Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - In the Valley of Sin: "Child victim:" I lied, Dad never molested me!

Episode Date: May 12, 2021

In the Valley Of Sin" is a six-hour docuseries that examines the mid-90's witch-hunt that pitted neighbor against neighbor in Wenatchee, Washington, when police uncovered a monstrous child sex ring known among its membership as 'The Circle.'Local authorities alleged that dozens of children were raped in the bedrooms of their parents, in the homes of their neighbors, and at ritualized orgies on the altar of a church. But there was one problem: there was no sex ring, a truth that only emerged after 43 parents were arrested and dozens of children were made wards of the state.Today, Nancy Grace speaks with the foster daughter of Detective Bob Perez, the little girl who was driven through town to point out homes where she had been molested. Joining Nancy Grace today: Donna Everett - middle child of Harold & Idilla Everett’s 5 children, former foster daughter of Bob & Lucy Perez Tom Grant - Award-winning journalist (30+ years), former reporter, KREM, Associate Professor of Journalism at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College,  co-executive producer of “In the Valley of Sin” and other documentaries, www.drthomasgrant.com  Elizabeth Loftus - Distinguished Professor, Psychological Science, Criminology, Law & Society Cognitive Sciences School of Law , University of California, Irvine, leading human memory expert, author “The Myth of Repressed Memory”  Kathryn Lyon - Author, “Witch Hunt: A True Story of Social Hysteria and Abused Justice”, former public defender, Pierce County, Washington. Frank Jenny, Deputy Prosecuting Attorney, Franklin County, Washington, former deputy-lead prosecuter of Wenatchee sex ring cases  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. The apple capital of the world, Wenatchee, Washington. As I've said before, nothing but apple orchards and green trees and blue sky, as far as the eye can see. Seems like the perfect place to raise your children or not. One of the biggest child sex rings scandals alleged to have exist possibly in our country's history. How did all of this go down in Wenatchee? Or did it? Where we left off, the Doggetts and the Roberson's are behind bars. Four parents, mom, dad, mom, dad, the Doggett family and the Roberson family totally torn apart.

What happens next? Did the whole case start with the voice of a single person? I know everybody has their own truth, but I know what my truth is. Do you feel like you've ever had the chance to tell your story? Not really, no. Nobody really wanted to listen to what I had to say. And do you want to? Yes.

My name is Donna Everett. My name is Donna Everett, and it starts right there. As you will recall, the Wenatchee child sex investigation started with Detective Perez, Bob Perez, foster daughter. That daughter with us now, Donna Everett. Also joining us today, Tom Grant, award-winning journalist, co-executive producer of In the Valley of Sin. And you can find him at drthomasgrant.com. Dr. Elizabeth Loftus, distinguished professor joining us, University of California, leading human memory expert, author of The Myth of the Repressed Memory. Catherine Lyon, author of Witch Hunt,

a true story of social hysteria and abused justice, former public defender in Pierce County, Washington. And Frank Jenny, special guest joining us, deputy prosecuting attorney in Franklin County, prosecutor in the Wenatchee sex ring cases. First to you, Donna, how did it occur that you became the foster daughter of Bob Perez, the investigator? I was taken from my school and was told that I was going to be put to CBS office. And that's when Lucy Perez came and picked me up at the TPS office. Bob Perez's wife. Yes.

And before that, your parents were who? Idella and Harold Everett. The Everetts end up being arrested, do they not? Yes, they did. What do you remember of that? I remember when I was living with Bob Perez, we were supposed to be reunited back to my family. I think it was like a week

before we were supposed to be reunited back into my family. Bob, we were on our way to school. I was on my way with Bob Perez to school, and he just popped the question, has your parents ever sexually molested you? How old were you, Donna? I think I was nine, ten at the time, and I told him no at first, and then he's like, oh, well, we'll talk about this when you get home from school. And did you? After we came home from school, that's when it all, she's like, well, I know it happened. I know that your parents actually molested you. And then that's when it all started.

And at this time, had your parents already been arrested? Yes. And what were the charges against your parents? Oh, wait, no, I don't think they were arrested yet. Not until like the next day or the next couple days after that. And what were the charges leveled against them? Sexual molestation. You and your sister Melinda went to live with the Perez family after your dad, Harold, and your mom, Idila, were removed from the home for abuse and couldn't take care of all the

children. When you got home that day from school, what happened? Harold, removed from the home for abuse and couldn't take care of all the children. When you got home that day from school, what happened? I remember sitting at the table with him and Lucy Perez, and him just scolding me that he knew that I was sexually molested by my parents. And what was Lucy doing? She was just sitting there listening to the whole thing. Take a listen to this.

