Hidden True Crime - Sentencing SCANDAL-How Did Convicted Predator Walk Free? Psychologist Unpacks Jesse Mack Butler Case

Episode Date: December 1, 2025

After Lauren broke down the Jesse Mack Butler case, John is here with his analysis...how a now convicted predator, is walking free with no jail time, what risks that creates and how society sees cases like these. Jesse Mack Butler Backstory: Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-sadistic-teen-predator-they-refused-to-stop/id1521619380?i=1000738639418 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0y1YfCREO2HqBX5WwST4c0?si=be73ece100ab42fb Sponsors OneSkin: Get 15% off OneSkin with the code HIDDEN at https://www.oneskin.co/hidden #oneskinpod Sundays for Dogs: Make the switch to Sundays. Go right now to http://sundaysfordogs.com/HIDDEN and get 50% off your first order. Or, you can use code HIDDEN at checkout. About Hidden True Crime What started as a simple conversation at their dinner table became a captivating podcast. Join the dynamic duo of Dr. John Matthias, a criminal psychologist, and Lauren Matthias, an investigative journalist, as they delve into the psychological facets of unthinkable crimes every week. Their unique perspectives and in-depth analysis offer a fresh take on true crime storytelling. Thank you for your support through sponsorships, subscribing, listening, and becoming a Patreon member at⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon.com/HiddenTrueCrime⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Lately, I've been trying to be more intentional about what I wear, intentional about everything, just choosing pieces that feel effortless, still put together, timeless, but also not overthinking it every morning. It's why I keep going back to quince. Their pieces just make getting dressed easier and I feel so classy. I feel elevated. The fits are flattering. The fabric is really high quality. Everything is wearable day to day. I actually got this really, really, beautiful yellow V-neck midi dress from them, and I paired it with some Italian leather sandals. It's one of those outfits that just works. It feels polished but still comfortable. It's exactly what I've been looking for. What surprises me, though, is the quality for the price.

Quince uses premium materials like European linen, organic cotton, but they cut out the middleman. So everything is priced way lower than you'd expect. Refresh. your every day with luxury you can actually use. Head to quince.com slash hidden true crime for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's quince, quince, ui-n-C-E dot com slash hidden true crime for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com slash hidden true crime. We all want to know. What makes people tick? How will they make decisions? Handle feedback and work as a team. The Directive Index behavioral assessment reveals how employees actually think, work, and thrive, like how Marcus fits in a role with structure, and Margo's strength is collaborating with others,

because when we understand each other, work just works. Take the behavioral assessment today at try.predictiveindex.com. Hello, gems. Thank you for joining us tonight. I'm Lauren Matthias. This is Dr. John Matthias, a criminal psychologist. And we're going to unpack a case that I just covered in a full backstory. It's about Jesse Mack Butler. It's an important episode. And before we jump into discussing this case, a trigger warning. This episode is going to include, um, S-A S-Assault and details about DV. It's going to be difficult to discuss.

This is a case outside of Stillwater, Oklahoma. It's a small college town known for Oklahoma State University. High school athletics are a very big deal in this town. But behind this sort of tight-knit community, a horrifying series of events unfolded at the local high school, still water high school that would expose potential cracks in the justice system. So Jesse Mack Butler, who is he, he's an 18-year-old high school student. He's the son of a prominent local figure in athletics. And he was convicted of a series of assault he committed against

female classmates. Jesse Mac Butler was 17 years old when the events happened that led to his charges. He came from a family well-known. His father, Mac Butler, was a former director of operations for the Oklahoma State University Football Program. He later worked as the assistant athletic director for the Stillwater Public School District. So in a town where athletics is huge, carries immense influence. This was a very well-known family. And the charges were very serious that shook this town. I'm going to actually send this over to you, John, to discuss what happened next

once these charges came down and he did plead guilty, correct? Or took a deal? Is that right? He pled no contest. Okay. No contest is essentially accepting a conviction but without admitting guilt.

So there's, when you accept, a plea of no contest, you're essentially acknowledging that you'll be sentenced, you'll be punished, but you're not making any admission of factual guilt. So it's a pretty extraordinary offer from the state, given the nature of the crimes. Which you've read all about them. You've You've read all of the details, probable cause everything, all the court docs. Right. Yeah.

And let me just say also, let me preface this by saying that I have assessed hundreds of juvenile sex offenders. I have done many, many groups, therapy groups, specifically addressing juvenile sex offenders with juvenile sex offenders addressing their sexual offenses. And so this is an area. I'm well versed in. This is an area I understand well. And let me just start by saying, I looked over the arrest warrant. I've looked over the charges.

I have never, in my 20-plus years in this business, I have never seen anything like this. Really? I didn't. And we'll get into that more in a minute. But let me just say that. I mean, the charges are horrendous. I don't want my really to, the charge.

are horrendous, I'm just surprised by you saying never. Well, what I mean by that is if I were assessing, if I was assessing a juvenile sex offender that had been adjudicated, let's say I was doing a risk assessment for sentencing. So typically you might have a juvenile sex offender who takes a deal and then you might, at least in Nevada, that person might get referred over to me to do a risk assessment to determine community placement or probation, right, to determine kind of what to do, to give the judge some guidance about sentencing and risk. Since risk is about determining whether someone is appropriate for community placement,

that's largely my job. I will say in looking at this case and then looking at the charges and the crimes, if I had a juvenile who committed only a few of these crimes, or a fraction of these crimes, that would have been disturbing. But to see a juvenile with two victims and the most serious charges you could imagine to get a no-contest plea, in other words, essentially this adolescent is not admitting guilt to anything. And we'll talk about that more because the family has the family made some statements

that I'll be reading, I'll be reading some of those expressing their anger, expressing their disbelief over the situation. The victim's families, yeah, exactly. His family, they haven't said a word publicly, at least not to the court. not formally. I don't know if they're talking elsewhere on social media that I don't know, but I think the reason why this case is getting national attention is because you have such a disparity between the violent nature of these crimes and the punishment, or let's say the minimal punishment. So the punishment, as far as I can tell, unless something has changed,

The punishment essentially, part of his no contest deal was that he was going to, he, he was remanded to, in Oklahoma, apparently there's something called the Youthful Offender Program, which is a way to rehabilitate adolescents, presumably, so that they can expunge their juvenile records, if necessary. I think that's an option here for him when he turns as 19. when he turns 19, they can expunge the record so it essentially doesn't exist. I mean, it does exist, by the way, in the sense that law enforcement will always have access to these juvenile records, but the public won't. So let's say he moves to another state when he's, you know, 30 or let's say he attends college out of state and he he's looking for a job and his employer runs a background check. they're not going to find these, they would not find these charges if he completes this program successfully. So, you know, I definitely believe in second chances for sure. I think you and you and I both do. Absolutely. And I believe in, you know, giving people choice and give, you know,

allowing them to control their fate, if possible, as much as possible. But on the other hand, a big question here is whether this is a reasonable punishment, given the crimes in question. And, you know, so we'll be talking about that. I'll be talking about risk. I'll be talking about some of the, what I believe, some of the underlying psychological reasons or motives are in terms of these crimes. And it's going to be a difficult discussion because this is, this is a, obviously, I think

this is a very sensitive topic to many people. And let's just start. I want to start by kind of creating a context here for our discussion. I happen to, ironically this week, I happen to participate. in a webinar. It was led by Dr. Rayan Anderson. She teaches at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. She specializes in research and treatment related to sexual violence prevention.

And her topic happened to be violence, sexual violence, among teens and young adults, which clearly is the topic we're going to be talking about. So let me just, I want to cite some of Dr. Anderson's findings to kind of set the stage here. I'm very curious, actually. I knew you're doing this, but I have not talked to about it yet. So let's start with a broad statistic here. So sexual victimization. What is sexual victimization means essentially being subjected to,

non-consensual sexual activity. So sexual victimization is any sexual advances or behaviors that are non-consensual. 50% of American women will be victimized at some point during their lifetimes. 50%. So 50% of women in this country will be the victims of some type of non-consensual sexual behavior. Of that 50%, half of those sexual perpetrations will occur before the age of 18. At age 15, the risk increases dramatically. So between the ages of 15 and 18, that's when teenagers are at the highest risk to become victimized sexually.

