Best Interests | EP 10 | Season 3

Ever since Cindy lost parenting time with her children, she’s encountered multiple hurdles to get her kids back. In the final episode of Season 3, Cindy grapples with the realization she may never again have a normal relationship with her children. You can reach out to the Burden of Guilt team at [email protected] mailto:[email protected]. For more Burden of Guilt, follow us on Instagram @glasspodcasts https://www.instagram.com/glasspodcasts/. Learn more about Ginger Gentile at ReversingParentalAlienation.com See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 01

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• 2:36Nancy Glass?

  I want to take you back to something you heard at the beginning of this season. It's a news story about Cyndi and Kenny.

• 2:44Speaker 10

  We begin here at 9:30 with the jury awarding more than $21 million to a couple in Steamboat Springs after it found the woman's ex-husband pushed false allegations of child sex abuse.

• 2:56Nancy Glass?

  Back in 2024, a Denver TV news station interviewed Cyndi and Kenny.

• 3:02Speaker 16

  I've been saying it for years. This never happened, and I just couldn't get anybody to listen. I felt listened to.

• 3:09Nancy Glass?

  I felt like vindicated.

• 3:13Nancy Glass?

  For them, it's been about clearing their names and something else.

• 3:19Speaker 16

  And I hope to, one day, see my children and tell them what happened. And I hope they don't feel in any way that they're responsible for this.

• 3:28Nancy Glass?

  They want the children to know the truth.

• 3:31Speaker 21

  This story is about giving these children a chance in life to know the truth so they can make their own decisions in the future when they're ready.

• 3:40Speaker 16

  I'm going to put my family back together. It's hard, but I'm going to do it.

• 3:44Nancy Glass?

  Even with the truth on her side, Cyndi faced her hardest battle yet: piecing together her broken family.

• 4:01Nancy Glass?

  I'm Nancy Glass, and this is Season 3, A Burden of Guilt, Episode 10, Best Interests.

• 4:13Nancy Glass?

  Back in 2024, journalist Rob Lowe worked for KDVR TV in Denver. He hosted a weekly segment on the nightly news called Problem Solvers.

• 4:24Speaker 19

  Basically, I was an investigative reporter who really had free rein to kind of do longer-format, in-depth pieces that I thought were of interest.

• 4:32Nancy Glass?

  One of his segments featured Cyndi and Kenny.

• 4:35Speaker 19

  I picked up on the story after a Steamboat Springs jury awarded them $21 million basically for defamation. That, to me, was the type of verdict where juries clearly trying to send a message of how egregious they thought the biological father had acted and how so many in the system had gotten things wrong. I just can't imagine anything worse than a father trying to convince his kids they've been sexually abused, if they haven't. Like, who does that? That is so messed up.

• 5:04Nancy Glass?

  Even with Steve on the hook for more than $20 million, Rob reported that Cyndi paid out more than $8 million in legal fees.

• 5:14Speaker 19

  You know, not many people have $8 million to pursue the truth, but that is obviously how strongly and passionate she felt about this.

• 5:22Nancy Glass?

  After 30 years in TV news, Rob said, "This is one of the stories that will always stick with him."

• 5:30Speaker 19

  We know that divorce cases can get very bitter, especially when they involve children in custody. But this one was so extreme. Cyndi, you know, she had a really telling quote in the story where she said something effective. "I had to choose between the truth and my family."

• 5:47Speaker 16

  I was asked to choose between my children and the truth. And for four years, I had to choose the truth.

• 6:00Speaker 19

  You're always trying to separate yourself as a reporter, but that was the first time in 30 years where I literally got teary listening to Cyndi. Because as a parent myself, I just couldn't imagine something as awful and horrific.

• 6:13Nancy Glass?

  And now, the final chapter: Cyndi's three children.

• 6:18Nancy Glass?

  In many ways, her children are the primary victims in this case.

• 6:23Speaker 19

  Unfortunately, it's just not strong enough for what happened to them.

• 6:27Nancy Glass?

  At the time of this recording, Cyndi's daughter is an adult. She's in college and living abroad. Earlier this year, we contacted her, but she did not want to do a formal interview. And since her brothers are still minors, we didn't reach out to them. We don't know what the children believe to be true or what they've been told about their mother. We don't even know if they're aware of the verdict from the civil trial. What we do know is they still reside with their father, Steve. And up until recently, they had no contact with their mother.

