Kenzie | Betrayal Weekly

This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human. I remember I was sitting on the bed and I opened it and I screamed. I was shocked. Horror was all I could feel. All the color drained from my husband's face. I'm Andrea Gunning and this is Betrayal, a show about the people we trust the most and the deceptions that change everything. Really quick before we get into the episode, I have a small favor to ask you. If you're enjoying listening to Betrayal, please take a second to hit the follow button on your podcast app and please rate and review. We read all the comments and your voices help our show improve and evolve. I really mean it when I say thank you for listening and helping us grow. Also, if you want behind-the-scenes content or resources, follow @betrayalpod on Instagram or follow me @it'sandraygunning. All right, onto the show. Kenzie grew up in Tuila, Utah. We lived right at the base of a really big mountain range in Utah, so literally you opened our curtains in the front yard and we were right at the base of the mountain. I am the third of four and my oldest brother is kind of a trouble maker and he would come up with all these silly little games that we would play. We spent a lot of time together as siblings while my parents were at work. Their parents taught them to work hard for the things they cared about. If it was school or church or sports, whatever it was, they didn't really care as long as we put our best foot forward and did everything that we could. They really instilled the work ethic into us. Her family is part of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and faith is a big part of their lives. They all went to church together every week. We feel every Sunday and then each age group would do activities together that I think definitely shaped me into who I am in a lot of ways. They just instilled more values of respect and hard work and honesty and all those things. When Kenzie was 13, her family moved to Idaho. That's where she went to high school. I was in two to three choirs all throughout high school. I was in student council and I did really well academically. She loved hanging out with her siblings, especially her older sister Brin. She's four years older than me so I wanted to be her. I wanted to do everything she did. We have the funniest pictures of us and matching dresses and I'm so happy and she's so mad. Our rooms were right next to each other and so we thought we were super sneaky and I would sneak into a room at night and we would play and we would talk, we'd hang out and then we'd hear my mom yell down the stairs, go to bed! One day Brin came home from a church activity buzzing about a guy she'd met there. She told Kenzie and their mom everything. And she was like hey guys I talked to this guy and he wants to take me on a date and we were like is he a killer because why does he want to take you on a date so fast? His name was Taylor. When Brin came home from the date, any skepticism about Taylor melted away. She was like oh my gosh you guys that was amazing. He's a great guy. She was so excited and so happy. Kenzie's sister and Taylor started dating. They were teenagers so at first it wasn't very serious. As the months passed it became clear what a great fit they were. Kenzie was impressed with him. He just always seemed to have her best interest in mind. Really aware of her and always wanting to be there for her. Kenzie liked having Taylor around too. I really liked him. I was like if you're in, you're in. We had a brother sister relationship. He was like an older brother to me. He would tease me. I would tease him back. Soon Taylor started hanging out with her family. Her parents embraced him. One of my favorite qualities about my parents is if one of us brings somebody home and we're like this is the person. It's their person too. They loved him. They accepted him. They mentored him. They wanted to know where are you going and like how can we help you with that? It seemed obvious to the whole family that the two of them were destined for marriage. Kenzie spent many days with him and her older sister Brin. She looked up to both of them. We would make dinner together and we would go shopping together and we would do everything together. It was just fun to be around them. We would always sit at the dinner table and I'd be like hey Taylor, I've got this on my mind. Can you talk to me about it? We would just talk about what to do after high school. Which was a big deal to me because I was just kind of craving that older brother advice kind of relationship and Taylor provided that. One day, Brin and Taylor were picking Kenzie and her friend up to give them a ride home. They parked on the side of the road and Kenzie and her friend walked up to the car. And my sister had her hand by her shoulder in the car and I was trained to tell them something that was like really upsetting me and I was being so dramatic about it and I was being so like just listen to me and they wouldn't listen and they were