Stephanie Langlitz | Betrayal Weekly

Throughout high school, Stephanie carried a painful secret. Years later, she’s ready to confront what happened. And make sure it never happens again. If you would like to share your story, you can reach out to the Betrayal team by emailing us at [email protected] mailto:[email protected]. You can also find us on Instagram at @betrayalpod https://www.instagram.com/betrayalpod/ and @glasspodcasts https://www.instagram.com/glasspodcasts/. To access our newsletter and additional content and to connect with the Betrayal community, join our Substack at betrayal.substack.com. If you are currently in crisis, please reach out to organizations that offer immediate support. We are including a few US-based resources here: 988 Lifeline. https://988lifeline.org/ If you or someone you know is in crisis or need to talk to someone immediately, please call or text 988 – the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline available 24/7/365. National Domestic Violence Hotline https://www.thehotline.org/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=domestic_violence. They offer 24/7 phone and chat support to help you create a personalized safety plan and connect you with local support. For resources on sexual violence, visit rainn.org/betrayal. You can also get free, confidential, 24/7 support through RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline. Text HOPE to 64673 or call 1-800-656-HOPE. Every state has a domestic violence coalition. If you’re looking for help in the US, search the web for your state’s domestic violence coalition. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 2:56Speaker 00

  Hi, everyone. It's Andrea. Before we start this episode, I want to let you know that we will be talking explicitly about the realities of child sexual abuse. So please be mindful with this episode.

• 3:11Speaker 05

  I remember everything. That man, for so long, had so much control over me. I cannot just stand by and do nothing. You will not get away with this.

• 3:39Speaker 00

  I'm Andrea Gunning, and this is Betrayal, a show about the people we trust the most and the deceptions that change everything.

• 3:50Speaker 00

  Today, we are sharing Stephanie's story. Stephanie grew up in upstate New York, near Albany, with her parents and siblings.

• 3:58Speaker 05

  My parents had a very tumultuous relationship. I don't think I coped with the chaos well. I spent a lot of time in my room.

• 4:09Speaker 00

  In her room, it was quiet. Looking out her window at the woods of upstate New York, Stephanie dreamed of a sunny and bright, faraway place: Los Angeles.

• 4:20Speaker 05

  I just had this obsession with the glitz and the glamour and how exciting it was. And especially for a little girl in upstate New York, where it snows and it's gray and it's gross. LA always just had this sunshine to it. It always looked like it would be a very happy place.

• 4:38Speaker 00

  She hoped she could live there one day. As Stephanie got older, her parents started arguing more and more. Home was an exhausting place to be. Her parents split up and got back together often.

• 4:51Speaker 05

  That coincided with really difficult middle school years. Friends would come and go, and it was really difficult dealing with that in tandem with things that were going on with my parents.

• 5:03Speaker 00

  When Stephanie was in 7th grade, her parents announced that their family would be moving across the country to Tucson, Arizona.

• 5:11Speaker 05

  I absolutely did not want to move to Arizona. I was quite literally kicking and screaming. You can't even stay together for a year. Why the hell are we moving across the country?

• 5:24Speaker 00

  But Tucson did have one major perk. It was closer to LA.

• 5:29Speaker 05

  They're like, "Look, we can drive from Tucson to Hollywood anytime you want. If you stop, we'll take you to Hollywood on a trip." So that kind of softened the blow a little bit.

• 5:40Speaker 00

  But when she arrived at her new middle school, she struggled to make friends. The girls in her grade were not welcoming.

• 5:48Speaker 05

  Girls are just mean. If anyone has been a middle school girl, you know that they can be very unkind.

• 5:55Speaker 00

  She spent most of her time at school alone, and life at home was not much of a comfort. Her parents were still arguing all the time. It was lonely.

• 6:06Speaker 05

  When I was in 8th grade, I started drinking and smoking weed and started hanging out with girls that were a little bit older than I was. And that whole summer in between 8th grade and 9th grade was just a lot of drinking in the desert.

• 6:21Speaker 00

  The desert stretched fast and shapeless around her. She couldn't figure out where she belonged in this landscape.

• 6:28Speaker 05

  There were signs that I was unraveling.

• 6:33Speaker 05

  I had withdrawn a lot.

• 6:36Speaker 00

  Stephanie's mom noticed a change in her and was concerned, so she took her to see a doctor.

• 6:42Speaker 05

  I remember being hunched over, looking down, and I remember thinking, this is how he's going to know that I'm depressed because I can't even sit up straight. That's when I was diagnosed with depression.

• 6:56Speaker 00

  Her doctor prescribed her antidepressants. Just a few weeks later, Stephanie started her freshman year of high school.

• 7:04Speaker 05

  I went into my freshman year very much alone, feeling very much isolated, very much broken. I felt like I didn't really have anybody.

• 7:15Speaker 00

  On the first day of school, Stephanie went from class to class, meeting her teachers and new classmates.

• 7:22Speaker 05

  I go into my Spanish class and the teacher, Mark Lindrood, is standing there. It was very evident right away that he was trying to come off as that young, cool, hip teacher, like, I want to relate to you guys.

• 7:40Speaker 00

  While his life sounded exotic...

• 7:42Speaker 05

  He would say, "I went to Spain and I ran with the Bulls."

• 7:46Speaker 00

  He was still relatable.

