: Okay, so Emily was interviewed back in 2009.

Carrie: Yes, she was and she denied that anything was going on.

Yeardley: She denied everything.

Carrie: She did. So, at that time, the information that I had regarding the family being Emily and Edward, was that they lived at the same residence. So, I had a little issue, because what we want to do in these cases is we want to talk to the victim first, get her statement, find out if anything occurred. We obviously don’t want the suspect to know that we’re conducting our investigation prior to having any information about it. So, like we said earlier, I didn’t have anything. I had a possible adult, maybe a juvenile in these pictures. It just had some weird stuff going on. But obviously totality of the circumstances, we’ve got this case from 2009, we have these weird pictures on Edward’s computer, and we need to go talk to Emily.

So, I called the phone numbers that I had for Emily several times. I did not get any answer. I went to one residence where I thought the family lived previously. There was no answer there. The house appeared vacant. I then went to the family residence after not being able to get a hold of Emily with any phone numbers that we had in our databases. So, I arrived to the residence. I had another detective with me because potentially we could be meeting with a suspect. That is a rule of our agency that we will conduct suspect interviews with two detectives.

So, I brought a secondary detective with me. And who answers the door? Edward. So, Edward actually invites us in. He has no idea what’s going on, but he invites us in. And his wife Sharon, was present as well. She was a little weird. She was questioning why law enforcement was there. I just told her that we needed to speak to Edward. I had first asked for Emily. She was not home. And they, in fact, said she didn’t live there any longer. She lived somewhere else.

Yeardley: And Sharon is Emily’s mother?

Carrie: Yes.

Yeardley: She’s Emily’s biological mother.

Carrie: Correct. So, I had to go with what I had and kind of gingerly step around this investigation. So, I asked Edward if he would agree to talk to me. So, we sat at the kitchen table. Sharon came out. She was very strange and she said she had to go pick up the kids. It seemed like after she left that Edward had a little sigh of relief that she was no longer present with us. So, we sat down, we started talking to him. We set the relationship between him and Emily. He explained his family dynamic. At that time, Edward told us that he lived at the home with his wife, Sharon, and three children, three small children that they had adopted.

One, they were in the process of adopting Rachel, and then two other children, Timmy and Christy, that they had already adopted, and those were their grandchildren. So now, I know that three additional children live in the house. And he said his adult daughter Anna, also lived in the house, but she was in high school.

Yeardley: Anna is an adult, but she’s in high school.

Carrie: She’s 18. She had recently turned 18. She was a senior in high school.

Yeardley: Okay.

Carrie: Edward let me know that Emily did not live in the house. She lived near a local college, probably about 20 minutes away.

Yeardley: I see. So, when Edward and Sharon meet, they both have kids from prior relationships, and those kids are all adults now?

Carrie: Yes. They have this meshed family. The children that they have adopted are grandchildren. So, they have some kids that haven’t really done the right thing in life. So, they took it upon themselves to adopt these kids.

Dave: This is my skeptic. Edward just willingly wanted to adopt two other girls into his house, weird.

Carrie: We have similar opinions.

Dave: They put themselves in a position to offend every time.

Yeardley: You’ve always said that.

Carrie: They sure do. So, Edward’s very nice. He explains his whole family dynamic to me. He basically says he doesn’t know why we’re there. And I very quickly tell him, like, “Look, I don’t know what’s going on with these pictures, but you were recently fired from an employer, and these pictures were on your computer. I don’t understand. This person in the photos looks to be your daughter.” And he immediately says, “That’s Emily.” And he’s like, “I don’t know why those pictures were on my computer.” And I could see his wheels start spinning there. And he’s trying to figure out what to tell me. He’s trying to figure out, what he should say to make this okay. So, he agrees that it’s weird and that it’s inappropriate.

And he says to me, I had pictures I probably shouldn’t have had prior to showing them to him when I asked about who, he said, “Emily.” So, he knew immediately what I was talking about as soon as I brought forth that the employer had provided us with the images. So, he admits to having them on the computer, and Edward says that he gets them from Emily’s ex-boyfriend that Emily’s ex-boyfriend, Eric, accidentally sent the photos to him.

Yeardley: To Edward?

Carrie: Yes. So, I didn’t show him the pictures. These people, I’m sorry, they’re weird. They’re very weird. They want to see the pictures all over again. They get aroused by them. You can see their face change immediately. Even when I was working in the Internet Predator Unit, when you show someone a sanitized photograph of a child that they stored on their device, their face lights up. It’s disgusting. They’re just very, very weird individuals. So, I didn’t want to show him any of the pictures.

Yeardley: Did Edward ask to see the photos again so he could confirm? “Oh, yeah, right. Those are the photos that were on my computer.”

Carrie: He did not. He immediately knew about them. And like I said, Edward said to me, “I had pictures that I probably shouldn’t have had.” I did ask him, though, to describe the pictures to me. He described the pictures as if they were right in front of him. As if he was staring at them. Like, he knew exactly what those pictures were. Exactly what part of her genitals or breasts or whatever was showing in the– He knew exactly what those photographs were, like he looked at them every day. So, Edward says to me that the photos automatically saved on his computer when he opens them. Super weird. I’ve never had that happen. So, he tells me this and I’m just not believing him, but still trying to just step very lightly because at this point, I don’t have a victim.

I don’t know that Emily wants to do anything about this. I don’t know that Emily was a juvenile or an adult, whatever. I don’t know any of that stuff yet. I still want to talk to Emily. So, I’m just trying to step up pretty, pretty softly with Edward. I then show him the family photo that the employer provides. And he describes the people in the family photo to me as himself, Edward, Sharon, Karen, Anna and Emily, which are the adult children, Anna being the one that is in high school still and then the grandchildren, Rachel, Timmy and Christy. We further discussed Edward’s relationship with Emily. He said that there was never anything inappropriate. He said they never had anything sexual going on.