laughing and I was like guys this isn't funny and finally my friend's like oh my gosh, Kenzie look at your sister's figure. That's when she finally saw the brand new ring her sister was wearing. They had gone out and he had proposed. Kenzie was so excited for them. Taylor was in the air force and shortly after they got engaged, he was deployed. So he was gone for nine months. They were like FaceTime every day for hours on end and my little brother and I'd be like do like talk to us come on like why are you on the phone at the time. But really, they were happy to see their sister so in love. She was so happy and we had just never seen her that in love before so it was really really fun to see her that way. One day, Kenzie and her sister, Bren, were at Walmart. That's when Bren got a Facebook message from one of Taylor's ex-girlfriends. And we were sitting in the Walmart parking lot and she's like oh my gosh, what is this message? And I remember we both looked at it and it talked about like he's a bad guy. You don't want to go through with this. Like believe me your life's going to get ruined if you marry this guy. Bren started panicking. This was so out of the blue. She was crying. I mean she was so confused. This wasn't the Taylor that we knew. The Taylor that we knew was kind and trustworthy and all these things. And I was like what do you mean? It's Taylor. We love him. He's the best. There's nothing to be scared of. She's probably some crazy ex-girlfriend. Just leave it at that. And she did. Bren closed the app and tried to forget about it. The wedding was just months away. My name is Josie Duffy Rice. I'm a journalist who covers the criminal legal system. And over my career, I've heard account after account of prosecutorial misconduct, story after story of injustice. But I've never heard a story quite like this. The more I kept reading that stuff I thought, man, there's more red flags that just kept coming up over and over. We'll hypnotize them to strengthen that memory. So he went into a good France. I really didn't believe any of it was real. And I was like well they're going to figure out this is not me. They're going to do their police job. Listen to examined the backfire effect on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When Taylor got back from his deployment, he and Kenzie's sister, Bren, got married. It was a backyard wedding at my parents house. And it was so fun. It was a beautiful wedding and we had so much family there. I was just really happy for her. We really, really liked Taylor and we were just super happy to have him officially be in the family. Taylor and Bren moved in together. After graduating high school, Kenzie began a three-month-long mission trip with her church. She spent the final month in Texas. And when I came home, I was so freaking lost. I had no idea what I was going to do. And my sister and Taylor had a place with an extra room and they're like if you want to come live with us so that you're at a mom's house, you totally can. So Kenzie moved in with them. Living with her sister and Taylor, she felt less lost. Kenzie was ready for a serious relationship. She had downloaded a dating app, but so far she hadn't really clicked with anyone. I was like this is kind of stupid, but right before I deleted it, I had expanded the radius to like the entire state of Idaho. That's when she saw a profile that caught her eye. His name was Parker. I was like, "Well, I wanted to leave this, but I want to know if he messed his and a couple days later I downloaded the app again and he had messaged me. Parker seemed different from other guys she'd talked to on the app. He was kind, polite, and fun to talk to. They set up a time for their first date. But Kenzie's mom was nervous about her meeting up with someone she met online. She was like, "You're not going on this date alone. You're taking your sister with you." So, Brian and Taylor came on the date to supervise. We went acts throwing and it was so fun. But I remember all night I wanted Parker to put his arm around me. And I could see my sister and Taylor just laughing in the corner trying to nudge us to do something. Despite their best attempts to embarrass her, the date went well. Kenzie really liked Parker. He is one of the kindest people I've ever met. He was always just very respectful and kind towards me. Soon they started dating. I have convinced him to come out to Boise like every single weekend. So he would leave after work and drive four hours and come see me and then go back home on Sunday night. Kenzie and Parker started hanging out with Bren and Taylor a lot. We would go to dinner together, we would do game nights at my sister's house. We watched a lot of movies together. Taylor made the best caramel popcorn. And we would all just get together and sit on the couch and watch movies. The four of them made a fun crew. They started going on bigger adventures as a group. We went on a lot of road trips together. We would blast 2000s hits and we would sing in the car together and we would