There's other statistics that I think are important to talk about. So here's the fascinating one. 30% of American college men report the perpetration of sexual crimes. 30%. So roughly one in three American men on a college campus will engage in some type of sexual perpetration. Generally speaking, so that would be the age range, typically there would be 17 to 24. Of that 30% of American college men who report engaging in sex crimes, 57.5% of those will repeat those sex crimes over the course of their college stay.

So roughly 60% of the 30%, 60% will go on to continual engaging in addition. sexual crimes and repeat those crimes. She talked about, Dr. Anderson also talked about teen dating violence. One of the larger studies, there's not a lot of studies in this area, but one of the larger studies found that roughly 38% of teenagers report some type of sexual violence. So almost 40% of teens men, and this is males, by the way, adolescent males report roughly 40% report some type of sexual violence. Of that 40%, roughly 54 to 60% will become repeat offenders.

So the basic idea here among teens and young adults in this country, that once they've engaged in some type of sexual violence, they will continue. And not only that, so that supports the premise that violence against more violence. You see it here with these statistics. And it also suggests that there is, I think, something normative among teens and young adults. Given these numbers, there's something normative about teens and young adults engaging in sexual violence. So have these numbers gotten worse then?

I don't know. This is just these are the most recent statistics in the last five years or so. So she didn't talk about. trends, but this is what, this is her conclusion. She says, quote, repeat perpetration exists and it is not rare. Her finding is that roughly across all studies of all types of sexual violence, not just college students, not just teen dating violence, sex offenders, any type of sexual violence, roughly 40% of all sexual violence, of all perpetrators of sexual violence, roughly 40% will go on to recidivate or to commit additional sex crimes.

So the conclusion here is, and I think this is important to state up front because we can look at a crime, like, we can look at the crimes similar to those committed by Jesse Mac Butler and say, oh, that's, that's an aberration. That's a one-off situation, right? Like, he's an outlier. But that's not what the statistics suggest. with the statistics suggest that 40% of adolescents will engage in some type of dating violence. And not only that, they will continue to do so.

And so Jesse Mack Butler is not an aberration. He's not a rarity. He's not a one-off case of someone who's just a sexually rogue adolescent. he is a reflection to a large degree of our culture. And I think that's important to state because how our culture deals with this issue will determine our future, right? And in the sense that what does the judicial system

or should the judicial system do about this type of violence, right? And that's why we're talking about this case. Because it seems like the response here is so minimal compared to the crimes being committed that I think that's where the outrage comes in. And certainly you see that outrage in the statements from the families of the victims. And I'll get to that in a little bit. I'm going to read some of those statements because I think they're so powerful. And by the way, one of the victims, as far as I can tell, I only have a statement from one of the victims.

There's two victims. I don't know if one of the victims did not submit an impact statement, but the victim who did, it's exceptional. I'm not going to read all of it, but I'm going to read a big chunk of it because I want people to understand what this means to the victim and how it's impacted them. I don't think we can talk about these crimes without understanding the victim's experience from this situation.

So now that I've set the stage, let's get into the actual crimes. I don't, I want to be careful with, I don't want to, I'm just going to read some of this. Okay. I don't want to read all of it. But I'm going to read some of the parts that stand out to me, that as someone who assesses risk in adolescent offenders,

I'm going to point out moments in here that are really hard to fathom. But so here we go. Butler, and I'm going to have to scale back some of the language here a little bit when necessary. Okay. Right. This is from the first victim. So Butler is obviously the perpetrator here. Butler attempted to have sexual intercourse with her in his vehicle.

The victim reported she yelled and told him no repeatedly and tried to push him off of her, but she was unable to overpower him. The victim reported that Butler told her he was sorry for what he was going to do, but he had to do it. Let me repeat that. Butler told the victim he was sorry for what he was about to do, but he had to do it. I'm going to pause on that for a second because it's, It's so peculiar to have an offender apologize in advance and say, essentially, I have to do this. I guess what he's saying is as a male, as your boyfriend and as a male in this position of authority, I guess.

So clearly this, I think this statement is about male entitlement. He's saying, I have to do this. You owe it to me. You owe me sex, right? He's seen her as an object. So this is important because he, in some ways, he recognizes that what he's about to do is wrong. He's apologizing. But then he says, well, you know, I'm going to apologize up front to make myself feel better.

But guess what? I have to, I have to, I have to assault you. Because this is what I'm expected to do as a man, right? And that's kind of what he's saying. This continues a little bit. this is another incident. So essentially that was an attempted sexual assault. He says further,

so he's unsuccessful at first in engaging in that sexual behavior and that non-consensual behavior. And so he tries again later. She says, the victim says, quote, Butler pulled her on top of him and told her, you're not going until I'm finished.

So in other words, again, like the sense of malentitlement, right? Like, I'm going to get my way no matter what. You can't stop me. So you have this, both this intimidation and this inability to, you know, this inability to see how this is impacting the victim, that he feels entitled not only to engage in this type of non-consensual behavior, behavior and sexual activity, but he has to do it and he's not going to let her go until he's finished, right? So clearly this is someone on a mission who's, who's Butler, Jesse Butler's on a

mission and he's going to use the victim in any way he sees fit until he gets his way. That's what he's saying. If your skin is anything like mine, and honestly, like Dr. Johns too, it needs extra love this time of year. Between the dry air, the cold weather, and the holiday chaos, it is so easy for your skin to feel dull or stressed. That's why we both stick to one skin. Their moisturizers have become non-negotiable in our routine, especially the OS-01 powered face moisturizer. It just works. My makeup sits better. My skin looks smoother, and John keeps telling me his feels less tied and dry, which is a big win. At the heart of one skin is that patented OS-O-1 peptide, their first ingredient, proven to target cells that cause aging, and everything is developed by an all

women team of longevity scientists with PhDs. Yeah, PhDs in STEM cell biology and skin regeneration. It's powerful, but still gentle enough for sensitive skin. And perfect for the holidays. They just launched their limited edition nightly rewind gift set. It includes their best selling face moisturizer, their brand new peptide lip mask, and a sculpting tool. It's luxurious, it's functional, and yes, it's on my own gift list this year. I am loving it. For a limited time, try OneSkin for 15% off with code hidden at OneSkin.co slash hidden. After you check out, they'll ask where you heard about them. Please tell them that Hidden True Crime sent you. Again, that's Oneskin.com slash hidden and then use code hidden for 15% off.

Later, in another non-consensual moment of sexual activity, a different kind of sexual activity, by the way, I'm not going to talk specifically about it. While this illegal, non-consensual activity was occurring, Butler's mother called, Butler told the victim, quote, Butler told the victim to be quiet and not saying anything or he would hurt her. Following the phone call, the victim stated she complied with Butler out of fear of what he would do to her if she did not.

Here's another incident. So that was the second incident. Right. This is all about control. She again, some of the, I'm trying to be careful her with some of the language. He, he tried. This is another incident. He, He was attempting to digitally penetrate her, the victim. The victim, quote, the victim told Butler to stop and that he was hurting her badly. The victim reported that Butler told her he was not going to stop until he got three fingers inside her, which he did. The consequence of that was, quote, the victim was bleeding from her genitals. It's violent. There's an incident from February 29th.

By the way, that was something that was common to both victims, that he was insistent upon digitally penetrating them, both victims aggressively until they bled. And they did. They both bled multiple times. Non-consensual digital penetration. That's also something, by the way, in terms of evaluating adolescents and their sexual offenses,

one of the, there's an instrument called the eraser, The Eraser was developed by James Wirling, who's a brilliant researcher from Canada. James Warrle... So the Eraser is the Estimate of Risk of Adolescent Sexual Offense Recidivism. That's what the Eraser, Estimate of Risk of Adolescent sexual offense recidivism. One of the risk factors that's considered in the eraser is diverse sexual assault behaviors, meaning... Are the sexual assault behaviors the same? For example, sexual intercourse or are there different types of sexual self behaviors,

such as digital penetration or, say, oral sex, right? And so that's certainly something you see here with Jesse Mack Butler is that he doesn't care what the sexual behavior is. he's just interested in posing that on the victim in a non-consensual manner. On her about February 29, 2024, the victim reported that she was strangled to the point of unconsciousness by Jesse Butler. This occurred inside her vehicle in the Walmart parking lot. The victim reported that Butler strangled her after she would not participate in sexual acts with him. Prior to the strangulation, he had engaged in several non-consensual sexual sexual sexual. actual acts, she told Butler no, but he did not listen. The victim reported she was hyperventilating, and then she recalled her vision being blurry and she was dizzy. She reported her head immediately hurt and she was confused about what occurred. She was scared of Butler, but when she regained consciousness, Butler was laughing at her. Following this incident, the victim reported that she had a handprint and an injury on her neck. So here's an interesting, here's another interesting component of this, that

He did this with both victims, by the way. He's laughing. He's mocking them, even though they're in pain, and he's just strangled her to the point where she's unconscious. She wakes up, and she immediately perceives that he is laughing at her. And when you hear that, what is your first thought? He doesn't care about her. He wants to humiliate her.

