Twisted Case of Payton Shires - The Predator Therapist

- When it comes to our most vulnerable children, we rely on trusted adults to guide and support them. But what happens when one of those adults turns out to be a predator. - Most police, you gotta warn. Keep your hands where we can see them. You're under arrest. - I'm 20. That's the best thing I've ever ever done. - In the summer of 2023, a desperate mother sought out therapy for her troubled child. But within just a few months, that therapist would betray her vow to do no harm and to help these vulnerable, troubled children by praying on an assaulting one of her 13-year-old patients. And if that wasn't bad enough, after she was caught, she showed up at that child's house with a gun and threatened to murder his mother. - She's like, "I gotta go and I'm ready. "I'm like, you're ready for what? "What's going on?" She's like, "I want to kill you. "I want to kill me." - And then she would try and claim that after all of that, that she was actually the victim, and her child patient was the one that had assaulted her and was abusing her. - I can't sleep at night 'cause all I picture is what he did and what he said to me every (beep) night. And now I have to be locked up like a (beep) and now I'm like, I'm an animal and treated like shit. - This is a very wild story that I haven't seen a lot of people talking about, so we're going to dive right in. My name is Brianna, and I'm hot on the case. (upbeat music) Haton Shires was born on October 6, 1999 and grew up in Mount Sterling, Ohio. Not a whole lot is known about Haton's early life and you know that I hate not being able to give background information on the people that we are talking about, what I really tried to dig through anywhere I could think of and I just couldn't find much. I do know that at about 19 years old, Payton started dating Nicholas Rafter, a guy that was about three years older than her, and their relationship got serious, very, very fast. It actually wasn't long until they found out that Payton was pregnant. They stuck it out though, and together they would pose for cute pregnancy photos, holding up Payton's ultrasounds, and they even planned to get married. Nick planned this blindfolded proposal for Payton, where she said yes. And by the time that Payton was 21 years old and Nick was 24, it really seemed like they were set. They were engaged. They owned a home together. They had three dogs and their son Parker was one years old. Payton really thought that she had this perfect life and she would post online all the time about her perfect life and family. But you can never really trust what people post online. Because behind closed doors, this couple had some serious skeletons in their closet. In 2016, when Payton's fiance, Nick was 19 years old, he was arrested for raping a 14 year old girl. He was charged with rape, sexual battery, and sexual conduct with a minor. Police alleged that he either drugged or supplied this 14 year old girl with alcohol before forcing himself on her and assaulting her. He would take a plea deal, though, and he pled guilty to the lesser charge of child endangerment, where he was sentenced to four years and 11 months in prison, but was released after serving only nine months. And it is absolutely insane that Payton's fiance, Nick was arrested for a very similar charges that she would also soon be arrested for. After Nick was done serving his nine months, he was sentenced to five years of supervised release. And after this is when Nick met and started dating Payton. So since he's on supervised release, I can only assume that Payton was aware of that and what Nick was charged with. In 2022, one year before Payton was arrested for raping a child, she posted on social media, #SaveTheChildren, and then dead pedophiles don't reoffend. Very ironic considering what her fiance was charged with just a few years ago, and what she will be charged with only one year later. Payton claims that she always knew that she wanted to work with children. She went to Ohio State where she got her bachelors and her masters in social work. She then went on to go through a program to get her social work license, which she did get in June of 2023. And then immediately after, Payton got her first job in her career, which was very, very exciting for her. Payton was hired by the National Youth Advocate Program as a school social worker. The National Youth Advocate Program seems like they try to do a lot of cool stuff. They offer counseling, prevention, intervention, and they even place children in foster homes. As a school social worker, Payton was essentially a mental health professional that was the link between the school and the student's family. And together, they would help the student overcome social, emotional, and behavioral barriers that would get in the way of the student learning. Essentially, she was a therapist for a very vulnerable and troubled children. And she was assigned to, I believe, over a dozen different children in her first few months on the job, which included a 13-year-old boy. This boy's identity has not been released to the public for the sake of this episode. We are going to refer to him as James. Unfortunately, I do not know much about James and most of what I do know about him only comes directly from Payton. So take this all with the grain of salt because what I mostly know about him only comes directly from his abuser. James, allegedly, did not have a good life and he did not have a good upbringing and he came from, quote, "a bad environment." And he was very, very troubled. And because of this, he would act out a lot at home, but especially in school, when he even bothered to show up for class. Payton would claim that James would not show up for school so much that