All language subtitles for The Truth About Jim S01E01

I'm seven years old,

and I'm walking
through the woods with my grandma.

And it's fall,
and the ground is

like red with pine needles.

And I remember vividly,
thinking,

"Why are you so scared?"

Why?

Three young women
brutally murdered.

Sonoma County authorities say

they have six
of these homicides

apparently all by
the same mad killer.

Suddenly it became
very clear that

she might be not safe.

Because she was
married to a monster.

There is a theory
that the thickly wooded hillsides here

may be hiding other bodies.

His name was Jim Mortdecai and he was a very bad man.

But could he have
murdered people?

In the '60s and '70s,
Northern California was

considered
the serial killer capital of the world.

- Herbert Mullin.
- The Zodiac Killer.

- Edmund Kemper.
- The Santa Rosa Killer.

There were
so many unspeakable murders during that period.

So many young women
brutally killed

and truly shocking numbers
of these cases have

never been solved.

That's over
35 victims in three years and he's still at large.

And at the same time,
in this same area,

Jim was in his prime.

He's elusive and leaves very little evidence.

Now I'm on a mission to learn the truth about

my step grandfather, Jim.

My name is Sierra Gorder.

I live in San Francisco now,

but I grew up in
Lake Tahoe, California.

When I was 18,
I was a victim of sexual assault.

It was an experience
that nearly broke me,

that changed my world
in countless ways.

Years later,
I was assaulted again.

But I never
went to the police.

Why didn't I report it?

Why didn't I say anything?

The answer to those questions

always pointed
in the same direction.

My family.

My step grandfather was
a man named Jim Mordecai.

Although he died
when I was young,

my entire life, I've heard
horror stories about him

from my mom,
from my aunts,

from many people
who knew him.

Stories of manipulation,
violence,

and possibly, even murder.

Many of the women
in my family

lived in fear of Jim.

About what
he would do to them.

And what they suspected
he may have done to others.

Movie day was
my favorite at school.

You haven't seen these
since the '70s?

It was like, yeah, 1970.

My mom, grandmother and I have gotten together to watch

old home movies,

for the first time
since Jim died over ten years ago.

So how old are you here?

Twenty-six.

For years,
my mom and grandmother were estranged.

Turned against
each other by Jim.

Now that he's gone,
they're working to rebuild their relationship.

Oh, my gosh.

She's younger than you. - I know.

So weird.

I met my first husband in college.

We got married
our senior year.

When I found out
I was pregnant with Shannon

it was just really nice
because I just wanted the baby.

- Aw!
- Little Shanny.

The sun's in your eyes.

But it's really the shot. - Yeah.

You had to keep me there
so you could...

I loved seeing
how she was growing

and she walked at nine months.
So she was very active.

She's going, like... - Oh, no. No.

- We kind of--
- Very chill for me running towards the highway.

My family ended up
in Half Moon Bay.

So I think they felt like
it was a good place

to raise a kid
and it was a great thing 'cause it was

close to San Francisco
where you could then run back

to the safety of
your little quiet town.

You were pretty relaxed then.

Yeah, you do seem
much more relaxed. - Yeah, you seem...

- She's my mom.
- She's your mom.

And what you've always known
is me being mad or sad,

- and her feeling bad.
- Mm-hmm.

I like being her mom.

- I like that.
- I mean, that's why it was just such a...

Like, the rug got pulled out.

Yeah, when my dad left,
of course you're gonna be sad.

Yeah, it was really,
really hard for me.

Shannon's dad made me
feel like I was

not attractive,
I wasn't very smart,

and I had really low
self-esteem when he left.

And then Jim just swooped in
and changed everything. - Yeah.

Jim Mordecai was my teacher.

And he taught ag science.

He was the director,
Grand Poohbah of the FFA,

which was big
at my high school.

What's the FFA?

Future Farmers of America.

The first time I ever saw him,

I had to go to
a meeting for FFA.

He must've overheard
that my mom was newly single

and starts
to set his eyes on her.

How was Jim even
attractive to you?

I think that it was that,
you know,

he was a teacher
and he seemed kind of wholesome.