That's what I think of. Right. So to me, that suggests some element of sadism, sexual sadism, right? He's taking pleasure in her pain. He's actually enjoying watching her suffer, and he's enjoying inflicting this pain on her. And I can tell you, any adolescent who engages in this type of behavior with a sexually sadistic component is going to be a risk for future violence. almost every serial sexually sexually almost every serial rapist or serial killer has engaged in this type of behavior

earlier in life. And I'm not saying that applies here but I'm saying that it's a big red flag. It's a big warning sign about future risk. So this is the second victim. This is from the arrest warrant affidavit. from March 4th, 2025. Both of these victims, by the way, were his girlfriends. They were in relationships. He posed as a kind Christian gentleman, according to the parents, when they both, they met him.

On April 22nd, 2024, and again, this is another victim. This is later the first relationship occurred. I believe it occurred prior to this. this relationship. Quote, Butler became angry. So, so, okay, she refuses his sexual advances. Quote, Butler became angry, grabbed her arm, spun her around, and threw her on the ground.

This action left scratches on her arm, which Butler laughed about. There's a laugh again. There's a laugh again, right? This isn't just, again, this isn't a one-off. This is repeated. It's repeated, right? It's a pattern. It shows, to me it shows some element of sexual sadism or maybe sadistic behavior in general

he's making fun of her he's laughing at her when she's in pain she's struggling this incident demonstrated to the victim that Butler would use physical force on her if she'd not comply with his sexual demands the victim, quote, the victim reported that she engaged in sexual intercourse with Jesse Butler throughout the term of their relationship and did so to prevent physical aggression from him.

When the victim told Butler he was hurting here, he did not care and would not stop. Because of his aggressiveness, she was scared to tell him to stop. She expressed she was scared not to do what he wanted because of how physically violent he had been with her. According to the victim, Butler would pin her down and she was physically unable to get him off of her. The victim stated this would often lead to her hyperventilate, which Butler thought was funny. So again, you have more of this laughter. When she would hyperventilate, it was funny to him. Second victim, quote, Butler became angry.

So again, this is typically a lot of these instances were occurring when the victims were saying, No, that's what happened here. She refused sexual intercourse. Quote, Butler became angry, came up behind her, put his arm around her neck, and strangled her to unconsciousness. She could not breathe, scratched at his arms, and tried to get away. But she could not free herself. The victim woke up on the floor of the living room after losing consciousness. The victim reported that there were red marks across her neck after Butler strangled her.

approximately 15 minutes after strangling her Butler initiated sexual intercourse. Quote, Butler, set up his phone to record it so we could watch it later. In other words, when she was unconscious. The victim lost consciousness on this occasion as well. This, by the way, this recording is apparently was entered into evidence. So if there's any question here, one of the issues that sometimes comes up with, with these types of situations is, well, isn't it just a he said, she said situation?

The answer is no. There's video evidence in this case. There's also evidence of a neighbor. There's evidence of a neighbor who witnessed him being physically aggressive and putting his hand on one of the victims next. There's apparently also some video evidence of, from a doorbell camera of him engage in aggressive behavior. We haven't seen those.

So this is not just he said, she said. Right. Of course it. There's evidence. There's actual evidence. There's video evidence. And also if you have two victims essentially saying exactly the same thing, right? So that reinforces the point that there's a pattern here.

And also, it should be pointed out that one of the victims required surgery for the damage done to her neck during one of these strangulations. So, again, that's physical evidence. That's clear evidence of strangulation. Severe. Yeah. That's right. Severe strangulation that's consistent with what both victims are describing occurred. So the detective says, quote, I located a video with the date and time.

of 8 August 1st, 2024 in which Jesse Butler can be seen strangling the victim until unconsciousness. So that's obvious, that's clear proof that he... So that he can watch it later, too. Like, what, what's that about? Well, again, that's the sadistic component. We'll talk more about that in a little bit. But yeah, well, you're getting ahead of me a little bit. Sorry.

The victim reported that Butler, quote, the victim reported that Butler wanted to have sexual and her course every day. She described feeling coerced to comply to avoid being hurt. The victim stated because of his violent aggression towards her, she did not attempt to fight him. Here's another incident. Quote, the victim reported that Butler, quote, fingered her so aggressively it caused her to bleed.

She stated, no matter what I told him, it did not change his mind. On one incident, the victim said, reported that, quote, she began to bleed, which Butler verbally shamed her for. Like mocked her for? Yeah, for essentially him aggressively hurting her. Hurting her, digitally penetrating her to the point of her bleeding and he's shaming her for it. So those are, I just read a small portion of those. crimes. If you followed Hidden's your crime for a while, you already know that our unofficial office manager, Lily Bell, our HR pup who supervises every recording session. And like any boss,

she has high standards, especially when it comes to her food. That's why we switched Lily Bell to Sundays. Sundays is fresh, air-dried dog food made from clean, all natural ingredients, no synthetic nutrients, no artificial anything, just quality meat and superfoods. And, um, Unlike other fresh foods, there's no thawing, no prep, no fridge space needed. We just pour it into Lily Bell's bowl, and she comes running like we just announced snack time on set. Sundays was created by veterinarian Dr. Torrey Waxman and the difference shows since switching. Lily Bell's coat is softer, if that could even be possible, it is, she's itching less. Her energy is up.

Her mood is better. Sundays customizes every recipe based on your dog's size, breed allergies, and activity level. and it ships right to your door with a 14-day money-back guarantee. Make the switch to Sundays. Go right now to Sundays for Dogs.com slash hidden and get 50% off, half off your first order, or you can use Hidden at checkout. The other thing I want to point out here in terms of if I'm assessing risk, that there is, there's on August 25th of 2025, a couple months ago,

There's an amended set of charges. So there's 11 counts. I'm just going to read, I'm just going to read some of these counts because to get a sense of how severe this is. Count one, attempted rape in the first degree. Count two, rape by instrumentation. Count three, sexual battery. Count four, forcible oral sodomy. Count five, attempted rape in the first degree.

Count six, rape by instrumentation. Count seven, domestic assault and battery. by strangulation, count eight, domestic assault and battery by strangulation, count nine, rape by instrumentation, count 10, domestic assault and battery, count 11, violation of a protective order. So this is interesting, right, in addition to all the counts and all these crimes he's committing on February 7th of 2025, he violates a restraining order. So there's a restraining order, by the court, obviously, to keep him a fair amount of distance away from the victims. Yeah.

He voluntarily, quote, he voluntarily and intentionally positioned himself within six feet of the protected person at a school function in which said behavior could have been avoided. So you would think that someone facing these types of serious charges would stay a million miles away from the victim, right? And I talk about this all the time. One of the biggest risk factors for reoffence is violating a protective order because it shows a certain degree it shows some potential antisocial features. Right?

You're violating the court's orders. You're violating you're essentially intentionally breaking the law without, caring without any concern for the consequence. And he's doing this, I think, at least in part, because he's clearly sending a message to the victim that he doesn't care. He can come as close to where she wants. This is intimidation. Yeah. Yeah.

So those are some of the crimes. Those are the charges. I think my purpose in going through some of that was to point out the severity of those. As I said earlier, if I had an adolescent who strangled a victim to the point of unconsciousness, that in and of itself would be sufficient in many cases to suggest.

