The Grenade | EP 1 | Season 3

The day after Cindy’s engagement, she received a phone call that changed her life: her three children were not coming home. The reason involved Cindy’s fiancé, Kenny. What followed next would take several years, millions of dollars, and an extraordinary legal battle to unwind. 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.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:41Speaker 03

  Join me, Cyndi Lauper, with Chef Michelle Bernstein and Dr. Panico to talk about psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis, the potential connection and risk of developing permanent joint damage.

• 1:56Speaker 04

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• 2:40Speaker 02

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• 3:22Nancy Glass?

  In the past, I've said, "We're going to tell you a story unlike anything you've ever heard before." But this one? This one is something totally new and totally shocking.

• 3:37Nancy Glass?

  We'll start with a newscast from Colorado.

• 3:40Speaker 02

  We begin here at 9:30 with the jury awarding more than $21 million to a couple in Steamboat Springs. Cyndi got a lot of money.

• 3:47Speaker 01

  $21 million? And that was a huge amount of money.

• 3:51Speaker 06

  There's no way I can wrap my brain around someone doing this to their own child.

• 3:57Speaker 02

  The case where a jury found parental alienation on steroids. I never, ever thought something so small and inconsequential would lead to me losing my kids for life. I mean, my kids want nothing to do with me.

• 4:12Nancy Glass?

  This is a story about how far someone will go, the lies they'll tell, and the lives they'll ruin in order to get what they want.

• 4:20Speaker 06

  I had to choose between the truth and my family, and I had to choose the truth. Why would you start dating a wealthy woman and then abuse the children?

• 4:29Speaker 02

  The judge in the family court said, "I'm going to take your kids away." Cyndi's effectively been erased from her kids' lives.

• 4:38Nancy Glass?

  We're going to tell you about a family destroyed by damage that can never be undone. There was a lot more going on in the background.

• 4:48Speaker 02

  It's the worst example I've ever seen of what somebody can do when they have unlimited resources. One side wins, and the other side loses. And in the end, the people who lose the most are the kids. It's probably one of the most tragic cases I've seen. This is a guy who's very used to just paying money and getting his way.

• 5:07Nancy Glass?

  Three children are at the center of this, and one parent who's determined to control the narrative.

• 5:13Speaker 02

  I'm not this asshole, like, just trying to pull these kids away from Cyndi. I don't think they're safe.

• 5:28Nancy Glass?

  I'm Nancy Glass, and this is Season 3 of Burden of Guilt. Episode 1, The Grenade.

• 5:38Nancy Glass?

  When I first learned about this, it sounded like it was all about child abuse allegations, and they were serious. But were they true? Or were they just made up to weaponize children and punish a spouse in the cruelest way possible? But before we go there, let's meet the people involved. At the center? A mother of three named Cyndi.

• 6:04Nancy Glass?

  Cyndi's an early riser. Every morning, she has the same routine. She takes her dog out, makes a cup of coffee, and grabs her iPad. Lately, she's been using one of those language apps to learn French.

• 6:18Speaker 02

  One of my kids decided last semester he's going to learn French, so I'm trying to get some conversational phrases that I can use with him. I also do the New York Times puzzles and connections. I love that game.

• 6:32Nancy Glass?

  Her most pressing goal is always the same, just to keep her mind occupied.

• 6:37Speaker 02

  I would recommend anybody going through this situation that they have a good, good distraction. Because when you're in the learning part of your brain, you can't be stuck in that emotional part of your brain.

• 6:50Nancy Glass?

  Okay, let's go back to the beginning here. In 1997, Cyndi was in grad school to become a geologist. One weekend, her friends organized a ski trip. Cyndi tagged along. She was single at the time, and her friends decided to set her up on a blind date. She met the guy on the mountain, but right away, things on the slopes did not go well.

• 7:14Speaker 02

  Within an hour, I'm having problems. I'm getting blisters. And I'm like, "I gotta pull over and put something on my feet." And he says, "Okay, see you later." And he takes off, and he leaves me. And I'm like, "Okay, I'm already not liking this guy."

