Hidden True Crime - The Nightmare Upstairs: When Abuse Allegations Collide with Custody Battles | Psychologist Reacts

Episode Date: May 31, 2026

Lauren Matthias and forensic psychologist Dr. John Matthias react to the new documentary The Nightmare Upstairs and explore the difficult questions at the center of the case. Beyond the documentary itself, we discuss family abuse, child disclosures, parental alienation, custody battles, trauma, and why these cases can be so challenging for courts and professionals to navigate. What happens when children say they're afraid—and how do we separate truth, manipulation, and misunderstanding in some of the most emotionally charged family conflicts imaginable? Sponsors: First Day Life: Get up to 57% off and a free gift with code HIDDEN at https://FirstDay.com. Shopify: Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial today at https://shopify.com/hiddentruecrime. Ethos Life Insurance: Protect your family with life insurance through Ethos—get up to $3 million in coverage in as little as 10 minutes at https://ethos.com/hidden. Application times may vary. Rates may vary. 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

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Hello, hidden gems. Hello. We are back at the table. We are ready to talk about the Hulu documentary, The Nightmare Upstairs. So this is your spoiler alert. If you want to go run and watch the documentary first, do so, but if you'd rather hang out with us,

which we hope you do. Here we are. There will be spoilers. And look, this is one of those documentaries in, it's rare when this happens where everybody comes out of this documentary. And you think that everyone kind of saw the same documentary you saw, right? And then you go to social media and you realize they didn't, that there are a wide variety of thoughts out there.

So I watched it separate from you. I watched it on my own eye. This is Dr. John Matthias, forensic and clinical psychologist, also my co-host, also my spouse. And we like to watch documentaries together, especially true crime documentaries,

but we watched this one separately. You watched it today. I watched it a couple nights ago. Missed watching it with you. But in the sake of this episode, we haven't talked about it. I certainly know what I think. Okay.

John. Well, you don't know what I think, and I know what I think. We're going to talk about it. I have questions. And John, just you know, he does a lot of assessments and evaluations, particularly for offenders. Sex offenders. Yeah. Most of my evaluations have been with sex offenders because they're the most difficult to assess in place within the judicial system. The most difficult, because some of them need probation. Some of them. Right, right. Right. If you commit a murder, the system is pretty clear about what to do with you. If you're a sex offender, it's a much grayer area. In other words, sex offender, it depends on the offense, of course. If it's a severe offense, the system is pretty clear about what's going to happen to you. But if it's, if you're a first time offender, a sex offender, placement is much more difficult to determine. Yeah. So there are a lot of varying opinions on this documentary. I think that we might have.

have some differing opinions too. So there are some things I don't know what I think yet. I want to talk you about it. But overall. But a brief overview, the nightmare upstairs is about two children who barricaded themselves upstairs in their Utah County home so that they would not be sent to reunification camp was just something I didn't even know existed. That was a new one.

I knew about wilderness camps for teens. I knew about Jody Hildebrand's camps. I did not know about reunification camps, but they're a place where if there is parental alienation, children can go with their alienated parent. The court thought they should go. Well, let's back up. Okay, back up.

Okay, we'll back up. Take it away. So just to clarify about reunification camp, First of all, I've done a lot of family reunifications for adolescents and adults, sex offenders. And never once had made a referral to reunification camp. I don't know it, but it requires a court order. So typically you're going to need a therapist. You're going to need a third party that's going to make a recommendation to the court for reunification camp.

So wait, when you say you've done reunification, what do you mean? What I mean is, for example, let's say in a family, family, let's say there's an adolescent offender. And let's say that that offender committed the offense against a sibling. If that child, if that, if that offender's a 13, 14 year old child, right? Complicated, yeah. And the family wants to stay together. Then the offender needs to go into treatment, needs to complete treatment. And then typically you'll engage in the reunification process to bring the family together. Okay, makes sense.

So you have two components of that. You have the victim getting treatment. So the reunification process is driven, often, it's most often driven by the victim. So it's victim, if the victim's not ready for reunification, there's no reunification. Yeah. And if the victim is ready for reunification

and therapy seems to be successful and the victim is comfortable, then you engage in the reunification process. But only after the offender is also ready. So you need those two components. What's unique about this is obviously you have this recommendation for reunification camp and the victims aren't ready. The victims don't want it. And that's what makes this unique is that the court is saying, I don't care, we don't care what you think. So typically the courts will say it depends probably depends on the state too.

So this is in Utah. Utah County. This is in Utah County. And, you know, so in Nevada, at least, the courts are extremely sensitive. They're victim-centric, and they're very sensitive to making sure that victims are ready for reunification. So you saw this situation as not being victim-centric? No. No.

No. Yeah. Utah County, by the way, is the place Utah County to note. It's where Adam Paul Steed, that that took place there. Adam Paul Steed was Jody Hildebrand's patient who ended up being abused and tried to seek help in a custody dispute. There are a couple of interesting custody disputes and situations out of Utah County.

Anyway. Yeah, we'll get into that more. Is there a political component to this story? Absolutely. Did they get into that? Not very much. But there clearly is. There's an underlying complete. There's a political undertone here for sure, I believe. Okay. I don't know if we are getting, we're not going to get into that. Are we? They didn't, are we? Well, I mean, just in the sense, look, if you want to raise the big question here is, A big question here is when a child says I'm not safe, who has the moral authority to decide if that statement's true? Is it CPS? Is it the judge? Is it a forensic evaluator? Right. Is it CPS?

Right. That's the question here. This isn't necessarily a question about who's lying. I mean, it is partly a question about that. Everyone wants to know that. Somebody's line. Yeah, we all want to know who's lying. Right.

But you're saying that's not what is most important here. Well, no, it's important. I'm saying, okay, we'll get into that a little more. It's obviously important. What I'm saying is you have children here saying, I am not safe. I am being abused. And then you have all these players weighing in

that are trying to assert their moral authority and say, okay, how do we evaluate that statement from a child? child. Yeah. And who do we give the most authority to? Do we give it to a CBS worker? Right. That's the question.

Yeah. I mean, of course, of course, a lot of it hinges upon the question about who's lying and who's not. But who do you, who do you give the authority to? Right. The moral authority. The moral. Because it's a moral question. Yeah.

That's actually probably why this has fired so many people up. Oh my gosh. Everybody has some different. Yeah. I'm sure, yeah, right. I'm sure, yeah, I'm sure it has. I haven't looked at the debate online, but I would imagine. So, sure, there's, there's, there's a question here, morality in the sense that you're talking about abuse and what to do with it.

And the system, the system, somebody has to exert the moral authority to make a decision around that issue. So that's the political aspect you're talking about. Yeah. Makes sense. Right. I mean, is it, right. Okay, good. And you get, and that's one of the things in this documentary that's interesting is you get these various players that are weighing in on that.