And again, I don't know the specifics of this case, and I'm not evaluating this case, and I have not met Jesse Matt Butler, but if typically, if I'm assessing an adolescent who's done one of these behaviors, strangling someone to the point of unconsciousness and then essentially sexually assaulting them, oftentimes that type of behavior in and of itself would be sufficient to suggest that the risk would be significantly more than low risk. And I would imagine, although I don't know the Oklahoma system, I would imagine that, that,

that to be placed in this youth offender program, what's the, I'm getting the name. The youthful offender program, you probably, my guess is the placement in that program probably requires a fairly low rating, risk rating. Because the purpose, right, the purpose of, the purpose of assessing risk, oh, and let's back up too,

because there's another element here, which is he's 17 years old. Right. He could have been certified as an adult. Right. He could have easily been certified as an adult. And the reason, by the way, you would certify someone as adult is because you deem them to be sufficient risk to be a harm to the future of the community. You deem them to be such a sufficient risk to their future in the community that the community needs to protected, be protected beyond adolescence. The future, the community needs.

some protection from somebody like this in theory because their risk to continue engaging in these types of crimes is sufficiently high that you want to certify them as an adult so that the system can monitor them into adulthood and more specifically in this case maybe monitor them if he goes to college monitor them in college right I just cited statistics about college perpetration and how high it is, do I think that Jesse Mac Butler might be something of a risk if he goes to college to sexually assault someone? I mean, you'd have to say probably, I don't know for sure, but statistics would point in that direction. So by not certifying him-

safety issue, go ahead. It's a safety issue. By not certifying him as an adult and putting him into the adult system. Oklahoma, the Stillwater Court system is essentially saying we don't consider this person to be a sufficient risk that we have to worry about monitoring him as an adult. So we're going to try to rehabilitate him in the adolescent system where he can, in theory, where he can complete this Youth Wethunder program and then pose no future risk, walk away from this program, have his record expunged, and go on with his life as a minimal risk, right? That's essentially what Oklahoma is saying. We're going to keep him in the adolescence system because we don't deem the risk to be sufficient

to certify him as an adult. And so that's important because the state of Oklahoma makes that decision. Not only do they not certify as them an adult, but they place them into this juvenile program that probably requires a fairly low risk rating, I'm guessing. Because usually when I'm doing groups for adolescents, by the way, it's very difficult. It's very disruptive to take a high-risk offender,

a high-risk adolescent offender, and to put them in a group with typically lower-risk kids. Those two typically don't, they don't mesh very well. And somebody like Jesse Mac Butler, who is mocking his victims, laughing at his victims, is probably not going to take treatment particularly seriously, although I don't know. Maybe part of this decision is based on elements we don't know about. Maybe he has expressed remorse. Maybe he has apologized.

Maybe there's certain elements here we don't know or we haven't seen. that could play into this, that would have, in some ways, reduced his risk for future reoffence. Yeah. That makes sense. So now that we've covered that, I want to go,

I want to present this from the perspective of the victim and the family. So I don't, I only have one of the victim's statements, but it's extraordinarily powerful. I'm going to read a big chunk of it because I think it's important. I agree. This is one of the victims.

She says, quote, you didn't just hurt me physically. You took pieces of my safety, my peace, and my sense of who I was. What you did wasn't just violence. It was betrayal, fair, shame, humiliation, and pain layered over and over. You didn't just strangle me with your hands.

You strangled my voice, my joy, my ability to feel safe in my own body, over and over again. he told me, Jesse told me, that if I ever told anyone what he was doing, he would kill me. He would kill my family. He would kill himself. He even threatened to hurt or kill his own family. Do you know what it's like to live with that kind of fear at 17 years old?

To walk into your house wondering if today's the day someone follows you home? To be afraid that opening your mouth could cost someone else their life? Those threats silenced me just as much as his hands ever did. I was terrified. Every time I thought about telling someone, I heard his voice in my head, reminding me that if I spoke up, he would be there to silence me and I believed him. Because he had already shown me what he was capable of, he showed me when he forced himself on me while laughing at my tears. When I finally did give the courage to speak, I did so knowing I might be putting my family in danger. That's a decision no one should have to make, but I had to.

And I hope that one day you, Jesse, will actually face what you've done. Not just to get punished, but to really face it. Every time you ignored my no, every time you forced yourself on me, every time you laughed while I cried, I hope you understand how much that haunts me. But I won't pretend I'm okay. I'm still healing. I am still afraid. I still carry these memories in my body and in my mind.

And while I may learn to live with them, I will never forget what you will. did. I will never forget marble slab when you pinned me down, touch my body without permission, while I begged you to stop. I screamed no over and over and you ignored it. I will never forget what it felt like when you pinned me inside your truck and said, you're not going anywhere until I finish, like I was just something to be used. I will never forget the night you strangled me unconscious because I said no. That moment changed my life. A medical professional later told me that I was just seconds away from dying. 30 seconds. If you had kept your hands on my neck just a little while longer, I wouldn't be standing here today. That wasn't just a scare. It was a near-death experience.

You didn't just hurt me. You nearly killed me. And because of that one act of violence, I had to have surgery on my neck. The damage you caused wasn't invisible and it wasn't temporary. The pain lingered for months and now the scar is something I'll carry for the rest of my life, a permanent reminder of what you did to me. And for the people in this room who are deciding his punishment, I need you to remember that what happened to me wasn't only abuse or strangulation. It was nearly attempted murder.

So I ask that you hold him accountable to the fullest. 30 more seconds, and this would not be my statement. It would be my mother's because I would not have survived. I survived what he did, but I will never be the same. I want to point out, by the way, that this is always something I think about. When there's strangulation, it doesn't take a lot of pressure to permanently harm someone and or kill them. The neck is one of the most vulnerable, the neck in the throat are two of the most vulnerable areas on the human body. And I've actually gone to trainings where they demonstrate this.

And they show that the pressure it takes to, so if you take a can of soda, empty can of soda and you crush it, it takes, with one of your hands, it takes just a little more pressure than that on the neck to kill someone. So what she's saying is accurate. And in fact, one of the things I wondered in reading this was why didn't they charge him with attempted murder? Right. Right?

Why didn't they charge them with attempted murder? Because clearly her neck was permanently damaged. Yeah. Why didn't they? Maybe they thought it would be too hard to, I don't know. Convict? I don't know. They had video too.

So, so that's the victim. That's part of the, I didn't read the entire thing. I read the parts I felt that were the most compelling. I mean, the whole thing's compelling. If people have a chance to read it, it's truly an exceptionally well-written and thought-out victim-impat statement. I was quite moved by it.

Most people don't realize how much their personal information is being bought and sold every day. Data brokers are making billions, pulling details about you from public records and the Internet, and then packaging and selling it, usually without your consent. That's how your information lands in the hands of scammers, spammers, even, in stalkers. It's why you get endless robocalls and why ads seem to follow you everywhere. That's where ORA comes in. ORA actively removes your data from broker sites and keeps it off. They also instantly alert you if your information shows up in a breach or on the dark web. But ORA goes beyond data protection. With one app, you get a VPN, antivirus, password manager,

spam call protection, dark web monitoring, and even up to $5 million in identity theft insurance, all backed by 24-7 U.S.-based fraud support. Other companies might sell just credit monitoring or just a VPN. ORA gives you all of it, together, at the same price competitors charge for just one service. Start your free trial today at ORA.com slash remove. Protect yourself now at aura.com slash remove. Most people don't realize how much their personal information is being bought and sold every

day. Data brokers are making billions, pulling details about you from public records and the internet, and then packaging and selling it, usually without your consent. That's how your information lands in the hands of scammers, spammers, even stalkers. It's why you get endless robocalls and why ads seem to follow you everywhere. That's where ORA comes in. Ora actively removes your data from broker sites and keeps it off. They also instantly alert you if your information shows up in a breach or on the dark web. But ORA goes beyond data protection. With one app, you get a VPN, antivirus, password manager,

spam call protection, dark web monitoring, and even up to $5 million in identity theft insurance, all backed by 24-7 U.S.-based fraud support. Other companies might sell just credit monitoring or just a VPN. ORA gives you all of it, together, at the same price competitors charge for just one service. Start your free trial today at ORA.com slash remove. Protect yourself now atora.com slash remove. There's a couple of, I'm going to also read from some of the other family members. So I have two of the mothers of the different victims.

and then one of the fathers. And I think what they have to say is equally important. I didn't read a part of the victim's statement, one of the victims about the family, but I want to, so I'm going to read, one of the mothers talks about the family and the victim, who I don't know her name, but she talks about the family as well.

