Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This podcast discusses sexual assault. Please take care while listening.
On December thirtieth, twenty twelve, Spencer Heron and Jennifer Faison
were married. Let us pray, God of all love and mercy,
make this a sacred place, Holly, by your presence and
(00:21):
by the love that we celebrate today, help us to
find and this couple's love and laughter, the love and
laughter you share for us. Amen, Jennifer. Ever since I
saw you walk into that hotel lobby last year, I've
known what I'm supposed to do with the rest of
my life. I feel beyond honor to know you, to
(00:42):
love you, and to accept the most privilege of all
things being your husband. Nearly six years later, on August sixteenth,
twenty eighteen, Heron was indicted on five counts of sexual
assault by a teacher on school property in Cobb County, Georgia.
You will never have to question my love of her
devotion to you, because there's nothing else that I want
to spend my time doing except showing you those things.
(01:05):
I am so in love with you. Nearly nine months later,
on April eighth, twenty nineteen, Spencer was indicted for sexually
assaulting the same student in a hotel in Turkee County, Georgia.
Spencer told the victim to stay down in an effort
to hide her while driving her from Kel High School
to a hotel. Having witnessed the covenant that you have
(01:29):
made today and celebrated the love that you share, it
is my privilege to pronounce you husband and wife. You
may kiss. I'm Andrea Gunning and this is a trayal
(01:54):
Episode two. The aftermath. The judge set a fifty five
thousand dollars cash bond, so we couldn't get him out
if we tried, couldn't put the house up or anything
like that. Fifty five thousand dollars is a lot of money,
(02:18):
so he stayed in jail. It was almost like a wake,
almost like someone had died, because people just kept coming over.
In the days after the news broke, Jennifer and Spencer's
friend group were in disbelief and rallied around her. Her
friend Danielle was one of the first people Jennifer reached
(02:38):
out to, and upon hearing the news, Danielle drove straight
to Jennifer's house. What the look? I couldn't wrap my
head around there being any truth to it all. I
could do, would just be there for her and let
her know that she had a huge community who was
not going to let her down. Jen's neighbor Jail knew Spence,
and she just couldn't process it, like no, no, no, no, nope.
(03:01):
It was like her calling me and speaking to me
in Mandarin because just like, I don't know what you're
saying to me right now. Spencer's mugshot was all over
the news, not just in Acworth, but nationally and internationally.
There was no hiding it. Jennifer had to deal with
the shame of what her husband had done. The victim
(03:22):
told investigators that during the summer of twenty sixteen, Spencer
met with her at school several times for a non
existent school club meeting. She said that he would text
her and tell her when he would be at the
school and where to find him. That would give her
a reason to be at Kell High School. Spencer began
groping the victim on several different occasions, and his behavior
(03:44):
continued into the fall semester. Law enforcement also learned that
in twenty seventeen, Spencer started having sexual relations with the
student inside the school on multiple occasions. She was a
sophomore She provided some devastating tales that were contained in
the criminal warrant as a warning. Some of them are
(04:04):
difficult to hear. For example, when she began crying because
it hurt, Spencer told her to be quiet. Also, he
insisted that he not used protection because he was quote
unquote fixed. You know, it was sickening to know that
the accusation was coming from someone the same age as
his youngest. That was really difficult for us. How do
(04:27):
you wrap your head around that? And there were plenty
of people who couldn't channel. Choose Lauren pose and talk
to one of his former students to night she's live
outside the Cobb County jail, was what she learned. People
we spoke with our skeptical of the charges because you
don't always know what's the truth is. Two former students
who did not want to go on camera told me
Heron was a great coach and teacher. The other student
(04:49):
added Heron was a professional and kindhearted. She told me
she does not believe the allegations are true, but Jennifer
knew they were true. Spencer had admitted it. Now she
was confronted with something else. Two days after Spencer's arrest,
Jennifer uncovered a dark secret life. Her husband had been
(05:10):
living a trove of her husband's lovers, sex partners, and
prostitutes that dated back to the beginning of their marriage
and beyond. He kept everything, photos, videos, emails, and tex
exchanges between him and at least fifty other women littered
his computer. She had gotten into his email to reset
(05:34):
the password for his Facebook, and that's when she was
able to shut down his social media. She was just
looking to protect him, protect him, protect the family. But
once she logged into his email, it was over and
there's just no going back. I don't think that anybody
expected for her to find what she found. I call
(06:01):
it his trophy case. It was an entire catalog of
emails and correspondence with women years and years and years.
I mean, he saved everything. He saved the rejection emails,
he saved every photo, He backed up the photos that
(06:22):
he got from his Facebook. He was not who we
thought he was. She told us that she was going
to file for divorce. Spence was literally living a double life.