• 7:47Speaker 05

  He was very into sports. He was one of the JV coaches on the football team and loved Star Wars. He used to teach in LA, so that perked my ears of, oh, cool, like, this teacher used to live in LA, like, awesome, I love LA.

• 8:02Speaker 00

  Some kids thought Mr. Lindrood was kind of cheesy, but he always made class fun, and he was only 26 years old.

• 8:10Speaker 05

  And so I'm like, okay, he's not that much older than us. He is kind of the young, hip teacher.

• 8:16Speaker 00

  Stephanie's high school had a period in the mornings before classes started called Zero Hour.

• 8:21Speaker 05

  If you needed to do homework or you needed extra help, you could go in. At that point, I didn't really want to be home at all, so I started going to the Zero Hour.

• 8:32Speaker 00

  One day during Zero Hour, Stephanie was walking through the hallways, trying to find a place to do her homework.

• 8:38Speaker 05

  I walked by Mr. Lindrood's room, and there was no one in there, or maybe one or two people, and I said, okay, this looks like a safe place for me to go to.

• 8:51Speaker 00

  She stepped into his classroom.

• 8:53Speaker 05

  His room felt safe because it was quiet. There wasn't arguing, there weren't people yelling.

• 9:01Speaker 00

  She sat down and did her homework. The next day, she came back to his classroom in the morning. Mr. Lindrood was always welcoming.

• 9:10Speaker 05

  It was just, sometimes me and him, sometimes other people.

• 9:13Speaker 00

  Soon, she was going to Mr. Lindrood's room during zero hour most days. There, she didn't have to worry about the mean girls in her grade or her parents' arguments.

• 9:25Speaker 05

  I'd had so many friends at different schools hurt me, and I really didn't trust other students.

• 9:31Speaker 00

  Mr. Lindrood was easier to talk to. He asked her lots of questions and seemed genuinely interested in her life.

• 9:39Speaker 05

  Where are you from? How long have you lived here? And then he started opening up a little bit about, I came from Texas. I have an ex-fiance. He trusted me with personal information, and it filled this void that I wasn't feeling with friends or with my family.

• 9:59Speaker 05

  He was really the only person who would sit down and listen to me and hear me, and I just didn't have anyone else like that in my life at that time.

• 10:08Speaker 00

  One day, Stephanie asked to use his computer for a homework assignment.

• 10:13Speaker 05

  And I'm on his computer, and he had his AOL Instant Messenger up. And that, in a way, almost added to him being that cool, relatable teacher, because it's like, oh, we're on Instant Messenger as students. Oh, you're on Instant Messenger? That's cool.

• 10:31Speaker 00

  A message popped up from a woman named Amanda.

• 10:35Speaker 05

  He's like, oh, that's just my friend Amanda from LA. Just tell her, you know, you're a student using my computer. And then another one popped up, and he's like, oh, that's my ex-girlfriend. Just tell her I'm busy, or that you're a student, or whatever. I'm thinking, oh, he trusts me to respond to all of these people in his life.

• 10:53Speaker 00

  And Stephanie was starting to trust him, too.

• 10:56Speaker 05

  It became sort of a friendship, and it started to feel like a very safe place for me to be in his room.

• 11:03Speaker 00

  Eventually, Mr. Lindrood told her that she could ditch the formal way of addressing him. So he stopped being Mr. Lindrood, her Spanish teacher, and became Mark her friend.

• 11:14Speaker 05

  There was one day that I had left school and I had a question about my Spanish homework. And because I had been responding through his AIM to people, obviously, I knew what his screen name was.

• 11:26Speaker 00

  So she sent him a message on AIM, asking how to conjugate a verb in Spanish. Mark responded.

• 11:33Speaker 05

  He was very professional and he explained it to me and I apologized. Sorry to reaching out to you here. I just wanted to make sure I got the homework done. And he said, "It's okay."

• 11:43Speaker 00

  Soon Stephanie started messaging Mark with homework questions more often. He would help her, and then their messages moved to other topics.

• 11:51Speaker 05

  He would say, "What are you doing?" Or, "What are you up to?" Or, "What are your plans this weekend?" He made me feel like I could just talk to him about anything that was going on in my life and that I could trust him. There was part of me that kept thinking, like, "Is this weird? Is this appropriate? Like, should we be having this conversation?" But also, he is just being nice and friendly and maybe he does recognize that I just need a friend.

• 12:17Speaker 00

  If he was offering friendship, she would take it, even if it was a little unusual. Then one day, a few weeks later, Mark suggested that they hang out outside of school.

• 12:30Speaker 05

  He asked me, "Is there a park by your house? Is there anywhere we could meet?" And I happened to live across the street from this giant park.

• 12:40Speaker 00

  He told her to meet him there on Friday night. When Friday night came, Stephanie told her parents she was meeting a friend and started walking to the park.

• 12:51Speaker 05

  This is when I started to feel nervous. What are we meeting at the park for? 50% of me thought it was weird, but 50% of me also said, "Well, this feels safe because he's meeting me in a very public place. All of my neighbors are there. A lot of people from our school are going to be there. So this must be okay, because it's a very, very public park." He made me feel like we were friends at that point, and I really didn't have anyone else to hang out with, especially on a Friday night.

• 13:21Speaker 00

  When she got to the park, a green SUV pulled into the parking lot, and Mark stepped out. He looked different than he did at school.