• 7:01Speaker 19

  She still doesn't have custody of her kids. She's still just trying to have a normal relationship with them and hopefully get them to understand that this was all bogus.

• 7:10Nancy Glass?

  And even though a jury found that Steve, the children's father, had orchestrated a scorched-earth campaign to win full custody from Cyndi, Cyndi's twin boys are still living with Steve.

• 7:23Speaker 19

  I know how deeply that troubles Cyndi in particular because this is her kids that she desperately wants to be with and have a relationship with. And yet, she's really been prevented from having a meaningful relationship because the family court system has moved so slow and certainly not in a direction favorable to her. It seems like it's always been favorable to her ex-husband. This really seemed to be a case of parental alienation on steroids.

• 7:50Nancy Glass?

  Parental alienation. According to journalist Barbara Bradley Hagerty, it's a controversial term heard in a lot of family law cases.

• 8:00Speaker 13

  Parental alienation is basically a process through which one parent turns a child against the other parent. It's essentially a child being used as a weapon to hurt the ex.

• 8:14Nancy Glass?

  Back in 2020, Barbara wrote about parental alienation for The Atlantic.

• 8:19Speaker 13

  It was something I'd never heard of before. But one day, one of my very close friends confided in me that his marriage was falling apart. And more troublesome was that his child was withdrawing from him. He was worried because he and this five-year-old child were just best buddies. Later, I heard the wife badmouthing my friend, saying to the child, "Daddy's late again. Do you know what that means? That means that Daddy doesn't love us." I mean, I was shocked. Her colleague's child ultimately refused to see him. And it has been 15 years since he's talked with his kid.

• 9:05Speaker 13

  And I just can't tell you how broken-hearted he is. He said, you know, this thing that I'm going through, it's got a name. It's called parental alienation.

• 9:16Nancy Glass?

  In her article titled, "When a Child Is a Weapon", Barbara wrote that when one parent turns a child against the other, the family courts are often at a loss as to what to do.

• 9:28Speaker 13

  Even when the court ends up ruling that a child has been coerced into shunning one parent, if the kid still doesn't want to see that other parent, the judge is like, hey, what am I going to do? You know, put a 16-year-old in handcuffs?

• 9:44Nancy Glass?

  What the courts have done is remove the child from one parent and place the child with the other parent, the alienated one. Sometimes the courts take it a step further and send the child and alienated parent to what are called reunification camps. These camps are usually at hotels far away from the child's home.

• 10:08Speaker 13

  They meet with a therapist for four days. They watch videos about psychological manipulation. They try to discuss problems as a family. And what supporters say is that it's giving the kids a chance to reconnect with the unfavored parent, to step back and kind of reconsider their assumptions about that parent without the dominant parent breathing down their neck.

• 10:33Nancy Glass?

  These camps last about four days and cost tens of thousands of dollars, with an average price around $20,000. And a judge often prohibits the favored parent from communicating with the child for 90 days.

• 10:49Speaker 13

  That's crucial because it allows this break in the relationship. And if there is brainwashing, it allows a break in the brainwashing. Critics, on the other hand, call it torture camp for kids.

• 11:03Nancy Glass?

  The backlash against reunification camps began after videos surfaced of children screaming and crying as they're forcibly removed from their homes, thrown into vans and driven to these camps. It's led to some states outlawing them.

• 11:19Speaker 13

  I'm not the least bit surprised that a lot of states have gotten rid of reunification camps. I mean, most psychologists think it's bunk and they think that the treatment is dangerous.

• 11:31Nancy Glass?

  In her research, Barbara said, she found the results of these camps to be mixed.

• 11:37Speaker 13

  What I've noticed is that when the programs, quote, "work", the children essentially switch allegiances. They cut off their formerly favored parent and embrace the formerly unfavored parent. It's basically all or nothing. So whether a child ever reconciles with the mom or dad is really, at this point, a matter of luck.

• 12:02Nancy Glass?

  So the question is, how do the courts and therapists handle kids who've been brainwashed by one parent into believing the other parent is a terrible person? The scary answer is, no one knows.

