Original subtitles

WEBVTT FILE

[dramatic music]

♪♪ ♪♪

JENIFER: This was it. It was meant to be.

- You will never have to question

my love or devotion to you.

I am so in love with you.

And now we get to be together forever.

♪♪ ♪♪

JENIFER: Little did I know I was married to a man

who had done something so horrible

that it would devastate our lives

and change us forever.

The cops had kicked the door down.

There's this piece of paper,

and I notice that it says "search warrant"

on the top of it.

And then I just remember seeing the words

"sexual assault" and the word "student."

NEWSCASTER: An educator is in jail.

48-year-old Spencer Herron facing sexual assault charges.

- Two days after Spence was arrested,

I got into his email.

It was woman after woman after woman.

My soulmate, he was living a double life.

[tense music]

During the Betrayal podcast,

I spoke with a couple of the women

who had an affair with Spence.

- This person who we thought was one person

was somebody entirely different.

- He just gave in to the hunt for the high.

- It's manipulation at the highest level.

- If you saw Spence, what do you think

you would say to him?

[dramatic music]

♪♪ ♪♪

LORI WILSON: A developing story--

a former Cobb County Teacher of the Year

now faces sexual assault charges.

Police arrested Spencer Herron on Friday

and charged him with three counts

of sexual assault by a teacher.

- The news broke, and people were making comments

about it on Facebook and on his page.

So I was able to get into his Facebook account

to take down his social media.

- And what she found, it was like a trophy case.

[tense music]

♪♪ ♪♪

- It was, I don't know, over 60 women

that I found correspondence with.

When something like this happens,

it's so hard to understand

what's real and what's not real.

♪♪ ♪♪

[whimpers softly, sniffles]

♪♪ ♪♪

Um, I had to kind of become...

an investigator.

[sniffles]

Um, I needed to know who this person was.

♪♪ ♪♪

At this point, he's in jail,

he's waiting for his trial,

and I couldn't talk about the case with anyone

because it was ongoing.

So I started digging through everything.

♪♪ ♪♪

And the person that I was finding,

going through his emails and correspondence

with these other women...

was not somebody I knew.

He even cheated on me the week of our wedding.

I've made timelines. I've made charts.

I have all the information.

Out of all the different women,

he had two- to three-year-long affairs

with probably six to seven different women...

some at the same time.

♪♪ ♪♪

Knowing how many affairs he had had,

I really got angry.

He was living a lie

the entire time that we were married.

The entire time he was living a lie.

- One of my biggest questions has always been,

why--why did you feel the need to organize everything?

- I was just looking for all the answers.

Like, I needed a timeline.

I needed to know, when did this start?

When did this end, if it ever ended?

I had to see...

was it anything that I had done at any point?

- When I started working with Jen,

she was--she was crumbling.

She was completely falling apart.

♪♪ ♪♪

At the beginning of betrayal trauma,

we start to see a lot of safety-seeking behavior...

Staying up all night,

looking at texts and emails

and phone logs...

anything to try

to make sense...

and put pieces back together of their world

that has totally been shattered.

- Like, I mean, look at this list.

This is a list I compiled

that shows how many

and the dates.

- This is page 1 of 9. - Yeah.

ANDREA: She's trying to reconcile,

here's someone that I thought I trusted

that valued me, respected me,

who really didn't.

That was really shocking to her and hard for her to understand.

JENIFER: You can see, like, how they overlap.

- Constant feelers out there. - Yep.

I-I think that was, like, almost his job every day,

was to figure out who he could sleep with.

♪♪ ♪♪

KIM WIGINGTON: When Jenifer started talking

about the multiple women,

I don't know if I said it first or if she did,

it was like, do you think you have an STD?

And I said, well, I'm gonna call

and make an appointment with my gynecologist,

and I will drive you there.

And she came out

of the, um, exam room,

and she said, "I have chlamydia."

And it was just... [sighs]

So real at that moment.

[Eloise Weeks' "Look What You've Done"]

ELOISE WEEKS: ♪♪ You were in love with me ♪♪

WIGINGTON: Because she couldn't separate it

from herself anymore.