• 7:32Nancy Glass?

  Well, who can blame her? Left all alone, Cyndi managed to put some bandages on her feet, and then she tried to find her way back to the ski hut.

• 7:41Speaker 02

  I'm already starting to panic a little bit because I'm by myself. And I'm falling down, and I'm falling in creeks, and I'm still by myself. And I'm like, "Okay, just follow the tracks, Cyndi. You'll be fine." All of a sudden, the tracks kind of spread out in this big meadow. And I don't know which way to go. I'm starting to get really worried now.

• 8:03Nancy Glass?

  That's when Cyndi noticed some snowshoe tracks, so she followed them and eventually found her way back to the ski lodge.

• 8:13Speaker 02

  I'm soaked. I'm soaked to the bone. I'm ready to go in tears right now. I'm like, "Oh, God, God, hold it together, Cyndi. You don't want to ruin it for everybody."

• 8:22Nancy Glass?

  Cyndi noticed a 20-something guy putting away his snowshoes.

• 8:27Speaker 02

  And I said, "Are you the snowshoeer?" And he goes, "Yeah, why?" I said, "Dude, you just saved my life. I just want to let you know that."

• 8:36Nancy Glass?

  She explained how his tracks led her back to the ski hut.

• 8:40Speaker 02

  And we kind of really headed off.

• 8:43Nancy Glass?

  The snowshoeer was named Steve. He was a couple years younger than Cyndi. And like Cyndi, he grew up in a small Midwestern town. And get this: he was also a geologist, the same career Cyndi was about to begin.

• 8:59Speaker 02

  And I said, "Oh, well, lucky you. I'm a geologist, too." I said, "I'm in geophysics." And his eyes just lit up, and it was just like an instant kind of karmic moment.

• 9:14Nancy Glass?

  So that weekend, Cyndi ditched her blind date and got to know Steve. At the time, that was an easy decision, one she didn't expect would change her life for better and for worse.

• 9:34Nancy Glass?

  At first, Cyndi and Steve had a long-distance relationship. They later moved in together and met each other's families.

• 9:42Speaker 02

  I thought Steve was the epitome of the perfect, functional, normal family. And so I'm like, "Oh, this is normal. This is kind of cool." So I was really attracted to it because it was the exact opposite of my situation.

• 9:56Nancy Glass?

  That's because Cyndi's parents had been divorced for as long as she could remember. Her dad remarried when she was four, and Cyndi primarily grew up with her mom.

• 10:06Speaker 02

  My mom was a stay-at-home mom up until the divorce, and then she went and got a degree in accounting. Basically, from age four to nine, I didn't see my mom a lot. So I didn't really get a nurturing type.

• 10:22Speaker 02

  Environment of somebody staying at home baking cookies kind of thing. My experience was a lot of neglect, not really involved. Mother, especially not emotionally.

• 10:36Nancy Glass?

  Finding Steve was a breath of fresh air. His parents had a long term marriage and lived on a farm in the Midwest. She felt a sense of stability around Steve's family that she had never experienced growing up.

• 10:56Nancy Glass?

  A few years later, Cindy and Steve tied the knot. At the time, Steve was 32 and Cindy was 34.

• 11:04Speaker 02

  I hear this report on the news and it was something along the lines of if you're not married by 35 years old, you're never going to get married. So planned a wedding within a few months. And so by October, we're married. And I turned 35 and very next month, I'm like, barely under the wire.

• 11:23Nancy Glass?

  They had a small wedding on a budget.

• 11:25Speaker 02

  Everything was about, how can we save money? We got married on a Wednesday because it was cheaper. I mean, this is how cheap we were. My dress was $99. It was a great dress, though, for 99 bucks. I got a good deal.

• 11:41Nancy Glass?

  You see, Steve had a dream of retiring by the age of 50, and that meant working hard and saving every penny they could. Shortly after they got married, Steve and Cindy decided to put their geology expertise to use and start their own company, Wildcat Minerals. Wildcat was a player in the fracking industry. This was in the early 2000s, at the start of the fracking boom in the US. Their company quickly took off.