You get the judge, you get the social worker who thinks there's parental alienation. You get lawyers who thinks to think there's abuse. Some think there's abuse. Some think there's parental alienation. You have parents, right? You have family member. Everybody has a different position here. Right.

And that filtered into social media. It's been wild to watch. I'm sure. So what's your position? Wait. You're jumping ahead. Okay, okay. Yeah, we'll get into that.

You know, I think there's some issues here. Well, what's my position? So let's back up. One thing that's really fascinating about this case, if you want to understand what I do, if you want to understand forensic psychology, this is a really interesting case to consider that. And the reason I say that is because forensic psychology is based upon the idea that largely based upon the premise or the assumption that knowledge is imperfect.

So in other words, when I assess a case, I don't have perfect information. I have imperfect information. I get stories from different people, different players. I do testing. I do clinical interviews. I talk to people, right? Like everybody gives me a different version of events. Things also change.

For example, I may take on a case. I've done this before. I'll take on a case where certain crimes are committed. And then guess what? There's other crimes come out later. Yeah. Which changes the nature of the case. So I think there's an interesting dilemma here in terms of,

I think one of the elements here is that you're asking the system to evaluate a very complex situation with imperfect knowledge. And that's what forensic psychology does. And one of the offshoot of that, one of the consequences of that is that every possible path you take includes some element of harm. In other words, somebody's going to lose here. Yeah. It's either going to be apparent. In this case, if there's perennial alienation, right, then it's going to be the alleged perpetrator, the alleged offender, and if there's no parental alienation and the abuse is accurate, if there really is traumatic, what's called traumatic estrangement or traumatic abuse, if there is sexual abuse here, and you allow the offender to proceed as if no abuse happens,

then the children are hurt, right? But here's the problem, is that the system is trying to weigh on. So you have an allegation of abuse that comes out. Correct. Do two children, two children and an abuse allegation? Well, one child at first. True. But you have an...

You have an allegation. This is the way it always works. You have an allegation of abuse. DCFS is called into evaluate. So DCFS is now put in a position where they have to make a decision with imperfect knowledge. Are they going to protect the kids right away and alienate the father? or are they going to wait and let the father still see the kids? Okay.

And therefore harm the kids. So that's the question they're asking. The question they have to decide is, the question they have to decide is what's the least amount of harm with imperfect information? What decision can we make that's going to create the least amount of harm and protect the children with a large degree of uncertainty and imperfect? information. That, by the way, is a direct path into forensic psychology. This is, this is largely what I have done. This is what forensic psychologists do. So if I'm brought into this case to evaluate, I have to help make that decision with very, very limited information and imperfect knowledge. And of course, things change.

Well, that's why DCFS is also so important. You just explain what their job is and why it's so important. That's what they need to do. immediately. Right. And so you're trying to weigh the degree of harm on each side. And you're, you're trying to ask how much uncertainty is, this is a larger social question, how much uncertainty is society willing to tolerate in making this decision so that you're, you're, so that you're, so that you're benefiting the parties that need to help them, right, that need protection the most. Yeah. As a mom of one who is an extremely picky eater with food allergies, I've definitely had moments

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After you purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them that hidden true crime sent you. Now, a lot of times the system will, will err on the side of protecting the victims. And I think what's interesting about this situation is that's not necessarily the case. I agree. Okay. Go on. I guess maybe I should ask you a question, but I'm just waiting.

Okay, keep going. Keep going. You don't think that's the case. I don't think that's the case. I think one of the things this documentary gets horribly wrong, and one of the things the system gets horribly wrong about this situation is you have to go back, you have to go back to the first allegation of abuse. I agree with that.

The part where I paid the most attention in this documentary was in part one, where the allegation, so you have a situation where, Brin or Brinley goes to her mother. She's seven years old and she says mom, this happened to me with dad with the cream.

Dad touched me. Dad engaged in, you know... This abuse. Abuse. This is how it happened and it hurt. I'm traumatized by this. Please help me.

Protect me. Keep me safe. She didn't say that precisely, right? But that's what she's telling her mother. Yeah, she didn't say it. She's telling her. You're getting the lotion to, don't you think? She kind of got the lotion and said, this is what dad uses. I felt like that was almost like a cry for help. So you have an allegation, gets reported to DCFS. D. CFS investigates. They bring in a detective. They bring in this detective, detective race, who by the way, Brandt or BJ, the five. calls a quote man hater she's a female detective but let we're jumping ahead um now I'm hesitant to weigh in on this because if I in order for me to to give a accurate opinion of this I would have to see the full interview I would have to see the full report right I'd have to see everything I'd have to have the larger context I don't

have the larger context what I have is context from the documentary yeah However, the way the documentary presents it is when they do an interview, when they initially do that interview with Brandt, the detective asks him about the abuse and he blames Jessica. His first response is to blame Jessica. His ex-wife. His ex-wife, correct. In the documentary, then. Correct. Now, when I do interviews, I ask questions around the abuse as well.

When I asked that question and I get some answer like that, that's a red flag. Right? Like the answer should be simple. No, I didn't do that. No, there was no cream. No, right? Like, this should be clear cut. But that's not what Brent says.

Brent kind of, he kind of, he kind of meanders around the question. He blames his ex-wife. He says there was no bathing. Think about this. He says, there was no bathing, no bathing was happening. At Jessica's house. Like, okay, so what? That doesn't mean like, what does that have to do with the cream?

So is he saying, like, these are all red flags. When you interview an offender and you don't get a direct answer, if you're clear about not abusing a child, you say, I absolutely didn't abuse that child. There was no cream involved. You don't talk about bathing and grooming habits, right? This is all obfuscation. This is all some element of potential, I don't know for sure.

This is all some element of potential. It's red flags. It's potential guilt. Because you have somebody who's dancing around the issue. Interesting. When I see this, right away I'm concerned that there's issues here. The other thing I want to look at, the other thing I would look at is you want to look at the victim statement.

Is the victim giving a detailed, accurate description of something that I think would be considered sexual abuse? In other words, so you have the victim saying this is what happened. There was cream involved, right? All of that is fairly detailed. It is very detailed. A seven-year-old isn't typically going to, you know,

this is not a child saying, Daddy touched me inappropriately. This is a child saying, Daddy touched me with cream, and this is how he did it. and he, this is how he used his. Right. He's not even calling it abuse. Right.

She's just explaining what daddy did. Right. So you want to look at, you want to look at what the victim is saying and how they're saying it and how detailed it is. Right. And then you want to look at the, in the interview with DCFS or with the detective and detective race, who's a man hater, according to Brent. Female detective. Which apparently, you know, but we're kidding.

apparently Brent has issues with women in general, but that's a different issue, right? But so they show part of that interview. He says she's not bathing. What he's trying to do here is he's acknowledging, he also acknowledges that the dsitin cream was used, right? That he has, he has desiccine cream. This is the number of times I've heard offenders say, so I've had. I, by the way, I've had plenty of cases. You're getting like very, yeah, keep going.