• 13:31Speaker 05

  He had a hat on. He has this very distinct bald head. So I remember thinking, okay, that's kind of a disguise. So maybe this isn't okay that we're meeting up. And I started to feel really uneasy. He starts walking toward me very aggressively, and he just picks me up and kisses me. And I just froze. It never occurred to me that that's what was going to happen.

• 13:57Speaker 00

  As a 14-year-old, Stephanie was overwhelmed and confused.

• 14:02Speaker 05

  I didn't know what to do. My brain couldn't process what was happening.

• 14:06Speaker 00

  Stephanie walked home from the park that night, desperately trying to make sense of this. Mark was her teacher, and she thought he was her friend.

• 14:16Speaker 05

  What just happened? To risk being in this park, to risk his teaching. I'm like, he must really like me to be willing to do that.

• 14:27Speaker 00

  After that night, Mark began messaging Stephanie more and more. And then he started driving over to her house and parking his car outside on the street.

• 14:39Speaker 05

  It would be later at night, and so I would just go outside and sit in his car with him. He would have me get in the backseat and make out, and then I would have to go to school the next week like nothing had ever happened.

• 14:50Speaker 00

  It was disorienting.

• 14:52Speaker 05

  He's coming over to make out with me. He's also my teacher, but I'm sitting in his class, and nobody knows. And it was a very, very confusing spot to be in, feeling uncomfortable, but just feeling like someone cared, that someone cared about me enough to listen to me and want to be around me.

• 15:09Speaker 00

  Mark was grooming her.

• 15:12Speaker 00

  Grooming is a term used to describe the process perpetrators use to control their victims. They start by gaining their victim's trust, then isolating them from their community, labeling their own abuse as a shared secret, and finally, controlling and coercing their victim into staying silent.

• 15:31Speaker 05

  He started telling me, "You can never say a word to anybody. You can never say anything because it's my dream to be a big football coach. And if you tell anyone, my dream is ruined. My life is ruined. I will be blacklisted in everything that I want to do if you tell anyone. And what are people going to say about you if they know this is happening?"

• 15:53Speaker 00

  Stephanie did what he asked. She didn't tell anyone.

• 15:58Speaker 05

  I couldn't process what was actually happening.

• 16:02Speaker 00

  So Mark processed it for her. He told her...

• 16:06Speaker 05

  Now we've taken this relationship a little bit of a step further, and we trust each other more to do this. In a weird way, I think this secrecy made me feel like we had this special trusting relationship.

• 16:22Speaker 00

  But keeping this secret meant Mark quickly became the only person she could talk to. She couldn't talk to anyone else about what was really happening. So Mark became Stephanie's closest connection, and her only one.

• 16:36Speaker 05

  I went into the school year isolated, and now I'm even more isolated because I can't tell anyone what's going on. I can't tell everyone who I'm hanging out with at night. I was rewarded for my silence with attention, with the attention that I wasn't getting anywhere else.

• 16:54Speaker 00

  In early January, Stephanie went to Mark's house to watch a football game. That was the first night he raped her.

• 17:03Speaker 05

  I was just very confused. I think I froze. I couldn't make sense of it happening. And then, as soon as he was done, and was like getting dressed, he said, "I guess this makes you my girlfriend now."

• 17:21Speaker 00

  Every time Stephanie was uncomfortable, or confused, or frozen, Mark jumped in to explain her own feelings to her. He told her, "This is what trust felt like."

• 17:34Speaker 05

  Maybe he does really care about me and love me, because he was risking everything, and he was risking that for me.

• 17:44Speaker 00

  Mark told Stephanie he was in love with her.

• 17:47Speaker 05

  He made it seem like it was an actual relationship. For Valentine's Day, he took me to the drive-in, and we saw "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days." I'll never forget.

• 18:01Speaker 00

  Stephanie saved the ticket stub. She put it in a box with other mementos from her time with Mark. Mark started inviting Stephanie over to his house. She told her parents she was at a friend's. And when she was over at Mark's house, he told her it was only fair for her to pitch in with household chores.

• 18:22Speaker 05

  It wasn't uncommon for me to clean his house. In fact, it was an expectation. He would have me fold his shirts a very specific way.

• 18:32Speaker 00

  He explained to Stephanie that this is what being in a relationship was like. She believed him.

• 18:39Speaker 05

  As he was getting closer to me and making me feel special, he started somewhat flirting with this other girl that I was friends with, and I started to feel jealous, because I'm like, "Oh, I'm losing his attention."

• 18:53Speaker 00

  One day, that girl mentioned something about Coach, which is what a lot of students called Mark. Hearing her talk about Mark, Stephanie couldn't keep their secret in any longer.

• 19:05Speaker 05

  I just snapped, and I was like, "Coach is the one who's been texting me. We're like hanging out." And she just went silent.

• 19:15Speaker 00

  A few days later, Stephanie was at school when she was asked to see the guidance counselor.

• 19:20Speaker 05

  He looked at me and he said, "Are you having a relationship with Mr. Lindrood?"

• 19:30Speaker 05

  And I said, "No."

• 19:32Speaker 05

  I denied it because he had put the fear of God in me that if I told anyone, my life was over, let alone my life, his life. So of course I was going to be silent because I didn't want to be the person who crushed his dreams and ruined his life.

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• 21:07Speaker 00

  After Stephanie told a classmate that she was hanging out with their Spanish teacher, the guidance counselor called Stephanie into his office. He asked her if anything inappropriate was going on with Mr. Lindrood. Stephanie denied it.