• 12:17Speaker 13

  Reunification camps are hugely controversial. I think what we need is some fresh eyes on this problem. We need to acknowledge that it's a problem. And then someone needs to take it seriously and look at it from the point of view of the kids. How do we fix this? How do we not damage these kids for the rest of their lives?

• 12:41Speaker 13

  My research tells me that it's a zero-sum game. One side wins and the other side loses. And in the end, the people who lose the most are the kids.

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• 16:17Nancy Glass?

  Ever since divorcing Steve, Cindy's been in and out of court with him. First, there was the litigation involving their former company, Wildcat Minerals. Then came the civil trial that resulted in a $21.3 million verdict for Cindy and Kenny. In between, Cindy and Steve have spent nearly a decade in family court.

• 16:39Speaker 17

  Family court is this kind of quasi-court where the judge has a lot of discretion, a lot.

• 16:46Nancy Glass?

  And they are the only person making decisions.

• 16:51Nancy Glass?

  As Cindy learned, the family court system is notorious for being slow and expensive. It's a place filmmaker Ginger Gentile has researched extensively.

• 17:02Speaker 14

  In a murder case, you, as a journalist, can go and get any public records. You can't walk into family court in most jurisdictions and pull documents. And it's to protect the family, but it also means that it's incredibly secretive, what goes on.

• 17:16Nancy Glass?

  So some states like Colorado don't have a dedicated family court system. So divorces and child custody cases end up in the courtrooms of district court judges. That's what happened in Cindy's case. She often refers to it as family court. But in Colorado, it's more of an ad hoc system, one that lacks specialized legal infrastructure.

• 17:39Speaker 14

  Everyone says, we'll just go to court, just tell the judge what's going on. And it might take you two years to get a day in court. And these judges don't have training in childhood psychology. They don't have training in the latest science, for example. So depending on the jurisdiction, this could be a punishment post for a judge. It could also be a post that they rotate in and out of.

• 18:02Nancy Glass?

  Along with having untrained judges...

• 18:05Speaker 14

  I think a lot of people have fantasies about the court system, that there's some forensic team who's going to rush in and look at everything. People will collect mountains of evidence, but no one's ever going to really read it. So they just look at the top line. They look at what the psychologist says in the court case. The biggest issue with the court system is the courts will always look for who's at fault. And once they get a narrative in, they'll try to find supporting evidence for that.

• 18:33Nancy Glass?

  So a lot of people eventually get very frustrated. Cindy experienced that intense frustration.

• 18:41Speaker 17

  You think you're going to walk into court, you're going to get your kids back? No, they're going to find some other weird way of just keeping this going until the kids age out.

• 18:54Nancy Glass?

  After Judge Mary Hoke restricted Cindy's parenting time in 2019, Cindy went back to court over a dozen times, and each time, she's been denied.

• 19:06Speaker 17

  You go through every single stage of grief. You go through that shock, like, this isn't happening, is it, really? There's a bit of denial, then the anger comes, a lot of anger, frustration. It was an emotional roller coaster, to say the least.

• 19:23Nancy Glass?

  At one point, Judge Hoke gave Cindy a set of goals to work toward. Things like refraining from including the children in adult conflict. And one of them is not to be litigating. Judge Hoke's goal said, quote, "Cindy needs to place the needs of her children over her continued focus on litigation and being right or vindicated."

• 19:48Speaker 17

  When I saw the mom needs to stop being focused on being vindicated, it was kind of like, what are you after here with that sentence?

• 19:58Nancy Glass?

  Think about it. If Cindy wasn't supposed to focus on being vindicated, how could she prove to Judge Hoke that Kenny did not abuse her children, especially when Judge Hoke asked her to bring proof of Kenny's innocence?

• 20:12Speaker 17

  She told me I needed to give her a piece of paper that said, this never happened. She literally told me that. So I'm thinking I'm going down the path she told me to.

• 20:21Nancy Glass?

  When Cindy appealed DHS's ruling and got the abuse findings overturned, she thought that was all the evidence Judge Hoke needed.

• 20:31Speaker 17

  I gave it to her. That piece of paper meant nothing.

• 20:37Speaker 17

  She says, you haven't made the progress that I need to see about being vindicated. And like, I am vindicated, I have an appeal that has this overturned.

• 20:48Nancy Glass?

  None of it made sense to Cindy.