just laugh and have so much fun. Then in the summer of 2021, Kenzie and Parker got married. She was 19 and Parker was 21. After the wedding, they moved in together. We bought the tiniest little house and when I say tini, it was like 600 square feet. So small and it needed a complete remodel and we remodeled it within like a couple months. And we lived in this fun little town and we were like right by the town center and so we would go and watch the little concerts downtown and go to the farmers markets and we got a dog. Kenzie got a job in real estate. She and Parker cherished the life they were building together. When Valentine's Day rolled around, Kenzie decided she wanted to do something special for Parker and herself. A photographer she followed on Instagram posted that she was now offering blue dwarf shoots. Kenzie thought it would be an empowering experience for her and a fun gift for her husband, but it also made her nervous. My family is very conservative, very religious and this was so out of the box for me to do. So I didn't tell anybody about it. I was like, it's my own thing. I'm just going to do it. When Kenzie showed up at the studio, the photographer made her feel completely at ease. She coached her on how to pose. When the photographer showed Kenzie some of the pictures, it was an incredible feeling. She felt beautiful and confident. I've always been very insecure at my body and so doing this photo shoot, I was able to see myself in a different lens. Like wow, I do feel like a woman, I do feel empowered and it built up a certain amount of confidence in me that I didn't have before. A few weeks later, her photographer shared a link to the photo shoot gallery. Kenzie blushed, but she loved the photos. They would be just for her and her husband. I only saved the ones that I liked and I put them in the hidden folder on my phone and I air-dropped them to my husband and then he put them in his hidden folder on his phone. She was extra cautious when downloading the photos. She didn't want them saved anywhere, where someone besides her husband could see them. I was just kind of obsessing about what if I made a mistake and sent it to the wrong person or like, what if I posted it on accident? I was so scared. I was just afraid that people would look at me differently if they knew what I had done. A couple weeks later, Kenzie went out to lunch with her sister, Brent. And she was like, do you mind if I ask what you're doing for Parker for Valentine's Day? I don't know what to do for Taylor. You got any ideas and I was like, okay, I just did the photo shoot. I was like, I don't want to tell everybody about it, but if you want to reach out to this photographer, I think you'd really like it. Her sister reached out to the photographer and set up her own session. Later that month, Kenzie got a message from an official social media account for Brigham Young University. A private university in Utah affiliated with the LDS Church. And they were like, hey, you have some photos posted under our hashtag. Can you take them down? They sent the photos were posted on X or Twitter, but Kenzie didn't use Twitter. I had a Twitter account in high school for student council that I was on, but I didn't use it for anything else and I didn't even know my login. And so I knew in the back of my head there's no way I could have posted that, but I was still scared. Because again, I had the attrusive thoughts like, what if I did something? Whatever inappropriate photos were posted under BYU's hashtags couldn't be hers, but she had to be sure. I went on to my Twitter and I went through the whole process of like changing my password and changing my username and everything to get logged in. And there was nothing there. So I messaged them back and I said, hey, like, here's a screenshot. There's nothing on my page. I'm so sorry, but you might have the wrong person. The university didn't follow up again and Kenzie felt reassured that it was just a mistake. I didn't feel like I really had to be scared anymore, so I deleted the account and then just kind of left it at that. Over the next few months, Kenzie's family noticed that Taylor hadn't been quite himself. He was about to be honorably discharged from his position in the Air Force. We had all kind of collectively noticed as a family things had been a little bit off, but we just kind of chalked it up to like, he's been in the military for eight years. That's a big life change, like he's probably nervous about that, right? And so we were really supporting him and trying to figure out how can we help you through this transition. Then, summer rolled around again. Taylor and Brynn had been married for a year. In early July, they found time to celebrate that milestone with their family. We were out celebrating their anniversary. We were at the lake together. We went to a nice dinner and I specifically remember it's the silliest memory that conversation they had with Taylor about why men's skin is so nice and why women's always seems to be having problems. And