Yeah, they're passionate. I can tell you. I've had a lot of cases, by the way, that are not dissim, that are similar to this in the sense that there have been ointments and cream used with the same type of explanation. Well, she was, you know, I used cream, but I didn't, I was, I didn't touch her privates. I touched around her privates because she didn't bathe. Mom didn't bathe. Like, I hear the similar, I hear similar explanations. Interesting.

She had an infection. Right. Right. These are the things I've heard. So I know this, I've heard this excuse. This is nothing new, right? So when I'm listening to this, I'm thinking, none of this, first of all, none of this is necessary. Like, in a way, he's, he, it's a tell.

Because when you talk about having cream and not bathing, you're kind of saying indirectly that you did something. Yeah. Okay. Right. There's something happened. It's just maybe not what. Was it, do I know for sure that it was sexual in nature? No.

Could it have been legitimately a situation where he wanted to bathe his seven-year-old child and put cream on? I don't know why you would put cream on, but maybe put cream on or around. the genital? Like, maybe, but it doesn't, it doesn't necessarily add up for me. When you combine these elements, it raises a lot of questions. It raises a lot of red flags, right? Because this is not the type of response that I would expect. Somebody that, somebody that's clear cut about not committing sexual abuse is going to tell me that. No, I did not touch my child. There was no cream. This is false. I didn't bathe my child. Do you've heard this time and time? I've heard this. I've heard this many times. I can't, I've had a number of sex offenders in my

groups that have done this very, have argued this very thing. They've argued that, you know, they've called it ointment or whatever. It's the same. I've heard, I've seen this. I've heard this. I've treated offenders that have done this. And you know, the amazing. thing about the offenders I've worked with with this exact situation is eventually they acknowledge they did it. They're not going to graduate from my groups unless the other offenders in the groups are like, come on. So when you have offenders come, they've even served their time or whatever, but they're

there for therapy, they're still saying they didn't do it? And at the end, they admit it? They come in. They all come in, not all. Many sex offenders enter my groups in denial, complete denial. So they'll have this story about she had an infection or she, or I wasn't touching her privates. I was just putting the cream on her stomach or I was giving her a massage, right?

I mean, I. Yeah. This is what I hear. This is what you know. And every single. The tickling thing. Every single one of those cases by the end of groups, and often it takes years, but by the end of groups, they all say, I sexually abused her.

So it's interesting. It's interesting that in this case, that this, that BJ or Brent is not referred. Why didn't he get referred for sex offender treatment? There were no charges, but he could have still been referred. Why weren't there charges? Well, I know that, I mean, that's, I think, I know, ask Utah County. That's where this is political. When we first started Hidden True Crime, I honestly felt like I had to learn 10 different jobs

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I don't know for sure. But oftentimes it's sufficient that if you have a detailed victim statement. I know. You have an offender who's in an interview who's contradicting. himself, those two elements are usually sufficient to bring charges, even if those charges are not severe, even if those charges are lesser charges, which could be, I don't know, let's say not assault, but maybe lewdness, I mean, lewdness is serious. But the point is that oftentimes if I saw this exact situation in Nevada, the DA would bring

charges. Yeah, the little girl Brinley gave a very detailed account. That was what was very clear in episode one. There would be, you don't, one of the problems here is, and this is why you get the barricade is because nobody believes the victims. That's how far they went. Nobody believes

the victims. Nobody believes the victims. Right. The, the barricade, the barricade becomes symbolic of a place to, for a place of safety and a prison. It becomes both.

The barricade is fight, flight, and freeze, all combined in one. Oh, wow. The barricade is a way, although that's complicated too. And I'll talk about that in a second. Like even the barricade is a little, there's some ambiguity there,

which when I saw something in that barricade, it just blew me away. I had to pause and just reflect because I'm like, I can't believe what I just saw. You saw something in the barricade? Yes. Did you pause and go back? Yes. And you saw it.

I saw it again and again and again. And I was like, what is going on here? Right? But we'll talk about that. See what happens when a forensic psychologist watches documentary as opposed to someone who's not looking for these things. So the barricade is symbolic of trauma.

It's symbolic of fight, flight, or freeze, right? It's an escape. It's what makes it unique is that he's live streaming it on social media. Right. The kids live streamed their barricade on social media because they felt that that would protect them too, though, I think.

Right. Because the police came to try to take them away for reunification camp. It did protect him. It did. I don't think they'd knock the door down because they were live streaming. He's trying to enlist witnesses, right? There's a lot of things that live stream is accomplishing.

I mean, where it gets complicated, though, okay, so this is the part that just blew me away. There's a moment. So they're in the barricade for 54 days. There's a moment in the first week or two where the camera pans to an angle where you see professional lighting. We have professional lighting here, okay? And the thing about, he has exactly the same light we have.

Okay. But I mean, we're not professionals and we have them. No. But, okay, keep going. But that's not what the point. We didn't have these lights for years. Yeah. We've been doing this six years.

We didn't have these lights for four. We only got these lights after four and a half years, right? This is a 16-year-old who's going into a barricade. Think about this. This is a 16-year-old who's going into a barricade, supposedly not knowing if he is going to be in there a day or months, with professional lighting. Think about the implications of that.

This is someone who knows. that he's going to be live streaming and he wants to have the best lighting he can have. I don't know. I'm asking, like, I couldn't believe. If I was a 16-year-old and I was going to barricade myself for a couple months, I wouldn't bring, I wouldn't even know. I don't know because actually the one point in the entire documentary brought me to absolute tears was Ty. I was a little boy.

And he wasn't, there was no professional lighting. It was his father filming him. And he was nine years old. I think was he nine, ten. And he was crying. And his dad was filming on the cell phone. He was saying, I don't want to go with him. I don't want to go with him.

He abused me. He was 11 when he disclosed. He was 11 when he disclosed. That brought me to tears. I'm not arguing that the abuse. didn't happen. What I'm saying is that if you combine, that it is peculiar to have a 16-year-old bring professional lighting into a live stream barricade situation and a mother simultaneously on a TikTok selling merch. No, that was weird to me. Well, let me say this. I did notice a

difference between when the documentary began and when it ended. And I pointed this out, actually to somebody out that, I mean, as someone that has told stories for my entire career, I recognize when they started having a crew with them. And so I wonder if somebody, and it sounds like the crew found them, live streaming on TikTok. Okay. So to give them, so to give them a benefit. of the doubt because I actually did notice as a storyteller and someone that, you know,

tell stories and wants to tell it well, I noticed that in the beginning, the first episode before the barricade, it was just retelling. Nobody was around for that. They had court docs. They had cell phone footage. They had history. He said, she said they had DCFS records. In the second episode, when the when the barricade begins, things start, becoming more professional very quickly. And I think that the whatever crew, the production crew discovered them during the barricade. And that's when I noticed a shift.