for the first three weeks or so of his school year, he didn't even have a schedule because they didn't even know that he was like a student. Again, that comes directly from her. - I don't know how the school didn't know he was leaving all the time. He was always leaving the school with his friends. They would just walk out of the building. - If the school just didn't care. - No, I would go in the school. The first time I ever went to the school, they didn't even have a schedule for him. They didn't even like know where he was. - Is it one of those charter schools? - Yes. - So it was James' mother that reached out to get help for her son and the hope would be that they would tackle these issues now while he's still young. And between June and September of 2023, Payton would have these one-on-one counseling meetings with James to try and overcome whatever was bothering James. And it seems like most of the times that they would have these one-on-one meetings, these counseling sessions would be at the school. But they were also happening in a lot of other places or at least James and Payton were hanging out and meeting up for different reasons outside of school. Sometimes Payton would take James out on day trips just to two of them in Payton's car. She would take him to different places. She would buy him things, even like really expensive shoes and clothes and she would actually admit that she would see James at least three to five times every single week. And I have no clue if she was doing this for her other 12 patients, but it definitely doesn't seem like it. And there were certainly things that Payton was doing with James that were not a part of her job description. On top of buying this 13-year-old boy, a bunch of expensive gifts, Payton was taken James places to take pictures of him for his Instagram. She would also vape with him. She claims that before meeting James, she never vaped before, but she would vape with her 13-year-old patient. She's a therapist, don't forget that. And it also definitely would not surprise me if Payton is the one that's actually purchasing these vapes for James because James is not old enough to buy them himself. James also rarely had his cell phone with him because his mom would often take it as a form of discipline. So when James had his therapy sessions with Payton, Payton would actually give him her cell phone. So James could text his friends and go on social media. He kept using my work phone to like get on social media and stuff when he wouldn't have his phone. He would get it taken away all the time for getting suspended. Like when you were together, he would use your phone. Payton has only been this child's therapist for a few months. We're talking like three months and she's already crossed so many boundaries. She's only had this job for three months and she's already crossed so many boundaries. Peyton is seeing James multiple times a week outside of their scheduled counseling hours. She's buying him loads of expensive presents, which is a tail tail sign of an adult trying to groom a minor. She's going behind this mother's back and vaping with her 13 year old patient, and she's giving him access to her cell phone after his mother took his away. James's mother is already pretty weirded out about the relationship that her child has with his therapist, but those worries got even more concerning by the end of September. About four months into her child seeing this therapist. One of James's friends was having a birthday party at one of those trampoline parks, and James was grounded. He asked his mom if he could go to this birthday party and his mom said he could not go. So what does James's therapist do? Peyton picks him up and takes him to this birthday party and drops him off at a birthday party that he's not allowed to be at behind his mother's back. Absolutely insane. And remember, she's also doing all of this and spending all of her free time with a child while she has a fiance and a four year old son at home. So after James's mom learns that James went to this birthday party that he wasn't allowed to be at and that his therapist was the one that went behind her back and took him to this birthday party. She complains about Peyton's employer on September 22nd, 2023. And she lists off that this adult, her child's therapist is hanging out with her child outside of their scheduled counseling that she's buying him a bunch of expensive presents, giving him her cell phone when he's not supposed to have a cell phone and is now taking him to places that he's not allowed to go behind her back. Any parent would be extremely concerned about that relationship with their child and an adult that they hired and are supposed to trust, yeah, that's crazy. Now as far as I can tell, the National Youth Advocate program didn't really do much with James's mother's concerns. I couldn't 100% be wrong, but James's mother on this day did decide to pull James out of their program and ended the sessions that Peyton would have with James. She did not trust Peyton anymore and she did not want Peyton to be her son's therapist. So now you would think if Peyton is not James's therapist anymore that they have no reason to see each other and they would no longer be seeing each other, but you would be wrong. Peyton still keeps seeing James even though she has no responsibility to be seeing him anymore. There's no obligation for her to be seeing James, but she still is. And at this point, his mother is at which end. She feels like she's tried to keep her child away from Peyton and that there's definitely something suspicious going on, but she just doesn't have enough evidence to prove it. And she tries and goes to Peyton's employer, but as far as we know, they did not investigate these concerns. So what is James's