He also stated that he even spoke to her about the photos when he accidentally received them and told her that she should be careful, warning her that taking these types of photos is something that can be a problem.

Yeardley: So, Edward is casting himself as the hero having warned Emily that you shouldn’t have these photos around.

Carrie: For sure, Dave, you’re going for it. [laughs]

Dave: It’s just nice that thousands of miles away that your suspects have the same voice track and the same concerns as my suspects and probably the same as Paul’s suspects. They always have the same concerns. And it’s usually for your own best interest, Yeardley, that I’m addressing this with you. You can pick them out from a mile away. And this is how sex crimes detectives are with sex offenders. You’re just like, “Yeah, there it is.”

Yeardley: They just are what they are.

Dave: They are what they are. And a lot of people can’t understand that there’s that kind of evil out there. But they truly only care about their sexual desires getting fulfilled. I can’t be more blunt about it. Like, they’re not worried about lunch. They’re worried about their next climax. It’s how they operate.

Yeardley: Gross.

Carrie: Oh, it gets gross.

[]

[Break 1]

[]

Yeardley: So, Edward is telling you he’s warned Emily about these photos that automatically save on his computer.

Carrie: That’s what he’s saying? Yep. I don’t believe him.

[laughter]

Yeardley: Really? What a surprise.

Carrie: [laughs] So, Edward goes on to tell me that Emily and Sharon, if they knew he had these photographs on his work computer, they would be shocked and embarrassed and feel all types of ways about him knowing that he had inappropriate images of Emily on his computer. Edward denies using those photographs for any sort of sexual gratification, even though he was able to describe them to a T without them being in front of him. He denies ever having any interest after we spoke about Edward and Emily maybe having an inappropriate relationship, which he denied. He denied having any interest in younger children or anything like that. He even denied having an interest in younger females.

So, he does confirm that back in maybe the beginning of their relationship, Sharon and Edward’s relationship, in the beginning of that, they had a call from CPS and the sheriff’s office and response was made to their residents regarding child sexual abuse with Emily and Edward. So, he does admit that there was a previous allegation of sexual abuse he doesn’t get too much into it though.

Yeardley: And are we assuming that this call is the one that came from Edward’s ex-wife back in 2009?

Carrie: Yes, and he actually says as much. So, Edward says that his ex-wife was most likely the one to call child protection on them regarding him and Emily having some sort of inappropriate relationship. So, he says that law enforcement responded, that child protection responded, and that there was a discussion had within the family, that they allowed them to talk to all the children, and that nobody disclosed any sexual abuse whatsoever, interesting. [laughs] So, at that time, I just went a little further and asked Edward if I could view his phone. While we were there, he actually provided consent for me to search his phone. I was surprised at that. Sometimes, these guys are real dumb. And he actually didn’t have anything on his phone, but he allowed us to search. No inappropriate photos were located on his device.

Yeardley: Any inappropriate text messages or anything between Edward and Emily? Nothing like that?

Carrie: No, nothing. I didn’t find anything on his phone that would have caused concern with Emily or anyone else. So, I did advise Edward that I was intending on speaking to Emily. I told him that I had tried to reach out to her a couple of times, and I gave him the phone number that I had, and he told me that was the wrong phone number. So, he actually provided me with the correct number to get a hold of Emily. And our interview concluded at that point with Edward. We left everything very nice and pretty and we didn’t piss him off or anything like that. Because I knew there was something weird going on. Just had a gut feeling that Emily was probably going to have something more to tell me. And I wanted to leave it open with Edward.

Dave: So, I’m guessing within 10 paces of you being off the front porch, Emily’s getting a call from Edward?

Carrie: Yes. So, I called Emily immediately. When we left, we were probably about 20 to 25 minutes away from her house. I asked her for her address. And I told her I wanted to talk to her about her stepfather and some images that were located. And she immediately agreed to speak to us. So, myself and that same detective went over to Emily’s residence, and she met us outside. So, we briefly talked. She almost appeared emotional when she came to the car. But after I explained to her that these photos were found on his work computer, she immediately became emotional. I had her identify herself in the photographs, and she was immediately, like he said, shocked and embarrassed. And Emily tells me, like, “I have no idea how he got these photographs.” So, she identifies herself in the photograph. She identifies herself in the family photograph.

And I just very quickly brushed over, like, did anything inappropriate ever happen with you and your stepfather? And I was, like, I said, a new detective in this realm. I wasn’t quite grasping my skill set yet. So, I think I was very much like, “Did something happen? Did he do something to you immediately?” Because we want the answers right away. And she was like, no, nothing inappropriate. But her answer was really weird. So, we continued talking about the pictures, and she asked me, “How did he say he got these?” And I told her that Edward said Eric accidentally sent them to him. And I think it was on an application called Kik. She immediately was like, “You can’t accidentally send something on Kik.” That’s really weird. I don’t understand how he would have got these. She was so emotional.

I slowed down a little bit. The other detective that was sitting with me, she was in the backseat of my car. She was doing one of these. Like, keep it going, keep asking her questions. So, I said, this is really strange, Emily. I don’t understand why your stepfather, Edward, would have these photographs on his work computer. He’s got them stored with your name. This is just weird. And I said, “Are you sure that there hasn’t been anything inappropriate that’s happened with your stepdad?” And she took the longest pause I have ever had in an interview. And her response was “No.” And it was like a question. And I’m like, “Oh, my God, something happened.” I immediately was like, something happened.

