False Memories | BONUS | Season 3

One witness who did not testify was Dr. Deryn Strange, a memory expert. In this bonus episode, Dr. Strange shares why the children’s forensic interviews were such a critical piece of evidence. Plus, hear what a juror said about this case. 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/. 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.

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• 2:53Nancy Glass?

  At the civil trial involving Cyndi, Kenny, Steve, and Christine, the jury spent over four weeks listening to testimony from 16 witnesses. Here's Kenny's lawyer, Chris Decker.

• 3:06Speaker 15

  So, one of the things that didn't happen in the trial is we didn't have the children testify.

• 3:13Nancy Glass?

  The children were minors at the time, and that's where both sides drew the line.

• 3:19Speaker 15

  Neither Cyndi, nor Steve, nor the lawyers involved wanted these kids to be a part of the trial.

• 3:26Nancy Glass?

  Instead, the jury heard recordings of the children's forensic interviews.

• 3:32Speaker 15

  It was the best evidence that no sexual assault had happened and that a child had been manipulated to believe that one had.

• 3:40Nancy Glass?

  Chris even hired an expert to testify about the forensic interviews.

• 3:45Speaker 14

  I've got to say, I haven't done any case that resembles this particular one because I saw some of the worst things I've ever seen or ever hoped to see in a forensic interview.

• 3:58Nancy Glass?

  I'm Nancy Glass. In this bonus episode of Burden of Guilt, the expert will break down the key moments where the forensic interviews went wrong.

• 4:23Nancy Glass?

  You've already heard portions of the children's forensic interviews in Episodes 5 and 6.

• 4:30Speaker 15

  They were probably the most important single piece of evidence in this case.

• 4:36Nancy Glass?

  That's Kenny's lawyer, Chris Decker.

• 4:38Speaker 15

  We generally only do one forensic interview. And in some cases, a second forensic interview is conducted. That was done in this case. Those are very rare.

• 4:50Nancy Glass?

  Something else Chris had never seen before? Steve made multiple attempts to have additional forensic interviews. In Episode 7, you heard how just two days after the children's initial interview, Steve drove his son to a hospital three hours from their house. A social worker from that hospital used the word adamant to describe how Steve felt about his son receiving another forensic interview. But that interview never happened.

• 5:22Speaker 15

  A forensic interview is a part and parcel of a criminal investigation. This type of forensic interview is done at the request and direction of law enforcement or prosecutors. This is not something that individuals can simply demand or request.

• 5:43Nancy Glass?

  And that's important because in November of 2019, six weeks after the boy's initial forensic interview, Steve once again tried to get another one.

• 5:54Speaker 15

  Steve tried to bring his children up for an unscheduled forensic interview. That's exceptionally rare. I've never seen it. This shows me the high level of priority that Steve had in trying to interfere with or manipulate the ordinary judicial process of any sexual assault on a child investigation.

• 6:23Nancy Glass?

  So the question is, why did Steve keep pushing this issue?

• 6:28Speaker 15

  I think Steve wanted another forensic interview because he believed that his son would give more specific details, more evidence, to bring a criminal prosecution, which is what his objective was from the outset.

• 6:49Nancy Glass?

  Ultimately, the district attorney called for a second interview of the boys in May 2020. Those interviews, and the original interviews, became key pieces of evidence as Chris prepared for the trial.

• 7:03Speaker 15

  I took the lead in reviewing the forensic interviews because I have a great deal of experience in that area. And not only can I watch them with a more experienced eye, I'm able to send those tapes to experts who can confirm what I'm seeing, which is usually a violation of the interview protocols or details that are coming out in that interview that are concerning. And in this case, that was happening in spades.

• 7:37Nancy Glass?

  That led Chris to enlist the help of an expert.

• 7:41Speaker 14

  My name is Dr. Darren Strange. I'm a full professor of psychology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and I have a specialty in memory distortion.

• 7:51Speaker 15

  Dr. Darren Strange is, in my opinion, the preeminent scientist on the human memory process. When I saw a second forensic interview where the child was attributing his belief to something his father told him, I knew I needed her input, especially in light of the first forensic interview where the child was merely describing a playful wedgie.

• 8:18Nancy Glass?

  Dr. Strange reviewed both sets of forensic interviews and the interview the boy had with DHS caseworker Kamala Height.

• 8:27Speaker 14

  This case really felt to me like the worst kind of onion. I saw some of the worst things I've ever seen or ever hoped to see in a forensic interview. But as I peeled that layer away, then you have just layer after layer of the contamination of this child's memory.

• 8:48Nancy Glass?

  It was her opinion that what the child said in the second interview was a residual. Result of things that happened in the first interview.

• 8:57Speaker 14

  So in interview one, I really did see some things that I thought were egregious, unforgivable from an interviewer. The first of those is that the interviewer explicitly told the child that the doctor did not think that the alleged injury could have come from a wedgie.

• 9:19Speaker 16

  The doctor that saw your bottom is very worried that the injuries that you have to your bottom did not happen from a wedgie.

• 9:28Speaker 14

  That is not what the report stated, and it's obviously a suggestive and leading question, but she didn't stop there.

• 9:37Speaker 16

  So tell me, how else the injuries to your bottom happened?

• 9:43Speaker 14

  He is told that two people in positions of authority telling a child, you're wrong, it could not have happened this way, it was not a wedgie. Tell me how it could have happened. And children are really susceptible to authority figures. So the significance of that statement, we actually see play out over the course of the following forensic interviews.