So it could be that somebody said, hey, throw this up there, give him this light. Who knows? Yeah, they could have. Who knows? I'm just saying because it was during that where they discovered these kids. And that's after is when things.

But that's where it's, That's where it's confusing. Again, getting back to this idea of imperfect information, was the lighting there from the start or was it added later? It seemed like the professional lighting came in pretty quickly, which would suggest it was there. Now, I could be wrong. You're right.

There were times when presumably these children went outside of the barricade. Maybe. No, I don't know about that either. Okay, then how did the lighting get in? Window? I mean, I think someone could have said, hey, let's let's give him this, break this light down. But you see the point. I see your point.

The point is there's. Well, I think that's the mystery behind it too. There's ambiguity here. There is. The other thing, okay, let's let's also look at ties statement or ties allegations of sexual abuse. It's not clear. Again, it's clear what he says happened, but it's not clear how that arose. It appears that some of that arose, some of that, okay, it appears that it was repressed memory.

Yeah, it was confusing. There's, it appears, again, for me, for me to evaluate the situation, I would need to look at all the records, right? But, and I don't have that. So this is speculation, but it appears based on the documentary and the documentary wasn't clear about this, but it appears that it was repressed memory that came up during therapy with this therapist, J.P. Lilly, who's a Baca guy, started Baca. Bikers against child abuse. Right.

It appears that these were repressed memories, and it started, this is what's really interesting. It started or may have originated from nightmares. The tie was having. And so this is where it really. becomes ambiguous because if it's nightmares if this is occurring in dreams what accurate is that right there's i think there's a difference here between the allegations that tie is making later and the allegations that brin makes initially brinley brinley well they call her brin too but so brinley brinley's allegations seem

to me seem pretty compelling and straightforward. But then you have the situation where these allegations are out there. And now all of a sudden, Ty goes into therapy. He starts remembering stuff. He says that some of this could be related to some nightmares. There's ambiguity there. There's ambiguity. That's not to say, he also says later, by the way, he says,

the trauma I can recall two events and that's it. He says this near the end. Quote, the trauma I can recall, I can recall two events, he can only recall two events and that's it. So what does that mean? He's pretty, he's pretty specific about, I mean, what he says happened, by the way, I'm not going to repeat it here. What he says happened is very specific. It's pretty bad. It's pretty sadistic.

Yeah. But again, is this a repressed memory? Because there's questions about that. Forensic psychologists will tell you. that repressed memories are controversial. They are controversial. But your point is, even with the ambiguity, that's not what matters here.

Ultimately, it's this first accusation. It's Brinley's accusation. Brinley's accusation is compelling. If that's true, if she's telling the truth, and I would have no reason to believe she's not, then everything else follows from that. It doesn't really matter. It doesn't really matter.

Nothing else matters. Even if Ty, even if Ty's memories are not accurate, and even if these are false beliefs, you still have sexual abuse. And what about, though, going back to that one scene that just made me, it actually just made me sob like,

Ty crying, you know, his dad, recording him just, I think the reason that made me cry is you see an 11-year-old, boy asserting himself and god bless you know is j p lily his therapist who gave him the courage to do that yeah yeah he said you know i don't want to go with you so like at what point here's a question too

i mean i get the parental alienation concern but like at what point do you say you know what this child just doesn't want to go with this father at what point like can a 16 year old then i mean i an 11-year-old is different than a 16-year-old. Is a lot different than an 11-year-old. So here he is 16 saying, I don't want to go to reunification camp. And you're going to have police come and remove him from the house to make him go. It's a little extreme. And then you have this social worker who is clearly siding with.

Let's talk about her, the parental alienation social worker. The parental alienation social worker. Becoming a parent changes the way you think. about a lot of things, especially the what-ifs you never used to think about before. And I think live insurance, honestly, is one of those things people know they should probably deal with, but keep putting it off because it sounds complicated or overwhelming. And that is why I wanted to mention ethos. They make getting life insurance fast and easy, completely online. You can get a quote in seconds. Apply in minutes and in many cases get same-day

coverage. And there is no medical exam. You just answer a few, simple health questions online. You can get up to $3 million in coverage and some policies are as low as around $30 a month. Take 10 minutes to get covered today with life insurance through ethos. Get your free quote at ethos.com slash hidden. That's ethos. Ethos.com slash hidden. Ethos.com slash hidden. Application times may vary and rates may vary. There's a statement in here, by the way. So Hannah Dreyfus is the reporter with ProPublica who makes this national news. There's a quote in here that I thought was from her, which is really good.

And she says, when a child, so when a quote, when a child says they are abused, you can one, believe they are telling the truth or two, you can believe there's someone convincing them to not tell the truth. Right. Right. Those are the two options. liked it when she said that. I remember when she said that. Yeah. Yeah. Right. But I think if you step back from all of that, there's still larger issues about what as a society, what do we do when a child reveals, when a child says they're not safe? What do we do when a child says they're not safe? And the evidence seems reasonable, right?

Do we ignore that child? Yeah, I don't know. Do we listen to them? Right? I mean, that's part of the issue here too. Is it in our society? We obviously, the moral authority here goes to the adults. Right, that was another point they made in this documentary.

You know, both parents, everybody's saying this is about the children. And ultimately, the thing people are, you know, caring about the most, what is the exact quote from it, you know, are the children. Why doesn't anyone believe the children? Why don't, yeah, if this is all about the children, why doesn't anyone believe the children? I think that's where you get political, potential political motives here in terms of, I mean, I'm just going to throw this out. I don't have an opinion on this, but early on they say that Brent's family, and we

hear from Brent's mother, Jolene, quite a bit in here. Mm-hmm. Yes, she doesn't. That supposedly this is a family that is connected, that has money, that's put right? So what does that mean? Affluent. Yeah. What does that mean? That you don't believe Brinley for the very beginning.

Are they, but are they? Also, by the way, it's worth pointing out, notice this, the parental alienation doesn't come into play until guess what? They get a lawyer. Well, also, can we point out to what parental alienation is? It's turning the kids against the parent. And I realized that while we didn't see that, as you point out, the moment that they tell her that the moment that they tell BJ that his daughter has made an allegation against him, Brannley has made an allegation. What does he do? Blame his wife, his wife, Jessica.