So, we continue. And I said, “Are you sure? Because you didn’t seem very confident in your response. It sounded like you were questioning your own response.” So, she maintained that nothing happened. We tried to call Eric while we were there. Just as were finishing, he didn’t answer the phone. We wanted to ask Eric if he had sent the photographs, how they would have been sent or at least squash that response that we got from Edward, but Eric ultimately did not answer. I told Emily if she heard from Eric to ask him certain questions, like if he had ever sent Edward any photos. Did Edward ever ask for any photos? Would you however accidentally sent them? And at that time, Emily did tell me that there was a period where her and Eric lived at the house with Edward and Sharon and all the kids.

So, that opens another thing in my mind to go, “Oh, well, he just grabbed his phone and sent them to himself.” In my opinion, that’s how he got the photos. Edward sent them to himself from Eric.

Dave: He can say it’s from Eric’s phone. Eric sent it to me.

Yeardley: Right. But we think that Edward was the one who instigated that file transfer.

Dave: Oh, 100%. Yeah.

Carrie: So, at the end of our interview, I don’t ever want to say that I wasn’t quite believing the victim, because I think they have reasons to keep that inside. I think there’s, a lot of trauma that comes with this stuff. So, I just very nicely said to her, “Look, I think you have more to tell me. I think something occurred between you and your stepfather, and that’s just my opinion. I would love for you to talk to me. I would love for you to tell me more. I would love to help you move past this and find out where these pictures came from and whatever I can do for you, I want to be able to help you.” And I gave her my business card, and I just kind of left it with that.

And I said, “If you talk to Eric and you find out anything more about how Edward may have gotten these photos, let me know.” So, I leave. The other detective and I are just going crazy on the way back to the office, talking about how Emily was probably sexually abused when she was little, and she has so much to say. And we’re just itching inside. We want the information, but we didn’t really get much from that. Also, during that interview, not sure if I mentioned it previously, but Emily did confirm that those photographs were taken when she was an adult. So, she had those tattoos after she turned 18. So, now I really know I have no crime. I have nothing. I’m just going to close this case out and move along and have big question marks in my mind as to what actually happened to Emily. So, that’s why I left Emily with that statement in the end, that I felt like she had more to talk to me about.

Dave: The disclosure process, early on you get bummed out. I think Carrie is already recognizing this girl’s going to call me later on in life here. I’m probably going to hear from this person. We know this. People talk when they’re ready to talk and not before then once they feel safe and they feel sheltered away from the negatives that suspect’s going to give them in their life, that’s when they come forward or when they have the “I’ve had enough of this kind of moment.” So, it’s not surprising and Carrie handled it perfectly. You got a soft step those interviews.

Paul: And Carrie, these photos, were those just files on the hard drive? And at this point, when you’re talking to Edward, has there been a forensic analysis of the computer?

Carrie: No, there wasn’t a forensic analysis at that time. However, the photographs that were on Edward’s computer did have a date information. So, the date information was from April of 2018, when he was employed and when he had sole access to that drive.

Paul: So he hadn’t deleted those photos and somebody resurrected them.

Carrie: He had not. And they were last modified In April of 2018, during a time when he was employed and had been assigned that specific drive.

Yeardley: Carrie, if the employee’s personal files are password protected, once Edward is fired, how does the employer get into that part of the hard drive?

Carrie: I’m sure there’s a master person that deals with that at the employer. I’m sure there’s one at the sheriff’s office.

[laughter]

So, you got to probably be careful with what you’re putting in your private drive. But they noticed immediately that he had inappropriate images and did right by calling law enforcement instead of just deleting something that appeared to be an adult. Whoever that person was, really, really did this woman Emily a solid service. This case is going to get great, but I’m so glad that they called because they could have easily just wiped the device and we would have never, ever known.

Yeardley: Sure. And can you say what the job was that Edward was fired from?

Carrie: It was an IT job of some sort.

Yeardley: Dave is throwing his hands up like-

Carrie: Shocker.

Yeardley: Duh.

Dave: Oh, my God. It’s like, could you check all the boxes?

Carrie: Yeah, he definitely checks all the boxes.

Dave: [laughs] So I’m just wondering. This is a hurry up and wait-type scenario.

Carrie: Well, I didn’t have to wait too long because about five days later I got to the office, like 8:40, I get a phone call from Emily. And she says, “I need to come to your office right now. I need to talk to you.” I’m like, “Yes, yes I knew it immediately.”

Yeardley: Yay, Emily.

Carrie: Oh, I was so excited. So, I was like, “Okay, I’m here.” Come on over, whatever. So, she arrives to my office a short time later. I told the detective that initially went with me. I was like, “Oh, my God, Emily’s coming. I’m so excited.” So, she was like, “All right, we’ll just see what she has to say. And if you need help with the interview, I will help you.”

[]

[Break 2]

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So, Emily comes in, we’re in the lobby. Immediately, she gets super, super emotional, and she tells me, like, “I was not forthcoming when I first talked to you. I was in shock. You showed me these pictures. I just closed off. I didn’t really know what to do.” And she says, my family situation at the family home is serious and there’s other little kids there, and I don’t want any of those kids to get hurt.

Dave: Good for Emily.

Carrie: It gets me emotional.

Dave: Yeah.

Yeardley: Sure.

Carrie: So, she tells me the other children there are little. And she tells me my stepdad sexually abused me from age 5 to age 11 or 12. So, yeah.

Dave: How old are Rachel and Christy?

Carrie: Rachel is 3 and Christy is 8. Timmy is 6. Those are the little kids that live there, the ones that have been adopted or in the process of being adopted. So, Emily explains to me that he sexually abused her from age 5 to 12 and that she is coming forward because she does not want this to happen to any of the other children in the home. So, I wigged out. I was a brand-new detective, and I was like, “Oh, my God, I have a victim coming forward.” This is one of my first cases as a special victim’s detective, away from IPU. So, I was like, okay, let me find a place for us to talk. Obviously, the lobby is not appropriate. So, I ran back in and I grabbed that detective, and I’m like, “I need you. I need your help, because I don’t have experience with this, and I want to make sure I get everything right.”