ELOISE: ♪♪ Now look what you've done to me ♪♪

♪♪ Look what you've done ♪♪

WIGINGTON: There was something so real

about having that STD

that he gave her that...

[sighs] You couldn't separate

the Spencer who went out

and did these horrible things...

ELOISE: ♪♪ I was in love with you ♪♪

♪♪ I was in love with you ♪♪

WIGINGTON: To the Spencer who was

the loving husband at home.

It all collided at that moment.

♪♪ ♪♪

ELOISE: ♪♪ Now look what you've done to me ♪♪

- It fucks you up.

You know, having sex, it--it's--

it's so personal.

And he was having it with prostitutes,

escorts,

online,

in person.

♪♪ ♪♪

It was constant, all day, every day.

♪♪ ♪♪

[dramatic music]

JENIFER: During the podcast,

I spoke with a couple of the women

that he had long-term affairs with.

And what I learned is that his behavior

follows a certain pattern.

He used his charm

to make people do what he wanted to do.

♪♪ ♪♪

And, you know, he, like, throws out this fishing line

to see who will bite.

♪♪ ♪♪

ANDREA: While serving in the Air National Guard,

Spencer had a long-term affair with one of his bandmates.

She was comfortable with speaking to Jen

but didn't want anyone to know her name.

And that was okay. We changed her name.

HOPE: Out of nowhere,

I got this text message--

"Well, you're beautiful."

Here's an attractive guy telling me I'm pretty.

At that point, I don't even remember

really ever having a-a conversation with him

prior to that.

JENIFER: Some people wouldn't bite,

because they thought, well, wait, he's married.

Oh, that just must be Spence. He's just really nice.

You know, I'm sure it wasn't really flirtation.

[soft dramatic music]

And I think most of the time...

it probably was.

HOPE: And then the next thing I know,

it's happening so quickly

that I--like, I was confused.

I was like, what is this?

I thought we were just hanging out, talking.

And then there we were.

And I remember feeling like, oh, my God, what's happening?

- I am a clinical psychologist.

And my focus is on antagonistic relationships.

[tense music]

I did not have the opportunity

to meet with Spencer and to talk with Spencer.

But personality style, we can speculate on that confidently,

because when we're talking about personality,

it's a set of patterns of behavior

that all hang together.

The personality style we're seeing here falls

in this sort of narcissistic space.

But the danger of any kind of narcissistic

or antagonistic or toxic personality

is their absolute brilliance

at being able to hide in plain sight.

HOPE: I loved the way

he made me feel about myself.

At that time in my life,

I very much needed

to feel loved and wanted.

KIM GOULD: When someone swoops in

and makes you feel loved and important

and attractive,

it's easy to sometimes be vulnerable to that.

So Spence was really good at identifying these women,

and...

they were often receptive to this

because they learned to trust him.

♪♪ ♪♪

- One of the women that had an affair with Spence

was a friend of ours.

And she was one of the women

I saw pictures of on his computer.

[inhales sharply]

[voice breaking] That--that stings really bad.

♪♪ ♪♪

[sniffles]

[normal voice] We were friends with the family.

Her and her husband would come into the wine bar

all the time.

- Jen's friend was willing

to have a conversation with Jen on the phone,

but she didn't want us to hear her voice.

So what she allowed us to do was use the transcription

of the recorded phone call,

and then we could use a voice actor to play her.

[indistinct chatter]

FRIEND: I was stressed out.

I didn't feel pretty

all the time.

And I was a stay-at-home mom, you know?

I had kids hanging off me, breastfeeding.

I was greasy, maybe showered every couple days.

But then I would always hear, you know, like,

"Oh, you're so beautiful.

"You're really, really well-rounded,

and you're a great mom."

- When Spence would work the wine bar on his own,

I found out that he basically used it almost like a brothel.

♪♪ ♪♪

FRIEND: He asked me if I could

help stay there for him

to close up,

like, help carry something out.