• 20:51Speaker 17

  And the whole time, she's punishing me. Well, you can't get your kids back until your litigation's done, or you drop your litigation. But look at what the litigation proved. They were all wrong. They didn't want to be proven wrong.

• 21:06Nancy Glass?

  If you remember, even after the district attorney dropped child abuse charges against Kenny, Judge Hoke came to her own conclusion. A voice actor will read from that court transcript.

• 21:19Speaker 06

  I believe that something inappropriate occurred between Mr. Hamp and these children, okay? I'm not being careless. I'm basing this on nine days of evidence, is what I'm doing. Nine days, all right? I can make the finding, and I would posit that I am duty bound to do so, and I've done so.

• 21:42Nancy Glass?

  And then, after DHS reversed their abuse findings, Judge Hoke held firm.

• 21:49Speaker 17

  She says, well, I don't know why they overturned it, so I'm just going to assume that the abuse occurred still.

• 21:56Speaker 17

  That's what I'm up against. I'm up against a judge who cannot see she's made a mistake, will never acknowledge it, and uses my children against me until I agree with her.

• 22:12Nancy Glass?

  Cindy felt like she was hitting a brick wall with Judge Hoke, so she tried a different route. She hired an expert on parental alienation.

• 22:22Speaker 11

  My name is Dr. Jennifer Harmon. I started studying parental alienation and other forms of family violence 13 years ago.

• 22:31Nancy Glass?

  As you heard earlier, parental alienation is a controversial topic. It's not a diagnosable medical condition, but rather a theory that turns up in family court.

• 22:43Speaker 11

  Like, I've seen parents say to their, you know, five-year-old, hey, dad's going to be picking you up after school today, so get your backpack, get everything ready. And the kid sits there for two hours, waiting for dad to pick him up, even though dad didn't even know that this was planned. It wasn't planned, it was just told to them so that mom could make the kid think that dad forgot about him. It's that kind of stuff that makes me do the research I'm doing to protect kids, because look at the kind of parent these kids are living with.

• 23:10Nancy Glass?

  Dr. Harmon reviewed numerous messages, court filings, the DHS report, the children's forensic interviews, and other recorded interviews.

• 23:20Speaker 11

  With parental alienating behaviors and coercive controlling behaviors in general, they are patterned. You usually see them happen and escalate in times where the parent feels they're losing control.

• 23:35Speaker 11

  When you build a timeline, you say, all right, well, when do people feel like they're losing control? They feel like they're losing control when the other parent remarries or gets engaged. They feel like they're losing control when there's a big court hearing, or they lost something in court, right?

• 23:49Nancy Glass?

  What she found confirmed what Cindy believed about her ex-husband, Steve.

• 23:55Speaker 11

  This wasn't just a sex abuse allegation gone wrong. There was a lot more going on in the background.

• 24:04Nancy Glass?

  Dr. Harmon believes the timing of this allegation was calculated.

• 24:09Speaker 11

  Cindy started dating somebody else, and then there was some financial stuff that was going on. But right after that happened, and she got a lot of money from a settlement, things took a serious turn. She goes off to get engaged, and then they come back, and there's this allegation of abuse. And I could see it totally with how Steve was reacting with police and the things he was saying. Like, oh, he'd been waiting for years to get her, and comments about how they just wanted full custody. And this wasn't just one-time statements. I mean, there were emails, there were different events that made it clear that he had an agenda of what he was hoping to do, and he was trying to find somebody to get the leverage he needed to do it.

• 24:53Speaker 11

  So that was my conclusion after looking through all of it.

• 24:57Nancy Glass?

  Dr. Harmon put her findings in a 97-page report. She even spent three days testifying in front of Judge Hoke.

• 25:06Speaker 17

  Dr. Harmon said, this is coercive control, this is domestic violence. Judge Hoke said, nope, I don't think so.

• 25:13Nancy Glass?

  A voice actor will read from Judge Hoke's ruling.

• 25:17Speaker 06

  She still seems deeply entrenched in alienation. She seems deeply entrenched in vindicating her, her significant other, and moving forward with her version of events. And she's welcome to do so. But it's this court's position that that is not in the best interest of her children and is, in fact, emotionally damaging to her children and emotionally impairing to her children to do that.