And I want to read these together because the family is going to be, Jesse's family is going to be an important part of this analysis. So let me read, this family part. This is from the victim. To Jesse's parents, I don't know what you knew.

I don't know if you heard me crying through the walls or noticed how your son treated me when no one was looking. But I hope you hear this now. Your son hurt me in ways that cannot be undone. And I need you to understand that your silence, your protection of him, and even your denial, that would hurt too. because someone should have stopped this.

Someone should have seen the bruises and the fear. She's got a good point. Yeah. This is from the mother. I don't know if it's the same victim or the other victim, but this is the mother writing a victim impact statement. She says to Jesse's parents, your silence has been deafening.

You had every opportunity to lead with truth, to teach your son what it means to take ownership of harm. You had the chance to model responsibility to support the healing process in even the smallest of ways, but you didn't. You chose to protect your family image over integrity. Your silence sent a message to my daughter that the truth didn't matter as much as appearances, that your son's reputation mattered more than her reality. That is not parenting. That is enabling. So some harsh words there for the family of Jesse's family. I mean, I think all of that is accurate, by the way. You have to wonder, I think a big,

part of this analysis has to do with the family culture and the family's views on sexual violence, right? Does this family see sexual violence as being acceptable? Does this family encourage male entitlement? Does this family encourage misogyny? So that it's perfectly fine to, because this is his girlfriend? Does that mean he can do whatever he wants? Well, there was one moment, right, there was one moment, too, where it was happening and assault was happening in his house and his mother knocked.

And the victim believed that she could hear her cries. Yeah. And tears. She didn't come in. She didn't say, stop it. She knocked. Like, right, there's this idea that his mother knew into going back to like, what is it being taught in this family? about this being okay.

It was certainly on my mind. Right. What is it about this family culture? I mean, I don't know this family. I can make some assumptions, but we'll get to that in a little bit. I want to read from some of the parents here. This is one of the, this is the mother, one of the victims. Quote, Jesse is responsible for what he did,

and that responsibility doesn't disappear because of his age or because facing it is uncomfortable. He may barely qualify as a youthful offender under the law, but my daughter, who is younger than him, has been more than old enough to live with the full weight of his choices. She did not have the privilege of youthful offender as a shield. She has spent this year learning how to live with trauma caused by someone else's choices,

and has changed the way she will feel trust, relationships, and love for the rest of her life. And let me stress that because every victim of abuse that I've ever worked with has struggled precisely with this issue. This mother nails this down beautifully in terms of explaining that she believes her daughter is going to struggle with trust relationships and love and intimacy. And that is one of the, unfortunately, that is one of the incredibly destructive repercussions of, of sexual violence. She goes on. This summer, while other girls planned their senior celebrations,

my daughter was preparing for surgery. A surgery directly caused by the injury Jesse inflicted. This is not symbolic pain. This is not emotional fallout. This is a medical fact of the physical harm he caused. She is not broken. She is not fragile. She is strong.

But the cost of that strength is something most won't see. the missed school days, the sleepless nights, the therapy appointments, the anxiety attacks, the physical pain, the battle to keep showing up while carrying something she never asked for. Our family does not agree with this plea. We want the record to clearly reflect that this plea deal was not made in the best interest of victims, but in the best interest of Jesse. Here's another mother of one of the victims. Quote, talking about the justice to system. quote, instead of finding comfort in the justice system, we were left disappointed. The plea deal arrangement made by district attorney Debbie Vincent left our family feeling powerless.

She had assured us that she would not allow a plea deal unless he was willing to plead guilty. No contest and guilty does not feel the same to the victims. She told us that one of the victims would be involved in shaping the terms of any deal that was made. She told us this protective order could be extended as a part of the plea deal. None of that happened. So that's important to know, too, by the way. The protective order apparently only applies as long as he's in this youthful offender program. And that, by the way, is one of the reasons that you would certify someone as an adult

because you could get the protective order extended to a longer period of time. Interesting. The way this is set up, especially with a no contest plea, So a no contest plea essentially means because you're not really pleading guilty, a no contest plea makes it much more difficult to enforce a protective order for any length of time. And it makes it almost impossible to seek civil penalties. Wow. Wow. So that's worth noting that this mother of one of the victims really nails it down here.

She says, she goes on. a deal was struck before the, instead, a deal was struck before the preliminary hearing, allowing him to be charged as a youthful offender in exchange for a no-contest plea and minimal consequences that end in less than a year on his 19th birthday. On that same day, this record will disappear like it never happened. Wow. Your Honor, we are heartbroken. It feels as though justice for one of the victims and for the other victim was traded away,

This young man is being shielded from real accountability, while the trauma he caused will follow our daughters for the rest of their lives. This is not justice. It does not protect our children or the community. Right. And as you point out, even, like, just to protect, like, right, the scars of the victims, but additionally to protect the community. Exactly. To keep tabs on him. The reason why in the state of Nevada, the reason why the state requires a

psychosexual evaluation, which is essentially to assess risk, is to determine risk to the community, which then allows for placement. So if someone is deemed a high risk, typically they're not going to be placed in the community, meaning they're not going to get probation. Yeah. This is from the father of one of the victims. He, too, is going to talk about the injustice. of all this. This is, again, I want to read this because it's so important.

Quote, my only hope throughout this painful and exhausting process was that Jesse would be held accountable and that the court system would deliver justice. For a long time, that hope gave us strength, the strength to endure the emotional toll. But in the past 72 hours, that hope has been shaken. We were told that as the family of the victim, we have no say in what the plea deal is accepted. all the time of gathering evidence and reliving the pain were for nothing. That one individual alone decides how Jesse will or will not be punished. I assume he's talking about the judge.

Right. The hardest thing that any victim can do is to speak up and decide enough is enough. The victim's hope was that by doing her part and seeking justice, the court system would do the rest. It feels like she is being failed by the very system put in place to punish offenders. that our truth is being discounted as nothing more than, quote, boys will be boys mentality. Yeah.

This sends a dangerous message to future victims that sometimes speaking up and doing the right thing isn't enough. So the boys will be boys mentality again. Here we're getting back into like this malentitlement. This is his girlfriend. It's his property. He can do whatever he wants. He's the male. He's entitled to it.

He goes on, the father of one of the victims. He goes on. Quote, the reality is this. My daughter will carry the weight of this trauma for the rest of her life. Jesse, by contrast, may face nothing more than a year of therapy before moving on. No parent could accept such a small consequence for actions that have caused such deep and lasting harm. Without a fitting punishment, this behavior risks becoming reinforced. This is not just about the trauma he has created.

It is about preventing a dangerous. pattern from continuing in the future. I respectfully ask the court to consider the lifelong impact on my daughter and to hold Jesse fully accountable for his actions. Only through meaningful consequences can justice be served and only then can healing truly begin. So again, I think the father really nails it here. This is about preventing a dangerous pattern from continuing in the future, which is also my job, by the way. So my job in assessing risk is precisely that. It's to avoid recidivism or future offenses that might be committed by anyone I'm evaluating.

So I think the parents of the victims, I think, do an excellent job of kind of pinning down some of the major issues here and some of the failures of the criminal justice system. So I talked about risk a little bit earlier. I want to revisit that quickly here. So I was going to put this up, but I decided not to. This is the scoring sheet for the eraser. I mentioned that earlier. This is one of the, this is one of the, it's a little hard to see with the lighting. This is, this is, the eraser is one of the actuarial assessment instruments that evaluators like myself will typically use to determine the risk for an adolescent offender.

It only takes, so the, the, on this, on the eraser, when something is considered present, that means it's, and you get this, by the way, from the court records and from arrest warrants, like the ones I just read. I don't have enough information to fully evaluate, Jesse.

I can't fill out the eraser in full because I simply, I haven't interviewed him, right? I can't do that. But there's a few things I can point out just based upon the arrest warrant. Sure. There's a few, There's a few boxes we can check here as being present, meaning the highest risk, right, that stand out.