So I know that parental alienation are the parents training the kids against one another, but who's more likely to do parental alienation there at that point? You know, just watching how quickly he has to say, no, she did it. No, she did it. Like, it's her fault. I mean, talk about parental alienation. Well, and it's not only, keep in mind, it's not just Jessica. So, right, exactly. If you're looking at allegations of abuse, you're going to look at,

you're going to look at this person more broadly, right? And what you're going to find with Brent. And again, I don't know what's true. And I'm just repeating what people say. in this documentary. So Jessica was quite clear that Brent was very controlling and angry. Very controlling. Yes. What she wore. He was

overly concerned about how she wore her hair. How she did her makeup. He was concerned about the amount of time she spent with friends. There was an example she gave of him calling during a girl's night out and asking questions, controlling questions. Those types of things. But if you think that that's not sufficient, then you get his second wife who says the same thing, Sandy. So, you know, with Jessica, you could say, okay, you know, she's a, she's an angry spouse or ex-wife,

ex-wife, right? Doing parental alienation, doesn't like her ex-husband. Yeah. But let's bring in Sandy. Sandy says that Brent coached her. When Sandy went in to talk to Detective Race, she claims that he coached her. to say that when the cream was used, and again, think about this. He's acknowledging that he used cream.

I know. And to say she was there. To say that she was there when she wasn't. And she said, quote, he's extremely manipulative and controlling, unquote. She also talks about how he treated Thai. And, you know, she explained later on the stand how he treated Thai. you know, and make fun of him and say, be a man and just so hard on him, you know. Right. And she said, too, that he was very angry.

And then you get him saying things like calling Detective Race because she's female, a man hater. I know. That was such a moment. Because she questioned him, right? And so what, when you put all of that together, there's a, you start seeing a pattern. There's a picture that starts emerging there of someone who potentially possibly has some misogyny of someone who has a sense of entitlement

towards women, towards girls potentially, which towards Brinley, right? He sees potentially, he sees Brinley as an object. He's objectifying women in general. So is he objectifying Brinley? Certainly possible. Again, you want to look at his character, you want to look at the specific allegations

that Brindley's making when she's seven. You want to look at his responses during his interview. This is someone who, for my experience, and someone who I've worked with a lot of sex offenders, hundreds, these are elements. These are patterns that would tend to emerge among many of the sex offenders I've worked with.

This sense of entitlement. This sense of objectifying women. the sense of being self-absorbed. In other words, being concerned about his being self-serving, being concerned about his needs and not the child's. Right, and his image. Right, his image, right. And does all of that mean that he did this?

I don't know. Again, like I would have to look at the entire record. I would have to do interviews with these people. I can't really weigh in. I can just say from what I know and what you're seeing in the documentary from what I know in what I'm seeing in this documentary these are things that would be consistent

with the children telling the truth yeah we all know that no documentary can put in everything right we're talking about what they laid out in the documentary and what we saw in the documentary but else you always has the most amazing note so so I don't know what questions do you have well I think I want to go back to tie in that moment that affected me when he's 11 years old. And you're talking about the moment

when he confronts his father directly. Yeah, it was during a supervised visit. And his dad recorded everything. His mother explained that he was worried about everything. So we recorded everything. And he recorded, interestingly, it came from his dad's cell phone. Right. I know. I was wondering how they got that. Well, he probably used it for something. And then they just had it. He probably submitted it for court thinking it would help his case. True. He had tears. Ty had tears streaming down his face.

He refers to as a moment. I think the part that affected me again was like he says it was the moment he found his voice. You know? And so there's this boy standing up to his dad, which we also later learned from the other second wife, his stepmother, that he was so hard on Ty. And he, you know, and he's finding his voice. He's saying, I don't want to go with you. And he's also saying you hurt me, you know, you abused me. And I see him as maybe even standing up for his sister.

Exactly. If there is an argument, if you put aside, and again, I don't know, I'd have to see the exact allegations that Ty made initially. That would be the most interesting part to me. But if you base, if you base this assessment on his emotions, and kind of fight or flight, right? And the way he acts during the barricade and his fear of being with his father over and over again,

you'd certainly have to say that he's telling the truth. Yeah. Right? If you look at all of that, and again, I don't know. And his story remains the same at 16 on the stand, you know, saying, I don't want to do this, you know? This is a kid who definitely appears traumatized, who clearly doesn't, he's willing to go to extreme.

lengths not to be around his dad. This is a kid. I will say on the stand, the repressed memory question came up because I agree that is a question, right? And it's something that is controversial. So they did question him on the stand. And he claimed that that's not what J.P. Lilly did. You know, they said, you know, they told you that the nightmares.

He just said, no, like, sometimes they have nightmares because of trauma. He kind of denied the repressed memory being on the stand. Well, what J.P. Lilly, what he said was that J.P. Lilly had him do art and music, right? All of that is, that makes sense. Like, that does make sense. Like, that would be, that would be a way. So the basic premise there is that a child is trying to kind of get in touch with more unconscious elements of their, of themselves.

right? And they're trying to, they're trying to through that, through that avenue heal, but also maybe dig deeper into the trauma. So, but still, there's still ambiguity here. Yes, I know that there is ambiguity, but we also haven't seen all the evidence in the documentary. So we don't know everything. There's ambiguity from the documentary. Right. I'm clear about the fact that I would need to see the whole record, all the discovery, right? I don't know. We don't know how much. I don't know his, I would, I don't know what his initial statement was to DCFS.

I'd have to see all that. So, so, yes. But. But here's a question for you. Yeah. So the parental alienation is a thing. Yes. And people are probably seeing this through what they've been.

experienced. Prental alienation is coercive control. It's serious. It's heartbreaking. Admitting that it happens, I think is a step. So how do you, you know, it's interesting because you have the victims and that matters and this is clearly, you know, an issue of abuse and abliving the victims. So how do people balance this idea of parental alienation. I mean, for me, it's obvious. Look at the evidence. Thank you. Okay. Like for me, looking at the evidence, it's obvious. Like I said, the moment B.J.'s accused, he blames his wife, you know, well, she doesn't bathe them. Like, to me, the evidence is clear where if there is any parental alienation, it would come from him. But, I mean, but then people argue, well, she was tick-talking and she was jumping on the bandwagon. She doesn't, so let's talk about the

TikToking, you know, the TikTok, her starting that TikTok was the worst thing she could have done. It wasn't great. It wasn't a good one. Because it looks like she's objectifying her children. If, if, if you want to make an argument,

so let's talk about the social worker Michelle Jones. Her argument for proinalination. And again, it's going to be more detailed. They just gave very minute things. But her argument is, that parents that engage in parental alienation divide the world up in the bad guys and good guys. This is her language.

Okay. So they engage in black and white thinking. It's often intergenerational. And quote, the protective parent was abused and nobody helped them. And that seems to apply to Jessica. In other words, we know that Jessica grew up in an abusive family.

We know that. Right. That's her argument for parental alienation is that Jessica was abused. that nobody helped her and so she transferred that essentially onto she put that on her own kids that's her argument

the problem with the TikTok is if you there's two ways to think about this that if you want to show that you're not engaging in Prentia Alli Nation then be a parent

who's focused primarily on your relationship with your children. In other words, be a parent primarily in relationship. Well, I think, to be fair. Not in a relationship with social media people. To be fair, I think that's what she was trying to show. Was her support that she was there feeding them, that she was downstairs supporting them. She's selling merch.