I went into the bathroom, and when I came out,

he was there and mentioned, like,

"You know we have this thing together.

You know, you're feeling this too, right?"

And then he came in for a kiss

and then held my hand,

then touched his crotch

with my hand on the outside of my pants.

- He would put a sign on the door sometimes

that said "back in five minutes,"

because he took some woman to the bathroom

or to the basement to have sex with them.

FRIEND: I felt like I knew him

and trusted him

for at least six months

to a year,

and I felt like somebody got me in that moment.

So I guess in a way I almost felt

like I owed him something.

- With Spencer, there was no empathy.

There was tremendous manipulation

and, frankly, a lot of entitlement,

entitlement to, I get to have my attention.

I get to have multiple lives.

I get to do all of this.

HOPE: I felt just like

I was being used

whenever there was a need.

Two or three months would go by,

and I wouldn't hear anything.

And then all of a sudden,

here--here we are again.

ANDREA: Every time you would open an email

or look at a text message,

were you numb at that point,

or was it like a dagger every single time?

- Every single time.

ANDREA: What's so wild to me is just the volume of women

and the different versions of himself.

They must be encountering

a different mask, a different person,

and different masks... - Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

ANDREA: For different vulnerabilities.

And that's scary.

JENIFER: Totally, yeah.

I didn't know

how manipulating Spence was at that point.

RAMANI: Spencer actually seemed like a great guy

to everybody in his life.

Unfortunately, when it comes to manipulative behavior,

the manipulation gets rewarded.

Anytime manipulation is rewarded,

we will always see escalation.

And, basically, Spencer had absolutely no consideration

for the needs and feelings of others.

When you're running a system like that,

it's manipulation at the highest level.

FRIEND: I could see the way

he would look at people

in public situations.

If I were off in the distance

or he was exchanging money with somebody,

his hand would linger on hers a little bit longer.

It was a challenge.

It was a game.

♪♪ ♪♪

LAUREN: I met Spencer when I was interviewing

for his fill-in position.

He was leaving for military leave.

And--and the interview went very well.

I really didn't think much of it,

but he seemed like he wanted

to continue a conversation outside of the interview.

And I could tell at that point, things shifted.

And I don't even remember how I ended up

giving him my phone number.

And then the next thing I knew,

we were in a parking lot at Home Depot.

[scoffs] Sounds so lovely.

And...

we had sex.

He was very persistent and pushy.

He wouldn't give up.

I knew he was married,

and it made me feel even--

you know, just horrible about myself.

But yet I continue to communicate with him

for however long it was.

♪♪ ♪♪

He exudes charm, so...

shame on me, you know.

HOPE: There was a very dominating

side to him.

There were things

that were asked of me

that I was absolutely not

comfortable with.

He had a lot of fantasies

that he wanted played out.

[dark music]

- I think he must think about sex

or fetishes, whatever, often

and very determined to get an answer as to meeting

or wanting to talk about his fetishes more.

- He would talk about having a threesome

and send photos of what he wanted to happen

during the threesome.

I found disgusting videos

that these women took of themselves and sent to him

because he asked for them.

- Spencer liked to refer to me as "Mommy"

and wanted to be known as "Daddy,"

even wanting to do things that an infant would do

with a mother, uh, such as nursing.

And at some point,

he said he wanted to be on a leash

and walked around a room like a dog.

- He wanted one woman to hit him

while they were having sex.

♪♪ ♪♪

And that's a turn-on for him.

WIGINGTON: You know, to know that he had

that dangerous side,

it was really scary to think

what could have happened to Jen.

♪♪ ♪♪

[dramatic music]

RAMANI: Spencer's so arrogant, so willing

to capitalize on other people's vulnerabilities

merely for his own sense of validation

and gratification.

There wasn't even an awareness of people getting hurt.

JENIFER: This is Hope.

"Baby, I'm ready. I can't wait."

"Oh, my God, baby girl, you are perfect.

"Wow. I'm speechless.

Except that I want to decorate your whole back..."

- I can't. - "With"-- I can't.