mother to do now? Well, on September 27, 2023, this was one of the days that James's mother had James's cell phone. She decides that she's going to go through it. There weren't many messages between Peyton and James on the cell phone. It does appear that he had been deleting their text messages, but there was one message that Peyton had recently sent to James that he did not have a chance to delete. And this text message instantly concerned James's mother. It read, "Did you delete the video yet? We have to make sure that your mother doesn't see it." Well, after reading that, James's mother immediately calls the police and then she hands her son's phone over to the police. Whatever video Peyton wanted to make sure James deleted had already been deleted, but they were able to recover the video just a few days later. And this video was of 23-year-old Peyton Shire's engaging in some sort of sexual act with 13-year-old James. The true content of this video is debated pretty much every single article I read about this case describes the video as Peyton full-on statutory raping James. But then I watched Peyton's two-hour plus interrogation and in this interrogation, she says that this video just shows her performing an act on James. Either way, this is a video of an adult sexually abusing a minor and it is absolutely disgusting and to be honest, doesn't really change the outcome of this case at all. Before making an arrest, police did want a confession out of Peyton, so they decided to have James's mother call Peyton and confront Peyton on this phone call and then the police were like listening in on the phone call. I just don't know how, like, I don't even know what to say, I'm not really not supposed to talk to each other. I really don't even know what to say. I really don't know what to say either. I never expected like any of this to like happen. I don't know like what he told you, but he told me everything. He told me that he has a video of you guys having sex, he told me that the day that I was flipping out about the party that you guys had sex in, at the mall, he told me the day that you picked him up, you guys had sex too. I don't understand that. I don't think, could you be pregnant? No. Do I have to wait for that? No. Do you guys use protection? The first time? There was only two times. I don't, the second, the, the first time at the mall was it, it wasn't in the, you see no. He said, he said, he said that it wasn't in the, of course, at the mall. Yeah, I said no and that couldn't do that and yeah, I didn't know that he recorded me until his friends called me because they really took the choice. I mean like are there charges being pressed against me? I don't know, the only thing that I know is CPS involved. I don't know something about this school, I got to meet you with this school on Tuesday. Pete, I, I, I just want to help for you. And Peyton surprisingly doesn't deny what she's being confronted with at all. She admits to having this relationship with her son and she's apologizing over and over again and she said that she never meant for something like this to happen. She said that it's over, it won't happen again. And she begs James' mother to not go to the police to late, but she didn't know that I guess at the time. So on October 6th, 2023, the day after that phone call police went to arrest the now 24-year-old Peyton chires. This day was actually Peyton's 24th birthday. She was at James's home trying to return some of James's belongings when the police show up and they put her in handcuffs and arrest her. And since it was her birthday, at her home waiting to celebrate with her where her parents are fiancee and her four-year-old son who had no idea that Peyton would not be showing up for her home birthday party because she was being arrested for statutory rape. Most police you've got to warrant. Keep her angel or we can see him. You're under arrest. Let's put this one over there. You got hooks. All right. We're tactical. We got to secure that. Roger that. Thank you. You got anything on you? You got a gun or anything? You have any weapons on you? You ready for a cruiser? Okay. We'll go back here. You can have a seat where you got a gun on you. You got to have to speak to us. You understand? No, we have to make sure you don't have a gun. I don't have a gun. Okay. We're going to make sure. Okay. Just buy a seat. Have a seat. She's going to be taken in, switching her costs out, searching, okay? Yep, that was good. All right. You want me to stick on the ground before I don't have a cruiser, okay? And at the police station, Peyton asks for a lawyer and she refuses to speak with detectives. But the detectives did warrant Peyton that when she is released on bond, she is not to have any contact with James or his family. And if she does, that she could be arrested again for it. intimidating a witness so she's fully aware that she's not supposed to be having any contact with this family. And so with Giff you have contact with them, um, we will know about it. Um, we'll find out and then that could be the additional charge and I don't I don't want that for you. Okay. Peyton was released on a $500,000 bond just six days later on October 12th, 2023. And only two weeks later on October 26th, 2023, Peyton Shires returns to James' family home once again, but this time with a gun. Luckily, at the time, none of James' family members were at his home when Peyton got there, but when she got there, she actually cut their security camera, they had a ring doorbell so she could not be recorded doing whatever she was going to do next. Peyton then calls up James' mother who, like I said, was not home. Peyton tells her that she's at her house and that she was waiting for her there with the gun. And she was going to kill her and then