I know, but I think there were a lot of TikToks. And I think even we don't sell merch. Yeah, we do. Well, we don't promote it. We sell merch. And there is more coming. We don't sell a lot. And find the link in the description.

We don't sell a lot of merch. We don't promote our merch. It's being promoted now. Nothing wrong with promoting merch. If it's to help the kids, I think there's less we know about the TikToks than anything. Because they showed a bunch of B-roll and they showed a highlight reel. We don't know what she was doing on the TikToks. But I don't think it was a great look for her.

to do a TikTok, but we don't know if she wasn't trying to connect to our kids and talk to him. You're not on TikTok. So let me just say this. Thank God. There's a lot of relationships happening on TikTok. No, I know. And I'm never going to be on TikTok. No.

So, so, but here's, here's the problem. Here's the problem. Okay, go ahead. Because the problem is you don't want to look like your object to find your kids. You don't want to look like you are. Right. Whether she is or not, I don't care. It's the appearance of objectification.

Like parental alienation involves objectification. No, I know. I know. I know. It does. Right. He's very passionate tonight. Yeah, I am passionate.

It's good. It's good. Yes. Right. It's objectifying your kids and not putting them first. And by her doing the TikToks, you feel that. It's a bad. look. It's a bad look. It's a bad look. It's, it's, yeah. Grace is over here. She has a question.

Yeah. Hello, Bracson. No, I'm going to challenge this. I understand you think it's bad luck. Could this be the mom trying to connect with her children, but because she, I mean, Brindley said that her mom's fingers were like, like, I go the door and it, could the fact that these kids know that their mom's watching them all the time? Like, could that, I agree. If you can't beat them, join them. Your kids like, Mom, watch this. Yeah, watch this all day, every day, 40 hours a day, and there's only 24 hours a day. They're on TikTok.

That's what they're doing, right? Your people are watching some days whenever. So she's saying they're connecting. That's kind of how I see it too. I'll be honest. Yeah, but okay. I'd like to be honest. I'm just going to say that.

I mean, minus the merch. Unless the merch was for, you know, the Uber Eats, whatever, but put the merch aside for a second. I do think that Grayson has a point. Your kids are on TikTok 24-7. They're barricaded in your, in the house. Like, what are you going to do? But she can talk to them through the door.

I know, and she wants to see them. And they're being, they're live streaming 24 hours a day, seven days awake. And so she's saying, I see you guys. I'm their mom. I'm connecting. And then I also want to say too, because this also happens. So I agree with you. But then throw in this for context.

too. She's been dealing with this for years. She has an ex-husband who wasn't charged with abuse of her daughter. And now her children are taking a stand. And it's been years and years and years and maybe she's broken to. And she's like, oh, my gosh, people are finally listening. Like, you know, I'm going to do, you know, I'm going to do this. I don't, I don't dispute that. It could be a way for her to connect. I don't dispute that. And again, I haven't, I'm not on TikTok. Thank God. John, look at me. Look at my dance.

Look at my TikTok dance. I'm just kidding. Come, come, come, come watch me. So, but. I'm on YouTube too. Come watch me on YouTube. Oh, he doesn't watch YouTube either. I'm minimally on YouTube.

I guess this will be on YouTube. So there you go. John does not connect that way. John has no social media. Yeah. Social media is, social media is ruining the world. So she's using filters. She's, she's, she's, no, I know, I know, but no, hear me out.

Hear me out. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's clownish. That's TikTok. That's what everybody does. I use a filter by going to TikTok. I'm not putting my face in TikTok without a filter. But if your kids, if your kids are barricaded, if your kids are traumatized, and, and, and they're barricaded in a room, and, and, and you're dealing with a really,

serious issue. Don't give me some, you know, like, don't give me some circus act. It's not the filters. It's the, it's the, for me, it's the nature. It's, it's the lack of seriousness around, around abuse. It's the lack of. We're talking about abuse and children not wanting to go with their father. And she's like, it's a serious traumatic issue. Don't give me a circus. act. Yeah. It feels like a circus act. Like, don't, I mean, don't, don't make, I mean, this is me, you know, people may disagree

with me, but don't turn trauma into performance art. Don't turn trauma into entertainment. I mean, I know we do that these days. I know, I know that's our world. I get that. I understand that. But it bothers me. Fair.

So does that? that mean that that doesn't. Unfortunately, there's live streaming on TikTok. I mean, that was their platform of choice. That doesn't mean either way. It doesn't mean that there's parental alienation or not. I'm just saying that if you're trying to avoid the perception of parental alienation, you probably don't want to put on a circus act.

But here's the bottom line. And because you're not on social media, let me tell you what I'm seeing. Let me tell you what I'm seeing on social media when it comes to this case. He said they love it at the eight times. I agree. Like, here, here, concur. Thank God. So if, if, you know, and unfortunately, thank God, I, I am on social media so we can have a

career. That's true. So lucky you. So keep being the talent. Right. I can make periodic appearances. on social media. You're literally on social media. Thank God. Your wife takes care of it for you. But you're not, TikTok isn't your primary. I joined recently. No, it was like an account I had.

I'm going. I'm moving. Never done TikTok dance. But, you know, I'll tell. Please don't do one now. Well, I'll do one. Don't do one. Don't do the, don't do the gritty. Once upon a time, John said to me, I will never go on YouTube. That's true. And I know that he looks down a lot. And some of you have suggested he look up, but he is not a performer. And now you know, he is the real deal, guys.

You're not getting anything but Dr. John Matthias. This is the authentic doctor. Like I'm not. Who has zero performance, who has notes down here, who can't look at the camera, who. No, I can look at the camera. It's just not. natural. Yeah. So, so who uses notes, who doesn't perform, but every time you say you're not on

on social media, thank God, just know that you actually are because you're welcome. You're welcome. If you guys, if you want me to look at you, please come say hi to me at CrimeCon. Yeah. Because CrimeCon is in Vegas starting tomorrow. And I will, I would love to meet you guys. I would love to talk to you. And I can actually look at you. I don't have to look at a camera. I can actually look at human beings. That's so sweet.

Which I'm more accustomed to. Clip that for TikTok. That was so sweet. That was so adorable. That was a great short. Okay. So now I'm going to be on TikTok. Put a filter on it.

And you just didn't know. You were on. You are on TikToks up every day. You are on TikTok. I agree with you that social media is ruining the world. You're also a part of it. But, you know. Part of ruining the world.

No. On it. On it. No, you're a part of helping the world and stay authentic and don't perform. And, you know, even I am hard on you. Even I will be like, look at the camera. Look at me more because he doesn't perform. So hard.

It's so hard. And I'm hard on you because. You're so hard on me. Because I am balancing you and my husband who doesn't perform and social media platforms where... I have to perform. No, you're not performing. performing on them. Okay.