Like, I know that you've been sexually molested, and I was sexually molested, but it was not by my parents. And he's like, I know your parents did it. And he tried to tell me that, well, your sister Melinda already told me. And I told him, no, we were never sexually abused. I know that you were involved in the church and I know other kids have said it already that you guys have all been sexually molested. To Catherine Lyon, author of Witch Hunt, True Story of Social Hysteria and Abused Justice, isn't that where the entire case originates from Bob Perez and his then foster daughter Donna Everett? Yes, that was really the source of the whole theory of the sex abuse within Onatchee Valley.

And it was weird, definitely. I could tell you a little bit more about the laws surrounding this if you want to hear it, but basically there's been incentive for every state, all 50 states, could get additional funding if they followed certain methodology in terms of interviewing children. And essentially what it came down to is that if they want this matching money, they really have the incentive to try to follow the rules, and the rules include not accepting statements that were made in denial because it was considered, in fact, that denial, and that that itself was a symptom of abuse.

And so the repeated interrogation and so on was actually encouraged by this body of law, starting from the belief of abuse and confronting the child with their belief that it happened and just being relentless in pursuing that theory. So a lot of cases came out at that time, and this one was certainly symptomatic of that. Wow. To Frank Jenny, Deputy Prosecuting Attorney there in Wenatchee, it sounds like quite the catch-22. If you say, yes, I was molested, there's an investigation. If you say, no no I wasn't molested there's going to be an investigation because that's considered a sign of sex abuse if you say no I wasn't molested I mean at the very get-go with Donna saying that didn't happen isn't that

a fatal flaw in a case I really don't agree that there was ever any thought pattern along those lines. As far as something being necessary to obtain funding, that was never anything that ever entered into consideration. When you hear Donna speaking now, does that change? I mean, how does that affect your thinking as you look back on the prosecution? You know, it's very difficult. I don't know how much of this Donna remembers, but the first time I ever met her, she and a CPS worker and I met in a conference room at the CPS office, and Donna had her teddy bear with her, and when I started to talk to her about the

events that happened at the Pentecostal church, which is the case I was working on, she just hid behind her teddy bear and wouldn't talk. And the first time I met her, she wouldn't say anything at all about what had happened. And this was after she had already given statements to the police and arrests had been made in those cases. And at first, I didn't know if she was just traumatized by the events and wasn't willing to talk about them or what, you know. But I, at that point, didn't know where things were going to go with the prosecution because this was a case where she would definitely have to be testifying as a witness. As time went on, she did begin to say more things about what had happened and opened up

a little bit about it, but really until the time we actually got to court in the case involving the defendant, Hannah Sims, I honestly didn't know whether she would be able to testify about the things that had happened. Frank, let me ask you this. You're saying you didn't know it all the way up until the time you went to trial if she would be able to testify. But did you know as you went into trial that she had said affirmatively that she had been molested? Did you ever hear her say that? She did. She did.

To you? In meetings with myself and others, not just with myself alone. But you did, with your own ears, hear her say that. That's correct, yes. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Donna Everett, I know this is incredibly painful. And I want you to keep in mind that everything that happened, happened when you were very, very young. And having been taken away from your parents and questioned and questioned and questioned. Take a listen to Donna.

From there, I went to the neighbors and then other people's homes and asked me, oh, do you know this person? How do you know that person? Who lives there? And if I would tell him if I knew who they were. There was one guy that he was actually outside when we pulled up and Bob's like, do you know him? And I didn't know who the guy was, but I remembered saying that I was sexually abused by him. Yes. To Donna Everett joining us and speaking out about her role in the Wenatchee prosecutions, often called the Wenatchee witch hunt. Donna Everett, when you look back on the so-called parade of homes, this is when, I don't really feel right about calling him your foster dad,

but this is when Detective Bob Perez was acting as your foster dad. And he got you in the car, and you guys drove and drove and drove. It's been called the Parade of Homes often, or the Hit Parade. Many different, the drive-bys had many names. What happened in that car during that drive, Donna? All I really remember is we drove to almost everybody's house that I knew. It started at my mom and dad's house at 838 Cadmus Street, and it ended at the Pentecostal Church of God.