On one hand, he's living as the perfect, doting, loving husband,
(06:46):
great father, teacher of the year, Air Force band. He
was even an Eagle scout. Jennifer's sister, Chrissie, was a
voice of reason and probably understood Jennifer better than anyone.
She had discovered all of the other women and the emails,
and I think she was obsessed about that because it
(07:09):
was easier than actually being sad about it. She only
showed me one thing because I just don't want to
see I didn't need to see it, but I think
she had to because it was Spencer. You still don't
believe it. Jennifer and Spence got married on December thirtieth,
twenty twelve. She found photos of fourteen different women, many
(07:30):
of them nude, within the first year of their marriage.
There were two that I knew. One is someone who
became friends of ours through the wine bar. Her and
her husband would come in pretty regularly the wine bar.
It was a big part of Jennifer and Spence's life.
It had been a dream of Jennifer's to own one.
(07:55):
Spencer and I talked about opening a coffee shop when
we first moved here, because Worth has this small town
feel and it's got this great main street. It somehow
evolved into a wine bar, which we opened and had
for two years. This was a place where the neighborhood
(08:17):
really came together. All we had to do was open
up the doors, and the neighborhood just came in and
they introduced themselves and they hung out and we all
just became friends and this really great community. Having that
wine bar was a way to play hostess to the neighborhood,
(08:41):
and it turns out it was also a sexual playground
for Spencer, who found new prospects, seduced women, and even
had sex here. I think we just have this great bar,
and Spence was basically using it as his I have
(09:02):
seen messages where he says, Wow, that blow job you
gave me in the bathroom last night was amazing, or
photos of somebody in the bathroom taking a picture of
herself and sending it to him. He used to put
a sign on the door apparently that said back in
five minutes or back in ten minutes, and then would
(09:24):
have sex in there. Jennifer's mother, Gail just couldn't wrap
her head around the audacity. It's like in my business too.
I mean, is there no place sacred? Unbelievable? It's absolutely unbelievable.
But there were dozens and he met them in all
kinds of ways. Jennifer discovered evidence of a year long
(09:46):
affair with a woman from his running club, and then
another one was in the military with him. They were
all very different from who Jennifer is. It's a person.
Spencer juggled multiple conquests at the same time. The affairs
he was having with the women overlapped, and he stayed
in touch with them through sordid text exchanges. It's fair
(10:07):
to assume that people behave differently with secret lovers during affairs,
and they might with their own spouses, but reading his
text was like reading a novel. He was a fictional character.
The messages showed that Spencer had secret fetishes. Just a warning.
The texts are explicit, and maybe the most alarming part
is realizing that your own partner wrote them, and that's
(10:29):
what jen faced when she discovered these text messages. Note
all of the following were sent to adult women. Will
you actually punch me this time? I'm not fucking around.
I need you to hurt me. That's the point, the
entire point. Was he into pain or was it the rush?
(10:52):
Jennifer had no idea because she had no clue that
he liked to be hit. Spencer also liked his lovers
to refer to him as Daddy. Send Daddy a picture
was a frequent request in his fantasy life. Jennifer noticed
he seemed to enjoy a playful and sometimes not so playful,
dominating persona. There were other texts where Spencer was in
(11:14):
touch with former students. Here he keeps trying to persuade
one of them to get together. I remember you being
in class. You're always so much fun and so squeet.
I hope you could tell that I was always super
fond of you. We have a cool connection, your gorgeous fact.
(11:38):
We need to hang out. I can't wait. I did you. Eventually,
the young woman asks how are you and your wife? Though? Okay,
I guess you know how relationships are. Can you see
how I might have a crush on you? You know
(12:00):
how relationships are? He barely acknowledges the question and brings
it back to the conversation he really wanted to have.
In another exchange, he mentions with holding sex from Jennifer
when I know that we're going to meet. I don't
like depriving myself, so I avoid sex with her if
(12:20):
it even comes up, And to another he references tension
at home for more excitement. By the way, Jen and
I are fighting right now, so I am in an
even freakier and more amped up mood to test the waters.
And then there was this I am a single man
for the next six days. If you want to hook up,
(12:42):
I'm still very interested. That's a tech spencer sent when
Jennifer was traveling for work. But the person Jennifer saw
when she returned with someone happy to see her. He'll
be jumping up, you know, saying hi, wife, welcome home.
It's almost like an outer body experience, because you can't
(13:04):
prepare yourself for something like that, especially when it's the
last thing you expect to happen. Jennifer needed to get
away from it all, so she went to stay with
(13:26):
her sister in La. During the time that she stayed
with me, she went from angry to really, really fat.