• 12:11Nancy Glass?

  Cindy and Steve's dreams were coming true.

• 12:16Nancy Glass?

  Within their first year of marriage, Cindy was pregnant. A baby girl was on the way and everything went smoothly until Cindy went into labor.

• 12:33Speaker 02

  I was in like a 30 hour labor and I wasn't progressing.

• 12:37Speaker 02

  All of a sudden, they lost her heartbeat. And they came rushing in and ripped everything out of the wall. I ended up with an emergency C-section. So all I remember was somebody yelling knife and out came a baby.

• 12:54Speaker 02

  Fortunately, she was fine. She was healthy. So it was

• 13:02Speaker 02

  really scary.

• 13:05Speaker 02

  Really scary.

• 13:08Nancy Glass?

  After that harrowing labor, the months that followed were some of Cindy's happiest times as a mom.

• 13:15Speaker 02

  She was wonderful.

• 13:19Speaker 02

  God, it was really the best, best year of my life.

• 13:24Nancy Glass?

  Cindy knows not everyone can have the luxury of being a stay at home mom, but it gave her a priceless opportunity. After having her daughter, Cindy wanted more children, but having them was difficult. Over the next four years, she had three miscarriages. She made her peace with being a mother of one and got rid of everything her daughter outgrew. But of course, as soon as she did that, she found out she was pregnant.

• 13:52Speaker 02

  That's the key. If you want to get pregnant, just give away all your baby stuff.

• 13:58Speaker 02

  All your maternity clothing and you just give up and you're like, I'm done.

• 14:01Nancy Glass?

  And this time, she was having twins, two boys.

• 14:06Speaker 02

  And I was almost 41 when I had them, so it was a very, very high risk pregnancy.

• 14:10Nancy Glass?

  And this pregnancy was especially hard on her body.

• 14:14Speaker 02

  I had to thin my blood out the entire time and I had to take shots in my gut twice a day.

• 14:20Nancy Glass?

  Just as her daughter turned four, Cindy went into labor with the boys. They arrived both healthy and happy. Suddenly Cindy and Steve's household became a family of five.

• 14:32Speaker 02

  Those first two years, you don't remember anything. And thank God you took a lot of video and a lot of photos. You really, you don't sleep. You just, you're so sleep deprived, you are in a state of survival.

• 14:45Nancy Glass?

  It was chaotic, exhausting, all consuming, but for Cindy, it was the life she wanted.

• 14:52Speaker 02

  I am really glad I was able to stay at home with my kids and watch all those really early years. I give credit to Steve to be there for them every day.

• 15:00Nancy Glass?

  Today Cindy's children are teenagers. Her daughter is in college. Her twin boys are learning how to drive.

• 15:09Nancy Glass?

  But Cindy hasn't had custody of them since 2019.

• 15:14Speaker 02

  Time is just like the weirdest thing. You're like, God, it's been six years. It's hard to believe when you say the word six years, but it feels like yesterday.

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• 18:03Nancy Glass?

  Before we go any further, I should tell you that Cindy asked us not to use her children's real names on the podcast. Once Cindy became a mother of three, raising her kids became her full time job. That left Steve to be the face of their company, Wildcat Minerals, and their business was growing fast.

• 18:24Speaker 02

  Steve was gone Monday through Friday for the most part of our relationship. It's like that movie 50 First Dates.

• 18:31Nancy Glass?

  Just before the birth of their twins, Cindy quit working for the company.

• 18:36Speaker 02

  We had really expanded very rapidly in a very short period of time, having three children. So there was a lot of stress on the relationship. And on top of that, we had twins. And that's when things started really going bad with Steve.

• 18:50Nancy Glass?

  How many times have you heard that story? That work gets in the way of a marriage? In this case, it was a company that was started by both Cindy and Steve. And now it seemed like Steve was married to the company. Their friend, Mandalyn, witnessed it firsthand. When I first met Cindy, they were kind of going through this difficult time that a lot of couples go through. She did most of the parenting and she was exhausted. She remembers seeing Cindy at a school bake sale. She's like, man, I just want to go on a date with my husband. You know, she's home with the kids all day long, never gets a break. He goes and travels for

• 19:32Speaker 03

  When he gets home, all he wants to do is nothing. He just wants to be home, doesn't even want to sometimes interact with the kids.