And then I went to our major’s secretary, and I was like, “Hey, can I use the major’s conference room?” I think at that time, there was something going on with our interview rooms. So, myself and the other detective and Emily sat in the conference room. Emily explained to me that from those young ages of 5 to 11 or 12, Edward would come into her bedroom on pretty much a nightly basis and would touch her on her vagina and on her breasts and would perform oral sex on her. So, he did not have her do anything to him, but he would do those things, and she did say on a nightly basis.

So, there was a period where she started to have night terrors. And she would go and sleep in her parent’s bedroom, Sharon and Edward’s bedroom on the floor. And they would make like a pallet for her on the floor to sleep. And Edward would even get up while his wife, Sharon, was in the bed and would perform oral sex on her and perform these sexual acts while his wife was sleeping in the bed, whatever, feet away. Emily did tell me that her mother was on pills during that time. So, she would sleep very, very heavily, and she would not awaken and find them or anything like that.

So, this goes on for years. Emily tries to stop it. She tells Edward during the acts, “Please stop. What are you doing?” And he tells her, “Don’t ask any questions and don’t tell anybody about this,” pretty much whenever she awakens. And she does say that it would happen while she was asleep, and she would wake up to this happening to her. So, Emily starts telling her mother, Sharon, about the abuse. And Sharon tells her, “Don’t tell anybody because we’ll end up homeless.”

Yeardley: God.

Dave: I’m still shocked that thousands of miles away we have the same caliber of parenting.

Carrie: Yeah, it’s pretty disgusting. So, Sharon tells Emily that Edward is the breadwinner of the family, that he is the sole provider, and that if she says anything to anyone about this sexual abuse, they will be homeless. So, she is ordered by her mother to not say anything. So, Emily maintains her silence for a while, and then the report from 2009 comes forward. So, the cops come to the family home, child protection comes to the family home, and Sharon tells Emily, “Do not say anything or we will be homeless.” So, Emily is interviewed, like I mentioned earlier, and she lies about everything.

Yeardley: Do you think that Emily told Anna and Karen, who are Edward’s older children, about the abuse and that’s why they told their mother, Edward’s ex-wife?

Carrie: I do. I think that Anna and Emily were pretty close. They’re close in age. They’re three years apart or something. I think she probably told Anna. And when Anna went on vacation to her mother’s house, she probably mentioned something to her mother, which caused the report in 2009.

Yeardley: Right. Poor Emily. Like, she even tries to get help, and she can’t get help because internally she’s being hamstrung.

Carrie: Yep. So, I actually went back and read the 2009 case again, and every allegation that came forward in the 2009 report was the same as Emily had just told me moments into our interview.

Dan: Carrie, is there an indication that Sharon actually believes Emily when she discloses these things to her. Sharon says, “Hey, don’t tell anyone. We’re going to be homeless.”

Carrie: I think Sharon does believe Emily because at that time, she kicks Edward out of the house temporarily, of course. I don’t know. I’d never understand these moms who stick with the perpetrator. I don’t get it. It’s just disgusting.

Yeardley: Carrie, can you act on Emily’s delayed disclosure about Edward abusing her throughout her childhood? Or is there a statute of limitations in your state that prohibits that?

Carrie: Once the disclosure happens, it’s go time. We don’t have anything barring our investigation at that point. We actually tried during that first interview to conduct a controlled call right there in the conference room.

Yeardley: With Emily and Edward.

Carrie: Yep. Emily attempts to call Edward on the phone. However, she knows that he has a new job, so she’s concerned with him not being able to answer. And he doesn’t answer at that point. So, we continue a little bit more in the interview. I jumped forward there for a moment. But she tells me that around age 10, when mom didn’t do anything, she tells me that she starts staying with other family members to avoid the abuse. So, Emily stays with Edward’s mother, Barbara. Barbara then finds out about the abuse between Edward and Emily. And she had a very close relationship with Emily. So, Barbara calls a family meeting with Sharon, Edward, and Emily. So, they sit down in the family home and Barbara gives her son Edward the third degree and tells him to stop abusing Emily, that’s their way of handling the problem.

Yeardley: Because that’s going to work. Although I do like that Barbara, at least is advocating for Emily.

Carrie: Yeah.

Dave: Ish.

Carrie: Sort of. And also stopping her son from going to prison.

Yeardley: Oh.

Dave: It’s the bargaining of these family members who think that, okay, if I confront the suspect here, then that’ll solve the problem and everything can stay fine and, you know, daisies, and we’re all good.

Yeardley: Right?

Carrie: Yeah.

Yeardley: Silly me.

Carrie: Barbara has Edward promise to not abuse Emily any longer, and he makes that promise. A short time later, Emily moves back into the home with Edward and Sharon. And what do you think happens? The abuse continues.

Yeardley: Emily just must feel so incredibly let down.

Dave: By adults in her orbit. Yeah.

Yeardley: God, my heart breaks.

Dave: This is why the state steps in.

Carrie: That’s a really sad part of this case because she really just gets failed by everyone around her. So, since my initial conversation with Emily five days prior, she has spoken to her mom. Sharon said that she had a conversation with Edward about why the police were there, and Edward said it was because of the photos. He was honest with her. So, Sharon kicks Edward out again. And he’s out for a whopping two days. And then he returns. So, again, nine years later, Sharon tells Emily to keep her mouth shut again. This is prior to this current interview that I was having with Emily. She tells me that her mom told her again, “Don’t talk to law enforcement about the photos or about the sexual abuse.” Because now Sharon is very worried that she’s going to lose Rachel. Sharon told her, “I kicked Edward out.”