Donna, I've got to ask you, did these molestations happen? No, they did not. I was actually molested, but not by anybody that was in the sex ring. When were you molested, dear? It was still when I was living with my mom and my dad. My sister's ex-boyfriend molested me. Did you ever tell Perez you were not molested by the people he was accusing, only by your sister's ex? Yes.

And what would he say? He told me I was lying. Donna, why did you tell people like Frank Jenny? In my experience, most prosecutors are good. Yes, there's some bad ones. But generally, they're good people trying to do right. Why did you, first of all, I'm really surprised there would be a group setting where you have a child in a group setting with a lot of adults talking about how they were sex molested. I find that very uncommon, having tried many, many child molestation cases. But that said, why did you continue to tell the story you were molested? Because I was physically tied to tables. I was put in cold baths. I was handcuffed to tables. I was just locked in the basement until he got Bob Perez got the answers he wanted from me.

To Tom Grant award winning journalist. Way in. Well, I am extremely proud of Donna for coming forward and saying this. I mean, she has a family of her own now. She's living, you know, a good life with their community and her church. And she's just really impressive now. And I feel so sad that when she was placed in foster care with this detective that she was, I feel- How in the hay did she end up with him? I mean, it is unclear to me how she ended up with him, but I think that this is one of the mysteries of Wenatchee is that the Child Protective Services and the detective

crew like Perez were working together to try and uncover something that actually wasn't there. And they pursued it to all ends, including persecuting and the children that were in their care. To Dr. Elizabeth Loftus, distinguished professor, University of California, joining us. Yep. Dr. Loftus, it's just very hard for me to imagine the guilt that these children, not just Donna, who we say kick-started the whole thing. It was kick-started by Perez, and Donna was his tool, the way I see it. But there are other children in addition to Donna.

It's not just her. Children that were essentially made to blame their mothers and fathers and others of sex, raping them, sex molesting them. And even when they tried to recant, nobody would listen. The guilt of carrying that around your whole life. I sent my mom and dad to jail wrongly. That just is crippling. Nancy, I couldn't agree with you more. And when I listened to Donna talk about her experience, I know from my work on a number of these cases that lots of bad things were going on with these kids, not taking no for an answer, reinforcing claims of abuse, refusing to accept denials. But this is the first I've heard about cold baths

and other tactics that may have also been going on. I mean, as you know, my mother lives with me, my 89-year-old mother. My dad's passed away. And the thought that I could have ever caused them even a moment's trouble or harm would just be crippling to me. The fact that Donna Everett has the backbone, along with the others, to say, this did not happen. I lied. It doesn't matter that they were forced to lie. There were children encouraged to lie, to stand up and say that and speak the truth. That's impressive, Donna Everett. A lot of people can never admit they do anything wrong ever. And you have to

understand when we're talking about this, Donna, my children are 13 right now, and I consider them to be very naive, right? I shelter them. If someone arrested them, took them away and said, the only way you can get back to your mother and father is if you say this, I think they'd say it, even though they knew it was a lie. They're children. Guys, I want you to take a listen. We're talking about the so-called tour of homes where Detective Perez took his new foster daughter, Donna Everett, all around town asking her to blame people and point out people at the age of about nine years old who had sex molested her? Take a listen to this. She tells this story about how they do the wild thing in various places.

There would be 15 or 20 adults, at least 15 children. When we got there, they took four kids upstairs. The parents took them. The rest of them, the kids, had to stay downstairs and watch a sick movie. The people in this movie were doing sex it was a sex movie pastor robbie did the wild thing at the church the adults undressed and got an airline and took turns with everyone it was touching things the wild thing and we had to touch them too my grandpa touched us with his hands on my privates.

He put his finger inside of me. He also touched me with his privates. It went inside of me. He made me touch his private with his hand. This just seems crazy, absurd. Straight to Tom Grant that you're hearing, the co-executive producer of In the Valley of Sin, Dr. Thomas Grant. It does seem far-fetched to me

only because it's extremely rare, and I think Frank and Jenny will agree with me on this, the deputy prosecuting attorney in that jurisdiction, to see a group of adults molesting a group of children, especially when there are mothers involved in the molestation. Tom, that's almost unheard of. It is. Many of these things that were being alleged were absurd on their face. And when you talk to other people who were supposedly there, you got entirely different stories. And the children did not even agree on what their story was. The stories were being focused through one detective in cooperation with Child Protective Services to drive a narrative that was crazy.