- Mm-hmm.
- Like, he definitely liked

to portray that because
I think that a lot of people

kinda say that's their
first impression of him,

is that he's like
a family man, nice guy.

Yeah.

When Shannon's father left,
a year or so down the road,

I would see Jim now and then

and he kind of be flirty,
and it was kinda neat,

you know, to be flirted with.

Shannon was in his class.

And so, I would go to meetings
with parents and stuff.

He acted like
he was pretty cool.

He was very masculine,
he lifted weights

and that was kind of
a cool thing too.

My dad and him are...

so different.

So you were mad about
your dad leaving,

you were mad about
my meeting someone.

I wasn't mad if...

When you dated other people,
I wasn't mad.

It was that one.

Everybody knew he was off.

But nobody, even like
when I reach out to people, talk about him now,

people won't even
talk about it, like,

'cause they know
he was bad.

It started with things like,
he would comment on my body in front of the whole class.

And he would say,
oh, let's grade Shannon's ass.

So I would stand up
in front of the class

and I would point to my ass
and I would say,

"A, motherfucker,"
and I would leave.

And it was just, kind of,
he had a cat and mouse with me.

He liked watching
people get angry at him.

People in my school
would get drunk 'cause it was high school

and they would go sober up
at his house in his hot tub.

I remember specifically,
being like,

"You do what? That's weird"

Like, why would you be in
a hot tub with your teacher?

There were rumors that
he was sleeping with students.

He would call them "sluts."

Each year, he had a day
where everybody would slaughter their rabbits.

And they would
bring their rabbits...

And I didn't have rabbits.
I was not killing a rabbit.

Like, none of that.

But there was a lot of blood.

And they did castration day
with the pigs.

So they would, you know,
castrate the pigs.

Um, lots of blood,
lots of squealing.

And he definitely, like,
got off on that.

It excited him.

You just wanted to
get out of there.

He wasn't teaching,
he was orchestrating anger and chaos.

We had a greenhouse
at the school.

And to get out of class,
you could be "the waterer."

And I remember, I was
in the greenhouse, watering,

and all of a sudden
he appears.

And it's far.
It's not like he just bops out of class,

comes back in.
It's a walk.

But he corners me
in the back corner of the greenhouse

and he was talking to me
and it was threatening.

The stuff that he was saying
was so crazy and violent.

And I have to, like,
scurry out of there like a squirrel.

And then he turned into
my stepdad.

And then it got worse.

Jim was something that
I've never encountered before,

and I kept thinking that
he was, like,

everybody we knew,
and of course he wasn't.

- There he is.
- Ew.

Is that his voice?

That fucking bathrobe.

He'd have on a bathrobe? - Always in the bathrobe.

I'm really triggered
by seeing him.

Jim starts dating my mom
and I start getting some phone calls.

My mom would
get ready to go

and she would call and say,
"Hey, Jim, I'm gonna go.

I'll be there in about
half an hour or 45 minutes."

Hang up the phone,
she'd leave.

And then the phone would ring

ten minutes
after she would leave.

And I would pick it up...

...and I would recognize
Jim's voice.

I knew his voice.
I know it was him.

He would say awful things.

It was sexual,
and it was violent.

It got to a point
where I was just terrified.

Terrified of him.

I borrowed my boyfriend's gun

and I would sleep with it
standing up next to my bed.

The level of fear I had
when I was in high school...

was...

insane.

I'm just trying to figure out
when I started thinking

that he... killed people.

You remember, after he died,
we found the gun that was hidden.

And as we
were going through drawers, we found a jewelry box.

And nobody knew
whose it was.

I didn't know where
that jewelry came from.

We were getting freaked out
about the stuff.

Yeah.

I remember my mom first mentioning that

she thought Jim could've been
a murderer.

- I'll text you
when I get home. - Okay.

- Love you. Bye.
- Bye.

I mean, that's huge.

I knew she was scared of him.

He gave her
every reason to be.

But for her to think
he might've been capable of killing someone

means she sensed something.

I would love to know
who my mom was before Jim Mordecai.