Yeah. No, you don't perform. That's, it's actually a beautiful thing about you. So, and now you guys understand why. This is,

this is Dr. John. He is who he is. So, I mean, I am too. I am, I am also authentic,

but I have the training unlike. Yeah. Right. You were in front of a camera for 10 years before we met. So it's easier for me. Yeah. I've never been,

most of my career has been spent. in, you know, in small spaces with one person doing interviews or in therapy rooms doing, you know, with one person. Yeah. So you are really lucky that your wife is on social media or else, you know, there would be no hidden true crime. I do the gritty. The gritty? Yeah. What's the gritty? It's a dance.

No. It's a dance that our son loves. No. Oh. No dances. I want to do a dance on TikTok. I want to do the gritty with it. Wait, I just said I was going to do a dance and you said I couldn't.

And now you're saying you want to do. There's one dance I do with them. Oh, yeah. Well, no, it's never going to go on TikTok. Okay, anyway. Okay. What's next? Now I agree with you.

Where are we in our discussion? Do we cover everything? I think we covered everything. Like I said, so like parental alienation. So when you say look at the evidence, what did you say look at the evidence? What did you see when it came to parental alienation? Minus the TikTok filters and the merch. We've been on from that.

Because I saw someone that was more likely to parental, to alienate a parent. To parental alienate? I saw someone that was more likely to be the alienator. Yeah, the alienator. And it wasn't Jessica. I saw BJ as someone more like. likely through the he said to his wife, his other wife, the new wife, the second wife that also divorced him, he coached her. He controlled what they wore. He did this, he did that. He was so

quick the moment the abuse came down from Brinley. Correct. He blamed his wife, ex-wife for something. He's, he's more concerned about controlling the narrative than Jessica. Yes. And so I think it's interesting, it is interesting though that the social worker, has this theory. She's applying this theory to Jessica about black and white thinking and that she's to her. And again, I don't have all the evidence.

She's got more evidence than I do. But her argument is that because Jessica was abused, she's more likely to be the parental alienator than is Brent, even though Brent has. Well, how about just, again, look at the evidence. Look at how they act. Look at the evidence.

Yeah. I agree with you that BJ cares a lot more about his image and controlling the narrative. I actually think that's why he wasn't in the show. Remember how I told you that I saw a transition in the way they were doing the documentary where it was all the past stuff. And then as it moved forward, I could tell that there was a crew and a production crew and probably a deal once they started live streaming and barricading themselves inside. I even noticed that they did like cell phone journals, which I think.

that the production crew was probably encouraging them to do. And they had really nice camera shots for the moment they were, you know, their stepdad asked to adopt them. There was clearly a production team involved towards the end. So I suspect that BJ, well, we know that BJ was asked to be in the documentary. And he declined. His mother was in it instead. Right.

And at the end, there was this surprise ending. here's your, a major spoiler, there was a surprise ending where he gave up his rights and everybody was shocked. He knew that this production was now a professional production at this point when he did that

because everyone, there's all this nice footage and during this nice footage, it's a surprise that this is the way it went. So when we talk about image, the way I saw this documentary play out was him making some choices at the end to sort of control the narrative and save his image.

He sent his mother in instead of him, and she did a much better job than him. Because on the stand, or where was it? There was a moment where they asked him, oh, yeah, it was on the stand. Like, why, why do, what was it that he said? Why do you want the kids or? They asked him, why he was fighting for kids?

And he said, because I never want, he was, it wasn't because I loved him. It was because he wanted, He didn't want them to grow up with a false narrative. He literally said that on the stand. Nobody caught that. But they said, why do you want, why are you fighting for your kids? And he said, I don't want them to grow up with this false narrative.

But when they asked the grandmother, his mother in the, in the episode, in the documentary, why are you fighting? And she said, he's fighting because he loves them. Clearly he is a much better spokesperson. then he is. And then to give up the rights, I think they saw the writing on the wall. And all of a sudden he realized,

oh, maybe I should put the kids first and relinquish rights. That's my theory. But how about this? That's my theory. I'm just saying. How about not only is that impression management at the end

so he can look like the good guy. But how about this? What if it's guilt? What if after this, whole fiasco. What if he's acknowledging that what he did that what he did was wrong and that he's guilty and he feels guilty and he's relinquishing the children because he knows it he knows he knows he knows he did it. He knows he did it. It's guilt. Also I love it when he's when he's he's saying his little statement. His eyes are like going back and forth and reading. Did you notice that?

It's probably something else. I noticed like he's like his eye vaults are like going. he's reading a statement as he cried. I missed that. Yeah, well, I missed the light, so. I wasn't paying that. I missed the professional light, but I did not miss the reading. I guess that when you're trained to, when you're a reporter and you're trained to look at those kinds of micro

expressions in detail, I'm trying to look at micro expressions too, just not on a show. But that's interesting what you said. But what if it wasn't just image management, as you say, it was guilt because he knows. And he even said his mother. I mean, and also,

can we talk about what a mama's boy? I took it as guilt. I'm not going to go. I'm not going to go do the interview, but mama, you go for me. How about, help the golden boy.

Can we talk about what an, little golden boy? How about, can we talk about what an enabler she is? Oh, my, is what I'm talking about. He's like the little golden boy. He's been divorced twice.

Both of his wife's, ex-wives say the same thing. His kids don't want to talk to him. And she's just like, false allegations. And he literally says in the stand, I'm fighting for my kids to control this narrative. And then she's like, no, he's fighting for him because he loves him.

I'm going to quote, the enabler. Jolene said something that was a bit of a tell to me, by the way. She said, I believe this was in R2. Quote, if you cannot remove the child from the source that is causing the problems, it turns out the same every time. What she meant, she was talking about, she thought she was talking about parental alienation.

She's saying that the source is Jessica, that if you have a source that's alienating or creating problems for your children in their relationship with the other party, then as long as they're around that source, nothing will change. But what she's really saying indirectly, inadvertently, is if you have children around, an abuser, nothing will ever change. The abuser, so the question is, she doesn't know it,

but the question is, who's the abuser? I know. Who's the source? And how can we know that? Because we can know that from the kids' extreme reactions. Yeah. Even in parental alienation, kids don't react this strongly. If you see the barricade ultimately as being a version of fight or flight or freeze, which it is, I believe. Yeah. You have to see that. To me, you have to see that reaction as being extremely traumatic. And no matter what else, like, I'm kind of on the fence with Ty to some degree.

I mean, I don't, I don't disbelieve him. But with Brindley, everything is authentic. Brinley's emotions, her statement, her initial statement, her initial allegation, all of that seems to me to be really authentic. Yeah. And when you say on the fence with Ty, I believe that he believes he was abused. I believe his feelings.