• 19:42Nancy Glass?

  Cindy started to feel more like Steve's employee than his wife and partner, both in marriage and with their company.

• 19:50Speaker 02

  I was a stay-at-home mom, and he's now the breadwinner.

• 19:55Speaker 02

  And so his behavior towards me changed, that he shouldn't have to do anything around the house, and that I'm just supposed to be this doting wife and have dinner on the table by 6 o'clock every evening, and he doesn't have to do anything.

• 20:09Nancy Glass?

  Cindy was struggling all week, so she and Steve came up with a compromise. They'd hire a nanny. Well, that nanny turned out to be Steve's mother, Alayda.

• 20:21Nancy Glass?

  Steve moved Alayda nearby, but very quickly, things became heated between Cindy and her mother-in-law.

• 20:29Speaker 02

  She thinks that Steve is the brainchild behind Wildcat, and it was all his idea. And I'm lucky to be married to Steve.

• 20:40Nancy Glass?

  At first Cindy bit her tongue. After all, Alayda was there to help, but Cindy felt, no matter what she did, especially when it came to parenting, she was always in the wrong.

• 20:52Speaker 02

  Generational parenting, it's different. It's different in each generation. So you're fighting their type of parenting and their style of parenting, because a mother-in-law or your own mom is going to do it however they want to do it.

• 21:05Nancy Glass?

  In Cindy's eyes, Alayda was overstepping boundaries, like when she took her daughter bra shopping, and she was only six years old.

• 21:14Speaker 02

  She goes, "I think she needs to start wearing one of these."

• 21:18Nancy Glass?

  Cindy turned to Steve for support, but he didn't see a problem with what was going on.

• 21:24Speaker 02

  He comes back and he says, "Well, she doesn't think she's done anything wrong. She was six years old. She doesn't need a bra."

• 21:34Nancy Glass?

  Cindy was seeing her mother-in-law through a different lens.

• 21:39Speaker 02

  I thought he had a really good family. I thought he did. And it didn't turn out that way.

• 21:50Speaker 02

  I felt like it was his mom and him against me.

• 21:53Nancy Glass?

  This was one of those situations where no one was going to win, and the marriage suffered because of it.

• 22:00Speaker 02

  We drifted apart. I didn't feel supported.

• 22:06Nancy Glass?

  In 2013, a private equity group purchased Cindy and Steve's company. It meant a huge payday. It also meant stepping away from day-to-day management of their business. This was the life preserver their marriage needed. But that isn't how it worked out. Here's their friend, Mantalyn, again.

• 22:28Speaker 03

  I think when they sold their company is when things really got out of control.

• 22:35Nancy Glass?

  Suddenly, Steve abandoned his penny-pinching ways.

• 22:39Speaker 03

  Money changes people. With Steve, it was always, everything had to be so elaborate and over the top, and he just had this control and power and just, "I'm going to do what I want to do" kind of mentality.

• 22:57Speaker 02

  Some people change with money, and some people do not.

• 23:01Speaker 02

  And he was definitely changing. Money was changing him. He wanted private jets, he wanted a beach house, he wanted to take his friends there and show it off.

• 23:12Nancy Glass?

  This was not the life Cindy had imagined.

• 23:16Speaker 02

  I spent more time with him, and I'm like, "Whoa, I'm not sure I'm liking what I'm seeing here." And I did not like who I was becoming with Steve. I really didn't. I was getting nasty and angry and pissed off all the time.

• 23:31Speaker 02

  Every time there was a problem in the marriage, Steve wanted to move. Fresh start, new beginnings. And it never helped. Once you get settled in, within a year, you're having all the same problems, you know?

• 23:42Nancy Glass?

  The last place they moved was Steamboat Springs, Colorado. That's where Cindy began investing in real estate. She used her money from the sale of Wildcat to buy some rental properties. She also invested in a children's store and a clothing shop in Steamboat.