he's like, you gotta keep it simple. Like, I just use a bar soap and my skin's great. And I remember leaving him telling Parker like, oh my gosh, I'm making it too complicated. Taylor's right. That weekend, the family planned a party for the 4th of July that had always been Kenzie's favorite holiday. A level of party. A level of barbecue, a log in together. And it was our first 4th of July married. So we were like, we're going to start tradition. We're going to we're matching shirts. We're going to go to the parade. We were just so excited. The next morning, Kenzie woke up just after sunrise. I woke up early because I desperately wanted my hair curled for the parade. So I woke up so early. And it was like just before 6, right around 6 a.m. And I checked my phone to like turn off my alarm. And I had so many messages on Instagram. And it was from an account that I didn't know. Confused, Kenzie opened the messages. And the first thing I saw was one of my Boudoir photos, like a screenshot of it. And scrolled down a little bit more. And there was another Boudoir photo. And also a nude photo of Taylor. What on earth was going on? How did this person get access to her Boudoir shoot? And why did they have a nude photo of her brother-in-law Taylor? I was like, okay. I'm going to be sick. She kept scrolling, frantically trying to piece together what was going on. This guy had reached out and he said like, hey, I don't know if you know this, but there's somebody on Reddit claiming to be your brother-in-law. And he's posting photos of you. I texted him back so fast and I said, how did you find me? What do you mean? And he said, I found you because he's been using your full name. Kenzie read the words again and again, but they were barely making sense. There's no way Taylor could have accessed her Boudoir photos. And even if he had, he never would have posted them online. Did someone hack both of them? Could someone be framing him? I wasn't even crying. I couldn't wrap my head around what I had just seen. It just didn't compute. I remember sitting on my bed. I was just shaking profusely, asking a couple more questions like, when did you find this? How long has this account been up? Can you get me any more information? And he said, I got a screenshot of the account enough some of the photos, but unfortunately that's all he had. Her husband Parker was still in bed asleep. And I kind of gently woke up my husband and I just said like, hey, I just got a message that feels scary. And I don't know if it's true. I don't know if it's a mistake, but I need you to look over this with me. And Parker is so wise and he's like, "Hey, let's not call everybody yet. Let's talk." to your sister and just see if she knows anything, if she's heard anything. She called her sister, but it was barely 6am and all her calls went to voicemail. And she's not answering, so I'm leaving her 17 voicemails and like, "Hey, call me back, it's super important, I need to talk to you." Kenzie didn't know what to do. I guess I'll get ready for the parade. And as I'm getting ready, I had to sit down because I was shaking so bad and I kept looking at the screenshots and the one thing that was standing out to me was that the username was Larry of Arabia 69. It looked like a randomly generated, Reddit username. But Kenzie knew it wasn't. They had a cat named Larry at the time, and Taylor speaks Arabic. And I had turned around to Parker and I was like, "Those are two things that are very specific to Taylor that only a few people know. It's got to be him." Finally, her sister woke up and called Kenzie back. Taylor had already left for work early that morning. Kenzie frantically explained what was happening. And she said, "Let me call him and get him home. I'm taking off my wedding ring until I know what's going on. I'll keep you updated." Kenzie moved through the motions of her day, but the world around her felt dark. "While we're at the parade, I'm sitting on the curb, slouched over, crying. And on our way home, we were walking back to our house and my sister called me and she's like, "I'm pretty sure this was Taylor. I think he just admitted to me that it was him. Meet me at mom's house." So we ran home, jumped in the car, went to my mom's house. The whole way there I was telling Parker, "I don't want to tell my mom that I took these pictures. I don't want all this to come out." They arrived at their parent's house. Everyone was in celebration mode, getting ready for the family barbecue. After Taylor admitted what he'd done, Kenzie's sister didn't want to be around him. She also didn't want him near Kenzie. She told him to stay home and skip the 4th of July party. When she showed up at the barbecue without him, their mom immediately knew something was wrong. My mom was like, "What did he do?" She thought like Taylor had cheated or he was leaving. She explained that somehow, Taylor had found Kenzie's intimate images. Worst of all, he'd posted them on the internet, along with her real name. He'd violated her privacy, betrayed