she was going to kill herself because James and his family ruined Peyton's life. James' mother is obviously terrified, so she calls the police. And she started calling me 530. So as she's talking, she's talking and I'm trying to get the phone to my daughter. She's like, she's like, I got a gun and I'm ready. I'm like, you're ready for what? What's going on? She's like, I want to kill you, I want to kill me. Here, I was looking at me and I'm just going to go, I'm sorry. I'm talking to dispatch, but I still trying to hear what she's saying with my daughter standing here. And then I got in the car and I came here, the whole time we were on the phone, she was just screaming, I should kill you, I don't, I don't, something about my son, your son being in my life. And I just want to make sure I was clear on this. When you when you when you said when she initially called you and you said where you at, she said she was here at your place, or she, okay, she said, she's at home, I said, home where you're at your house, right? She's at the house, right? She said she said she was sitting on the porch with a gun and she's waiting for me. Police show up and Peyton is just sitting on James' family's front porch. She has the gun up to her head and her finger was on the trigger and she was threatening to kill herself if they came closer. Swat had to be called in and Peyton had a three hour plus standoff with the SWAT team and with the police right outside her child victims' family home. Insane. And at some point the gun was fired, but luckily no one was harmed and she was once again brought down to the police station and was questioned by police, but this time she had a lot to say. The interrogation was over two hours long. I listened to the entire thing so you don't have to and this is sort of a summary and my takeaways from the interrogation. When it starts Peyton is absolutely inconsolable. She's acerically crying. She's gagging like she's about to throw up and for a majority of the first half of the interrogation Peyton has her head down on the table with like a black hood up and her hands are behind her back. Zip tied and that's like the first hour of this interrogation footage. And the second two times is mainly because you were trying you you felt. Peyton I know this is hard. I just want to make sure I have a good understanding about everything. At first Peyton does not want to explain herself because she says that the police officers don't care about her and they don't care what she has to say. They just want to arrest her and throw her in a cage again. She even asks the officers, would you arrest anyone else that had been raped by someone and this statement is her alluding to the fact that she claims 13 year old James raped her and not the other way around. She tells detectives that they are just assuming what happened and they don't know all of the facts. I don't know why you were arresting anyone else that had been raped by someone. Peyton we don't understand your story. We don't understand what has happened to you and that's what we're here for. So understand it. Have you tell us so that we can help you see what has happened. I don't know what happened in your history. I don't know your past. I didn't want you to arrest me. That's what we're here because I wanted to die. I know we're here. We don't want you to die, Peyton. I don't want you to get stuck here. Peyton just want me to beat you. She was also really mad because when she was brought into custody after her three hour long standoff with SWAT, they told her that if she came with them, they would not bring her back to jail and instead would take her to a hospital. Here she is sitting in jail and she's really upset because they lied to her and now she's sitting at a police station about to be charged with something else and they don't care about her and nobody cares about her. And that the police just want to make her look like someone she's not and she says that she would never touch a kid. So you don't care about me, no, what he does. Peyton has to be sure. He knows what happened. He just want to assume everything and make me look like someone he's not. I've never touched a kid. Okay, well, that so we're not even talking about that right now. And you are? What I am concerned about is what happened today. That's what we're going to talk about. What I would like to do is start by talking about that. All right, but we can talk about, we can talk about your past, we can talk about your history. I don't know anything about you. Okay, and I want to give you the opportunity to tell us so that we can understand where you're coming from, what you've been through. All right. And even though the police have a video of her in some way sexually assaulting a child, she says that that's not what happened. So the police ask her what did happen? You know, tell us your side of the story. You're already here. Peyton is very upset. So that she's been arrested. She says that nothing bad ever happens to the people that hurt me. So why are bad things happening to me? It's, it's very dumb. She said in prison, she had to relive everything, quote, he did to me. This is the first time also that she straight up just says that James is actually the one that was sexually abusing and assaulting her, not the other way around. Peyton also absolutely denies going to James's mother's house to murder his mother. She denies even threatening to kill his mom. She said that she just wanted to tell his mom her side of the story and she only brought the gun with her because she planned to kill herself at James's house, but she wasn't going to hurt anyone else. About today, when you went over there and you had the gun and I know that you've, we had the SWAT officers right there talking to you trying to