And my opinion is the children knew they were telling stories that were crazy. And that's why they didn't expect people to believe them. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. To Donna Everett, the child of Harold and Idilla Everett, one of five, who became the foster daughter of Bob and Lucy Perez, Detective Perez. When you look back on these statements, where did that idea come from? That the pastor in the church with a whole group of adults, men and women, fathers and mothers, would do something called the wild thing, where basically the adults would molest the children in the church. Where did that fantastical story come from?

Bob Perose is the one that came up with the wild thing. There would be constantly days that we would just, he would just sit there in the morning before school or after school. He would just sit there and tell me, oh, this is how I want you to say this happened. And it was an everyday thing. Did you ever get to see your parents during all of this? I did not.

When did you finally see them again for the first time? I believe I was 16 or 17 when I ran away from my group home that I was in in Spokane, Washington. Why were you put in a group home? Because I was called a difficult child and nobody, supposedly I wasn't able to be in a foster home. Nobody could handle me. I want to go to Frank Jenny, also speaking out today. Frank was a deputy prosecuting attorney in Franklin County, Washington.

Frank, what was your reaction when you first heard of, saw these cases? When I first heard of these cases, and I'm talking specifically now about the ones in Douglas County that I worked on, everybody was skeptical at first. I heard about this from Detective Wagg, who was with the Douglas County Sheriff's Office. that he believed that there was what he called a storefront church in East Wenatchee where all of the adults would take the children into the back room after the services were completed and have sex with them. And Detective Waggett at first was very skeptical of that.

Well, yeah, I mean, I'm not saying that molestations don't happen in church, because they have. They have happened in churches. But this setting where you've got a group of unconnected parishioners or congregants all agreeing

to molest children, including mothers, look, and I say that no offense to fathers, but typically a child molester is a male. So to see mothers and fathers molesting little children at the church, I find that really hard to believe. So yes, I would have been skeptical. So then what happened, Frank? The next thing I heard about a week, ten days later, I received a phone call from Detective

Perez, from Detective Wag, from Detective Wag with Douglas County, wanting to know about possibly getting a search warrant for the church building. And I asked him, well, now is this the storefront church you were telling me about that Detective Perez wanted you to investigate, and he said that it was. And I asked him, well, now, when we talked about this before, you were very skeptical as to whether anything was ever going to come of that. Has something changed?

And, well, what had changed was that a woman had confessed to taking part in these sex orgies at the church and that woman was linda miller and once linda miller had had confessed and then everybody accepted that as a fact that started believing it was real because linda miller allegedly confessed that's correct that's correct that was the attitude at that time. Well, I can see that adding a little bit of credibility to get one of the parents actually confessing. To your knowledge, Tom Grant, how does Linda Miller fit into this? Linda Miller was, she was trying to run with her children to Canada because she was so afraid of what was happening in Wenatchee and that she would be arrested. They picked her up north of Wenatchee, brought her back. She'd been awake for almost 24

hours before that she made this confession. And she was repeatedly questioned. And then she basically signed whatever Detective Perez wanted her to sign. And she said later on that it was all his words, that he was putting the words there for her. And she recanted very shortly thereafter, but it was too late. She recanted after that, but it was too late. Listen to this. There's, you know, more than 20 places listed here. The following are the locations and in some instances the names of the persons living at those locations at the time that the sexual abuses occurred.

905 Cashmere Street, Donna's former residence. Ferry Street, man known as Charlie. 515 Marjo Street, Wenatchee. Friends of the Everetts. 821 Cashmere, Barbara Garris and Children. 810 Cashmere Street, Christine Hughes. 709 and 1 1⁄2, Met Howe Street. Donna describes the mother as fat with black hair. And then at some point donna everett

starts pointing out places where men in black robes were having sex with children this place there and that place there and that place there 309 hawthorne street there would be 15 or 20 adults 708 third street The adults would line up and take turns having sex with the children. Ramona Street, Robert Devereaux's house. 1107 Westwood, Linda Miller's apartment. To think that all of these people would somehow engage in a conspiracy, neighbors, to molest a lot of their own children in a group orgy setting. I've actually never seen a case like it. Frank Jenny, deputy prosecuting attorney, Franklin County. When did you first start suspecting this wasn't real? I mean, Linda Miller says Perez told her she did not sign the confession.