• 21:21Speaker 05

  Of course, I was going to be silent because I didn't want to be the person who crushed his dreams and ruined his life.

• 21:28Speaker 00

  School administrators questioned Mr. Lindrood as well.

• 21:32Speaker 05

  He said, "Nothing happened." The school was like, "Well, they say nothing's going on." And they didn't do any investigation. There was nothing further.

• 21:41Speaker 00

  But rumors had already started spreading through the school. As a heads up, these comments are cruel and hard to hear.

• 21:49Speaker 05

  People were calling me "teacher fucker," and people were like, "Oh, I saw her under his desk." And that just further isolated me more and more. I already didn't have friends, and now I'm being labeled a slut, a whore.

• 22:06Speaker 00

  She was shamed. The few people she was friendly with at school started avoiding eye contact. When she walked down the hallway, she could hear the girls in her grade whispering about her as she passed. One day, someone said something really horrible straight to her face.

• 22:23Speaker 05

  And the principal was in the hallway, and I went up to him sobbing. And I said, "I'm the student that these rumors are about. Make it stop. Please make it stop." And he said, "Well, I can't just get on the loudspeaker and tell everyone that it's not true."

• 22:43Speaker 00

  I want to pause here for a moment. When I heard this part of Stephanie's story, I was shocked by how many adults knew what was going on and didn't do anything about it. I think about how alone she must have felt. Stephanie was trying to protect Mark, but nobody was protecting her. Now, the idea of telling the truth felt even more impossible.

• 23:08Speaker 05

  I was just in so much pain and withdrawal from everything because the worst possible thing was happening to me.

• 23:18Speaker 00

  And through it all, the only person she could talk about this with was Mark.

• 23:24Speaker 05

  That brought me closer to him because I didn't have anybody. So the rumors and the hurt made me turn to him.

• 23:33Speaker 00

  For her entire freshman year, Mark was the only person Stephanie really felt was in her corner. Then, at the end of the school year, Mark took a job teaching elsewhere.

• 23:45Speaker 05

  I think he got spooked and he left.

• 23:48Speaker 00

  But leaving wasn't an option for Stephanie.

• 23:55Speaker 00

  That summer, Mark introduced her to his parents.

• 23:59Speaker 05

  He lied to them and said I was 19. I was 15. But it made me feel so mature and so much older. And that's what everyone, when you're a teenager, wants to feel.

• 24:11Speaker 00

  Mark's parents welcomed Stephanie in.

• 24:13Speaker 05

  They would have me over for dinner and his mom was giving me books to read. His mom was giving us restaurant recommendations. They're like, oh, next time before you guys go to the drive-in, you should go to this pizza place and get the calzone.

• 24:25Speaker 00

  Mark and Stephanie spent nearly every day together.

• 24:29Speaker 05

  We went to the beach and I have photos of us at the beach together. Having him act that way was like, okay, this is real. This is a relationship. I had nothing to compare it to, but it felt real.

• 24:41Speaker 00

  Mark told everyone they met that Stephanie was 19, and he asked her to lie about her age if people asked. He said age was just a number.

• 24:50Speaker 05

  At some point, I really started to believe that I was older. That's how much he had me lying to people that I truly, in some weird way, was like, oh, no, I'm 19.

• 25:05Speaker 00

  Stephanie got a fake ID. For Mark's birthday that year, they went out to a bar to celebrate.

• 25:11Speaker 05

  We went to this New Orleans-themed bar, and if you flash your breasts, you get beads.

• 25:18Speaker 05

  And the whole time we were there, he just kept encouraging me to flash the bartenders to get more drinks. Just sexualizing me. This whole entire bar saw me topless.

• 25:30Speaker 00

  For almost two years, Mark had been her gateway to the rest of the world.

• 25:35Speaker 05

  I couldn't drive. I couldn't go anywhere. If I wanted to do anything, he would pick me up. He would drive me. I had to be completely, completely dependent on him.

• 25:44Speaker 00

  Relying on Mark was beginning to feel suffocating. A few weeks after his birthday, Stephanie's sister came to town.

• 25:52Speaker 05

  So I went out with my big sister and her friends. And I was feeling so much freer because I did not have to depend on him for attention or something to do.

• 26:04Speaker 00

  That year, Stephanie turned 16 and got her driver's license.

• 26:09Speaker 05

  And that is definitely where things started to change for me gradually. I started being able to go outside his bubble a lot more. I'm seeing healthy relationships. And my world opened up to so much because I had been so sheltered by him.

• 26:31Speaker 00

  She was still going over to Mark's house a lot, and he was still asking her to clean up and do laundry for him. One day, she was at his house by herself.

• 26:42Speaker 05

  I just remember there being a lot of papers everywhere. And I'm like, I need to organize this. I can't stare at these papers anymore.

• 26:49Speaker 00

  She went to put them in a filing cabinet. That's when a document caught her eye.

• 26:55Speaker 05

  And that's when I found his birth certificate. I pulled it out and I looked at it. I'm not good at math, but I'm doing the math in my head when I'm sitting there as a 16-year-old. I'm like, holy shit, he is 32.

• 27:10Speaker 00

  Mark had told her he was 28, four years younger than he actually was. As she stood there staring at his birth certificate, she had a moment of clarity.

• 27:23Speaker 05

  Clearly, you know you're doing something wrong if you're lying to tell me that you're younger. And that's when everything started clicking for me of, he's twice my age. This isn't right.