She started thinking it was because of her that she
wasn't enough. And I didn't cry when she was here,
but as soon as she left, I cried, I think
for two days straight because she hated herself. You know,
(13:48):
Like we did have plans to go and meet some friends,
but she didn't want to go because she didn't want
people to think she was a loser, and a loser
turned into ugly, A loser turned into a She's none
of those things her self esteem. I mean, the saddest
part is the effect it had. No matter how many
(14:11):
times you say that it wasn't her fault, she couldn't
hear it. It was so sad just to watch someone
who was so beautiful and vibrant and confident and smart
turn into someone so small or thought that they were
so small and unlovable. Christie remembered something from a past
(14:36):
conversation she had with Spencer at a dinner party. I
had asked Spence and his friend. I said, you know,
do you guys ever get nervous with the young girls
these days? And Spencer had this look on his face
because he was being thoughtful about it. And Spence said, well,
I never meet any of my students alone, and if
(15:00):
I do, I always have the door open. But there
was a pause there that made me think. It didn't
make me pause because I thought he had done something,
but it made me pause because I thought he wasn't
saying something he wanted to say. And I'm not gonna lie.
That was the first time that I thought Saint Spence
(15:20):
Spence never made bail, and although all of his friends
and family knew that he was incarcerated for sexual assault
with a student, he was determined to stay in touch
and make amends however he could. Jennifer mentioned that he
wanted to write me an email if he wants us
all to love him. He has this need for everyone
to love him. He wants to send emails and talk
(15:40):
about how he's found God and all of this stuff.
And I was like, don't bother, It's never going to happen.
He's insane. Nothing he says is true. Jennifer returned home
to Actworth to pick up the pieces. The next casualty
of Spencer's crimes. Jennifer's day to day life, Spencer's income,
(16:02):
all that household money was lost. On top of that,
her work was suffering from a lack of sleep and
horrible stress. She had spent a lifetime building a reputation
as a dependable and highly skilled producer. The coworkers could
see that she was distracted. Finally, there would be the
cost of a divorce attorney, and eventually she had to
(16:25):
sell her home. The house that jen and Spends bought
together represented much more than their marriage Jen's sister understood
it symbolized something greater stability. Growing up after my parents divorced,
we moved around a lot when we were younger. My sister,
Jennifer John and I my brother John. We were all
(16:47):
very close, but we also were always going into different
schools twelve different schools before eighth grade. It was kind
of just needing to survive. For Jennifer, she always wanted
a home. She wanted to stay in one place. She
wanted a house. She wanted the white picket fence because
(17:09):
we didn't have that. You can't hide from the reality
when those bills are due. Here, I have a mortgage
on a home we just bought together. As hard as
I tried, I can't make ends meet. Jennifer was broke
and practically homeless. Her friends offered up their basement apartment
(17:30):
rent free, and she accepted. It was humiliating, like she
was starting over all over. And then there was Spens.
She was done with him. He was behind bars, but
he had nothing. Even after everything that he had done
to her. She couldn't live with the thought of him
not having toothpaste or deodorant. She was not that kind
(17:51):
of person. He's still a human being, and he at
the time as my husband. I'd put money in his
commissary account, but it was never a lot. It was
like maybe twenty dollars here and there. As Spence's sentencing
(18:19):
date got closer, he appealed to his friends and family,
which included Jen's close social circle, asking them to write
letters on his behalf. He asked Jennifer to pass a
message onto the group. Here's an excerpt from the letter.
Dear Villagers, I'm a man who comes to you with
a humble heart and zero pride for all of the
(18:40):
obvious reasons. I am not asking for your forgiveness because
I'm not there yet and I don't deserve that anyway.
I am asking for your help. However, why am I
doing this. It's because I am fighting for my life.
It's because I've clearly never been in such a place
of need. But I am now. What I did to
(19:02):
Jennifer and how I treated our marriage is something that
I cannot only never fix, but also something I cannot
ever apologize enough for doing. I will never be able
to give back to her the things that I have taken.
My only hope is that she moves on from this
life bomb that I dropped on her as soon as
she possibly can. I am coming to you because, despite
(19:25):
how horrible I was to Jennifer, I hope and pray
that you don't see me as the person the media
and my charges are making me out to be. I
hope that the Spencer you know or new is not
that person that has been described. For my upcoming arraignment hearing,
I'm asking people who know me to consider writing a
(19:46):
character reference letter to be given to my judge and
the DA. Obviously, I'm wanting to get out of jail
as soon as possible. You all know, of course, that
the three kids are all in college, and I am
desperate to get out so that I can support them
in every way emotionally, spiritually, parentally, and financially. What it
(20:06):
will do for my case, I believe will be so
very important. I wish you all the very best, and
thank you for being such an incredible friend to Jennifer.