get you to come down because obviously they didn't want you to hurt yourself. And you fired, you fired the gun off. Why did you fire the gun off? I didn't know this safety was on or not. So you were just checking to see if the safety was on, to see if it would go off or not? Have you ever shot a gun before? Yes. Okay, so you kind of thought that one. Not that one, but you shot guns before. So you have a kind of a basic understanding then of how to load a gun. I mean, you have to understand that going over to the gun, you know, I mean, I would never hurt anyone else, but that's not what how she felt, you know. I mean, you had SWAT officers out there for hours. I mean, you don't want to go through this anymore. Now everyone just wants my story. Now, this next section is Peyton's side of the story. How much if any of this is true? I don't know. A lot of her story does directly contradict statements made by James, his family and information that the police has released. So part of what she's saying here might be true, but it definitely does not seem like all of it is true. So that's just a little warning, disclaimer, but yeah, this is Peyton's side of the story. Peyton claims that during her counseling sessions with James, they got very, very close. That she cares about James a lot, that she loves him and that she feels. really bad for him because he had a very hard life. She would buy him things and give him whatever he wanted and do whatever he said because she felt so bad for him and he trusted her so she was worried if she said no to him that James would think that he had no one in his life that he could trust and she also didn't like it when James was mad at her. She would also say that her trauma response is people pleasing so whatever this boy wanted her to do she would just do it because she thought she cared about him and loved him so much and felt so bad for him because XYZ. Peyton claims at the first time anything happened between them was when she dropped James off at that friend's birthday party at the trampoline park. They were in her car and James wanted to kiss her and hook up with her. Peyton claims that she tried to say no at first but she eventually gave in because she felt bad for him and she cared for him a lot and she didn't want to hurt his feelings and she didn't want James to be mad at her. She says at this point, "I see him like my little brother. I wasn't supposed to see him like that which is a very interesting choice of words. It almost seems like a Freudian slip to me." She doesn't say "I don't see him like that." She says "I wasn't supposed to see him like that." Like kind of implying maybe she did see him like that but knew that it was wrong and she wasn't supposed to. She then says "I couldn't help it. I just wanted to help him." She also then goes on to say that this 13-year-old boy was the one that was in control. "I cared about him during those months. I cared about him like I saw him as like a little brother. I just wanted to see him like that. But I couldn't help it. I just wanted to help him." At that point you felt like he was kind of had control over you because you said you shut down. "He's always had control of me." It's extremely interesting that she says this because pretty much every single time I'm researching one of these cases of a female predator with an underage male victim they almost always say the exact same thing. That the child was the digressor. That the child was the one that was pursuing them. They tried to say no. They tried to say no but the child was the one that wanted it and was pursuing it and that the child, the little boy was the one that was in charge and in control. Most notably Mary K. Lattorno would say that her 12-year-old victim was in control even though she was his teacher and 22 years older than him. She would say that her 12-year-old victim was the one that was in charge. That she didn't want anything with him and never thought about it even though she later married her 12-year-old victim and had two of his children. What Payton claims to have not known at the time that she performed this act on James in the car before he went into the spurt they party was that James actually filmed this on his cell phone and then when he went into the spurt they party he showed the video to all of his friends and Payton's face was visible in this video and they actually knew her because she worked at the school that they all went to and this is the same video that police recovered off of James's phone that actually led to Payton being arrested. Payton claims that James took this video of her without her knowledge and after he showed it to his friends they almost immediately started texting her harassing her and blackmailing her that unless she slept with all of them then they were going to tell everyone about her in James. He lied to me because he took videos of me. He told me he believed everybody who did some to win him. What video should he take of you? He took a video of me and I didn't know until his friends started harassing me and telling me that I wanted to do things with them and he would tell somebody. What was the video that he took like the first video that he took? The first video he took I don't know what is on it exactly I just know that his friends told me that they could see my face a little bit and he took a video of me doing something. Did he like send it to his friends or do you think he just showed them? No he just showed them right after it happened I dropped him off with his friends and then they called me later that night after I dropped him off at home so all how many friends were calling you? They had no idea there was probably like four so they were all together like calling you like I'm speakerphone or something? Yes. What were they