I sold my car in Carvana last night. Well, that's cool. No, you don't understand. It went perfectly. Real offer, down to the penny. They're picking it up tomorrow. Nothing went wrong. So what's the problem?

That is the problem. Nothing in my life goes to smoothie. I'm waiting for the catch. Maybe there's no catch. That's exactly what a catch would want me to think. Wow, you need to relax. I need a knock on wood. Do we have wood? Is this tablewood? I think it's laminated.

Okay, yeah, that's good. That's close enough. Car selling without a catch. So your car today on... Carvana. Pick up fees may apply. Most people don't realize how much their personal information is being bought and sold every day. Data brokers are making billions, pulling details about you from public records and the Internet, and then packaging and selling it, usually without your consent. That's how your information lands in the hands of scammers, spammers, even stalkers.

It's why you get endless robocalls and why, ads seem to follow you everywhere. That's where ORA comes in. ORA actively removes your data from broker's sites and keeps it off. They also instantly alert you if your information shows up in a breach or on the dark web. But ORA goes beyond data protection. With one app, you get a VPN, anti-virus, password manager, spam call protection, dark web monitoring, and even up to $5 million in identity theft insurance, all backed by 24-7 U.S.-based fraud support. Other companies might sell just credit monitoring, or just a VPN. ORA gives you all of it, together, at the same price competitors charge for just one service.

Start your free trial today atora.com slash remove. Protect yourself now atora.com slash remove. So the first one, so the first category on the eraser is called sexual interest attitudes and behaviors. The first question concerns deviant sexual interests. So does this person have deviant sexual interest? One of something that would be considered a devial sexual interest is violence. Yes.

Yes. That's present. Does he have attitudes supportive of sexual offending? It certainly seems that way. It does. Yes. Right? I think, I can't say definitively, but based on the arrest warrant and based on the fact that he's apologizing to the victim, he's saying, I'm sorry, but I have to do this, that's pretty consistent with someone who's not only going to reaffend, but has,

a attitude that offending is okay. Yeah. So that's present. Presumably that's present. I don't know for sure. The second category is historical sexual assaults. Ever sexually assaulted two or more victims? Yes, present.

Every sexual assaulted some victim two or more times. Yes. Present. Threats of our use of violence and weapons during the sexual offense. Yes, present. Diverse sexual assault behaviors that I mentioned earlier. Yes, present. That gives us six.

And I haven't even, I'm not even through half of this, I'm not even through half of this instrument. And I've already checked six. There's one I didn't mention, unwillingness to alter deviant sexual interests and attitudes. That's probably present. So there's probably seven right there. According to Worling, James Worling, who developed this instrument, you only need a couple of high risk categories to be checked affirmatively to consider someone potentially high risk. I mean, you have to look at the entirety of the situation. You have to do interviews.

You have to look at the entire record. You have to look at school records. You have to look at grades, right? There's so much that has to be considered. But if you just take some simple, right, if you just check a few boxes here that are high risk based on the arrest warrant, and there's many we can check, it seems like you'd have to say that Jesse is not low risk, right? that he's whatever, I don't know if he's high risk, but he's certainly not roll. He's probably not low risk. Right.

Yeah. And if he's probably not low risk, then that raises concerns for community safety. There you go. Recidivism risk, not low. I don't know what it is. I don't know if it's high. I don't know if it's moderate, right? presumably somebody in Oklahoma performed a psychosexual to determine that.

But I think it's a fair assumption to say that it's not low. And as you pointed out, in Nevada, if the judge's hands are tied in some areas, correct? If an offender is dubbed moderate or high risk, there are sentencing guidelines for that, right? Yeah, that's for adults. The juvenile system is a little different. So if they certified him as an adult in Nevada and somebody like myself, a forensic evaluator deemed him to be high risk, then that's true. Then the sentencing guidelines for judges are very restrained in terms of what they can do.

They can't essentially, if someone's high risk and as an adult, a judge, unless it's a rare exception, a judge cannot place someone on probation. They almost, they're required by Nevada statute to sentence that person to, at a minimum, some jail time or prison time. So one, you know, it's interesting when I think about this case, one of the things that I kept thinking about, and I don't want, I don't, I'm just going to point this out because it's, sure, it's fairly unusual. But I've talked in the past a lot about a parapheria. A parapheria is essentially, just for the sake of our simplicity, it's deviant sexual behavior. So an example of a parapheria that most people might know would be pedophilia.

A pedophile or pedophilia is someone who has a sexual attraction or sexually aroused by children typically 13 and under. Right. there is when I read this arrest warrant and I looked at the evidence here it seems like somebody acting like Jesse or somebody engaging in behaviors like Jesse may have some type of parapheria that essentially involves engagement and non-consensual sexual activity there is a parapheria that's very rare it's called biastafilia that's B, B-I-A-S-T-O-P-H-E-L-A, B-A-A-A-A-Bastafilia, which is an individual whose sexual arousal depends upon assaulting a non-consenting person. Oftentimes that will be a stranger.

Biashtaphilia is a type of sexual sadism. So in other words, biastafilia is essentially rape as a parapheria. Rape is a type of arousal. Rape as a type of sexual deviance. Theastophilia is largely contingent upon instilling a certain amount of fear in the victim. It's contingent upon intimidation. It's contingent upon, in many cases, resistance from the victim. So when the victim resists, oftentimes the offender becomes more aroused.

And most importantly, and I think this seems to apply here. And again, I'm not saying. that this parapheria applies to Jesse. I'm just saying someone who has, who shows similar types of behavior as Jesse might fall into this type of category. So the final thing is that we typically see with beastafilia is this desire to break the victim's will,

to assert dominance and essentially break the victim's will, break their spirit. And the way you would do that is by threatening to kill them or threatening to kill their family, right? Like just intimidating them enough so that they submit to whatever behavior you want. I bring this up because not because I think this fits Jesse Mac Butler. I bring this up because if I diagnosed or I presume if any forensic psychologist or many forensic psychologists, maybe some would disagree with me here. but if somebody diagnosed a offender with biastafilia,

that would be considered to be extremely high risk. If your primary form of sexual engagement and arousal is through sexual assault, that's a big problem because that's not something you can easily overcome. That's not something that therapy can easily solve. That is not the type of behavior that is amenable to treatment. And so if that were in play, and again, I'm not talking about Jesse, just in general, if that was in play with any sex offender that I encountered, that I thought fit this diagnosis, I would be deeply concerned about rehabilitation.

I would be deeply concerned about future risks to the community. And if I found that to be true in a 17-year-old, I would be deeply concerned. be deeply concerned about letting the adolescent system rehabilitate that person. Yeah. Do I know that this is relevant to Jesse? No, I don't. I'm bringing it up because it's of interest to this discussion. Right.

We don't know, but that makes sense that it would be high risk. Absolutely. So let's let me talk a little bit about, since one of the things we always talk about I try to talk about is the why. What are some of the reasons I think that this type of behavior might occur in general? And again, maybe not specifically with Jesse, but in general. I think one of the first things I think about is that this is an absolute failure of intimacy, that this is in some ways a failure of attachment.

So I would probably want to look at whether this person, this offender, had some attachment issues in childhood. Is this someone with an insecure attachment? I would suspect that's probably true, but maybe not. Maybe this is someone who grew up in a home where there wasn't a lot of emotional connection, there wasn't a lot of emotional expression. And so there wasn't in many ways any type of real bond or connection among family members. that in many ways that this could be seen as a failure of intimacy. So if you have that,

if you have someone who lacks the social skills or the emotional wherewithal to develop intimate relationships or develop intimate connections, one possible repercussion of that is that you learn to, you find other means to connect to people. And if you have this, massive sense of male entitlement. One of those means might be through sexual violence.