• 24:00Speaker 02

  Steve did not like that very much at all, that I was starting a new business. That really bothered him.

• 24:07Nancy Glass?

  At the time, their daughter was seven and the twins were three. They also hired a new nanny in Steamboat, a woman from the area. But the fresh start wasn't working. I talked with Cindy's stepsister, Lisa, about the marriage. She didn't share with me at that point in time that there really was any issues. In fact, we started talking about renewing our wedding vows together. She would have been celebrating her 10-year, and I would have been celebrating my 15-year wedding anniversary. It seemed like a lot of fun. They planned a dual vow renewal party. They'd do it at Cindy and Steve's beach house in Florida. We picked out our cakes and music and everything.

• 24:51Nancy Glass?

  Oh, God, I just got so excited thinking about all that. I mean, we just thought that that would be the cat's meow, and that plan never, never came to fruition.

• 25:02Nancy Glass?

  That's because Cindy and Steve decided to separate.

• 25:08Speaker 02

  When we separated in June of 14, we actually got along quite well. We're being nice to each other, having lunch even once a week together, snowboarding together.

• 25:18Nancy Glass?

  They may have disagreed on a lot of things, but they both wanted what was best for their children. They shared parenting 50/50, meaning Cindy would have the kids one week and Steve the next.

• 25:30Speaker 02

  I mean, we were really trying our best to make it easy, especially on the kids.

• 25:35Nancy Glass?

  Then Steve decided he didn't want to end their marriage and asked for a second chance.

• 25:41Speaker 02

  He says, "I've worked on myself now for nine months. I've been in therapy. I know I was responsible for a lot of the problems in the marriage. I'm being accountable for that now. I'll take 80% of the responsibility here. Just give me another chance."

• 25:57Nancy Glass?

  Cindy gave it one more try, but that didn't last long.

• 26:02Speaker 02

  Towards the end of the relationship, all we did was argue. I actually said to Steve, I said, "Hey, is there anything I can do to make this marriage any better? I mean, just tell me, I'll do it." And he got this thoughtful look on his face. He goes, "Yeah, yeah, there is." He's like, "When you're really exhausted, you leave dishes in the sink at night? It just kind of pisses me off to wake up to that." And I just said, "All right."

• 26:26Nancy Glass?

  His response kind of stunned Cindy. She expected Steve to say something a little deeper, more profound. She was working around the clock to keep the house running, so she felt like his complaint about the dishes was just an insult.

• 26:44Nancy Glass?

  According to the Denver Gazette, Cindy ended their marriage after Steve propositioned their nanny.

• 26:51Speaker 02

  That's when I asked for the divorce. And I think when he started feeling more and more insecure about it, he started getting threatening. And he said, "I'm never going to allow you to leave the marriage, and I'm not going to allow you to have the kids."

• 27:07Nancy Glass?

  They did get divorced, but that was not the end of it. Something else was brewing, something that would eventually destroy their entire family.

• 27:16Speaker 02

  Steve is the type of person that if I were to describe him, he's got to be right and he's got to win.

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• 30:45Nancy Glass?

  Cindy and Steve's 11-year marriage came to an end in February of 2016. As part of their divorce, they agreed to share parenting of their three children, meaning Cindy had her kids every other week. By the time the ink was dry on their divorce papers, Steve met a woman who would become his second wife, a petite blonde named Christine.

• 31:08Speaker 02

  They started dating the day we divorced. They started getting a little bit more serious once her divorce finalized.

• 31:14Nancy Glass?

  But here's the thing, Cindy wasn't upset about Steve moving on, quite the opposite.

• 31:20Speaker 02

  I actually congratulated him, and he was actually upset that I had that reaction.

• 31:25Nancy Glass?

  After divorcing Steve, Cindy felt free. They both decided to stay in Steamboat Springs so they could share 50/50 custody easily. Cindy stayed in their condo while Steve moved out. Cindy is really beautiful. She has striking, shoulder-length, white hair, and the financial security most people would dream of, but still, she didn't know if anyone would want to date her.