• 10:12Nancy Glass?

  A day after that interview, the boy met with Kamala, the DHS caseworker.

• 10:18Speaker 14

  So the boy here specifically states that because he was told this, he's been thinking about how else it could have happened. He has multiple conversations with his dad and his stepmother that really answer all his questions so that ultimately he comes to a very detailed story of how it had to happen.

• 10:41Nancy Glass?

  Now he claimed that Kenny shoved something up his bottom.

• 10:44Speaker 14

  This was a very privileged example of the development of what I see as a false memory.

• 10:52Speaker 14

  So the other point that I found pretty egregious in this interview was a fixation on a dream that the boy had had.

• 11:02Nancy Glass?

  In his first forensic interview, the boy repeatedly was asked about a dream where the strongest man on earth pulled open his bottom.

• 11:11Speaker 14

  What do you think about that dream? I know it's not real. And then she's challenging him when he's saying that it was just a dream.

• 11:20Speaker 16

  Sometimes when scary things or hurtful things happen, we think they're dreams, but they may actually be things that have happened.

• 11:31Speaker 14

  Is that what your dream was about?

• 11:35Speaker 14

  I really don't have words to tell you how suggestive and how awful a statement that is from a person in a position of authority over a child.

• 11:44Nancy Glass?

  By the time of the boy's second forensic interview, eight months had passed, and Dr. Strange was shocked at how the boy's story had evolved.

• 11:54Speaker 02

  Tell me what you're here to talk with me about today. I'm here to talk about with you my story of sexual assault. Okay. And how did you learn that word? Um, my dad said, oh, I got sexually assaulted. And I said, what does that mean? And then he told me that.

• 12:14Speaker 16

  Okay.

• 12:14Speaker 02

  So your dad told you that you were sexually assaulted? Okay.

• 12:20Speaker 14

  If I'm just relying on the child's words, it was so clear where the memory had come from.

• 12:28Speaker 02

  What has your dad told you about what's happened to you? Hmm, that like Kenny stuck something up your butt and it was really wrong. So I couldn't get through that and. So your dad told you that Kenny stuck something up your butt? Yeah, like you have been sexually assaulted.

• 12:49Speaker 14

  He comes to state that Kenny had shoved something up his bottom and it had to happen while he was sleeping.

• 12:56Speaker 02

  My dad and me and Christine think that he put something in the cup to help me

• 13:01Speaker 14

  sleep. So now he recalls being drugged. And how does he come to recall being drugged? Because he's talked to his father and to Christine, and he remembers that he was given something that tasted a little bit funny. He must have given me something to keep me sleeping. The rest of the details are built over time into this memory. And then he claims it's real because it feels real to him because it is so detailed and because that's the false feedback he's getting all the time.

• 13:34Speaker 02

  Did you tell the doctor who had done something to you? I didn't know that Kenny did it at that time. Okay. But it was your dad that told you that Kenny had done it? Yeah, like after Kenny.

• 13:48Speaker 14

  I'll be honest, I've never seen in another case how it actually unfolds so clearly that my dad told me this, we've been talking about it and we've decided. So it's a very clear textbook example for me of the development of false memories.

• 14:07Nancy Glass?

  Dr. Strange wrote a 27-page report about her findings.

• 14:12Speaker 14

  So I did come to the conclusion that he'd been coached, and it wasn't a particularly hard conclusion because he states repeatedly in those forensic interviews, my dad told me, Christine told me.

• 14:25Nancy Glass?

  She wrote that the boy's evolving story about what happened to him is, quote, "the result of suggestion, instigated by the first forensic interviewer and cultivated to its current form by his father, Steve."

• 14:39Speaker 14

  It's the best example I've seen of how people can influence what a child says happened to them.

• 14:48Nancy Glass?

  During the civil trial, Dr. Strange was flown to Steamboat Springs to testify as an expert witness, but she ultimately wasn't called.

• 14:57Speaker 14

  The impression I got was that they didn't need my evidence because they were relatively sure that the jury was with them.

• 15:08Nancy Glass?

  Here's Chris Decker again.

• 15:10Speaker 15

  Although we had endorsed her and we had spent a large number of hours and financial resources getting her ready, we felt that, on balance, it was not necessary. And so that's why we chose not to call her at trial.

• 15:24Nancy Glass?

  Chris's hunch was correct. We interviewed one of the jurors from this case and asked him about the forensic interviews.

• 15:34Speaker 00

  It just seemed like the kids were totally coached on like what to say. That's ultimately what we resolved with was that the kids were basically coached.

• 15:43Nancy Glass?

  The juror also struggled to believe Steve.

• 15:47Speaker 00

  Steve and his whole family's testimony is like what sticks in my mind the most. There was all these crucial things that people couldn't remember or like didn't exist. And it was just so hard to believe anything that they were saying because it just all seemed so fabricated. So I think that was just the biggest downfall right there was their testimony. But when Steve took the stand like that, sealed the deal. He would take every single question, turn it around somehow and redirect and answer like a different question. And it was just every single question. It was getting to the point where it was like, we don't really believe you. Like just answer the question and get it over with because you're not doing yourself any favors right here.

• 16:32Nancy Glass?

  The jury ultimately sided with Cindy and Kenny and awarded them over $20 million in damages.

• 16:40Speaker 15

  Every parent that I know would step in front of a train, take a bullet, do anything so that their child would be protected. To see a situation where a person is so disconnected that they're willing to create a false narrative of that and essentially use their child as a tool is something I really can't understand. It's just beyond belief.

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