her trust, and put her safety at risk. And everybody was over because it was the 4th of July. My brothers had heard and my dad was there. I had never really seen my dad cry. In that moment, he was just gritting at my mom's shirt, screaming into her shoulder. And he was like, "Why did he hurt my baby girl? Why?" And he was sobbing and screaming and he was so hurt and angry. Seeing her family's reaction, the severity of the situation began to sink in for Kenzie. It was just like the world was spinning around me. Like, "Oh my gosh, he hurt me, but that hurts my parents. And my husband and my brother was so mad and all these things." Her sister was horrified. Her husband, Taylor, wasn't the honorable, trustworthy man she thought he was. She knew things were over between them. They were all gathered for a barbecue. But now, nobody felt like celebrating. We went about our day in a super weird way and we like had the barbecue in the quiet. And we roasted marshmallows in the quiet. We were all kind of in shock. That night, Kenzie couldn't fall asleep. She was sure this was the worst day of her life. The next day, Kenzie and her husband had a regularly scheduled couples counseling session. And we had told the therapist like, "Hey, this is something that came out yesterday and we're not sure how to handle it and talked about our fears and what was going on and what we knew." After the session, Kenzie checked her phone and saw a text from another family member. Everyone had been scrambling, trying to find information and figure out what was going on. And she said, "Hey, I found some things last night. I sent you an email when you get home, take a look at it, and we can talk." Because I drove home as fast as I could, I was freaking out like, "What is going on? What is she going to have on here?" We run inside and we are sitting on our bed and I opened this email and it contained screenshots of a Twitter account that looked like it was me. Taylor wasn't just posting photos of Kenzie. She was pretending to be her. The more I kept reading that stuff, I thought, "Man, there's more red flags that just kept coming up over and over." We'll hypnotize them to strengthen that memory. I really didn't believe any of it was real and I was like, "Well, they're going to figure out, this is not me, they're going to do their police job." Listen to examined, the backfire effect, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. It had only been one day since Kenzie discovered that her brother-in-law, Taylor, was posting her bid-war photos on Reddit. But now, she found out, it was so much darker than that. Taylor had created a Twitter account using Kenzie's photos. When she saw the profile, her stomach dropped. Not only was her brother-in-law posting intimate photos of her online, he was impersonating her, using all of her real information. She had created this profile, it had my wedding photo as my profile picture. It was my full name, it had my location, my job, my religion, my husband's name. And so my first thought was, "Oh my gosh, I'm in real estate, I'm trying to get a client and they look me up and that's what they see." Everything about the profile looked legitimate, except the posts. They were things Kenzie would never say, disturbing, sexual and deeply violating. He would post pictures of me and nude photos of him and the caption would say, "I want my brother-in-law so bad." It was as if I was saying this, I was shocked, horror was all I could feel, all the color drained from my husband's face and he was so mad. The posts mocked things Kenzie cared about the most, talking poorly on my religion and he put me into these crazy, crazy groups like Boise Gone Wild and none of it is who I am. Kenzie thought back to that message she'd received months earlier from the Brigham Young University social media account. Now it made sense. Taylor had been posting her Boudoir photos with her full name attached and he was targeting things she cared about so he must have posted these photos and groups affiliated with her religion to humiliate her. Her sister Brinn was furious. She confronted Taylor about what he'd done. Brinn did not feel bad for him. He had violated her younger sister's privacy and safety. My sister said, "Why did you choose Kenzie? Why did you choose my sister?" And he told her, "She's always been so forgiving and so kind that I figured that if I did this and she found out it would be okay." Which is crazy because like, "Yes, I'm kind, yes, I'm forgiving." But that doesn't excuse these actions and that doesn't make me weak. That night, Kenzie's sister packed her things and moved out of the house she'd shared with Taylor. And she had moved in with my parents that night. She was like, "I'm not slipping in the same house as that guy." She had taken off her wedding ring. She was done. Kenzie and her family all gathered at her parents' house to figure out what to do. They had already heard about the Twitter accounts and I collapsed in the living room into my dad's arms and just sobbed for a