• 27:37Speaker 00

  When Mark came home, Stephanie confronted him.

• 27:41Speaker 05

  I said, "I found your birth certificate, so I know you're 32." And his response was, "Well, I was already feeling like Chester the molester. I didn't want to make it worse."

• 27:54Speaker 00

  Stephanie glared at him, disgusted.

• 27:57Speaker 05

  "What the hell's wrong with you? You were 30 when you met a 14-year-old. You want me to trust you with everything, and I don't even know how old you really are. I want to be on a break."

• 28:11Speaker 00

  Mark's face dropped.

• 28:13Speaker 05

  "What?" I said, "Yeah, we're on a break."

• 28:16Speaker 00

  Something between them had shifted. Mark could sense it too. He looked scared.

• 28:22Speaker 05

  I think that he realized he was losing control of me. And he spiraled. He said, "I'm going to marry you.

• 28:31Speaker 05

  I'm looking for rings."

• 28:33Speaker 00

  Stephanie almost laughed at him.

• 28:35Speaker 05

  "I am 16 years old, and a 32-year-old man is asking me to marry him."

• 28:41Speaker 00

  She left his house. Mark called and texted her nonstop, begging her not to walk away.

• 28:47Speaker 05

  He wanted to talk. He wanted to try to work things out. And I went to his house. And I said, "We're done. This is gross. I can't even believe what you've done to me." He just starts crying, and then he's like, "Please don't leave. Stay with me." And I looked at him, and I said, "You are pathetic. This has been going on for two years. Do you even realize what you've done to me? I took my power back as a 16-year-old in that moment, even though at that point, to me, it was just me breaking up with a boyfriend."

• 29:19Speaker 00

  It would take over a decade for her to see the situation for what it really was.

• 29:27Speaker 00

  No matter how hard Mark tried to regain control, he couldn't.

• 29:31Speaker 05

  I just started distancing myself more and more from him because I knew that I was going to be okay.

• 29:38Speaker 00

  She graduated early and finally left her high school behind. In the fall, she started college at the University of Arizona. But her time at college was challenging.

• 29:49Speaker 05

  I was way into the party scene and I would not go to class. I would just drink and my life really, really spiraled from there. I was just drinking so much and I ended up dropping out of U of A.

• 30:02Speaker 00

  Stephanie never told her parents about Mark's abuse. She didn't have the words for it. There was so much pain just under the surface, but she didn't want to feel it.

• 30:13Speaker 05

  I was just stuck in this depressive drunk cycle.

• 30:17Speaker 00

  What happened with Mark followed her wherever she went.

• 30:22Speaker 05

  I was just hiding that pain constantly, never making sense of what I had been through, just masking it and masking it and masking it.

• 30:31Speaker 00

  Until one night.

• 30:32Speaker 05

  I went out and got extremely intoxicated and got behind the wheel of my car. And thank God I was pulled over and I blew a .24 and I got a DUI. I was relieved. This is what needed to happen. This cycle is going to break.

• 30:49Speaker 00

  She knew that she couldn't keep masking her pain.

• 30:53Speaker 05

  I had to start facing it and I hadn't faced it until then.

• 30:57Speaker 00

  She tried to tell a few friends about Mark. She still didn't have the words to label the experience. She told people she had dated one of her teachers. People didn't know what to make of it.

• 31:09Speaker 05

  So many people were so dismissive of it and minimized it. There were never any follow-up questions. Not a single person ever told me that was wrong or made it seem like it was something I should have reported. I was like, okay, maybe I'm crazy. Maybe, maybe I did something wrong.

• 31:26Speaker 00

  It had been over 10 years since she had seen Mark and she learned that he wasn't teaching anymore. He'd joined the military. So she kept the truth about what happened to herself and she focused on moving forward. She enrolled in school again. In her late twenties, she became pregnant after a brief relationship. She decided to keep the baby and be a single mom. When her son was born, he became the center of Stephanie's world. She created a loving home for him and filled their days with joy and fun. She cherished their daily routines together. Being a mom gave her the confidence to make a decision she'd always wanted to make.

• 32:07Speaker 05

  We're moving to LA. I'm going as a single mom with a two-year-old in tow. I don't know anybody there, but I just saw an opportunity to just completely start over and go to LA.

• 32:18Speaker 00

  LA was just as exciting as she always thought it would be.

• 32:22Speaker 05

  My first job there was one of my dream jobs. I was working for a celebrity and I thought that was amazing.

• 32:28Speaker 00

  For the first time in a long time, Stephanie felt connected to the younger version of herself, the little girl who dreamt of building a new life in California. She got a master's degree in communications and began a career in marketing and PR.

• 32:43Speaker 05

  That really built my confidence a lot. And everything that I kept doing just kept bringing me more and more comfortable with myself, giving me more and more perspective.

• 32:51Speaker 00

  On occasion, she would hike after work. She loved climbing the hills dotted with chaperone and sage scrub. Her favorite trail led to the Hollywood sign.

• 33:02Speaker 05

  You look out and you see all of LA. I was starting to feel a shift in myself of feeling stronger and feeling like I can do things that I didn't think that I could. And it started to really click for me that I can handle things and that I can make things happen.