And then a couple of days later, Sharon and Emily are at a family birthday party together and she learns that Edward has now been brought back into the house, which pisses Emily off. So, I think that is one of the big reasons, combined with the fact that she doesn’t want the other children to be abused, that she started to come forward. Emily also told me that during that time she had spoken with Eric. And Eric said “He never sent any photographs to Edward, would never sent them. Those were their photographs together. It’s not something that Eric would share with anybody.” So, Emily, now knowing that I went and visited her on October 11th, contacts Edward and confronts him about why he had the photographs on his work computer. So, she says, “I thought we moved past all of this a long time ago, why would you have those photographs?”

Dave: She’s saying, moving past his actual hands-on sexual abuse of her. Like, thought this already got resolved and now I’m being revictimized by you having photos that you should never have ever seen. This is a good thing. This is Emily. She’s got a little fuck you in her. Like, I’ve had enough. It’s nice to see victims in this posture.

Carrie: She’s got a little power in her hand now.

Yeardley: Nice.

Carrie: So, we try a controlled call. That word does not answer. However, Emily is raring to go. Emily says that night, “If you want, you can come over to my house and we’ll try the call again. He’ll be off work.” So, I leave. I’m waiting at that point. I went home from work that day. I think I left my house around 7 PM and drove over to Emily’s house and she met me outside and we placed a phone call to Edward. Emily called Edward on her phone. I was recording the phone call in the background and cheering her on and giving her little notes to say if she got stuck. She did amazing. Emily got on the phone with Edward and she asked him about the abuse and about the photographs and he admitted to everything.

He admitted to performing oral sex on her in the middle of the night. He admitted to touching her inappropriately. He also admitted that Sharon knew about all of the abuse.

Yeardley: Wow.

Yeardley: Does Edward express any remorse as he admits to committing these crimes or is it, it wasn’t that big a deal, I wish you wouldn’t bring this up.

Carrie: No, he was pretty remorseful. He apologized. She also snuck in there a few questions about the other kids and she asked him if he had ever touched the other children or just her. And that’s how she started the conversation. Like, I just want to make sure that you’re not touching anybody else, that it was only me. So, he admits to touching her. Then we get a little detail information. And then Emily confirms that Edward has not touched Rachel or Christy or Anna or any of the other kids. That it was only her. That he was very sorry. We briefly touched on the photographs because at this point the photographs were just our little in for this investigation. Not that they don’t matter anymore, but they are not part of our crime really. So, we hang up the phone.

I wanted to cry like I mean, I love control calls, they’re amazing. But Emily did great. I congratulated her. I was like, “I hope you know that him apologizing makes you feel a little better. I think these calls can be therapeutic for a victim.” Having your perpetrator say that they’re sorry, I think that’s huge. Having them say to you or apologize to you or recognize that they did something to you, even if they don’t apologize, I just think that’s huge for a victim to have that. So, I hope that it helped her. I feel that they do help victims. I, one, love controlled calls for my cases, and two, I think they’re very good for the victim.

Yeardley: Yeah. What kind of hell can you bring down on Edward and maybe even Sharon?

Carrie: Well, I call my supervisors. It’s obviously like 7 o’clock at night, so we don’t do anything until the next morning. But as soon as I get in, it is wheels on the ground, ready to go. So, the only person that I had to take with me on an interview was my corporal. So, I grabbed my corporal. The new employment for Edward was a county away. So, we drove over to that county and went right up to his new employer and asked if we could speak with him. They were a little shocked with that I think, he’d only been working there a couple days.

[laughter]

So, Edward actually agreed to speak with us. So, we were given a little conference room. We talked to him. We did another noncustodial interview. We’re in a different county. I don’t have any jurisdiction in that county, so I can’t go and put handcuffs on him there or anything like that. So, we just spoke to him very nicely. I told Edward that I had an opportunity to talk to Emily and that she told me some things that I wanted to talk to him about. So, we talked. We talked for probably about an hour. And Edward admitted to me that he touched Emily inappropriately. Edward confirmed that Sharon knew about the abuse, that she beat the hell out of him and kicked him out of the house during the time that the abuse was told to her by Emily, and that each and every time that he’d get kicked out, she would invite him back to the house. And at that point, Edward said that Sharon was upset because he had cheated on her.

Yeardley: Wait, what? Are you saying that Sharon considered Edward abusing Emily as proof that Edward is cheating on her?

Carrie: Correct.

Yeardley: I’m going to be sick.

Carrie: Yeah.

Dan: Surprisingly, it happens. And we’ve even talked about it on this podcast multiple times where the wife of the child abuser views her husband’s abuse of the minor child as infidelity. It’s unbelievable.

Carrie: Yep. Edward also was asked why Sharon didn’t call the police on him. Why there were other things told to Emily about not being honest. And he told us it was because he was the breadwinner. So, the same thing that Emily told us. So, all things that are corroborating Emily’s disclosure to us the previous day. He confirmed that the abuse would happen on the floor of his bedroom, feet away from Sharon. Edward confirmed that the abuse would also happen in Emily’s bedroom. This is disgusting. Edward told me of one occasion when there was a sleepover and he climbed over another child to abuse Emily in her own bed, disgusting.

Yeardley: That’s unbelievable.

Carrie: Yeah.

Dave: At the end of these interviews, especially when it’s noncustodial, where you’re not going to be putting hooks on Edward and walking him out to your car. Suspect has this kind of, so what happens next kind of moment. How does a conversation end with Edward? Is he going, “My days are numbered?”

Yeardley: And just to be clear before you get to that, Carrie, noncustodial means an attorney is not present. Nor have you read Edward his Miranda rights, because you don’t have any jurisdiction in that county. Is that so?