Her children would be taken away from her. You know, as I started to actually interview the witnesses in preparation for the trial, more and more I began to have some concerns about it. As Tom was mentioning earlier, a lot of the statements just didn't seem to add up. And also, there were any number of witnesses that I had no idea existed at the time the charges were first filed that supported the defendant's version of the events. And some of those witnesses were quite credible or came across that way. So as we got closer and closer to the trial, I began to have some concerns about it. And then I also talked to some other people with knowledge of these cases. I remember John Henry Brown, who's, Nancy, I'm sure you're familiar with that name, but he's a well-known defense attorney here in the Northwest. He had been representing a client in Chelan County in

one of these similar cases. He came up, listened to the opening statements in aanna Simms' trial and after that he came down to my office and he and I talked. He and I get along pretty well even though he's a defense attorney. He expressed concerns to me about these cases and I could tell

it was more than just a defense attorney being a defense attorney. I could tell it was more than just a defense attorney being a defense attorney. I could tell he actually did have some concerns about these cases, and that was one of the things that got me thinking more and more that there might be some problems with these cases. Now, that was while Hannah Sim's trial was actually going on, of course know, I thought about that more and more as time went on. But you still went forward with the cases? With that one trial we did, yes, exactly. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.

To Katherine Lyon, author of A Witch Hunt. Catherine, you're hearing that Linda Miller, says Perez, told her if she did not sign the confession, she would lose her children. I would do, I think, almost anything to keep my children. Well, yes, as would I. But, yeah, that was exactly what, and it wasn't just Linda Miller. This was the pattern. They had to confess to keep their children, which ironically was the opposite.

And the children are also told they had to say it happened if they wanted to go back to their parents, and either one is just entirely, you know a catch-22 nobody can possibly resist that kind of pressure and i also wanted to point out that these kids it wasn't just what um the the police were doing but it was also what the the mental health professionals were doing these kids without with with barely any exception were sent to pinecrest mental hospital in court lane idaho where they were incarcerated there and repeatedly questioned and told that it happened that they knew it happened and those people were aware that there were groups of people involving

involved in this and so the combination of therapy uh case, and police was just overpowering to the kids. And these kids are damaged, seriously damaged by this refusal to accept the truth. We know that Linda Miller, who added a semblance of credibility to all of these child sex molestation claims, in her confession, when you have one of the accused adults actually confessing to all the molestations, suddenly the case seems to have some skin on the bones. But I want you to listen to this. I asked Miller what happened after the adults were finished with the children and she said we would give them donuts, chocolate milk, and cupcakes, all kinds of stuff like that. It just seemed like no one would have confessed to something like that unless it were true. So why did you sign it at the end? First of all, I didn't think he was ever going to

let me out of that room. And because he threatened me that I'd never see my children again and he would make sure of it. Straight back out to Tom Grant, award-winning journalist formerly with KREM, Miller eventually recanted during the trial of a Sunday school teacher, Hannah Sims, who worked at Robertson's Church. After Linda Miller recanted, explaining why she ever signed the confession to start with, the jury told the prosecutor they thought none of the cases should go forward. Shortly after that, Frank Jenny, with us today, had a falling out with his boss and resigned. What do you make of her recantation, Tom Grant? Why didn't all the cases stop right then? Well, they had gone so far and so many people were prosecutors, child protective services people, police were so deeply invested in it that for them to stop then would have been an admission

that they were wrong. And the person they were after was not Hannah Sims, who they lost the case against. They were after Pastor Robbie Robertson. And his case was coming up next. And I think if they would have given up then and said, stop it, that they would have been setting themselves up to look like they were stupid all along. Yeah, I always compare it to asking a judge that just presided over a jury trial to grant a motion for a new trial because of all the errors in the trial that he just presided over. That's never going to happen. So when you're in it so deep, I guess is what you're saying, and you realize, maybe you have total vision, you can't realize what you're doing is wrong. To Frank Jenny, their deputy prosecuting attorney, Franklin County, Washington, did you ever try to stop the prosecutions? Well, here's what happened. First of all, you mentioned what the jurors said

about the Hannah Sims case. They actually said that to the judge. It's customary in that jurisdiction for the judge to meet with the jurors after the trial. The jurors actually volunteered the fact to Judge John Bridges that they didn't think the other cases should go forward. And he, of course, explained to them what his role was as a judge. And unless it's something that's a motion before the court that is properly before him for consideration, that wasn't something that he had authority unilaterally to do, but he, he would convey that to the prosecutor, uh, Steve Clem, the, the, the elected prosecutor, uh, talked to judge bridges.