• 33:20Speaker 00

  She had found the strength to face the hardest parts of her life, raising her son, moving across the country, and going back to school. She had reclaimed the different pieces of her identity, one by one, and she recognized herself again. Then Stephanie turned 30, the same age as Mark had been when she first stepped into his classroom at age 14. That birthday brought a sense of clarity and conviction. What Mark had done was deeply wrong, and it wasn't her fault.

• 33:52Speaker 05

  I'm feeling ready to do something about this. One night, I went online and I looked up Mark and said he was teaching at a school in Colorado.

• 34:06Speaker 00

  The last she heard, Mark was in the military. But now, she was staring at his LinkedIn profile. He was back teaching high school students.

• 34:15Speaker 05

  My hand started shaking and I'm like, holy shit. He's around kids again. He's teaching again. What do I do?

• 34:23Speaker 00

  That's when she was overcome by a new feeling. Rage.

• 34:27Speaker 05

  So many people didn't show up for me. I can't be that person if he is doing this to anybody else. I cannot let this happen and just stand by and do nothing.

• 34:38Speaker 00

  So that same night, she sent an email to the principal of the school where Mark was now teaching.

• 34:44Speaker 05

  I just said, you don't know me. I saw online that Mark Lindreud may be a teacher at your school. I was a student. I had an inappropriate sexual relationship with him as a 14-year-old student. I just wanted to let you know.

• 34:58Speaker 00

  The principal responded to her email.

• 35:00Speaker 05

  And he said, thank you for letting me know. Did you ever report this? And I said, no, but I think I'm ready to.

• 35:12Speaker 00

  The principal called the local police department and reported what Mark had done to Stephanie.

• 35:17Speaker 05

  That was the first time someone took my claim seriously.

• 35:23Speaker 00

  A detective reached out to Stephanie. They got on the phone and Detective Durbin asked her to start from the beginning.

• 35:30Speaker 05

  And it was like, okay, he performed oral sex on me. And she would say, okay, what does that mean? It's going to be uncomfortable, but I need you to tell me these things. I had to go into very explicit detail about things that he would do to me. I had to tell them every time that I could remember any sort of a detail because that was going to be a charge.

• 35:52Speaker 00

  Detective Durbin began making note of the charges against Mark.

• 35:56Speaker 05

  She started saying, "sexual abuse of a minor, okay, that's an offense, that's sexual assault." When I started talking to Detective Durbin and she started using those words, I was like, "Oh, my God, that's exactly what this was. This was never a relationship." He saw me vulnerable, he saw me isolated, and that made me perfect prey for a pedophile.

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• 37:07Speaker 06

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• 37:36Speaker 00

  For years, Stephanie knew that what she endured in high school was wrong, but she never knew how to talk about it. When she turned 30, she was ready to report what happened to her and was connected with a detective named Detective Durbin. Stephanie told her what happened and the detective started making note of the charges against Mark.

• 37:56Speaker 05

  She started saying sexual abuse of a minor, okay, that's an offense, that's sexual assault. When Detective Durbin started using those words, I was like, oh my God, that's exactly what this was. This was never a relationship. This was a pedophile grooming me and manipulating me and it was abuse.

• 38:16Speaker 00

  Stephanie was angrier than she had ever been and she was ready to do whatever was necessary to keep Mark from abusing another child.

• 38:26Speaker 00

  Detective Durbin asked Stephanie if she had any other evidence that could corroborate her claims against Mark. She didn't expect Stephanie to have much. It had been over a decade.

• 38:37Speaker 05

  Clearly, we know that I was being sexually abused the entire time, but in my 14 and 15 year old mind, it was a relationship. And what do you do as a 14, 15 year old girl when you're in a relationship? You keep little mementos. So I saved like movie tickets, drive-in tickets, receipts from lingerie he'd make me buy and photos. And that was perfect for the criminal investigation and the trial.

• 39:04Speaker 00

  Stephanie dug up that old box. All the things that Mark had used to gain power over her were now going to help her take it back. She brought the evidence to the police and they put together a timeline of Mark's abuse corroborated by ticket stubs, receipts, and photos.

• 39:22Speaker 05

  We went to the drive-in and saw How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days and that was on Valentine's Day and here's the ticket stub. And here's the date that he asked me to get this lingerie. I had these photos with the dates on them and it would be like him shirtless in his house or me laying on the floor with his dog, us on the beach in California with like his arms wrapped around me.

• 39:45Speaker 00

  Detective Durbin told Stephanie about one last thing they could do to build a case against Mark. They referred to it as a confrontation call. She explained how it would work.

• 39:55Speaker 05

  I call him and it's basically to try to get him to admit to what he did. The detectives are in the room unbeknownst to him. And so there's record of that so that then they can go in and without a doubt arrest him. She said, you don't have to do this. Sometimes it is healing for people. Sometimes it's the opposite. And I said, yeah, let's call that motherfucker. He is teaching and I want to make sure he's never teaching again.

• 40:22Speaker 00

  Stephanie flew from LA to Phoenix to meet Detective Durbin and another detective who would be present for the call. Together, they made a game plan.

• 40:31Speaker 05

  It was super nerve wracking because I don't want to hear his voice. But if I can get him to admit this, there's no going back.

• 40:41Speaker 00

  Then with the two detectives by her side, she dialed Mark's number.

• 40:46Speaker 05

  I called him and he answered. And I just started saying, "I need closure." "I was 14 and I was your student. Why did you do that?" And he's like, "I was immature." And he admitted to knowing I was 14, admitted to knowing I was a student. "I hope you have a really great day," is how he ended it.