I think I see photos,
I see her in her year books

and I hear of people
talk about her.

I would love to
know that person.

I think Jim split my family
because he wanted something

from my mom
that she was unwilling to give

and he punished her for that.

Hearing about the greenhouse,
I think he wanted to sexually assault my mom

and she got away,
and he thought, I think,

"I'm gonna marry
this woman Judy

and I'm gonna have
Shannon on the side

and I'm gonna do
all this stuff,"

and it didn't
work out for him.

So he punished my mom by
stealing my grandma from her.

My mom did report Jim.
She called the police about Jim.

Uh, they laughed at her.

And they made her feel stupid
about doing it, like,

"oh, you just don't
like your stepdad."

And if police would've
believed her,

maybe they would've found out
that Jim did things

that were even worse
than what he did to my mom.

It sounds nuts.

It sounds nuts,
but here's the reality.

Somebody's grandpa
was a serial killer

because there were countless
unsolved murders

in Northern California
in the '60s and '70s.

Was it mine?

I don't know.

But somebody's grandpa was.

This is Jim Mordecai's
family tree.

It's pretty confusing because
he was married three times in his life,

and had four
biological children

and three step children.

This is my family here.

My grandma Judy was
his third and final wife.

I'm pretty close with
most of Jim's other children.

They're my aunts and uncles.

But talking about him is
really hard for most of them.

So I wanna start with
my immediate family.

So I'm gonna go
see my grandma because

I feel like I've heard
all these stories about Jim over the years

and recently I kind of,
just wanna know her side of it.

A big challenge of all this
with talking to my grandma

is that there's so much pain

and I think
she has a lot of guilt.

- Hi, Sie.
- Hello.

So nice to see you.

The challenge is
sort of, like,

to get her in a headspace
where she feels safe enough

to remember and safe enough
to know that nothing is gonna

change the relationship
we have now.

I wanted to ask you about Jim
because I don't really know

that much about him. I mean,
I remember him very briefly,

- like I have
little moments with him. - Yeah, 'cause you were little.

From what mom has
always told me,

she like, she never liked Jim.

He would ask her
to stand in front of the class and grade her butt.

- He did that
to girls, didn't he? - Mm-hmm.

I took my mom aside and was,
like, you cannot date him.

He is bad.

And she was, like,
"Stop, you're overreacting."

I don't remember even
having much to do with my mom

after she started dating him.

Like, there were
not many conversations.

When she was little,
I was there all the time.

I was there for everything
she ever needed.

And then, when Jim
came along, I wasn't.

They started dating
and he lives over,

what we call, "over the hill."

And she starts
going over there and just doesn't come back.

So I go from this childhood
of like, she's baking cookies

and we're sewing clothes,
and like, just...

she's super attentive,
she's the quintessential mom.

Cut to she started dating Jim
and she's gone.

So all of a sudden,
I'm living by myself.

I was 15. I don't know
how to live alone.

It was awful.

What I'm trying to
understand is, who was Jim?

And what did he do
to make it so...

that you wouldn't be around?

I've questioned myself a lot
about that.

Started out as
normal seeming relationship

and it just kept getting
more bizarre,

and I kept accepting it.

I think she has,
what they call

the toxic positivity, like,
it's just...

"Everything's good.
I just want to see the good in people."

What was he doing to her
that she stayed?

I would really like to
talk to other people in the family,

and I just kinda wanna know
who he was,

and I want to just
break the silence of it.

I think it's a wonderful idea.

- You sure?
- Mm-hmm.

Okay.

When I got pregnant
with Sierra, I was 22,

and the relationship
with my mom

was still a struggle for me

because I was
so scared of Jim.

My mom was terrified
all the time.

Yep. Look to your left.

I was worried that
when Sierra became a teenager,

that Jim would rape
or molest her.

Because he threatened me
with those phone calls

and because of the rumors of
him trying to rape students.

And I remember,
specifically, like,

Sierra, when you're at school,
if grammy or Jim

ever come to your school,
you cannot leave with them.

Yep. Supper ready.

Hey, look behind you. Whoa!