• 25:44Speaker 17

  No matter who I put on my team, Hoke was always going to be against it. Didn't matter.

• 25:52Nancy Glass?

  In 2021, Steve asked the court if he could take the children and move not just out of state, but off the continent to Hawaii, and Judge Hoke allowed it. Any hope Cindy had about being a parent to her children went out the window. With that ruling, she accepted that she probably would not see her kids again until they were adults.

• 26:16Speaker 17

  That was dark.

• 26:21Speaker 16

  I hate the courts.

• 26:24Speaker 16

  They don't want to see anything that doesn't conform to their views.

• 26:31Speaker 16

  I don't know what's wrong with those people.

• 26:34Speaker 16

  They're just, they're so myopic, they're so myopic.

• 26:39Nancy Glass?

  In a story already marked by relentless heartbreak, watching the court allow Steve to move the children to Hawaii was Cindy's absolute rock bottom. Here's Dr. Harmon again.

• 26:53Speaker 11

  Like, it would be nearly impossible for her to be able to see the kids at that point. I think it's very sad. It makes me sad to even think about how bad it got. Cindy's effectively been erased from her kids' lives. A lot of parents liken it to their children being dead, but they're alive. I mean, because they're essentially dead to them, right? You know, the kids have cut them off completely. It's the same kind of grief.

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• 29:54Nancy Glass?

  After winning a $21.3 million verdict, Cindy once again returned to Judge Hoke's courtroom. She hoped the ruling would finally unlock the custody stalemate she'd been in for the past four years. And this time, it worked. Well, sort of. A voice actor will read from Judge Hoke's order.

• 30:17Speaker 06

  This court restricted mother's parenting time primarily on mother's refusal to accept the allegations of abuse against Mr. Hamp.

• 30:25Nancy Glass?

  But Judge Hoke wrote that the civil verdict was significant evidence that Kenny did not abuse the children.

• 30:33Speaker 06

  If the sexual abuse of one or more of the children did not happen, that finding removes the primary basis for the court's restriction on mother's parenting time. It also removes the need for mother to comply with the court's treatment goals the court previously stated mother had to meet.

• 30:50Nancy Glass?

  In other words, Judge Hoke's goals were moot.

• 30:55Speaker 06

  The court is then left with how to proceed. The court vacates the restrictions on mother's parenting time, but does not order any parenting time for mother at this time. This order is in the best interests of the party's minor children.

• 31:11Nancy Glass?

  It's a confusing ruling, but Judge Hoke allowed the children to continue to live with their father, Steve.

• 31:18Speaker 17

  They wouldn't allow the children to be removed from Steve. This is so outrageous. This is so not normal. It just keeps getting weirder and more bizarre every time we head to court. My entire case has been a complete disaster from beginning to today, and I still don't have my kids. I mean, we're going on seven years now.

• 31:43Nancy Glass?

  Judge Hoke ordered reintegration therapy. Okay, stick with me here. Reintegration is different than being sent to reunification camps. It's an intensive type of therapy to reunite parents and children. Generally speaking, this type of therapy takes well over a year, and by the time it began, Cindy's daughter was 18 and had aged out of the system. So therapy included Cindy, Steve, and the twin boys. Due to HIPAA rules, Cindy can't comment on how that therapy is going. As for Cindy's relationship with her daughter?

• 32:22Speaker 17

  I reached out to my daughter on her 18th birthday. We had sent flowers to the school, and I reached out to her through a text, and I'm like, would love to talk. And she just said she wants nothing to do with me. She was the last one to turn.

• 32:39Nancy Glass?

  Cindy and Kenny's engagement has been on hold for years, ever since it began, really.

• 32:45Speaker 17

  We've been delaying it just because we wanted the kids at the wedding. But it's looking less and less like that's ever gonna happen.

• 32:55Speaker 17

  I'm just hoping that maybe in the next year or so, I'll hear from her.

• 33:04Nancy Glass?

  Earlier this summer, we spoke with Steve. We even exchanged a few messages with him about doing an interview. A voice actor will read from Steve's email.

• 33:15Speaker 20

  As we discussed, I have concerns.

• 33:19Speaker 20

  I understand that your deadline is late summer. You mentioned that you attempted to contact me via Gmail address. I do not have a Gmail address. I am also on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook. A message could have been sent through any of these platforms. As your team conducts investigative journalism, I am really struggling to understand how you could not find me. My address and phone numbers are also public.