• 31:53Speaker 02

  I was in this really weird space of when you're 47 years old and you've got really young kids, because I had my kids late, and you're out in the dating world again. The dating pool is pretty small for me.

• 32:06Nancy Glass?

  And she hadn't dated since the 90s. A lot had changed.

• 32:11Speaker 02

  With my girlfriends here in Steamboat, I was like, what app am I supposed to be on? Well, it's the app that says, yes, I'm available, and I'm looking like, is that true that I have to put myself on an app that says I'm available so that people are open to approaching me? I'm like, I'm not doing that. I want it to be completely organic. It's got to happen naturally, the old-fashioned way.

• 32:32Nancy Glass?

  That was her first condition. And rule number two?

• 32:35Speaker 02

  I didn't want to date in Steamboat. There's not a big pool of people to pick from here. And also on top of that, it's just, I didn't want Steve in my business.

• 32:45Nancy Glass?

  Since Steve also lived in the small resort town of Steamboat Springs, she didn't want to ruffle any feathers.

• 32:52Speaker 02

  He didn't really want the divorce, I knew that. So I just felt like it was just a better idea not to date right in front of him, you know, kind of thing. If I dated outside of Steamboat, I felt like better, you know? I wasn't going to trigger any emotions there for him.

• 33:08Nancy Glass?

  And then, something unexpected happened. Cindy was out with some girlfriends, having dinner at the restaurant in her condo building. That's when she locked eyes with an attractive 40-something guy named Kenny Hamp.

• 33:27Speaker 02

  And it was just that moment of, where do I know this guy? And I was so distracted by the sense of familiarity with him at that moment, that I was having a really hard time even focusing on, hi, my name is Cindy. Nice to meet you.

• 33:47Nancy Glass?

  Kenny is a couple of years younger than Cindy. He's tall, with short, white hair, and bears a striking resemblance to Eric Dane, the guy who played Dr. McSteamy on Grey's Anatomy. But that wasn't why he looked so familiar to Cindy.

• 34:02Speaker 02

  Turns out, we have been kind of shadowing each other, probably for about 15 years.

• 34:09Nancy Glass?

  Cindy learned that she and Kenny had lived in many of the same places at the same time. Most likely, they crossed paths but never officially met, until that day. And talk about serendipity, Kenny worked as the general manager of the restaurant in Cindy's building. Cindy was a regular at Kenny's restaurant. She was either there with her kids for dinner, or with her girlfriends for a glass of wine. And despite how smitten they were with each other, they kept it professional.

• 34:41Speaker 02

  I was under the impression he had a girlfriend, he was under the impression I had a boyfriend. And so, we just kept this nice, friendly interaction all the time, chit-chatting to get to know one another.

• 34:52Nancy Glass?

  After a few months of casual conversation, Kenny made the first move.

• 34:56Speaker 02

  He says, you know, let's maybe go out and have a drink sometime. And that was the beginning.

• 35:04Nancy Glass?

  Their first date led to a second, and then a third. In between, they talked and texted like a couple of teenagers.

• 35:11Speaker 02

  What really stuck out was how he was very reflective of past relationships and what was right and what didn't work. Never said a negative thing about any of his exes. He said there was only one girl that he considered getting married to, and she broke up with him. And so, he never thought it was ever going to happen, because he never got super serious with anybody after that.

• 35:39Nancy Glass?

  By the summer of 2018, Kenny left his job at the restaurant, and when he wasn't job hunting, he spent his time with Cindy.

• 35:47Speaker 02

  Kenny is a catch. He's very good-looking. He's down-to-earth. He likes to fly fish, which I like to fly fish. And he loved camping, and that was a huge thing. So I'm checking out boxes like left and right, and I can't find anything I dislike about this guy.

• 36:04Nancy Glass?

  They had a lot in common. They both came from humble beginnings in small towns and had to make their own way. They grew up in the generation that played outside until the streetlights came on. They shared a love of travel, board games, and being outdoors. Kenny was in his mid-40s, but unlike Cindy, he had never been married and didn't have kids. And Cindy was wondering if he would ever get serious with a divorced mother of three young children. But that didn't faze Kenny. In fact, he made it a point to compliment Cindy's parenting.