That is not the person that I knew.

- Mm-hmm.

[tense music]

FRIEND: He texted me a picture

of his dick.

Right--right out there,

not--not even expecting it,

right out there on my phone.

And at one point, then,

requested me to send him a picture.

I felt like that was better

than actually getting together with him.

RAMANI: Spencer keeps pushing the envelope,

keeps pushing the limit.

Attention seeking combined with lack of empathy

can be really dangerous,

because then you're saying, I need to get attention,

and I don't care who I hurt.

- Spencer Herron at Kell High School.

How's it going?

NEWSCASTER: Herron now has three charges

of sexual assault by a teacher.

The 48-year-old was arrested Friday afternoon

at his home.

JENIFER: Up until he was arrested,

I had a great marriage.

[soft dramatic music]

And you don't realize...

how quickly life can change. [sniffles]

♪♪ ♪♪

ANDREA: There's many different versions

that he would present himself to be.

Even in his marriage, he wore a really strong

and powerful husband mask.

- His other life was devious

and deceptive.

HOPE: I feel like I was

forced to play a role

that was not me.

There would be certain looks

that just made me feel different

and cunning words.

So I didn't know how to be other than just comply.

JENIFER: And he lied to people.

He would tell some of these women, "I love you.

You're the only one."

HOPE: I really thought

that he loved me.

He had me convinced

that he did.

I mean, he--he told me.

♪♪ ♪♪

ANDREA: Do you remember the first time

you saw him say "I love you" to somebody else

and what that was like?

- Yeah, because he said it to Hope, I think.

I-I wrote him a lot of letters when he was in jail.

I only sent two.

But I needed to write them for myself.

And I just remember asking him,

did you really love this person?

Like--and his response,

"I don't remember ever telling them I love them."

♪♪ ♪♪

- But I'm sure you have evidence

of him saying it first. - Right there.

ANDREA: Mm-hmm.

♪♪ ♪♪

GOULD: That was just another manipulation.

Love is something

that brings kindness

and true goodness into someone else's life.

Love is not bringing harm and destruction.

♪♪ ♪♪

HOPE: I just felt like

my world was literally

crashing down around me--

the shame, the guilt, the fear.

- There was nothing about this that was love.

♪♪ ♪♪

- Spence and I spent time on the phone together

when he was in jail.

The calls were being recorded by the jail.

And he was so concerned about himself

and about anything we'd discuss being used

against him or against his character in his trial.

So I wasn't able to really express myself

as much as I wanted to about what he had done.

GAIL: I was concerned

that she was gonna lose it completely.

She got stuck.

♪♪ ♪♪

She kept going back to it.

"Mom, you're not gonna believe this.

"This is what was being said.

Mom, you're not gonna believe this photo."

She couldn't-- she was, like, spinning.

She just kept going around and round and round.

- Nobody knew what to feel

or what to say or what to do.

GAIL: It was like watching a movie.

RAMANI: It was the death of her future.

It was the death of her dreams.

It was the death of a person she thought she knew.

There is something almost harder

about someone still being alive and having to lose

what you believed to be true of them

than someone actually dying.

♪♪ ♪♪

GAIL: Jenifer is so distraught,

she's not thinking, how am I gonna pay the bills

with one income?

You know, what about the house? What about your job?

What about all of these other

logistical things for you,

how are we gonna fix that?

[Nik Ammar's "Come to an End"]

WIGINGTON: And, of course, you know,

there was depression.

And she didn't feel like she was good enough.

NIK AMMAR: ♪♪ Our love turned to rust ♪♪

♪♪ Broken hearts to dust ♪♪

♪♪ Nothing left of us but memories ♪♪

- I lost my sense of trust.

I started questioning my decisions.

And being a producer,

I-I live by my instincts.

And all of a sudden, I-I just questioned all of that.

I lost work because of it.

NIK: ♪♪ Never felt so low, so long ♪♪

WIGINGTON: Jenifer had gotten to the point where,

if she'd kept her house for another month,

the bank would've taken it.