• 33:49Nancy Glass?

  To be clear, in 2025 and 2026, we messaged Steve, although Steve claims that the Gmail account we messaged does not belong to him. Additionally, we reached out to three of Steve's lawyers, Steve's niece, and even Steve's mother, Alada. At the time of this recording, we haven't heard back from any of them. Earlier this summer, Steve sent us a follow-up email. A voice actor will read from that.

• 34:20Speaker 20

  I believe that you stated that you attempted to reach my mother. She has no record of your firm emailing or calling. It's confusing that you found my daughter's email address but cannot locate mine or mother's.

• 34:34Nancy Glass?

  In July of this year, we again messaged Alada through her email, text, and Facebook. We have not heard back. We also sent Steve an outline of questions we hope to discuss. A month later, we followed up with him. At the time of this recording, we have not heard back from Steve.

• 35:01Nancy Glass?

  If you remember, it wasn't Cindy who came to us with this story. It was Steve's second wife, Christine. But Christine also hasn't agreed to do an interview citing her ongoing legal issues. And that's left Cindy and Kenny wondering what's on Christine's mind.

• 35:20Speaker 21

  She's still never, ever apologized and said she did anything wrong when she was a participant in the manipulation, in the false narrative. And now she wants to be the victim, as in she's suffering and she has loss.

• 35:37Speaker 17

  She had so many opportunities to turn this around.

• 35:42Nancy Glass?

  As for Cindy, when we first approached her about sharing her story, she was hesitant. It wasn't an easy decision. She was concerned about how her children would react if they ever heard the podcast.

• 35:56Speaker 17

  Ideally, I hope they understand that I did it to help. It's not about exposing their dad. It's not about embarrassing him.

• 36:08Speaker 17

  I'm doing this to expose the system and how flawed it is and how it's failing families now that I got caught up in it. You know, it may not help my relationship with my kids, but I don't want my boys accused of doing something like this and have them arrested and have them lose their lives and, you know, spend the amount of money that I had to. I can only hope that this doesn't happen to them.

• 36:33Nancy Glass?

  She hopes that one day her kids will be able to piece together what really happened.

• 36:40Speaker 17

  I put a puzzle together for you. I've done the borders. I've done certain places. And over time, as you grow older, you are going to start putting those pieces in, and it's gonna start filling in. And then you'll start understanding what happened, even if you don't understand it today. And you will see what really happened here, even if we can't be together.

• 37:02Nancy Glass?

  For years, Kenny felt that burden of guilt.

• 37:06Speaker 17

  Kenny has resolved those feelings. He's kind of moved on.

• 37:10Speaker 21

  You know what I want? I want never see another courtroom, never talk to another jury, never be involved in any of this stuff anymore. I now want to just move on with my life. I've cleared my name, won the civil, exposed the people that did what they did, especially Steve. So that's out there. I feel good. I don't feel good about what happened, but I sure as hell feel good about moving forward in my life, even though I'll be traumatized and my life's forever changed. But I just want Cindy and I to move forward, love each other and live our life the best that we can. And the kids today are still suffering from what he's done.

• 37:48Nancy Glass?

  And of course, that bothers Cindy. So last winter, we connected her with Ginger Chantel. She's the filmmaker who studied parental alienation and the family court system. You heard Ginger earlier in this episode.

• 38:05Speaker 15

  I made two movies about this. One is called A Racing Family. It's about children reuniting. And after that movie came out, a lot of parents asked me to help them reunite with their kids. But I was a filmmaker.

• 38:19Speaker 14

  So at first I said no. And then eventually I said yes. Fast forward, I quit the film industry. And now I do this full time and I have a team of coaches,

• 38:29Speaker 15

  all ex-alien moms, dads and kids who do this full time.

• 38:36Nancy Glass?

  In this case, Ginger got together with Cindy so Cindy could write a letter to her kids. It was a virtual session and they allowed us to listen in. Ginger started with an exercise that would help Cindy focus on what she wanted to say. But that exercise took Cindy in a direction she did not expect.

• 38:58Speaker 15

  Cindy, I want you to see, visualize, feel, imagine that you're walking along a beautiful beach. And as you keep walking, you see in the distance the kids.