That if you associate sex or if you associate intimacy with sex and you struggle to on the intimacy side, then it's possible you might resort to violence as a proxy for that intimacy that you lack. Huh. So I think that there might be something like that in play here. I'm not sure, but just in general, in this type of, in these types of offenses, it's something I would look at. We talked a little bit about, I think there could be a bit of a toxic family culture here in terms of promoting emotional bonds, close emotional bonds, among family members, in terms of leadership.

in this family, is leadership shared? Is it primarily held by the father or the, you know, the masculine figure? I mean, which, by the way, it's fine. If that's the case, I'm not disparaging that. I'm not saying that families shouldn't have some leadership with the father. But the question is, to what extent, right? The question is how authoritarian is that leadership and how much does that leadership promote an overly masculine culture, let's say, where there's a sense of malentitlement, where you feel like you can dominate your

girlfriend and do anything you want with her. I talked about possible sadistic tendencies, right? I think sadism and cruelty are in play here. Yeah. So if you were doing an assessment on somebody like this or just someone you would get really deep into their family history and young childhood relationships then, is that? Yeah, for sure. I'd want to know about some of his earliest friendships, some of his first dating relationships. What happened there? Was he able to develop any type of emotional closeness in any of his relationships? I'd want to know his sexual history in depth. How did he learn about sex? How does he see women? Right. And I mean, by the way, that type, you, when assessing that question about his perception of women, you don't ask, how do you feel about women? Right? You get it from behaviors because if you, if you could ask the most hardened rapist,

you know, what, what do you think of women? And he's going to say, I love women. You know, women are great, right? Like, that's not going to answer the question. You have to find ways to, you have to find more subtle ways to kind of get to that issue. We saw that with your recent interview. Well, we recently publicized your interview with Stacey Wondra, as he states. I love kids. Kids are the best. I love kids.

That's not how you find out how he really feels about kids. That's what you're saying. That doesn't answer how you really feel about kids just because you're saying it. You have to go deeper. You're going to get any person knows that you're going to get a socially acceptable response. And like, if you ask someone how they feel about kids, you're not, someone's not going to say, oh, I hate kids.

Right. You know, I want to murder kids. Right. Or similarly to women. Women, right. Oh, I hate women. I can't stand women. I hated my mother.

I want to kill women, right? They're not going to tell you that. Right. You have to find, you know, and one of the ways, by the way, getting to that is tell me about your relationship with your mother. Always goes back to the mother. That always goes back to, always goes back to mommy. So I would definitely want to know about his relationship with his mother.

And so I'm going to read. I'm going to quote from a book here. This is a very famous book. It's inside the criminal mind. It's written by Stanton Saminoff. He's a forensic, he's a very well-known forensic psychologist. He's somebody who in the 60s and 70s promoted the the idea of what he called the criminal personality.

So at the time when Saminov was first examining kind of the criminal mind, the belief was that the environment shaped the criminal, the things we're talking about now, the family culture, right? That those types of things had a profound influence on the criminal psyche. And Samanoff basically said, nope, I disagree. You know, he's interviewed hundreds, several hundred

violent offenders, murderers, rapists over the years. And he essentially came to the conclusion that it has more to do with their personality than it does to do with the environment. So he has a very interesting perspective on this issue. So I want to read.

read. This is from, by the way, this is inside the criminal mind. This is the updated edition. I believe this was published in the original edition was in 1984. Then there was another edition in 2004. This is the 2014 version or edition. I'm going to read his chapter on, he's chapter seven. I'm going to read bits and pieces of this. Sex for Conquest and a buildup of the self. Quote, this is on page 135, quote, criminals find little that is satisfying into consenting sexual relationship. Sex is mainly an assertion of their own power. They usually give little thought to the feelings of their partner. No matter who the partner is, the process of winning that person over is far more exciting than the sexual act. The criminal believes that others find him irresistible. If a female fails to confirm that assumption, she poses a challenge. He pursues his conquest through a soft cell of flattery and conning or resorts to force.

The central motivation is the charge he gets from seducing, conning, or intimidating another human being into doing exactly what he wants. From adolescence, when the criminal refers to, quote, my girl, unquote, he really is asserting that she belongs to him, but he considers her as disposable as an old tattered shirt. Selden does he speak of love, nor does he have a concept of what a love relationship entails. While demanding that a woman changed to suit him, he requires that she accept him just as he is. On page 143, and this is the most relevant to our discussion, Samanao talks about rape. Here's what he says, quote, 143, At stake in a rape is the criminal's affirmation of his image of himself as powerful and desirable.

The assailant believes that his target already wants him or will want him once she gives him a chance. Her attempts to ward him off only heighten his excitement. Brute force is rarely necessary because intimidation works. The most important line here, and this is, this gets to motivation, is this sentence about at stake in a rape is the criminal's affirmation of his image of himself as powerful and desirable. So in many ways, I think these types of behaviors and crimes are indicative of power, control, and domination. The goal of the criminal or the goal of the offender engaging in sexual violence is to validate his potency, to submit to his dominance, and to recognize his prowess as a strong male.

So in that sense, I could argue, and again, I don't know if this applies exactly to Jesse Mac Butler, but I could argue that there's something very predatory about these types of behaviors. Gold Bond knows that when your skin feels good, you feel good. So look after it day and night and make Gold Bond Healing Lotion your go-to. It's clinically shown to visibly heal and moisturize dry skin in just one use. We all deserve soft, healthy-looking skin every day, so choose a trusted brand with proven results. Gold Bond Healing Lotion. Buyers now at Walmart.com.

Most people don't realize how much their personal information is being bought and sold every day. Data brokers are making billions, pulling details about you from public records and the internet, and then packaging and selling it, usually without your consent. That's how your information lands in the hands of scammers, spammers, even stalkers. It's why you get endless robocalls and why ads seem to follow you everywhere. That's where ORA comes in. Ora actively removes your data from broker sites and keeps it off. They also instantly alert you if your information shows up in a breach or on the dark web. But ORA goes beyond data protection. With one app, you get a a VPN, antivirus, password manager, spam call protection, dark web monitoring, and even

up to $5 million in identity theft insurance, all backed by 24-7 U.S.-based fraud support. Other companies might sell just credit monitoring, or just a VPN. ORA gives you all of it, together, at the same price competitors charge for just one service. Start your free trial today at aura.com slash remove. Protect yourself now at aura.com slash remove. If the goal is dominance... then potentially you're going to find people to pray upon, you're going to find victims to pray upon that you believe you can intimidate

and get them to submit to your desires. I think there's something we need to address to is this idea of back in the 70s, there was this term introduced called rape culture. And what that means essentially is that rape culture would be a culture that accepts normalizes or trivializes sexual violence. And among the elements of rape culture would be victim-blaming, accepting rape myths. A rape myth, by the way, would be, well, she was my girlfriend.

She's my spouse. This is what I wanted to get to. These were women, or not women, these were girls that were dating him. And there's been a lot of accusations for these girls. And one of the mothers has discussed this even on social media, wanting to talk about trauma bond. And I don't know if that's the term you want to use, but my point is, yes, I want to delve into this.

It's not a great academic term. But let me stay with this. Let me finish my thought on rape culture. So it is essentially trivializing sexual violence, including victim blaming, accepting rape myths. So a couple of rape myths, by the way, would be this idea that, well, this was my girlfriend. So she stayed with me.

She clearly wanted me to do this, right? Like this idea that somehow a girlfriend or a spouse is someone's property. Another rape myth would be, well, she was wearing short shorts. She was wearing short shorts on the beach. So clearly she wanted me to have sex with her or raper, right? Like those are rapeness. Even if it's your girlfriend, that doesn't mean that you are, own her, that she's your property, right? And one of the victims, both of the victims actually

explained that his threats, his threats of killing families were pretty compelling. My guess is that both victims stayed in these relationships much longer than they intended to because they were afraid, which, by the way, is one of the most compelling reasons. It's one of those compelling reasons that women in domestic violence relationships don't leave is because they believe when they leave that they're going to be murdered. And many of them actually are. A fair percentage are. So it's this idea. And by the way, that's victim blaming too. Well, she didn't leave. So a part of rape culture is victim blaming. It's accepting rape miss. And it's a focus on not ruining the perpetrator's life over. over looking at the victim's well-being.

And I think clearly we see that here. The families say that. The parents say that. It seems to be that the Stillwater courts are much more concerned about the perpetrators' life and future than they are about the victim's well-being. That's also part of rape culture. So I think it's important to kind of dispel some of these myths.