• 36:38Speaker 02

  He says, you're one of the few parents I've seen that brings their kids into a restaurant and doesn't hand them a phone, or an iPad, or some electronic device. You're actually interacting, talking, and present with your children.

• 36:51Nancy Glass?

  At first, it was just Cindy and Kenny. Then Cindy included her children on their dates.

• 36:58Speaker 02

  I have young kids. And when Kenny explored that, he's like, I really like this. I missed out on this, and I'm really enjoying it. And then the kids really took a liking to him very quickly. It started with a camping trip that we took, and he was super helpful, chopping wood, doing all these wonderful things, fishing with the boys. I'm like, huh. So it was just as enjoyable for him to hang out with my kids. That was the biggest thing of all my boxes to check.

• 37:34Nancy Glass?

  And Kenny valued being in the moment, taking in natural beauty, and he supported her. Cindy worried it was too good to be true. Her blueprint for romance had always been flawed. Her parents divorced when she was just four, and her own marriage to Steve barely lasted a decade. So when Kenny came into Cindy's life, she kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. It didn't.

• 38:00Speaker 02

  We were going to Flamingo Gorge, which is our ultimate favorite spot in the world. He was driving, and he was holding my hand. And I was, I was thinking to myself, oh my God, I want to tell this guy how much I love him. And I didn't, I didn't know when to say it. But he turned to me and he says, I just want to say how much I love you. And I just burst out, and I said, oh my God, that's exactly what I was thinking to say to you. When you have those moments, you can remember everything. Where I was, what song was playing. It was just really amazing. I'm sorry.

• 38:43Nancy Glass?

  Early on, Cindy knew this wasn't just a connection. This was the man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. She loved the person she was when she was around him. The feeling was mutual for Kenny. He eventually introduced Cindy to his parents, and Cindy will never forget what Kenny's mom told her.

• 39:02Speaker 02

  She goes, man, he just loved you from the minute he met you. He was talking about those kids like they were his own, and he just saw you as his family immediately.

• 39:13Nancy Glass?

  And that's what happened. A few months later, things got real. First Kenny moved in with Cindy, and then they started talking about the future.

• 39:22Speaker 02

  So I said to Kenny, I'm like, look, if you can't find anything in the restaurant business, I would like to have you managing my properties.

• 39:33Nancy Glass?

  She wasn't doing him a favor. Cindy's retail stores in Steamboat were taking up most of her time. She needed help with her other properties as well. It would be a huge leap of faith for Kenny. Leaving his career to work for his girlfriend was a big gamble. But he had spent his whole career working in the hospitality business, and those 60 and 70-hour work weeks were getting old. So he went to work with Cindy. As you can imagine, that gave a lot of people in their small towns something to talk about.

• 40:06Speaker 02

  I said, look, people are going to think that you're a gold digger, or, you know, that kind of thing. I don't think that you're into that. And he goes, no, no, I'm not. I liked you well before I found out about all of this. And I said, okay, well, you got to tolerate that whispering and gossip and stuff like that.

• 40:22Nancy Glass?

  A gold digger would be one of the least offensive things people would eventually call Kenny. We'll get into that later. A year later, Cindy and Kenny's relationship was stronger than ever. They had their eyes on the future, and the time seemed right to move out of Cindy's condo and begin to look for a new home.

• 40:43Speaker 02

  So Kenny and I walked into this house, and we felt it. It was almost like when we start dating, this is it, you know, this is the house.

• 40:51Nancy Glass?

  She pictured herself making a life here with Kenny and her three kids. A new, happier family. Cindy made an offer on the home. The week before they closed, Cindy and Kenny planned a trip to Hawaii. The kids would be with her ex-husband, Steve. For Cindy and Kenny, the vacation had a special meaning. They were on the verge of joining their lives together.

• 41:19Nancy Glass?