good ten minutes, just yelling and sobbing and angry and sad and all the things while my husband like paced in the kitchen. All of us just had the same shock. Taylor had admitted what he'd done, but there were still so many unanswered questions. I was like, "How did he get these photos? Did he hack into my email?" "Did he take my phone?" "I'm trying to brainstorm with my sister finally was like, 'Well, you know that the photographers sent me the link, right?'" Kenzie did not know that. In fact, she had no idea what her sister was talking about. That's when she learned that back in February, when her sister had set up her own Boudoir photo shoot, the photographers sent her sister two galleries as a sample of her work. And one of them was Kenzie's. I don't think the photographer realized that my sister never related. This was yet another betrayal of trust. Kenzie's photographer had shared her intimate photos without ever consulting her. She didn't even reach out to me. She didn't say, "Do you mind if I share this?" I felt so hurt that she just took matters into her own hands to just send out something very private to who knows who else, right? That must be how Taylor got access to Kenzie's photos. Because the only other way would be for him to like hack into my email. And she's like, "He probably just took my phone." And they knew each other's passwords. So she figured he might have just gotten in and taken it. Kenzie immediately contacted the photographer to tell her to stop sharing her photos. As Kenzie's family kept digging and monitoring Taylor's profiles, they found Bryn was a victim of Taylor's too. And the profiles were very active. Taylor had been posting the night before, even after he'd been caught. So he had been discovered and he continued like that exact same night to post. And that was the night that my mom and I decided we need to go to the cops. Kenzie and her mom drove to the police station together. We just walked in and said, "Listen, this is what happened. Is this a crime? Can you do something about this?" And this dude was no help. He was like, "It sounds pretty intense, but I don't really know what we can do about it." He did have one suggestion. He said, "How about you go get a flash drive and put all of your evidence that you have on it?" So Kenzie and her mom ran to the store, put all their evidence on a flash drive and rushed it back to the police station. But the cops didn't seem to share their urgency. Kenzie could tell they weren't taking her case seriously. This is why victims don't come forward. Like, this is why so many women are affected and their abusers get to run free because not all women have the support to move forward in that way. I was like, "I'm not giving up on this." He began to think, "Who else could help in this situation?" That's when she remembered a family she nannied for years back. The dad was also in the Air Force, at the same base as Taylor. And he was a military police officer. So he sat down with him and he was horrified, which was comforting given that like the police officers weren't. And he said, "I'm a mandated reporter, so I have to go tell Taylor's commander what you told me." He told Kenzie to expect a phone call from someone on the base a few days past. With nothing to do but wait, her emotions finally caught up with her. I think I felt every emotion on the face of the earth. I felt confused and sad and ashamed and angry. I was so angry to think that this guy that I respected and loved entrusted so deeply would turn around and just stab me in the back and do exactly what he said he would protect me from. The emotions took such a toll on me. I wasn't sleeping. I wasn't eating. I just felt like I was just in the mud and I couldn't find my way out. Kenzie and her sister waited anxiously for an update. In the meantime, they found ways to redirect their nervous energy. My sister and I got yarn and just were like frantically crocheted for like four days straight. We would sit there and we would be crocheting and watching a show and then we would pause it and we would talk about everything. Even though her sister Brenn was done with Taylor, she wanted to get as much information out of him as she could. She kept pressing him until he admitted more of what he'd done. He did say that he had shared my photos with other men. What that means, I'm not sure. Kenzie's alarm was rising more each day. Almost two weeks had passed since she reported him to the police, but she'd heard nothing from them or from the military. So she took matters into her own hands and reached out to Taylor's Air Force Base herself. I called like 27 different people, like who's going to get me to where I need to go. And I think I annoyed them enough that they finally sent me to the investigators. The investigators set up an interview. As she explained everything that had happened, her mind flashed back to the message her sister received on Facebook right before marrying Taylor. One, they brushed off as a jealous ex. Her message looked completely different