saying? They were like I know I know what you did I know what you did and I freaked out I told them they could tell me like well you could just do this with me too you could just tell me it was this after the first time that you guys did something the same day okay but it was this the first time that you guys had done anything together yes so how did he get you to do that the first time asking me I took them into the dream place and he was he just asking and asking and asking? What made you kind of relent to him was he did he get violent or anything or what happened with that what made you just decide to do it no he didn't get violent he could possibly ask me to kiss him I can't say no I freaked out he's like I don't feel me yeah. Peyton says that the next time as she saw James was at his school when she was meeting him for one of their scheduled therapy sessions she wanted him to delete the video off of his phone obviously but he couldn't because he didn't have his phone anymore his mom had his phone now but he told Peyton that he would delete the video when he got his phone back but only if she went all the way with him so Peyton pulled this 13 year old boy out of school they got in her car she drove to a gas station where she bought condoms and once again what happened happens in Peyton's car and then afterwards Peyton dropped James back off at school after statutory raping him and Peyton said that this happened multiple times where James blackmailed her into sleeping with him until he finally deleted the video off of his phone and went back up to the car and he's like so are we gonna or what and I'm like I don't I don't understand like why why you want it to be this way like why do you want why do you want that I told him no but then he told me like he still had the video and he said well I haven't deleted the video yet and he couldn't delete the video he didn't even have his phone and I said I told him no like you're gonna use a video against me you're gonna you have this video like so what like you told me you were gonna delete it like it's you told me you were gonna delete it told me you were gonna get rid of all of that stuff well the video but you guys are out in the car at this point out that parking lot at Dix at Eastern he told me to go behind the building he said he would delete it after he said do we he would delete it and we just didn't if we just did what he wanted like I don't want to say like the words because it's just if we could he would delete the video that's just what he told me did you do it then and your car behind Dix I told him that I didn't want him to go near me without protection like I wasn't gonna do anything without that and he promised he would delete the video after he promised was as soon as he got his phone when you delete the videos. After telling detectives her side of the story, Payton thought that she would be released and then James would be arrested. And when this did not happen, she got very, very upset. She actually screams, everyone wants to pretend like he's some victim. Oh, I don't think so. So it's nobody going to give a shit about what happened to me. Nobody's going to care about me. No one's going to care about my drama. No, all of this information is going straight away. We want you to get help. And we want you to be safe. So we don't want you to get help. I'm like a dog when I have PTSD from this kid is helping me. No, he just wants to play victim. As if he's though is some type of trauma from me. Um, I don't. I don't ever get the feeling from him that he felt like he was being traumatized by you, but, um, because it seems like everyone wants to just pretend he's some victim. Yeah, well, unfortunately with the way the law is written and everything, they look at his age and that's all they don't look at anything but his age and being the age difference between the two of you in your position and everything. And that's kind of, it's kind of black and white. There because children can't manipulate adults, so what you're saying? No, I'm not saying that. But I mean, you see these fucking kids run in the street stealing cars. And you think that he's not capable of that? How many of those kids that are 14 years old stealing all those cars? I've done that to somebody and nobody knows. The thing is, Peyton, James is the victim, even if everything you said is 100% true, even though the evidence says that it's not, that still would not make you the victim. It would still make James the victim. You got your masters in social work. And then you were working as a licensed social worker and therapists trusted to counsel the most vulnerable of children. And within four months of working that job, you already crossed every single boundary imaginable. And then you raped one of those children and you tried to justify your actions saying that he manipulated you, but the same time you justify your actions, saying that you did all of this and didn't want to say no to him because you felt bad for him because he had a hard life and you didn't like it when he was mad at you. You're the adult, Peyton, it's your job to say no, it's your job to set boundaries, not the child's job and even worse than just being the adult in the situation. You were the social worker and his therapist. And now you want to cry and say his family ruined your life. You more than likely threatened to kill his mom and you want to say that James is not the victim and that you are actually the victim. No, Peyton, James is the victim and you ruined your own life. It's time to take some accountability and for the record, you Peyton should never ever be around children ever again. If this was a case of an adult male therapist doing everything Peyton has claimed happened between her and James. And this was a adult male