• 41:09Speaker 00

  Stephanie fell quiet.

• 41:11Speaker 05

  And Detective Durbin was like, "How are you doing? You okay?" And I said, "That was so weird because that man controlled so much of my life for the last 20 years." And she looked at me and she said, "Just so you know, you had full control of that conversation. He was fumbling over himself because you had full control."

• 41:35Speaker 00

  Two days later, Mark was arrested. The story was picked up by the local news.

• 41:40Speaker 07

  An Aurora public school teacher has been arrested accused of sexual abuse of a minor in Arizona. Police say Mark Lindred is a teacher at Vista Peak Preparatory School. He's been placed on administrative leave.

• 41:53Speaker 00

  Stephanie and her team prepared for trial. Stephanie started having calls with the DA in Tucson. She was also assigned to victim advocate. A few weeks after Mark's arrest, she was sent his indictment.

• 42:05Speaker 05

  And it says my name on it and it says his name and it says the court and it says the charges. And each charge is explained in explicit detail.

• 42:15Speaker 00

  All in all, Mark Lindred was facing 21 charges. 20 counts of sexual conduct with a minor and one count of sexual abuse of a minor.

• 42:25Speaker 05

  To read those words and then put it together with, "That was me." I'm SL. That's named in all of these things. That was me. This is real, and what was done to me was really bad.

• 42:40Speaker 00

  The one thing she'd spent so long trying to hide was now headline news.

• 42:45Speaker 05

  I kind of just sat with myself in it, and I said, I can do one of two things. I can become smaller and I can feel ashamed, or I can say, no, I'm taking back my power.

• 42:56Speaker 00

  After years of keeping Mark's secret, Stephanie was done staying quiet. A trial was set for January of 2022, but Mark and his legal team delayed it, and then delayed it again and again. Mark was always having some kind of emergency, or new evidence was being entered into discovery that caused the trial to be postponed. It was exhausting. After a while, the prosecution started to talk about giving Mark a plea deal.

• 43:27Speaker 05

  If we give the plea deal, at least I know he goes to jail.

• 43:31Speaker 05

  Offer him the plea deal. So they did, and he declined the plea deal.

• 43:37Speaker 00

  This meant there would be a trial after all, and Stephanie would have to face Mark in court.

• 43:42Speaker 05

  The reality was setting in of, I have to talk about these charges and their explicit details in a room full of strangers.

• 43:52Speaker 00

  Stephanie had spent years keeping this secret and many more years pushing this trauma down. But now, she had to face it head-on. Not only would Stephanie have to say what Mark had done to her out loud, but she would have to testify to her trauma in intimate detail to a full room of strangers. And then those strangers would have to decide if she was credible, if they believed her.

• 44:19Speaker 00

  She remembered her high school principal who wrote her off, and the girls who started rumors about her. She felt like she had been on trial her whole life, and every jury had found her guilty or dismissed the case. What if this jury came to the same conclusions? She shared her concerns with the DA.

• 44:40Speaker 05

  The DA said, "I just want you to know that no matter what happens, I believe you." The validation in that of maybe he won't be found guilty of anything, but I have this team of people who support me in that way.

• 44:57Speaker 00

  She knew whatever came next, she wouldn't be alone. Stephanie flew from LA back to Arizona for court. The night before the trial, she had a panic attack.

• 45:09Speaker 05

  I thought I was dying, and it was just the biggest panic attack that I've had ever in my life.

• 45:14Speaker 00

  The walls felt like they were caving in on her. She went to bed feeling shaky.

• 45:21Speaker 05

  I don't know what happened in my sleep that night, but I woke up in the morning and I was like, "Let's fucking go. Let's do this." The only way I can describe it is like an athlete going into a game. You just put your head in the game and there's nothing else you're thinking of, laser focused.

• 45:39Speaker 00

  The trial began with jury selection.

• 45:42Speaker 05

  The saddest part about jury selection, one of the questions they asked was, "Have you or anyone you know been raped or sexually assaulted?" And the amount of jurors who had to be excused because they had in one way or another been affected by sexual assault further fueled me of being like, "Let's go. This idiot is not getting away with this."

• 46:09Speaker 00

  Stephanie took the stand. The prosecutor asked her questions about what she had endured, and she answered them. Her voice was strong and she was in control. Then it was time for Stephanie to be cross-examined by Mark's attorney.

• 46:23Speaker 05

  She clearly did not have a defense because he already admitted guilt.

• 46:29Speaker 00

  So if the facts couldn't be debated, Mark's attorney had one last plan of attack.

• 46:34Speaker 05

  She opened up her entire thing saying, "Stephanie Langlitz is a liar."

• 46:40Speaker 05

  I was like, that is your defense? Let's go. Let's go.

• 46:46Speaker 00

  The cross-examination began.

• 46:48Speaker 05

  She would ask me questions like, "You're saying he met you at a public park? That's crazy." And I'm like, "Yes, it is crazy." There was nothing she could have said that rattled me.

• 47:01Speaker 00

  When the prosecutor was wrapping up, he asked if there was anything else Stephanie wanted to share.

• 47:07Speaker 05

  And I said, "Yeah, I do." As many times as I saw that number pop up in my phone, I could tell you what his phone number was right now. And so the DA goes, "What was it?" And I said, "520-904..." And I looked directly in the eyes of Mark when I said it. I said, "520-904..."