♪♪ ♪♪

JENIFER: Literally, at that point, I had no money.

I had already borrowed from everybody I know.

♪♪ ♪♪

- And so we said, well,

why don't you come live in our basement apartment?

- I had to put my pride aside.

NIK: ♪♪ Used to be the two of us together ♪♪

JENIFER: So I sold our beautiful home

and moved into a basement.

NIK: ♪♪ So distant, and I've never felt so low ♪♪

♪♪ So long ♪♪

- We're learning more about what landed a former

Cobb County Teacher of the Year nominee in jail.

The educator is facing charges

of sexual assault involving a student.

- It's just such a fucked-up place to be.

You're trying to figure out,

like, who is this person?

Is it the one I know,

or is it the one that I'm learning about?

In the early days when he was in jail,

he would write me letters.

And he wrote me letter after letter after letter.

I would always check the mailbox,

because I was just hoping that he would send me a letter

that would somehow explain everything.

Ugh! I hate these letters.

They're all handwritten from prison,

and they're in order of how he sent them to me.

"My prayer for you is to think about it less and less each day

so that your life will be better and better each day."

ANDREA: Wow.

"Think about it less and less every day."

You want me to think about it less and less every day

so it goes away.

- Right. ANDREA: Let's just hit

the delete button. - Yeah.

"I want to restore our marriage.

"I'll do whatever it takes

for you to believe me about that."

- Up until that point, had you given him any indication--

- No.

No. - Right.

[dramatic music]

JENIFER: I think all he knows is how to try

to get on someone's good side or knows the right things

to say to try to get somebody back.

- He was just trying to, like, write his way through it.

- I mean, why not? Let's go for it.

ANDREA: Yeah, what else is there to lose?

- There's nothing to lose. Let's see if she'll come back.

[cell phone chimes]

One of the women was in running club with him.

And I had found so many photos of her.

Taking photos of her asshole

and sending them to a married man.

A-a picture of her

giving him a blow job in his car.

I couldn't understand...

what type of woman would do that.

And that sounds judgmental,

but I have some empathy for the women.

- Right. But it took you a little while to get there.

JENIFER: Oh, yeah.

And--and in a way, rightfully so.

I mean, at the time,

I was learning that these adult women,

some that I knew,

were carrying on a relationship with my husband.

[dark music]

JENIFER: Everyone wondered

where this kind of behavior came from.

♪♪ ♪♪

- After Spencer and his first wife split,

he joined my husband's band.

- ♪♪ Sweet home Alabama ♪♪

- It seemed like he kind of was...untethered.

[rock music playing]

He was finished with a chapter of his life

that hadn't been what he had planned.

And it felt like there was

a lot of making up for lost time.

I had seen him sow his oats, so to speak.

Like, he didn't get the 20s freedom

that he was planning to have,

and so he did that in his 40s.

♪♪ ♪♪

ANDREA: You're talking to another woman.

JENIFER: Yeah.

- One of the affairs? JENIFER: Yeah.

MISTRESS: Hi. - Hi.

Thanks for being here.

You knew him through his first marriage.

MISTRESS: Yes, I did.

- It feels like there was a shift,

that when he got to his single state

that he just gave in

to the hunt for the high.

♪♪ ♪♪

MISTRESS: Something did change

once he did, uh, get a divorce.

Um, there was, uh, more than a friendship.

RAE: And from there, it evolved and--

knowing that he could do things

and get away with stuff.

- Do you remember him talking

about getting married again?

MISTRESS: I do.

I-I do recall that being

just a joyous time for him, Jen.

- Wow.

MISTRESS: I certainly can't speak for him,

but perhaps he felt like, okay, this is--this is it.

All this is gonna stop now. JENIFER: Right.

MISTRESS: I'm gonna focus on this person.

JENIFER: But it didn't stop.

MISTRESS: Right. - Right.

MISTRESS: He's like, well, my wife is gonna be out of town.

Why don't you come check out the wine bar?

I thought, okay. Why not?

It's gonna be harmless.