in retrospect. And then whispering to my mom and I was like, "Man, I wish we had that girl's information that reached out to my sister." Kenzie mentioned the girl's last name to her mom, who suddenly sat up straighter. And my mom was like, "Wait, that last name is way too familiar." My mom grew up going to church with this girl's parents. And the investigators just like perked up and they were like, "Oh, there's more? Like, what's going on?" So I explained to them, "Yeah, my sister got this message and we thought she was as crazy." My mom actually knows her parents, like maybe we could talk to her and figure out what she knows, like what was she saying. The investigators were able to contact the girl who sent the Facebook message and interview her as part of the investigation. Kenzie doesn't know the details of what she disclosed, but it confirmed that Taylor's crimes against Kenzie and Brynn weren't an isolated act. She was another crucial part in proving that this was a pattern of his and that this is something that had been going on for a while. The military's investigation into Taylor was in full swing now. Right away it became clear that Taylor had been committing crimes against women for years. The investigators went to my sister and they said, "Hey, did you know that there was a warrant out for his arrest in Oklahoma? He had done the same thing in Oklahoma and there's a girl there who's been trying to press charges, which was crazy to me that he could be in the military and nobody's getting red flags raised so that there's a warrant out for his arrest." The investigators, like Kenzie and her sister, know each time they identified a new victim. They would tell us, "Yep, we found another one. Another one's been identified, but they wouldn't give us any more information. However, my sister and I had posted something saying, "Listen, this is what happened. This is not okay. We really want to raise awareness about this." Another woman saw their post and reached out to Kenzie and her sister. And she had said, like, "Hey, I'm also a victim of Taylor's." And he was actually dating her at the time that he was dating my sister. So he was cheating on them with each other. Kenzie and Brynn connected her with the investigators. The investigation took a whole year. During that time, Kenzie got pregnant and gave birth to her first son. We had found out about so many other victims who had had very similar things happen to them. Taylor was following a pattern, targeting women who trusted him, who knew him well. The post that he made were very personal. He knew my core values, and he knew who I was as a person, and he completely violated it. And that was his thing, depending on the victim he would target what was important to them. This was very intentional, and he meant what he did. All of Taylor's victims, besides Kenzie, were his romantic partners. I was the only victim that didn't have an intimate relationship with him in any sense. And that was what moved the case forward, because his motives were changing a little bit. And it wasn't just the women that he was dating, now it was anybody. In the end, the military handed the case over to the county. The county was much more willing to take it at this point, because there were so many victims. So we went in and we met with them, and they said, "We're looking at felony charges. Like this is a big deal." For the next year, there were multiple court dates. Kenzie and her family attended all of them. They wanted to make it clear. They weren't backing down until Taylor was held accountable. During this time, Kenzie was pregnant with her second child. Becoming a mom fueled her further to push for justice in her case. Having my kids changed everything, because I was like, "There is no way that they're going to be adults one day, and they find out about this story, and it ends with me giving up. I can't let that be the end. I have to do something. I have to be a voice. I have to make a change." Taylor Woodland was charged and ultimately convicted of felony video voyeurism. When it came time for sentencing, Kenzie and Bryn prepared victim impact statements. I hadn't addressed him since that 3rd of July so many years ago. And so I wanted to go up and I wanted to show him I'm still here, I'm still fighting, and I have something to say. Their family came to court and sat in the front row to support them. My sister went up first and she was so brave and so strong and she did it and I can hear my dad sobbing behind me and I'm trying to hold it together. Then, Kenzie was called up to share her statement. When I said my name is McKenzie Berry, I'm a victim of tailors and he was my brother-in-law. The lawyers' jaws dropped because they were like, "What? The first victim was his wife!" Now it's his sister-in-law and I had formatted my impact statement to have the first part be how it impacted me but then to also address him and remind him that I'm not weak. He mistook my kindness for weakness and you don't get to get away with committing crimes