Carrie: Correct. You can do a noncustodial as well in your own county where you do have jurisdiction, but it’s an interview that is voluntary. You let them know beforehand you are not under arrest. If you choose to speak with me when we’re done speaking, I’m leaving your home or I’m leaving wherever we’re at, I’m not taking you with me, you’re not under arrest, and you can end the interview at any time.

Yeardley: I see. Okay. So, yeah, is Edward now going ah-oh?

Carrie: Actually, no. In the end of the interview, I asked him if he felt good about letting all of this out. And he said, “It is kind of a relief to let everything out.” And my corporal, actually– I was probably a little harder on him because I had just gotten done with the Internet Predator Unit, where you’ve got this huge paper trail. You don’t really need to be nice to people. I had also just come from 14 years of patrol and was being a hard ass. [Yeardley chuckles] So, I was being, from what my corporal said, a little patroly on my interview. [Yeardley laughs] So, my corporal says to him, “We really appreciate you talking to us. You’re not a monster. And I’m like, “Excuse me, the hell?” I was, like, really, really irritated. I’m like, “He is a monster. How can you even say that?” So, when we left, we had a little discussion about it, and he’s like, “You know, sometimes you just got to give these guys a little fluff to make them feel good.” And I’m like, “Mm-mm, not this girl.”

[laughter]

Yeardley: You catch more bees with honey than vinegar, Carrie.

Carrie: Ah. For sure. You’re right. So, in finishing up our interview, Edward admits to sexually abusing Emily over 50 times. We also asked Edward about abusing any of the other children in the home. And his statement to me was, “I don’t remember touching anyone else is what he said.”

Yeardley: That’s a lie. It’s a lie.

Carrie: That’s a bold-faced lie. So, I said goodbye to Edward and drove about 40 minutes back to the office. I immediately wrote a warrant for Edward, charging him with two counts of capital sexual battery and one count of lewd and lascivious molestation.

Yeardley: And why are there only two counts of capital?

Carrie: Yeah, capital sexual battery, two counts, and then one count of lewd and lascivious molestation.

Yeardley: Because it seems like it happened so many times.

Carrie: Yeah, it holds such a hefty weight. One or two charges is enough. I think we’ve moved on from charging hundreds of counts for something to one or two. And sometimes they will also have us charge per year. So, for every year that it happened, we might add one additional count. And for this case, there’s not specific times that could be remembered because it happened so much that we just charged for each act.

Yeardley: I see.

Dave: It’s like a placeholder, but it also gives the prosecutors the ability to circle the wagons, figure out all the charges that are going to be coming. Doesn’t mean that these are only the three charges that Edward’s going to get. It’s just a placeholder. And then later on, you add more.

Yeardley: Got it?

Carrie: Yep. So, I walk my warrant, I fill everything out. I go meet with the judge. The judge read my warrant and was really pissed off. And he said, after signing the warrant, “Now go get him.”

[laughter]

So it was great. I contacted our warrant section, and we have a great warrant section. They help us out if we need to go to other counties. So, they got with the Marshals task force and they went back out to the employer. And Edward was arrested on the toilet.

[laughter]

He was in the bathroom, sitting down on the toilet, doing his thing. And he was arrested on the toilet.

Dave: Insult to injury.

Carrie: It was so great.

[]

[Break 3]

[]

Carrie: So, Edward goes off to jail. The next day, I go out to the house to speak with Sharon. She invites me into the house and I conduct a noncustodial interview with her. She lets me know that she was pissed off about the photos and she kicked Edward out of the house. And then she proceeds to give me a bunch of BS about their family history, that there had been a sexual abuse report before. And she asked Emily about it. And Emily did not say that there was any sort of sexual abuse, and she believed her daughter. So, I knew already that Sharon was giving me a bunch of baloney. And another weird thing, she didn’t mention anything about Edward being arrested the previous day.

So, she says to me she hasn’t spoken to him in like a day and a half, and she doesn’t know where he’s at. And I’m like, “Okay, that’s a lie.” Whatever. So, moving along, she tells me things like, “Well, I thought I knew what kind of person he was.” And I’m like, “Well, what are you talking about?” And she said, “Well, because of the pictures, he shouldn’t have had those pictures.” Just trying to dwindle it down to just the pictures and not the sexual abuse. Sharon talked to me about child protection coming about Emily telling them that nothing had happened, that she believed her daughter, that Emily never told her anything inappropriate happened between her and Edward, which I knew was a lie, because at this point, Emily had told me that she told her mother, Sharon.

Edward had also told me that his wife knew. I knew about this meeting with Barbara, that there was a meeting in front of all of them, Sharon, Edward, and Emily with Barbara, where there was a promise that was made and all of this stuff. So, I knew she was lying right to my face. Sharon was asked about why she kicked Edward out back in 2009, and she told me it was because he was cheating on her. I said, “What do you mean he was cheating on you?” And Sharon said the allegations came out at the same time that he was cheating on me with someone else. I knew that that was not the fact. I knew that what she was talking about in regards to cheating was her husband Edward, cheating on her with her daughter Emily.

Yeardley: Disgusting.

Carrie: Awful. So, in our state, there is a defense to not reporting certain things, and that defense is domestic violence. So, if someone is a victim of domestic violence, they can basically be forgiven for not telling on certain other crimes. So, I made sure in my interview with Sharon to ask if Edward had ever done any domestic violence towards her. And her phrase back to me was, “Oh, please, that man knows not to put his hands on me because I’ll deck him.” So, Edward has never put his hands on Sharon, so now she has no defense. So, crossed that little T and dotted the I there for any state issues down the road once it gets there.

Dan: Carrie’s got the foresight to know that this is going to be an issue that the defense is going to bring up if she doesn’t ask the question. But she’s smart enough to know, hey, I’ve got to fill that hole in the case before we move forward, because any defense attorney worth their salt is going to months later, when this goes to court, is going to say my client was abused and she doesn’t have to disclose these things.