And, well, you know,

it wasn't just a harmless, friendly visit.

It was an intimate visit.

And, um, he certainly sold it

as though you were still on paper married,

but, emotionally, you guys were not together.

♪♪ ♪♪

- This is really personal,

but did most of the interactions happen

at the wine bar?

MISTRESS: They did not happen at the wine bar.

♪♪ ♪♪

But they did happen at your house.

♪♪ ♪♪

- It--it's such a mind-fuck.

♪♪ ♪♪

ANDREA: There were no boundaries.

It's whatever he wanted,

wherever he could get the opportunity,

and he would take it.

- [crying] Uh, it's hard, you know,

to hear that he brought other women into our house.

♪♪ ♪♪

Well, thank you so much.

MISTRESS: Yeah, I'm glad that, um, we could speak today.

- Me too.

Speaking with these other women

was a really hard conversation to have.

It was cathartic...

but it was also draining.

Okay. - Are you okay?

- Yeah, it's just, I mean...

fuck.

- The whole time, I just wanted to hug you.

So can I hug you? JENIFER: Aw, of course.

- I'm so sorry. JENIFER: It's okay.

- That must not have been easy.

♪♪ ♪♪

JENIFER: You know, hearing he brought a woman in there

and had sex with her...

and didn't give a shit.

And she's not the only one.

- No. JENIFER: We know that.

- No, we know.

FRIEND: I came to your house once.

He talked me into going,

and I was just like, yeah,

I'll come over quick.

Whatever, you know?

He said that you were traveling or something.

He took my hand, and he took me upstairs.

He had things set up in the upper bedroom

with, like, candles and shit.

- Consequences shape behavior.

FRIEND: He made me feel like I was the only one.

RAMANI: In this case, the rights of more

and more people are being violated

because there's no consideration of consequence

because there's not been a consequence.

FRIEND: He knew he was taking advantage of that.

ANDREA: One of Jen's friends was having an affair

with Spencer.

But it didn't sit right with her.

FRIEND: I was blindly

taken advantage of.

ANDREA: And there was this moment

that kind of dawned on her that...

I'm not the only one.

FRIEND: That was the point

where I-I couldn't,

and I told him no.

And we got into an argument.

I felt like I just couldn't do this because of the regret

I had for what I was doing to you and my family.

[dramatic music]

♪♪ ♪♪

I ended up telling my husband on my own

without him ever even finding anything out,

because it was just eating at me.

♪♪ ♪♪

I'm like, I did something really horrible.

And he's like, did you have sex?

And I said yes.

And that was the utmost hardest thing

I've ever had to do.

[tense music]

- Then her husband confronted Spence.

- And there was an extremely heated conversation.

♪♪ ♪♪

FRIEND: Just yelling and screaming.

And he wanted to rip him apart.

JENIFER: Then years later, after I found out,

her husband calls me and says,

"I have to tell you something.

"I've known about this for a few years now.

"I found out that something happened

between the two of them."

These are people living in my town.

And somehow Spence is able to convince this husband

not to say anything to me.

♪♪ ♪♪

You know, when you find out

that not only were you betrayed

by someone you love

but then betrayed by other people

that you thought care about you,

it's double the betrayal.

It's double the hurt.

♪♪ ♪♪

How somebody is able to manage

so many different people at one time

and then also come home and act like the perfect husband...

that is a answer

I don't know that I will ever find.

JENIFER: In doing the podcast,

I had to relive things again and again.

ANDREA: One of the big things that we've talked about was

you really trying to figure out the man you married.

And so the purpose and the decision

for you to sit down with the other women

and just talk to them was about...

working through shame and giving each other time...

to release that shame.

- Yeah, I think those conversations...

were great,

and they held answers to the questions I had.

- What's important about your journey is that you want to see

the raw, ugly truth,

and you're brave enough and strong enough to face it.

JENIFER: Yeah.

♪♪ ♪♪

I think what I learned most

from talking with the women in the podcast...

Was to have compassion for them.

Yes, they made a mistake.