• 39:14Speaker 15

  You keep walking. And as you keep walking, you see your eldest child.

• 39:24Speaker 15

  And she runs over to you and gives you a big, beautiful hug.

• 39:32Speaker 18

  I need a moment.

• 39:37Nancy Glass?

  Cindy removed her headset and quickly left the room. A few minutes later, she came back.

• 39:43Speaker 15

  What's going on, Cindy, as you think about this? It makes me feel uncomfortable.

• 39:49Speaker 16

  Okay.

• 39:50Speaker 15

  What didn't you like about it?

• 39:54Speaker 16

  I don't want to have these thoughts.

• 39:58Speaker 16

  I don't want to even imagine it.

• 40:03Speaker 16

  It's too uncomfortable.

• 40:05Speaker 15

  What's uncomfortable?

• 40:08Speaker 16

  Because there's too much hope behind it. I've been doing this for six long years, going on seven of, oh, people are going to figure this out. Oh, this is going to turn around in the next week. Oh, this will turn around by the end of the year. I've been doing this for seven years. I'm tired of it. It's like trying to tell somebody that has no legs are going to someday run. Or they're blind and they're going to see someday. It was just impossible. And every year you tell them that, oh, you're, this is the year.

• 40:38Speaker 17

  This is the year it's going to turn around for you.

• 40:41Speaker 16

  I can't even do that imagery.

• 40:46Speaker 16

  It's just too painful. I'm sorry.

• 40:56Nancy Glass?

  Cindy says there are days when she's hopeful. And then there are the days where all she can think about is despair and everything she's lost. But she does hold on to hope that one day her children will accept the truth.

• 41:11Speaker 16

  So I don't think I'm going to have a relationship with my kids ever again. It makes me cry just thinking about it.

• 41:20Speaker 16

  I mean, when your kids are still alive and you know you will never see them again,

• 41:25Speaker 16

  you're kind of in limbo all the time, you know, wondering, kind of hoping. And then you don't want to get your, your expectations up,

• 41:34Speaker 16

  your hope up, because then it just gets crushed again.

• 41:38Speaker 16

  I try and be hopeful about it. I try.

• 41:44Speaker 16

  I've already missed a graduation, high school graduation. I've missed, God, how many, eight Mother's Days, Christmas. I'm going to miss a lot more. I've accepted it. And I know it.

• 41:58Speaker 16

  That makes me sad.

• 42:06Nancy Glass?

  One afternoon, almost 14 years ago, Cindy's twin boys were running around their backyard. All of a sudden, things went quiet. And then came the sound of laughter, followed by splashing water. The boys had climbed into a short, little birdbath.

• 42:23Speaker 17

  They were about two. I had to crack it up. Like they're taking a little bath.

• 42:30Nancy Glass?

  Cindy snapped a photo so she could remember that joyous moment.

• 42:35Speaker 17

  It was the cutest picture of these two boys.

• 42:40Nancy Glass?

  These days, Cindy often finds herself looking at that photo. And each time, it puts a smile on her face. It's a reminder of the good memories she had when they were a family.

• 42:54Speaker 17

  Yeah, that was, that's a good memory I have.

• 42:57Speaker 17

  I even told the boys, I said, you know, even with everything that happened, your dad's not going to take those memories from me. Nothing is.

• 43:29Nancy Glass?

  Thank you for listening to season three of Burden of Guilt. You can reach out to the Burden of Guilt team at [email protected]. That's [email protected]. Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Glass Podcasts. Burden of Guilt is a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. This series is executive produced and hosted by me, Nancy Glass, produced by Todd Gans, also produced by Ben Fetterman and Andrea Gunning. Additional production support provided by Carrie Hartman.

• 44:14Nancy Glass?

  Our story editor is Monique Leboard. Our associate producer is Jade Abdul Malik. Our production manager is Kristin Melkury. Our iHeart team is Ally Perry and Jessica Krychek. Audio editing by Dean Welsh. Audio mixing and mastering by Anna McLean and Matt Del Vecchio. Thank you to our voice actors, James Palumbo, Lucy Kohler and Tanner Robbins. The Burden of Guilt theme is composed by Oliver Baines. Music library provided by MyB Music. For more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeart Radio app or Apple Podcasts.

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