Yeardley: Absolutely. No, that’s incredible foresight.

Dan: Really good police work.

Yeardley: Yeah.

Carrie: Thank you. So, Sharon says to me that she hasn’t spoken to Edward since yesterday and wasn’t aware of his arrest. So, we get into that a little bit, and I tell Sharon that Emily and Edward have both mentioned her name in regards to knowing that the abuse occurred. And Sharon tells me that Edward and Emily are both liars. So, she’s now trying to scratch at whatever she can to defend herself now knowing that her husband and her daughter have told on her. So, when I asked her about that, Sharon says to me something about Edward being the breadwinner. And I said back to her “Well, Edward and Emily both say that that’s the reason that you didn’t tell.” And Sharon says to me that she would never have an issue getting a job.

And then she proceeds to tell me how all of her children that she has the grandchildren of, all owe her money, and she’s waiting for them to bring money and blah, blah, blah. So, she’s just contradicting herself in regards to being able to have money and live without him. She’s just all over the place at that point because she has nothing else to go on. I also asked her what she thinks should happen to someone who doesn’t report child abuse, and she says that she thinks they should get in trouble.

[laughter]

Just that.

Dave: I like the way Carrie’s mind works. Let’s give you lots of opportunities to give silly statements here.

Carrie: Oh, it was great. So, she says that they should get in trouble. So, we concluded our interview pretty quickly, and I went back to the office and wrote a warrant for Sharon for failure to report child abuse. And I went back over and tried to put handcuffs on her myself, but she wasn’t home. So, I sent the Street Crimes Unit after her, and she didn’t like that very much. [Yeardley laughs] So, Sharon went to jail, and on that day, all of the children in the household were sheltered.

Yeardley: Do you get a chance to speak to any of those younger children, Rachel, Timmy, Christy at all and ask them in an appropriate interview situation, if they have any information?

Carrie: Yes, we interviewed all of the children, and none of them at that time made any disclosure. So, Christy was interviewed and she told us that it’s not okay to talk about touches, but she denied being touched inappropriately. Timmy was interviewed and he advised us that people have told him to keep secrets about touches, but advised he had not been touched inappropriately. Rachel was 3 at the time. Her interview was kind of all over the place, and she couldn’t really be interviewed. It was difficult to talk to her. I actually went and spoke with Anna at school, and she denied any inappropriate touching. But I will mention she is the biological child of Edward. So, to me and my brain of sex crime stuff, that makes a little more sense.

Yeardley: Oh, in this case, perhaps didn’t abuse his own biological child.

Carrie: Correct. It happens, but it’s not super common. And then Karen, she at the time was 27. And Karen never returned any of my phone calls. And I was like, raging phone call, crazy lady with her. She never returned any of my phone calls. And months later, I did talk to her, and she was very, very stern with me. She did not want to be involved. She did not want to talk to law enforcement, and she didn’t want anything to do with this incident whatsoever.

Yeardley: Karen is Sharon’s older biological child.

Carrie: Correct. She is 27. Emily’s 21. So, she would have been 12 when Emily was at her youngest age of abuse by Edward. So, she may have been at the end of his age range, which these guys sometimes have an age range. So, now at this point, I’m just waiting for court and things like that to happen. A couple weeks after the arrest on October 28th, Rachel made a statement to her guardian.

Yeardley: Okay, Small Town Fam. As promised, I’m breaking in here. To spare you the horrific details of this forensic interview with little Rachel, all you need to know is that once Edward and Sharon were arrested, all the young children including little Rachel were removed from the home and placed with outside guardians. It was there that Rachel’s guardian noticed she was acting out in ways that were not normal for a three-year-old and strongly suggested she had been sexually abused by Edward. So, Rachel’s guardian contacted Detective Carrie. Rachel was forensically interviewed and Carrie was able to bring additional charges against Edward for Rachel’s abuse.

Carrie: So, now I have this new case with Rachel and I have to go talk to Edward again. So, I took Bre with me.

Yeardley: Oh, we had Detective Bre on the podcast in Season 15. She’s fantastic.

Dave: Yes, she is.

Yeardley: I love her. And Aliyah, her sister. They both were rock stars.

Carrie: Both are fantastic. I love them both. During this occasion, I was able to take her with me to the jail. And we went in and spoke with Edward. And as you may have already figured out, he didn’t admit to anything. However, he said something funny to us. He said, the last time I talked to you people, it cost me 20 years of my life. So, he didn’t want to make a statement to us really about it. But we did talk to him a little bit more about touching any of the other kids. So, he said to us, which I wouldn’t ask him any questions about Emily because at this point, he had an appointed attorney. I wouldn’t ask any questions about the previous case or anything like that. But we did ask him about the other kids in the home.

Because now we’ve got these weird statements from Timmy and Christy about not talking about touches. We’ve got Rachel making a very gross disclosure, but at the same time, she’s not able to express that because of her young age. But he says that he only abused Emily, which I absolutely do not believe. But he said he had a special attraction to her, like a soulmate. He even stated that after the sexual interaction was over with her, he still had an attraction to her. And when he received the pictures he said it was almost like Christmas. Yeah, he’s really gross.

Dave: It gives another indication why offenders will take mementos and trophies and little keepsakes, because it puts them right back in the mindset, in the moment, in the memory of them being with certain victims.

Carrie: Yeah, really gross. So, I maintained a little relationship with Emily for a while. She really struggled with reporting. She basically was like, “Look, my family sucks, but now I don’t have a family, and they all hate me, and they all think that I’m like the person who brought everybody down. And my brothers and sisters suck, and my parents had to adopt their kids, and now they’re all displaced.” And she was just really, really, really struggling with understanding that what she did, although good for her and right. And putting other children that may have been being harmed by Edward in a better place. She didn’t quite grasp that. But I was very proud of her. Obviously, it’s a super traumatic thing.