Yet they were also very manipulated

and used.

♪♪ ♪♪

GOULD: But not only did Jen find out

that Spencer was leading a secret life

and was lying for all of these years

and was cheating on her,

but he also escalated so much in his behaviors...

That he became a predator and a criminal.

[school bell rings]

WIGINGTON: Slowly I just began to realize,

okay, he cheated on her every day.

If he is this addicted,

yes, he did.

He did it. He had sex with a student.

[dark music]

♪♪ ♪♪

- I would go online and look up every police report...

Anything that they posted that was public record,

because I wanted to know the truth.

I found out that he had been sexually assaulting

the student for two years.

The grooming started when she was 15.

The sex might have started when she was 16.

ANDREA: The age of consent in Georgia is 16,

but the way that it works in Georgia

is that it is illegal for a teacher

to have any sexual relationship with a student,

no matter what age-- even if you're 18.

So Spencer was not arrested for statutory rape.

He was arrested for sexually assaulting a student.

Spencer was in jail,

between the arrest and the court date,

about six months.

JENIFER: He couldn't afford a defense attorney,

so he had a public defender.

And he did not like that one bit.

♪♪ ♪♪

FLYNN BROADY JR: Normally what will happen is,

based on the case, based on their history,

we'll make a plea recommendation

to the defense attorney.

And then the defense attorney takes that to the defendant

and then makes the decision

whether they want to go to trial.

- And so he pled guilty.

♪♪ ♪♪

WIGINGTON: And I think that people just were shocked

in that moment.

There were still people

who just didn't believe that he did it

and thought he was just kind of taking an easy way out.

And they were like, well, why did he do that?

♪♪ ♪♪

- In Cobb County, they found evidence for five events

where they actually had sexual contact.

He would probably be easily found guilty

based on, um, the evidence that came forward in the case.

♪♪ ♪♪

- In court, Spencer made the request

to talk to the victim's parents.

JENIFER: Maybe he thought, I bet I can convince them

that I'm too good of a guy to--to go to prison.

They said, we don't want to hear anything you have to say.

And...

good for them,

because I really believe that Spence thinks

that he can talk himself out of things.

[dark music]

Spence had sent out this letter

to all of our friends and family,

asking for people to write references for him.

A couple of his friends wrote letters of support.

"He's such a great guy.

"He's the Eagle Scout,

dad, Air Force, Teacher of the Year."

I couldn't do it.

How do you write a letter about someone

and say that they're a good person

if you know that they...

sexually assaulted

a 16-year-old girl at 48, 49 years old?

♪♪ ♪♪

NEWSCASTER: In Cobb County, Spencer Herron,

the former Teacher of the Year,

is headed to prison for having sex with a student.

SINGER: ♪♪ I'm praying for an angel to come ♪♪

♪♪ I'm waiting for a star to fall ♪♪

♪♪ Standing at the edge of the shore ♪♪

♪♪ Oh, yeah ♪♪

♪♪ Waiting for the rain to fall ♪♪

- Spence was sentenced in January of 2019.

SINGER: ♪♪ You know the damage is done ♪♪

♪♪ ♪♪

- He was sentenced to 20 years,

5 in confinement and then 15 on probation.

- I stayed in touch with him until the day he was convicted.

SINGER: ♪♪ Through the dark, I see your eyes ♪♪

♪♪ Calling me into the half-light ♪♪

♪♪ All I can see is an outline ♪♪

JENIFER: That same day, our divorce was finalized.

SINGER: ♪♪ I lay it to rest for the last time ♪♪

♪♪ You know the damage is done ♪♪

- There is a distinction between what he did

with Jenifer and breaking that marriage vow...

and making a conscious decision

to engage in that behavior with a student.

♪♪ ♪♪

As 16-year-old kids,

we don't know what the fuck's going on with the world.

And we don't know what's even going on in our heads.

There's so many things that are just happening

that we just don't understand.

- Go and have as many affairs

with as many women as you want.

But why would you prey on a child?

♪♪ ♪♪

[music ends]