In fact, I think Tom was. Down in the office talking to me at the time that Steve was upstairs talking to the judge. Judge Bridges conveyed that to Steve Clem and then he and I talked about that later. Then I told him that I really did have some concerns about the cases. I think the way I put it is it wouldn't break my heart to dismiss the other charges that were pending. And the other ones that we had pending in Douglas County were the ones against Pastor and Mrs. Robertson. And there was also a case against a gentleman named Bill Davis, who was a bus driver for the church. Right, right.

So you did, in fact, mention it. I want to go to Tom Grant. Tom, why were they so hot to get the pastor? Because the pastor had been the most vocal person in the community challenging what was going on there. He knew the Everett family, and he believed that there had been no abuse by the parents of the children there because he'd been in the home again and again and again. And he spoke out so adamantly that he became a target.

Back to Donna Everett joining us, the middle child of Harold and Idila Everett's five children, the former foster daughter of Bob and Lucy Perez, Detective Perez. Donna, this has been characterized by saying that because of you, the entire Wenatchee witch hunt occurred. I don't think that's true. I think it is because of Detective Perez's pride, his desire for power, his arrogance, and you were used as a child as a tool.

When you hear all this discussion, how does that make you feel? I mean, I understand where everybody's coming from because, yes, I was a child. But, yes, Bob Perez used me as a tool. I was his target. And he had this ego, and I was just used for his ego. Did you try to tell people, this did not happen to me, I was not molested by them? I told Katie Carroll, I told Bordy Alexander, I told Connie multiple times, but nobody believed me because they were all friends.

They all, we did pool parties at my house, at Bob and Lucy's house almost every other weekend. They were all, it was just like a big social thing almost every other weekend. So the Child Protective Service workers were having pool parties at Detective Perez's home? Yes. And you were there? Yes. Tom Grant, what did he hope to gain?

What did Perez want out of all this? He became one of the best-known detectives in Wenatchee, for one thing. And I think that he believed his own delusions, that once he got the allegation from a child or an adult that something had happened, that he believed that was the truth and that there was no other possibility. To Elizabeth Loftus, Dr. Loftus, distinguished professor, author of The Myth of Repressed Memory, listening to Donna Everett today, don't you think if any of this had been true,

she would be able to remember it now? Well, don't think about awful things that truly did happen to them. They don't think about them for a long time and can be reminded of them. But given the extensiveness of these supposed acts over long periods of time and so repeated supposedly, you would think that these kids would remember if it actually really happened. What do you make of the theory of repressed memories? A victim, at least one in this case, an alleged victim, was sent to therapy and tried to run

away, by the way, to retrieve repressed memories of being molested. But there were no memories. That's the big problem here. You can not think about something and be reminded of it. That's ordinary forgetting and remembering, but this idea that you can be brutalized extensively over long periods and banish this into the unconscious, there really is no credible scientific support for that memory is routinely working this way, if ever. To Donna Everett, who by many accounts started the whole investigation. Again, I believe she was used as a tool by the detective.

Donna, how has this entire scenario affected your life, even now? I mean, I don't have any contact with, well, I have a little contact with my brothers, but most of my family I have no contact with. I have contact with my mom still. She's in a nursing home where I live. But that's the only person that I really even talk to. Why? Because we were never able to connect when we were little. We weren't able to see each other. We weren't able to visit. I think since we lost that contact, we don't have it now. Do you feel guilty at all about all of these people's lives

being torn apart, children taken away from their parents, people going to jail that were actually innocent? I do, but at the same time, I know it was not my fault. To Tom Grant, co-executive producer in the Valley of Sin, I don't think that these people's lives will ever be put right again.

No, they won't. Including Donna. Donna has done a remarkable job of putting her life back together, and the way she speaks now indicates to me an intelligence that many people might ignore. But this has been so traumatic for everybody that they still suffer from bad dreams and loss of a part of their life that was tremendously important. And you can't replace that. What will come next? I almost shudder to think of it.

Nancy Grace in the Valley of Sin signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.