She would ask why, and I said, well,

he's done
bad things to people.

Whoa!

I definitely taught her
that life was unsafe.

In 2012, I was enrolled in a dance school.

And I loved dancing.

I went to a really prominent
dance school

and a teacher
sexually assaulted me

and I went to
an administrator.

And she looked me in the eye
and she said,

well, what did you do
to have him do that to you?

And in that moment,
a very big part of me died.

Sexual assault has
affected my life

on such a deep level.

It opened the door for me
to look into things

that I had really put away.

I think she started,
through her sexual assault,

started looking at everything
and seeing, like,

why I took
my mom away from her.

Why I couldn't be around Jim.

And as time went on and Jim passed away

I think I was always curious,
like, what happened?

And as an adult
through the lens

of what had happened to her,
she saw why I was doing

what I did to protect her.

Maybe my mom
who'd always been

sort of vocal that
he had the ability to be violent

and maybe murdered people.

Maybe she wasn't just
being my crazy mom.

Maybe this was based
in some reality.

Okay.

So Jim is born in 1941.

He grows up in Santa Rosa.

He attends
Montgomery high school.

That's where he meets
his first wife.

And in 1960,
she becomes pregnant

with their
first child, Melinda,

and they are then
forced to get married by the Mordecai family.

And in 1972,
they get divorced.

And in 1973, Jim marries
Jeanne Kirkpatrick...

who has her own children
from a previous marriage,

who Jim becomes
the stepfather of,

who are Michael and Christi.

And Jeanne and Jim have
two children together,

and that's Melissa Mordecai

and Jaime Mordecai.

- Hello?
- Hey, it's me.

Hi. What's up?

I think
I'm ready to kind of, like, jump this rabbit hole

on Jim.

And I don't really know
where to begin.

I don't wanna stir up trauma,
or emotion or make people mad.

I think it'd be worth a shot

trying to get in touch with
Jamie and Melissa.

I think it's definitely
worth asking some questions.

Yeah.

Okay.

Who's gonna take me now?

Take me to Jamie?

My aunt Jamie
is very outspoken. Always has been.

She was fun,
but over time, that changed.

As time went on, she became
more and more angry.

Honestly, I'm the
black sheep of the family. I've always been.

For Melissa and I,
it felt like, you know,

she played the game with him,
I did not.

I didn't wanna play a game.

I didn't like his game.

I've had this
ability with my dad.

to calm him down.

There was a way of...

being able to talk to him.

I could just...
I could somehow get in.

I would try to reason with him
before he was unreasonable.

I'm really curious
to talk to Melissa because

she also had
a different relationship

with him than any of us did.

The pressure to be the best
in his eyes was intense.

I had to be the best
at everything that I did.

He wanted to see me
have that killer instinct.

I was just living
to please him.

So that was validation.

I was on the right track.
I was a good soldier.

I was doing what I was
supposed to do.

I worshipped him.

After our parents divorced,
dad would say,

"I'm on a mission
to find you guys a mom."

When I met Jim,
he had these two little girls

that were just so charming.

Jamie and Melissa,
I just thoroughly enjoyed every bit of them.

When Judy came into our lives,
I was eight.

She came in and she
sat on the floor with us

and played with us.

I liked her.
I wanted her around.

She just took on that role
of our mom.

She was our buffer,
and in a way, our protector.

Not that she signed up
for that role though.

You would've thought
that I would've been resentful of his kids because

my mom went to raise them
and I just was

so happy to have, like,
cute little sisters around.

Jamie was always
singing and dancing.

Ow!

Melissa was the serious one,
always kind of hovering around Jamie

and taking care of Jamie.

I'm not gonna
waste any film.

So I was just
thrilled with them, but hated their dad.

I'm going to see Jamie and Melissa's mom, Jeanne,

who was married to Jim
for nine years.

I'm hoping she can provide
more insight

into the type of person
Jim was

because she has
always been vocal about

the horror
she experienced with him.

Woo-hoo! Fancy.

That's her.

I recognize that face.

I recognize
that beautiful face anywhere.

Hi.

- Hey.
- Hi.