Much love, Thanks Spencer. He brings up the kids. That
is when my blood started to boil. That is his
(20:26):
first thing that he tried, using those kids, he says,
I hope you remember the person that you know and
not the one that the media is making me out
to be. Well, he is the person the media is
making him out to be. It's all true. Several people
(20:52):
did write letters of support for Spencer, but none of
them were the Villagers. Sentencing day came without much warning.
I had planned to go and sit in the back.
Jill planned to go with me and says she would
hold my hand. But I wanted to go, not as
(21:13):
support for him, but just to witness everything and hear
it for myself. Unfortunately, the court date came up all
of a sudden and there wasn't any preparation for it.
Spencer pled guilty to five counts of sexual assault by
a teacher. For each count, he was sentenced to twenty years,
(21:36):
with five years to be served in confinement, serving them concurrently,
he was going to state prison. I'm pretty sure that
the evidence was stacked way way against him. As soon
as it was over, he called me. He said he
asked to say something to the victim's parents parents, and
(22:01):
the mom said, we don't want to hear anything you
have to say. You know. He went into all of
this thinking, I am an eagle scout, I'm in the
Air Force reserves, I'm a school teacher. I was Teacher
of the Year. I'm a great dad. Look at these
(22:26):
people that are speaking on my behalf. And it didn't work.
He couldn't talk his way out of it. This time,
there was one very small consolation. Spencer could be sentenced
under the first Offender Statute. The intent of the law
was to give first time offenders a chance to learn
(22:48):
from their mistake and move on with their lives out
the burden of a conviction. The benefit is that after
the twenty years everything will be wiped off his record,
so he will not be considered a felon anymore. He
can vote again, and the slatest white clean for him.
(23:10):
Having that title of first defender was like, you know,
a notch on his belt, I think. But remember how
he took the student into a hotel that was not
in Cobb County but in Cherokee County, a different jurisdiction.
Spencer was indicted for that charge several months later. On
(23:30):
July fifth, twenty nineteen, after he'd been sent to prison,
they woke him up in the middle of the night
to transport him from Wilcox Prison back up to Cherokee
County to have a hearing for that case. He was
really disappointed because he didn't think that they were going
(23:52):
to move forward with that, so just by picking a
hotel that happened to be in another county, he got
another twenty years sentence for Cherokee County's District Attorney, Spencer
Hearn wasn't a first time offender. He was now a
repeat offender. He would no longer qualify for first offender status.
(24:17):
Cherokee County gave him the same sentence, also to run concurrently.
Upon release, Spencer Hearn will have to register as a
sex offender. Cobb County District Attorney Flynn Brody Jr. As
a sexual predator. That is a scarlet letter for the
rest of your life. It'll limit the types of jobs
(24:37):
he can have, to limit the places that they can live.
They'll have to report everywhere they go. Anytime they cross
state lines, they have to report that they're sexual predator
in that particular state. It really limits them as far
as their future is concerned, and rightfully so, because we
know are a predator and they have to be controlled.
(24:58):
The court proceedings, the apology letters from Spencer, they were
all distractions. Most days after the arrest, Jennifer was alone
with her thoughts. She was simmering in the sadness, fury,
and trauma of this massive betrayal. How did she get here?
A successful, confident, secure woman, Everything was now just fighting
(25:21):
to get through every day. None of this had anything
to do with her. She had not done anything wrong
at all, and this horrible thing happened to her. Jen
needed to put all the pieces together. She needed to
make sense of it all. Jennifer was tormented by the
Spence she didn't know, by the women that were involved
(25:42):
with him, especially the high school student. But she didn't
want to sit at home with her trauma buried under
the covers, hiding from the world, so she decided to
confront it, to go out and meet the other people
who had been impacted by Spence instead of hiding. She
(26:02):
wanted to know everything about who she married and what
he had done. For the past eleven years, Jennifer had
been living in a sea of lies. Now she wanted
the truth that would be the start of her healing.
On the next episode of Betrayal, Jennifer meets with Spencer's
(26:23):
most vulnerable victim, his former student. The young woman in
her twenties now is breaking her silence. I'm shaking Yeah
you too. If you'd like to reach out to the
Betrayal team, email us at Betrayalpod at gmail dot com.
(26:44):
That's Betrayal Pod at gmail dot com. Betrayal is a
production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group,
in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show was executive produced
by Nancy Glass and Jennifer Facon, hosted and produced by
me Andrea Gunning, written and produced by Carry Hartman, also
produced by Ben Fetterman. Our iHeart team is Ali Perry
(27:07):
and Jessica Krinchik. Special thanks to voice actor Todd Gans.
Sound editing and mixing done by Mott DeVecchio. Betrayal's theme
was composed by Oliver Bain's music library provided by my
Music and For more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app,
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