therapist and a 13 year old patient. There would not be a debate about who the abuser and who the victim is in the case. There's people that do not believe that females can be predators, but even worse, they don't think that boys can be victims of sexual assault. I swear every single time I talk about a case like this, my comments are flooded with grown men that want to say that the victim in the case is not a victim because when they were their age, they would have wanted this sort of thing to happen to them. The thing is society tells young boys that an adult female wanting to sleep with you is cool and that you're not a victim and that's something that you should want and like strive for, but just because someone doesn't see themselves as a victim, that does not mean that they aren't a victim. Okay, would you tell a kidnapped child with Stockholm syndrome that they're not a victim because they think that they love their abuser and they don't want to leave? No. See, you sound dumb when you say stuff like that. And you definitely wouldn't say that a 13 year old wasn't the victim. If it was a 13 year old girl and a 24 year old man and the situation was exactly the same, but just the the genders were reversed. So after being arrested again for showing up with a gun and threatening to kill James' mom, Peyton was put back in jail. This time her bail was revoked and she would sit behind bars until her trial began originally Peyton wanted to plead not guilty. She wanted her day in court and she wanted to just run this 13 year old boy's name and reputation through the mud saying that he was the one abusing her and manipulating her. But she eventually did decide to plead guilty to all charges. So luckily that meant James could avoid a trial. And she plead guilty to seven felony counts, four counts of unlawful sexual conduct with the minor, two counts of intimidating a witness and one count of inducing panic. She had the opportunity to speak to the court and this time she's saying a very different tune that then she was saying during her two hour plus interrogation. She said that she cared for James, but her lack of boundaries caused mistakes to happen and she never meant to hurt anyone and she even thanks James' mom for calling the police and turning her in because even though when Peyton showed up at her house, she was threatening to kill her because she ruined her life. Well, now Peyton was actually thinking James' mom because she saved her life. I just feel horrible for the mistakes that I made in the social worker client relationship. I cared for him. I wanted to support him, but my lack of boundaries caused severe mistakes to be made. I'm praying for the family. I've been praying for the family since I've been in jail and I just hope that they can heal from this. I hope that they can find peace and gain trust with other social workers in the future. And I'm hoping that this doesn't affect how he views women and relationships in the future and that he can get the help that he needs and have a healthy relationship with his mother. Peyton was originally basing over 30 years in prison for her seven felonies, but she asked the judge for leniency, not just for her sake, but for her child's sake. I would like to point out here that James is actually closer in age to Peyton's son than he was in age to Peyton. And at the end of this case, Peyton was sentenced to four years and nine months, but she did get credit for time served, which was about two hundred and 53 days. So Peyton will be released from prison on July 16th, 2028. She got such little time that when she's released from prison, her victim James will still be a teenager. I'm to consider the seriousness of the offense, which is a serious offense. You violated the position of trust that you had. This young man was a child. He was a child. He was 13, 14 years old. That's a child. You're 23, 24 years old when all this was going on. You know, he was trying to get the help that he needed. But I was disappointed in the precincts investigation and that you seemed to blame him a little bit for like then, you know, trying to trick you and coerce you into having additional sex, blackmailing you and, you know, you started, the whole incident started. You're the adult. You need to have the boundaries. You're trained professionally to deal with situations like this on counts. One, two, three and four unlawful sexual conduct with a minor two years each concurrent to each other. So I'm incredibly interested to hear all of your thoughts and opinions on this case. I know there's a lot of people that are very confused. Why Pete and wasn't arrested for attempted murder and charged with attempted murder since she did go to her 13 year old victim's house with a gun threatening to kill people and a shot was fired during her three hour standoff with police. But she said that was just an accident. She wasn't actually trying to kill anyone. So very, very confusing, really interested to hear what you think about her four year sentence. Actually, I think it comes out to be less than four years with her time served. Let me know all your thoughts and opinions in the comments. But while you're there, please always remember to be respectful for Peyton's child's sake. and also for the victim and his family's sake. Please always remember to be respectful in the comments. While you're there, please let me know what case you want to see covered in a future hot in the case episode. I'm always going directly to you guys for case suggestions. I pull a bunch of case suggestions for future episodes of the podcast. So please let me know what you'd want to see next on hot in the case. And that's all I have for this week's episode. I will see you guys all next Friday. When we are hot in the case, once again.