Hi! Finally.

Oh, my little girl.

So come in.
I hear you're in San Francisco

- and you're married.
I saw pictures. - Yes.

- So happy for you,
pretty girl. - Thank you.

Well, we've never really
talked about him,

- I feel like you and I, ever.
- No. Well, when?

So where did you guys meet?

We met at the methodist church
in Half Moon Bay.

Do you remember
what you thought about him at first?

What was it about him?

I was attracted to
the teaching that he had.

You know,
that was a great thing

and he worked with kids.
Loved that.

And then, one day,
he asked me out.

So, I said, okay.

And then I said, well,
you should meet the kids.

So we went to
some burger place

and Jim met my children,
Michael and Christi.

And you know,
he was an attractive man then.

And we had fun, really.

You know, we'd go up
to his ranch.

His parents had
a beautiful ranch up there in Occidental.

We would bum around
and you know, there were apple trees,

and the views
were wonderful.

One time at the ranch,
we tore down a whole water shed.

Just the two of us.

They go, "Oh,
that's the girl for you."

He was well-respected in the community.

Mm-hmm.

And everything was fine in the beginning, you know.

We would just
do things together

and I liked that.
We'd do things together with the kids.

I needed a father
for my children.

You know,
and he was good to them.

And then we ended up
getting married.

And it was beautiful 'cause
there was Christmas trees

and poinsettias,
and I had on this beautiful burgundy dress

and you know, da, da, da.

Then he got deviant.

- Sexually?
- Yeah.

It was the thrill
of the catch.

I remember, one time,
my parents said

"We're coming over.
We wanna see the house."

And Jim decided that's when
he wants to have sex, when they show up.

And my parents are out there,
and I'm like, "Jesus, Jim."

Jim's like that.
He likes all that weird stuff.

For him, it was the danger
of being caught

or the thrill of
doing something

you shouldn't do
in the moment.

When you were having sex,
was he violent?

Oh, yeah, he was.

- Super violent?
- Mm-hmm.

There was a lot of chaos. I just remember the chaos

when both my mom and dad
were still married,

when we were all living
under the same roof.

When my dad got mad, he got mad.

He broke a couple of teeth
'cause he would get that mad.

Like, he would clench down
on his teeth.

He would, like, threaten us
with a belt

or a back scratcher.

He harassed me,
Christi and Michael.

He beat us up.
He put us down.

He made us feel threatened
and, like,

we're gonna die any moment
because of his presence.

During that time,
it was just such hell.

I started
the divorce proceedings

when he attacked Christi
at school.

She came home and said,
he threw her up against the lockers.

And he didn't obviously
want the divorce?

- Or did he?
- Oh, no.

Oh, no, no, no.
He's obsessed with me.

- He was obsessed with me
until the day he died. - Yeah.

I thought I should invite
a friend of his over for dinner.

Mm-hmm.

And then I wanna
break the news,

you know,
it wouldn't be so bad.

- Mm-hmm.
- So when I said,

"The reason, Jim, that I've
invited my friend here today

is because I'm asking you
for a divorce."

It's all I had to say.

He stands up,

picks up the table
and thrusts it on me.

Now I was stuck
under the table.

My friend just goes,
"Oh, God, I can't handle this."

He fucking takes off
out the door.

And I said, "Chris and Mike,
call 911."

And so, Jim reaches over,
takes the phone

and rips it off the wall.

Mm-hmm.

Jim flicks Michael
across the room.

At one point, he got up
and I bolted out the door.

And you were in a remote area
where we just have horses.

- Yes. There's nothing.
- Nothing.

And then
the next thing I know, I have a hand

across my face
and one across my body,

and he drags me back
into the house.

- Then he takes that gun,
that handgun. - Mm-hmm.

And cocks it back,

and puts it into my mouth...

and said, "I'm gonna
fucking kill you."

And how the fuck did you
get out of that situation?

I said, "Jim, you really
don't wanna do this.

The kids won't have a mother."

And he stopped.

You just have to
talk him off the ledge.

So I had to calm him down,
you know?

- Did you see him
slowly switch-- - He comes back around.