Yeah, agree. And to point out that when you negate the victim, that I think that often becomes a problem. And, you know, to actually, as the father of one of the victims said, I think the father put it really well, this is not, quote, I'm quoting the father again, quote, this is not just about the trauma he has created. It's about preventing a dangerous pattern from continuing the future.

if we minimize the harm done to victims, if we blame victims, if we accept rape myths. Or boys will be boys. Or boys will be boys. Or this is his property. He can do whatever he wants with her. I think, you know, we're really, to quote the father, we're really normalizing very dangerous behavior. and we're really normalizing sexual violence and perhaps allowing it to pervade the larger community. Yeah.

Bringing up that rape culture came up 55 years ago, how do you think we're doing? 55 years later. Yeah, well, I'll leave that up to our first. fewers to decide. You know, one thing I was thinking about in going through this case was, I think, at least some of our older listeners probably won't be surprised by this to see that I'm thinking of a literary reference. But I thought of a clockwork orange, which was written by Anthony Burgess in, gosh,

I forget what, 60s, I think. It's kind of a classic work, but it's about the. this guy, Alex, who is this wild teenager who has this band of hooligans called, he calls the droogs, and they run around committing all these crimes, violent crimes, by the way. Sexual assault is one of their favorite crimes, one of Alex's favorite crimes, by the way. And Alex eventually gets arrested, and he becomes part of this experiment. He agrees to this experiment where the state uses something called the Ludovico technique, which is in psychological terms, it's basically psychologists recognize this as a version of classical conditioning.

So what happens is Alex is forced to watch violent movies when he's injected with the solution that makes him nauseous. So you're pairing violence with nausea. And by pairing those two stimuli, essentially, and by the way, and they force his eyelids open. So he can't, he tries to look away from the violence, but he can't because his eyelids are open. By pairing those two stimuli, you're essentially creating an association between nausea and violence. so that if he sees violence in the future at some point, he feels nauseous. He can't act on it.

In other words, you're essentially crippling him and taking away his capacity to be violent by engaging in this very coercive behavioral technique. And the reason I bring this up is because when I think about Alex and when I think about this idea of kind of free will and how we deal with violent, criminals who engage in

and in this particular case in adolescent, who engage in these very violent sexual assaults and in his case even murder. You know, what's the role of the state? What's the role of the state in addressing this? You know, typically the state's role is to attempt to eliminate risk to society. It's to eliminate criminal behavior.

which is exactly what happens in a clockwork orange to the point where you basically eliminate Alex's capacity for free choice and free will. But what's interesting about this case, the Jesse Mac Butler case, is you actually have the opposite, right? Because the term that Anthony Burgess uses is the almighty state. He calls it the almighty state. what you have here is the state essentially becoming a willing participant and perpetuating the criminal harm and the criminal behavior, right? And so, you know, is the state doing their job? I mean, on the one hand, I would argue that like with Alex,

that you clearly like engaging in this. Ludovico technique is a bridge too far. It's an extreme way to try to rehabilitate a fender. Right? And that, I think that's part of Burgess's point, is that you have these bad actors like Alex that need to be rehabilitated, but how do you do it? What's the most humane way of doing it? Clearly, we want a society that's free of violence, but are you going to eliminate

someone's capacity for free will to accomplish that, right? Yeah. But on the other hand, what if the state does nothing? What if the state looks the other way? What if the state condones sexual violence? What if the state becomes a willing participant and perpetuating sexual violence, right? Like, that is what we call injustice.

Yeah, yeah. And so I think what's so compelling about the situation in this case is the state's failure. Yeah. The state's failure to acknowledge this sexual violence, to acknowledge the severity of these crimes and their inability to act in a way that would be consistent potentially with protecting the community and protecting the community in the future. Yeah. And even to some degree, by doing so to assist Jesse himself, right? Like, I can argue many parents that I've dealt with over the years of adolescent offenders,

they're the first ones to jump in and to acknowledge the violence because they want their son to get help. They recognize the problem. They acknowledge the problem. They say, my son needs help. What he did was wrong. What he did was immoral. Like, he needs help. He's a problem.

And moreover, for some of these parents, are saying, and you know what, I was part of the problem. I did not raise my son in a way that was consistent with the values that I now see in him. And so I think there's a lot of questions here about the appropriate course of action. What's the best way to rehabilitate here? Was this the best, were these the best choices that the state could have made? should the state have offered a no contest plea where essentially he's not admitting guilt? I mean, you have a victim with scars on her neck. Surgery.

Surgery and scars and pain that will last a lifetime that will follow her, as she points out, that will follow her forever. Yeah. Is it given that situation, is it acceptable? for the state to say, don't worry about it, we're going to give you no contest a no contest plea.

You don't have to admit that you did anything wrong. You don't have to admit that you did that behavior, that you were guilty of engaging, even though we know that behavior occurred, even though you have the scars

and the surgery to prove it, let's just pretend, let's just make that vanish and pretend it didn't happen. Let's just look the other way, right? Like, I don't know. And these, by the way, these are a lot of the reasons why this case, normally, as I would presume, normally a case involving sexual violence and Stillwater, Oklahoma would be trivial.

It would not show up on the national radar, right? It would not show up on our show for sure. Yeah. Unless there was something highly unusual about it. And here we are. And here we are. Talking about Stillwater, Oklahoma. Oklahoma, yeah.

So, you know, and I'll acknowledge there's a lot here I probably don't know. I haven't talked to Jesse. I haven't talked to his family. Those would be, I would interview his family. Those are all things I would do before making a determination of risk. And clearly I haven't done that. But I think this discussion in general in broad terms is important. And so that's why we're having it.

Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate it. When I saw this case, yeah, I definitely wanted to talk about it with you. Oh, you know, I know that I've mostly sat back in this episode and listened, but I really did want to understand. So, thank you. What do you say? I want to get more specific, not just talk about our culture, but help us understand.

Why a victim, I know, I know you, you mentioned it briefly, but what would you, what would you directly say to someone who says to you, but Dr. John, why did this girl go out again and again and again for two months with this, with this man who was assaulting or a boy that was assaulting her, that was making her cry and hurting her? I don't think that's the right question. I think the question is why was he doing this to her? The question shouldn't be why did she stay? The question should be why was he engaging in these violent behaviors towards her? I've already answered. I mean, why did she say she told us why she stayed. She was afraid for her life.

He was threatening her. Yeah. If she tried to get away or break up with him, he would threaten her. threaten her with her life that's consistent with every other not every other it's consistent with many batterers many domestic violence offenders that's what they do that's how they get their victims to stay spouses partners girlfriends yeah adolescence adults it's a variation on a theme yes thank you so it the short answer is fear any argument to the contrary or I think it misunderstands the nature of victimization.

It misunderstands the nature of trauma. It misunderstands the nature of power, control, dominance. It misunderstands male entitlement, all of it. So hopefully we've shed a little light on those areas tonight. Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate it. Anything else?

Nope. That's it. I'm tapped out. All right. Well, thank you, everyone, for having this difficult conversation for those that stayed with us during this difficult, very important conversation. Thank you. So, thank you so much. All right. Good night. Thanks, guys. Hank joined BJ's wholesale club the day he became a father of 30.

I coach football. Now coach Hank saves up to 25% off grocery store prices. 30 pounds of pasta, three cases of protein bars, 75 sports drinks. And that's just pregame. He knows team. and BJ's no savings. This is your home, coach, home of the save. Join for just $20 at BJs.com slash SW Fort Worth and save 10 cents a gallon on gas for six months.

Now open, limited time offer new members only. BJ's, home of the save. Most people don't realize how much their personal information is being bought and sold every day. Data brokers are making billions, pulling details about you from public records and the internet, and then packaging and selling it, usually without your consent.

That's how your information lands in the hands of scammers, spammers, even stalkers. It's why you get endless robocalls and why ads seem to follow you everywhere. That's where ORA comes in. Ora actively removes your data from broker sites and keeps it off. They also instantly alert you if your information shows up in a breach or on the dark web. But ORA goes beyond data protection. With one app, you get a VPN, antivirus, password manager, spam call protection, dark web monitoring, and even up to $5 million in identity theft insurance, all backed by 24-7 U.S.-based fraud support. Other companies might sell just credit monitoring or just a VPN.

ORA gives you all of it, together, at the same price competitors charge for just one service. Start your free trial today atora.com slash remove. Protect yourself now atora.com slash remove.