Yeah. I just think there's more ambiguity with Ty in terms of was this repressed memory, was it from nightmares, was it from experience, right? It's not... Was it from hating his dad because his dad was clearly very hard on him,

according to his testimony? Was it from his bond with Brinley? And was he right? Was he so connected to her that he felt compelled to support her through allegations that from repressed memory? I'm not saying that's accurate. I'm raising that question. Yeah. But ultimately, so what I'm seeing on social media, full circle, is a lot of people, and this is

I think it's interesting with a lot of arguments out there where people have about things. A lot of people arguing all these little details, like whether or not she should have done the TikTok, whether or not there was parental alienation or not. Whether or not, you know, all these, all these things, they should, she should have been selling merch, whether or not you believe the second stepmom, whether or not, you know, all these things. Did we hit on all the talking points? Sounds like we hit on most of those.

Yeah. Well, no, I'm going through our talking points. But, I mean, there's more, you know, whether or not someone should have worn a shirt or not, whether or not someone was promiscuous or not. Like, the points are endless with opinion. But what's interesting? There's no shortage of confirmation bias on social media, by the way. If you have a theory of this case, you're going to find all the evidence you want to support that theory. Well, this is what I was going to say.

No, they're using these moments to create a theory. They're saying, well, because she did the TikTok, thus there was parental alienation, thus I don't believe. No, but I think they have a theory first. Okay, that's fair. Maybe they do. I just find the arguments interesting. Even you and I have like had some like, you know, whether or not she should have TikTok's moments. But ultimately, that's not what matters.

TikTokian is okay. It's just, it's just the... Whether you like these people or not. Like, ultimately it's not what matters. Ultimately, as you say, the only thing that matters, the only thing in this entire documentary is Brinley's first disclosure. If you want to understand, if you want to understand this case and this situation, you have to go back to where it all originates.

And it originates with the initial allegation from Brinley, of abuse. You have to look at what she said. You have to look at whether it's believable. You have to look at whether it's consistent. You have to look at Brent's response to, you know, his, how did he handle it? How did he do with the, right? That's, ultimately, you can't deny that. Yeah. So whether or not you like the grandmother, whether or not we like. The TikTok is secondary to that initial. Whether we think that was another big thing, was the barricade plan. We touched on that. We don't know. Whether or not you think that Jessica helped with the

barricade. Whether or not... Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. None of that matters. What matters here is, and the whole documentary, I kept saying to myself, but what about the initial disclosure? That's what matters. Why isn't this documentary focusing more on

Brindley's original initial disclosure and how compelling it is? Because if you believe that, if you believe that, then everything else follows from that. If you believe that, there's no parental alienation. There's abuse. Well, what's interesting, though, is, you know, you're right.

They didn't focus a lot on that. They circled back and mentioned it. But in some ways, I think the documentary did a good job on showing how if you don't focus on the right thing, these parental custody battles can look confusing to the court. This is how messy they can look. look to the court. But ultimately, what we need to learn is that that first disclosure is all that matters. So when things do look confusing and when things do look messy, and when we are arguing over TikTok merch, ultimately stop and go back to the first disclosure. That's how we need to focus.

The system fails here because so I know in a lot of cases that I've dealt with, that initial disclosure would have been taken seriously and there probably would have been charges that would have resulted from that because it's sufficient when a child discloses abuse if that statement is compelling and there's no reason not to believe a seven-year-old

that is sufficient evidence of abuse to charge an adult I've seen so many cases where that's all you need but his mama his mama came and let everyone know he was in a seat B.J. was innocent. Because the grandma,

it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. This is where the protocol. I know. I'm kidding. I'm with you. Right. And so I agree. The whole documentary I kept thinking, but what about the original disclosure? Well, that shows you, though, how the courts don't focus on that either. Because people make it confusing. You know, B.J. comes along and is like,

she doesn't bathe them. and the cream and now does, you know, like it shows you how it gets confusing. Like, I think I agree with you that they should focus on more of an ultimate system fails. The system fails here because it doesn't recognize the severity and the importance and the influence of that initial disclosure. That's all that matters here. And that's what matters. And believe that. Do you believe the child or not?

And if you believe the child, then everything else follows from that. Right. And it was very clear that it came from the child and not Jessica. They interviewed the child. They interviewed the child. They interviewed Brinley. They came from the child. They discussed details with Brin.

And not only do they interview the child, they kind of tried to deal with this during the trial. Not only did they interview the child, but here's another important point. DCFS substantiated it. Yeah, they said it happened. They believed the child. So, I mean, ultimately, yeah, you have to, like, wonder what's happening in Utah County that they don't make charges on substantial. That's why I say it's political. That's why I said it's political. Right. Like, yeah. And so. And you disagree with me initially. No, no. No, I didn't disagree with you. I got nervous. I was just like, oh, are we going to go there. I don't want to go there. I don't want to go there. I'm not going to get too. I don't know. When I say political, I just mean what's happening behind the scenes. Who's pointing strings where? I don't know. It's confusing. I don't know.

So is this a family with influence and how are they used? choosing that influence. So if we're going to go there, yeah, let's talk about Utah County. There's the Adam Paul State case. Yep. There's the recent case we just covered. We actually covered it a couple days ago. The children have been found safely, Will and Wesley, who were missing. Their mother in Washington, the father who kidnapped the kids and took off with them, found in San Felipe, Mexico. There's your update. Thank goodness. We're working on an update later. there was a, does she requested

a protection order? Same county. It was denied. It was denied and then he kidnapped the kids. Look, I don't know what evidence is out there. I don't know anything about that case. But my point is, there is certainly an interesting pattern in Utah County.

So I'm going to, as long as we're talking about this, here's the, I'm going to, I'm going to end with the question I think drives this whole narrative. And that is, and this brings in the political point, too. I wrote it down here. I'm going to read it. So I'm not going to look at you.

I'm not going to look at the camera. Okay, you're going to read it. Excuse me. No, no performing. Just read it. My question, let's end with this. My question is, what happens when a powerless person, in other words, a child, what happens when a powerless person tells the truth?

but the adult world lacks the moral imagination or the courage to hear it. That's the question. And that brings in, why doesn't the system deal, right? If you're asking, why doesn't the system deal with it differently? That's the, this is why. Because when you have a child or someone without any power telling the truth, ultimately it's the different components of that system that need to have the courage

to speak for that child and if they don't have the courage to do it this is the fiasco you get well that's a TikTok live stream that'll be on 53 days no no that won't be it could be all right but you won't know okay okay thank you everyone anyway we'll see you at crime con we'll see a crime con I hope I can see you guys

and I hope I can see you and make eye contact with you directly and not have to do with the camera. He's very good at making eye contact. In fact, everyone's like, stop psychoanalyzing me. He'll just look at you. It's just hard when it's a camera. He likes human connection. No social media, no cameras. He can't wait to look at you.

I like dealing with people. Yeah. So we'll see you at crime. All right. Good night. Good night.