In that moment,
would he be like,

"Oh, my God,
what am I doing?"

- Or would he...
- No.

...be like, "Okay,
you're making sense now. This is making sense."

Nothing makes sense to him.

Yeah, no,
he would calm down.

If you didn't know
how to handle him,

what would have happened
in that moment?

Yeah, it's true.

You've been loud about this
for a long time,

that he was violent
and nobody listened.

No-- Talk to the other hand.

What you're telling us is
very alarming behavior

and nobody seemed to care.

When my parents divorced, my dad got custody of us.

He got the house.
I don't even know how he did that.

You know,
my dad always...

was obsessed
with my mom.

But always wanted us
to hate her.

I didn't know
until recently

that he had threatened
to slit our throats.

He said this to my mother.

"If you try to get the girls,
I will slit their throats. I will kill them."

I remember
sitting in the kitchen

and he got her on the phone,
and he's like,

"Tell her how much
you hate her.

Tell her how much
you hate your mom."

And I was like,
"I don't wanna do that. Dad, I don't wanna tell her.

I don't hate mom. I miss mom."

"Tell her you hate her."
And then it was like,

he was becoming the beast,
so I was like, "Okay."

I remember
being on that phone...

crying to her and saying,
"I hate you. I hate you."

And she's on the other line
and she's saying...

"It's okay, baby.
I know you don't hate me.

I know you don't hate me."

I remember nightmares
to this day of my dad raping me.

I was 15 and I just had
my back surgery

'cause of my scoliosis.

I was in my bedroom,
I can hardly move.

And it was so real
that I woke up and I was like, crying.

And my dad heard me
and he came in.

My dad was wearing
the same outfit

that I had in my dream.

Literally in my room
looking at me.

I was like, oh, my God,
what is this?

Is he like, gonna rape me?
Is this like a premonition?

Because I was at that age.

You know,
I was at the ripe age for him.

Uh, well, Christi, for one.

Christi Probst is Jim's step daughter.

I've always known
there were something bad

that happened
with Jim and Christi.

But I didn't really know
exactly what it was.

- Hi.
- Hi.

Oh, it's so good seeing you.
Come in.

How have you been?

Okay, thank you.

With everything going on,
a little crazy, but good.

- I know. It's so wild.
- Good crazy. Yeah.

What was it like

suddenly having Jim
in your life?

- Wow, um, I know
I didn't like him. - Mm-hmm.

Uh, I didn't want him there.

My parents divorced
when I was about

seven, eight.

Um, and then my mom met Jim.

Jim was a narcissist,
a bully, a manipulator,

a homophobic, racist, violent,
psychotic.

I mean, I honestly have
nothing good to say about him.

He was a horrible person.

I was 13.
I remember the grooming

kind of starting.

He invited me to go to
a horse event

somewhere
in Northern California.

A bunch of students were going
and I was so excited because

I got to share a room
with high schoolers.

The high school ladies.

And sort of last minute,

interestingly enough,
no one was able to go...

but me.

So we get up there
and we go trekking

and I'm sort of, like,
oh, I get my own room,

and Jim said, no,
we're gonna save money.

You and I will share a room.

And that was,
sort of that moment of, like,

this is not normal.
This is not right.

This is uncomfortable.
I'm not liking this.

But I didn't say anything.

We go out
and look at the horses.

We go out and look at,
you know,

some of the events
and whatnot.

And we get back to the room
and I got into my bed.

Jim took a shower
and walks out naked.

And then he decides
to climb in bed with me.

I remember, like,
sitting in the bed, like,

I'm really
uncomfortable with this.

But you know, he was like,
oh, I'm just gonna sit here with you

and we're just gonna cuddle,
and I said, I don't wanna cuddle with you.

I want you to get in
your own bed.

He was like,
no, no, no, it's okay.

I can just sleep here tonight.

That moment, I was just, like,

what is happening?
This is not normal.

This is not okay.
I'm so scared.

I am so scared because
even though my mom knows

where I am, I don't know
what else is gonna happen.

And I remember just like,
pushing away and pushing away.