because you think that the woman is nice. I've been written off for a lot of different reasons for a long time and here I am still fighting, still standing and I'm proud of myself for that. You don't get to make life-changing decisions just because you think that you'll get away with it. The judge sent in Taylor to one year in jail and nine years of probation. It feels good to have justice in that sense and to have a little bit of peace knowing that I pushed through and I was strong and I was brave and now I get to move on. The accounts Taylor made have been taken down but with digital crimes, justice is not so clean cut. He gave these photos to other men. Are they doing something similar? I struggle with not knowing who has them and why. Will this go on when he gets out of jail? Will he move on to a different victim? Taylor's crimes had long lasting impacts for Kenzie. It took a toll on so many different parts of my life that I didn't expect because I wrote it off and I think a lot of other people wrote it off is just like something that happened online. It felt really tricky because he didn't physically abuse me. He didn't physically touch me at all but my body responded as if he had. I would have panic attacks daily like full-on, I'm not breathing, I need to sit down and I started having issues internally in my body and I have a bad relationship with food and any physical kind of contact makes my body flare up. I couldn't get the physical trauma to go away. Kenzie leaned on her family for support and started going to therapy. Fighting for justice and advocating for herself turned into a bigger purpose for Kenzie. After going through this, I really want to work with victims. I want to go to college because I never had the chance because I had kids so young and get a degree in social work and move forward in that way. Kenzie's relationship with her husband, Parker, has been a grounding force through everything. He has consistently been a steady force in my life through every single up and down and I finally feel like I'm kind of getting more steady to where we're like okay we're on the same level again. We are so deeply in love. We love our family and we're really just working towards moving past this betrayal. Today Kenzie is still close with her sister, Bren. She was a victim too and they leaned on each other in their grief. While we went through something similar, we also went through two different things. She lost a husband and she lost a lot in that betrayal and that divorce. We've healed in different ways and we've learned different things about ourselves but we're both doing really well. We end every weekly episode with the same question. Why do you want to share your story? I was talking to my mom a couple months ago and I was telling her I feel happy knowing that we pushed through him that we got him a sentence but it doesn't feel complete and my mom was like well there's just podcasts that you should reach out to. It felt like a good first step because this will be the first very public time that I've shared the story. I hope that it is the start of something bigger. This is a good first step in me taking back my control and in me feeling like I get to share my story in my way and I hope that it encourages other victims to share their stories and their ways. This is our last betrayal weekly episode for a little while. We'll be back in a few weeks with betrayal season six. It'll be one story told over multiple weeks and after that we have more betrayal weekly episodes coming. If you'd like to share your story on betrayal, please email betrayal [email protected]. That is betrayal [email protected]. Please note that we are not a mental health organization. If you are in crisis or currently experiencing domestic violence, we encourage you to seek local help or dial 911. Please contact organizations that offer immediate support. In our show notes, we've included a list of US-based resources. You can follow us on Instagram @betrayalpod or find me @itsundrayagunning. To access our newsletter and additional content and to connect with the betrayal community, join us at www.betrayal.substack.com. We're grateful for your support. One way to show support is by subscribing to our show on Apple Podcasts and don't forget to rate and review betrayal. Five star reviews go a long way. Big thank you to all of our listeners. betrayal is a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is executive produced by Nancy Glass and Jennifer Fason, hosted and produced by me @undrayagunning. Written and produced by Olivia Hewitt, our story editor is Monique LeBord, also produced by Ben Federman. Our associate producer is Leah Jablow, production management by Kristen Melcuri, booking support by Curry Richman. Our iHeart team is Ali Perry and Jessica Crinecheck, audio editing by Tanner Robbins with additional editing and mixing by Matt Ovechio, a trail's theme composed by Oliver Baines, music library provided by my music. And for more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.