So, it was around Christmas time and I got her a little bracelet, and one side it had her name, and on the other side it said something like warrior, survivor or something like that. I don’t know. I’ve never even done that before. It was just weird. But I felt like she needed a little something since everybody in her family sucked. She needed a little something to just remind her that she was doing the right thing and being a good person. And even though what she did caused her to not have any family anymore, which I hate even saying it like that, because none of this is her fault, but she basically was like, “Everybody shunned me and didn’t want to be around me anymore because I broke up everybody.”

Yeardley: That’s terrible.

Dave: Is Emily’s biological father, he’s out of the picture.

Carrie: Out of the picture, yeah. So, I maintained contact with her for a couple years. She was doing pretty good. I really feel that Emily made it out and did well with her life. She had a job. She had never been arrested. She wasn’t on drugs and she really, really did good things with herself. She had a job. Like there’s something to be said for that. And nobody else in the family did well except Edward, the breadwinner.

Yeardley: Emily really is the one that got away.

Carrie: Yeah, she really is.

Yeardley: And did Sharon and Edward go to trial? Did they take plea deals? What’s the end result of their being charged?

Carrie: So, because the kids were all removed. There was some civil stuff that happened first, which was cool. So, Sharon and Edward went to a TPR hearing, which is termination of parental rights for the little ones. So, all their older kids, their own biological kids were all adults, so nothing happened with them. Unfortunately, Sharon’s charge was pretty minor, so Anna had to remain living with her mother, who quickly got out of jail. But the little ones, their situation had to be taken care of because technically, Timmy and Christy’s guardians were Sharon and Edward, both of whom have now been charged with these crimes involving harming children, abusing children, failing to report,8 things like that.

So, that jumps ahead of the criminal trial, because they want to make sure that those kids are put in a place quickly, that they’re going to be safe. So, the termination of parental rights hearing happens in March of 2019. And I was able to testify in that hearing and play my controlled call, which I don’t think Sharon knew about. So, Sharon was present, Edward was present, their attorneys. And as soon as the controlled call was played after that, they both signed surrenders, surrendering their rights as parents to the little ones.

Dave: You play a call like that and Sharon’s attorney probably turns to her and is like-

Carrie: Better sign.

Dave: 0how are you going to overcome that?

Carrie: Yeah. Yep. So, the following day, Edward took a plea deal. He received 20 years in state prison, followed by 10 years sexual offender probation. So, he will be released in 2036. And Sharon fought to get nothing. She didn’t think she was guilty. She gave the good fight and tried to get absolutely nothing out of her charge. And ultimately, she received PTI, which is pretrial intervention, which I’ll just insert my opinion and say that I think that’s nothing. But it’s basically a program that you have to complete in lieu of having a charge on your record. So, she would do whatever they wanted her to do. Community service or some therapy or whatever to get better instead of having that charge on her record.

Yeardley: She totally got off.

Carrie: Yep. Yeah, I was a little irritated with that. This family, I think Dave and Dan can probably talk a little bit more about how these families, they kind of like– [crosstalk]

Dave: There are families and situations in every town where you see a name and you’re like, “I figured I’d get another case with this family in the future.” It’s just the way it is.

Carrie: Yeah.

Yeardley: Carrie, what about this case sticks with you? Because you’ve been in law enforcement for 20 years. What about this one stands out for you?

Carrie: I think Emily, knowing that what she was doing, coming forward with all of this, I think she knew what it would do to her. I think she was pushed down for so long by her own biological mother. Can you imagine, like, your mom, the person who’s supposed to lead and guide you in your life telling you not to say something about something so huge and so bad, I think that is just so traumatic. And Emily completely overcame that on her own because I couldn’t pull it out of her the first time, she said herself she was shocked. She didn’t know what to do. But she’s an adult now. She’s making her own decisions. She doesn’t have her mom to hold her down.

I think that even knowing that she was going to further damage maybe her crappy family situation, she still did it for other people. And to me, that makes all the difference. I mean, Emily potentially saved those other children from being sexually abused further by coming forward.

Yeardley: Right. Amazing. It’s such good work. That’s just the worst of the worst, that breach of trust. I don’t know that you can ever rebuild from that as a person if you’re the victim. Thank you for sharing that with us today.

Carrie: Absolutely.

Dave: Great detective work.

Carrie: Thank you, Dave.

Paul: Yep. Very good job, Carrie.

Dan: Good job retelling it too. You did a great job.

[music]

Yeardley: Small Town Dicks was created by Detectives Dan and Dave. The podcast is produced by Jessica Halstead and me, Yeardley Smith. Our senior editor is Soren Begin and our editor is Christina Bracamontes. Our associate producers are the Real Nick Smitty and Erin Gaynor. Logan Heftel is our production manager. Our books are cooked and cats wrangled by Ben Cornwell. And our social media maven is Monika Scott. It would make our day if you became a member of our Small Town Fam by following us on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube at @smalltowndicks, we love hearing from you.

[music]

Oh, our groovy theme song was composed by John Forrest. Also, if you’d like to support the making of this podcast, go to smalltowndicks.com/superfam and hit that little join button. There, for a small subscription fee, you’ll find exclusive content you can’t get anywhere else.

The transcripts of this podcast are thanks to SpeechDocs and they can be found on our website, smalltowndicks.com. Thank you SpeechDocs for this wonderful service. Small Town Dicks is an Audio 99 Production. Small Town Fam, thanks for listening. Nobody is better than you.

[Transcript provided by SpeechDocs Podcast Transcription]