That was the first time
that I was sexually assaulted by him.

But I remember
fighting him off

and I had scratched his face.

And I remember getting home
and my mom was doing laundry.

And she asked him about
the scratch on the face.

And it was
that moment of, like,

am I gonna say something?

And he just said, oh,
I scratched myself with my razor.

And I thought...

Like, Christi, say something.

And I never said anything.

And I feel like
that was probably his moment

of thinking,
she's not gonna talk.

And how much more
can I get away with from her?

Jim was a high school teacher during the school year.

And in the summers,
he was a landscape architect.

So I, being
a landscape person in high school

taking horticulture classes,
worked for him.

And we were doing a job
for his brother up in Novato.

And we had gone up there,
just the two of us.

And as we got into the house,
he just grabbed me

and was wrestling with me,
violently though.

And he was trying to
get my pants off

and I was fighting,
and fighting, and fighting.

And I remember just
literally having an out of body experience.

I just couldn't fight anymore.
I was just exhausted.

I mean, he was
170 something pounds.

And I remember
just lying there

and I was like...
like, up here.

And I remember,

standing up afterwards, and...

I was so angry.

I was so angry.

And he just
turned to me and said,

well, let's go
in the backyard and finish the landscaping job.

And it was that moment
I thought,

wait, what you just did
was wrong.

Something...
This is not right.

But he could just
do that switch so easily.

And again,
I never said anything.

Uh, 13 and 14.

What made you feel like
you couldn't tell your mom what he did?

I really think it was more
the feeling I had to

- take care of my family.
- Yeah.

So when he said to me,
who's gonna take care of your mom with four kids?

Right?
Or, who's gonna believe you?

You're a child. You're a kid.
I'm a grown up.

I'm a teacher.
And I believed that.

I was so manipulated
into believing him

that we would have nothing.

"You guys will have nothing."

I had no power,
I had no voice.

And I was
in some of his classes

and I mean,
being sexually assaulted

by your step parent
who happens to be a teacher?

It just made me shut down.

I mean, I was just,
every day surviving at school

just to try to keep my head
above water.

My self-esteem was low,
I was very quiet.

I never went to parties
in high school.

I didn't have a boyfriend
in high school.

Me going to a party,
I wasn't allowed.

I mean, Jim didn't
let me out of his sight.

Not happening.

And I remember,
you know, again,

him being a teacher,
he and I would drive home

from school.
I just wouldn't talk.

He would be talking.

'Cause he would always
talk to himself.

And I would get into the home
and I'd just go to my room.

And I thought...

the farther away
I could be from him, the better and the safer.

I feel like I had to really
protect my family that way and I felt very, um...

like...

like indebted, basically
to them, right?

- The pressure. Right.
- Yeah. How unfair is that?

How unfair is that,
not only what he did to you,

but then to also
put that on you.

To have to
protect your family.

Yeah, like, who was
gonna feed them?

I was probably five or six.

One evening, he was like,
we gotta get in the van. We gotta go help your mom.

She's dating this guy

and he's giving her drugs.

And we parked
in that big, ugly van.

We were sitting in the back,

there's like
a window back there.

Jaime and I have
a clear view.

Mom was
in a car with this guy

and I just remember my dad
getting into the car.

And then
looking like a cartoon.

Like, literally...

circles.

And my mom turns
and she is...

I can hear her screaming.

I just remember my dad pummeling that man.

And he's just,
with everything he's got,

and she's scratching at him,
she's screaming at him, she's kicking him.

I remember the man
kind of like slumped.

And he comes back
and he opens the door.

There's blood everywhere,
just splattered on his shirt.

And he's like, I got him.
I got him, girls.

And I was like, yeah, dad,
you got him good.

And I'm looking up at him
and I don't even know what's going on.

I was two.

He was very intimidating.

He creeped me out.

The controlling part,
the manipulation part.

The lying.

Pitting people
against each other,

the emotional abuse,
the physical abuse that he put my mom through,

all of us through.

It would not shock me if
they found out that Jim had murdered some women.

It... I would not be shocked.

I would actually be shocked
if he didn't do it.