  One night, they went to a luau. There was music, dancing, and a proposal. That night, under the velvet Pacific sky, Cindy and Kenny got engaged. They were finally stepping into the big, happy family Cindy had spent a lifetime chasing. Their path ahead seemed golden. Cindy teased the big news to one person.

• 41:44Speaker 02

  I did text my daughter. I said, hey, I got something important to tell you. And I didn't tell her what, because that's not something you want to put in a text.

• 41:53Nancy Glass?

  Cindy and her 13-year-old daughter have a special bond. And that summer of 2019, she had been asking about the future.

• 42:02Speaker 02

  She goes, well, are you two ever going to get married? Because I want to be your bridesmaid. I want to braid your hair. I want to pick out the dress. And I said, look, if we ever get married, I absolutely promise that you will be standing next to me.

• 42:15Nancy Glass?

  And that promise to her daughter was why Cindy teased the news to her future bridesmaid.

• 42:21Speaker 02

  I was super excited that night. And I probably shouldn't have said anything at all. And that launched the disaster that happened the next day.

• 42:32Nancy Glass?

  The joy of Cindy and Kenny's engagement died with the sunrise. Because that next day, Cindy got the phone call that changed everything.

• 42:45Speaker 02

  When I got the call from the DHS caseworker, I'm like, you got to be kidding me.

• 42:49Nancy Glass?

  The voice on the other end told Cindy her kids were not coming home to her.

• 42:55Speaker 02

  And I said, what do you mean you're taking my kids? She stood behind the truth, and they didn't like that.

• 43:04Speaker 06

  The cops came to my house and turned me in handcuffs.

• 43:06Speaker 02

  You guys just disrupted and traumatized my kids when you could have made a five-minute phone call? Cindy told me point blank what the allegation was. And we were just like, what?

• 43:15Speaker 06

  This wasn't an investigation. This was a prosecution.

• 43:18Speaker 02

  You can read all the documents in the world about the case, and it doesn't make sense. You are throwing a grenade at a family. You are destroying a family.

• 43:30Nancy Glass?

  This season on Burden of Guilt, the story takes shocking turns and brings us to places far beyond anyone's expectations.

• 43:39Speaker 02

  She got a lot of money from a settlement. It was such a huge amount of money. Once that happened, things took a serious turn.

• 43:48Speaker 01

  The payment of that settlement occurred only days before these allegations arose. So there's no way that it's a coincidence.

• 43:57Speaker 02

  Deep down inside, I knew something like this might happen. And so there's a lot of guilt.

• 44:06Nancy Glass?

  And Jill meets Cindy's fiance, Kenny, who bore the burden of guilt.

• 44:11Speaker 06

  You know how embarrassing this is for me? You know how hard it is to throw this out there to the world? He was trying to get me killed. Thank God there was videotaped recordings where you can go back and go, what was really going on here?

• 44:30Nancy Glass?

  And who told you, I mean, sexually assaulted you? Um, my dad. What your dad told you? Tell me what your dad said. And Jill'll never believe who brought this story to our attention.

• 44:45Speaker 01

  I'm not surprised that this story found you. I'm a little surprised at how it found you.

• 45:04Nancy Glass?

  Thanks for listening. If you're enjoying Burden of Guilt, subscribe, rate, and review the series with five stars, hopefully. That helps other people find our show. Are you curious about what the people involved in this look like? Do you want to hear bonus content? Just check out our Instagram account at Glass Podcasts. You can reach out to the Burden of Guilt team at [email protected]. That's [email protected]. Burden of Guilt is a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group in partnership with iHeart Podcasts.

• 45:46Nancy Glass?

  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. Our story editor is Monique LaBord. Our associate producer is Jade Abdul Malik. Our production manager is Kristin Milkeri. Our iHeart team is Ally Perry and Jessica Krychek. Audio editing by Tanner Robbins. Audio mixing and mastering by Anna McLean and Matt Del Vecchio. The Burden of Guilt theme is composed by Oliver Baines. Music library provided by MyB Music.

• 46:31Nancy Glass?

  For more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeart Radio app or Apple Podcasts.

• 46:53Speaker 01

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