• 47:26Speaker 05

  I remember everything. You will not get away with this. And his face dropped. You could just see the defeat.

• 47:37Speaker 00

  The next day, it was time for the jury to decide whether Mark was innocent or guilty of the 21 charges against him. Stephanie was hopeful that he would be found guilty on at least a few counts. But she didn't want to set her hopes too high.

• 47:52Speaker 05

  Because each one, they have to find me credible for.

• 47:57Speaker 00

  Finally, the jury reached a verdict. Everyone filed back into the courtroom and found their seats.

• 48:05Speaker 05

  He was found guilty on every single count. Every single count. They found him guilty on all 21 counts. I did not expect that. And that was so powerful. These people who are total strangers, they believed me.

• 48:23Speaker 00

  A month later, Stephanie traveled back to Tucson for Mark's sentencing hearing. She shared a victim impact statement.

• 48:31Speaker 05

  You stole my teenage years from me. I didn't get to go to prom. I didn't get to do anything like a teenager does. And instead, I found myself at the bottom of a bottle for many years. And you have affected every relationship of my life. And I said, "Your attorney had no defense? So her defense was to paint me as a liar." This is why so many victims don't come forward, is because they're afraid people aren't going to believe them.

• 48:59Speaker 00

  Later that day, the judge read Mark's sentence aloud. They went through all 21 counts. And for each count he was found guilty of, there was time added to his sentence. Mark Lindrood was sentenced to 66 years in prison.

• 49:16Speaker 05

  This man, at this point, is in his 50s. So he is going to die in jail.

• 49:22Speaker 00

  After the trial, a few students who attended the high school where Mark had been teaching reached out to Stephanie.

• 49:28Speaker 05

  They thanked me for what I did. And they're like, he creeped us out. He was my sister's teacher. And he was saying he was excited for me to be in his class. And we just want to tell you, thank you for protecting us.

• 49:44Speaker 05

  That's why I did it. I know that they're safe. And he will never do this to someone ever again.

• 49:52Speaker 00

  It didn't have to take this long to stop Mark's abuse. Stephanie's high school heard about it while it was happening and failed to properly investigate.

• 50:01Speaker 05

  The school did nothing to protect me. I do think that they are culpable.

• 50:08Speaker 05

  The signs were there, and they missed a lot.

• 50:11Speaker 00

  After 10 years in Los Angeles, Stephanie moved back to Arizona with her son. They live in Phoenix now, where she runs her own creative marketing studio. And in the last few years, Stephanie has formed some close friendships.

• 50:26Speaker 05

  I all of a sudden had this amazing group of women around me. And it was the first time in my entire life that I had girlfriends, like a good, supportive group of girlfriends. We all support each other. We all want the best, and that is so genuine.

• 50:41Speaker 00

  When Stephanie walked into Mark Lindrood's classroom all those years ago, she was alone. She struggled to make friends, and it felt like nobody understood her. But she's not alone anymore. At Stephanie's birthday party this year, one of her friends made a toast. There's a recording of it.

• 51:01Speaker 00

  Her friend raises a glass and talks about all the things she loves and cherishes about Stephanie. And then the rest of her friends jump in to sing "Happy Birthday."

• 51:16Speaker 00

  Stephanie is beaming while tears well in her eyes.

• 51:23Speaker 05

  They don't see me as a victim or survivor of sexual abuse. They see me as who I am today. I am truly happy for the first time.

• 51:36Speaker 00

  We end every weekly episode with the same question. Why do you want to share your story?

• 51:42Speaker 05

  Unfortunately, 20 something years after this happened to me, it still happens. No kid should have to go through this. It wasn't you. You didn't invite this. You didn't open yourself up to this. You were manipulated. You were groomed. You did nothing wrong. There is no shame. There is no guilt. And there really is a lot of power and validation on the other side.

• 52:15Speaker 00

  On the next episode of Betrayal Weekly. I saw this figure standing in the doorway. He was in all black and a Batman mask and just covered head to toe in black clothing. I kept closing and opening my eyes, like, am I really seeing this?

• 52:38Speaker 00

  If you'd like to share your story on Betrayal, please email [email protected]. That is [email protected]. Please note that we are not a mental health organization. If you are in crisis or currently experiencing domestic violence, we encourage you to seek local help or dial 911. Please contact organizations that offer immediate support. In our show notes, we've included a list of US-based resources. You can follow us on Instagram at BetrayalPod or find me at It's Andrea Gunning. To access our newsletter and additional content and to connect with the Betrayal

• 53:20Speaker 00

  community, join our Substack at betrayal.substack.com. We're grateful for your support. One way to show support is by subscribing to our show on Apple Podcasts. And don't forget to rate and review Betrayal. Five-star reviews go a long way. Big thank you to all of our listeners. Betrayal is a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is executive produced by Nancy Glass and Jennifer Fason, hosted and produced by me, Andrea Gunning, written and produced by Olivia Hewitt. Our story editor is Monique LaBord, also produced by Ben Fetterman. Our

• 54:00Speaker 00

  associate producer is Leah Jablow. Production management by Kristen Mulkeri. Booking support by Curry Richmond. Our iHeart team is Ally Perry and Jessica Krychek. Audio editing by Tanner Robbins with additional editing and mixing by Matt Del Vecchio. Betrayal's theme composed by Oliver Baines. Music library provided by MyMusic. And for more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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