Episode 1: The Sin That So Easily Entangles

Vienna Luke grew up in a loving Christian family. All that changed when her brother-in-law entered the picture. Can’t wait for next week’s episode? Hear all episodes of Personally: Agent Layla now, ad-free, on CBC Stories Premium on Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/channel/cbc-stories/id6443681642. https://agentlayla.ca/

• 0:00Speaker 00

  In 2002, Ryan Wedding was an Olympic snowboarder at the top of his game.

• 0:05Speaker 01

  Ryan's style is really gunning it in gold.

• 0:08Speaker 00

  And in less than a minute, it slipped away. But he continued to chase the high.

• 0:14Speaker 02

  Ryan James Wedding. He controls one of the most violent drug trafficking organizations in this world.

• 0:23Speaker 00

  I'm Michelle Shepherd, and from CBC Podcasts and The Toronto Star, The Most Wanted Olympian, available now.

• 0:32Speaker 03

  This is a CBC Podcast.

• 0:35Speaker 00

  This is a memoir about sexual assault. Please listen with care.

• 0:44Speaker 00

  Vienna Luke discovered something the other day. In the eyes of her nine-year-old, she is not cool.

• 0:50Speaker 04

  My daughter is like, why can't you have a cool job?

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  This revelation happened on the drive to school. The nine-year-old compares her mom to her friend's mom, who's an artist.

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  She is creative and she is talented. And yes, she creates beautiful things. She's just like, oh, yeah, I just wish you had a cool job.

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  As far as her nine-year-old can tell, Vienna is wasting her time. She drives around, volunteers for hot lunch at the school, teaches Pilates.

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  Your neighborhood mom. And I'm like, well, I like, I teach fitness. Like, isn't that cool?

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  The nine-year-old has no idea what her mom has really been up to for the better part of the last two decades.

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  I always think that I'm like, oh, sweetheart, if only you knew what I've been like doing

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  in the background for all these years.

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  Someday, when her daughter is older, she'll sit her down, she'll tell her about a day when she did do something cool. Or maybe she'll just play her this podcast.

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  It was a Friday in October 2021. Vienna shuffles the kids out the door to school. She puts on dark sunglasses and a puffer jacket with a big hood. She slides into the back of an SUV. Two plainclothes cops are inside. They've given her a code name. She's Agent Leila. She takes a deep breath. They head to the airport.

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  Vienna gets herself a table at the lounge.

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  How are you today?

• 2:51Speaker 04

  I'm good, thank you.

• 2:52Speaker 05

  I'll let you sit. Let me take this to the back.

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  She tries to blend in. She's wearing a plain white blouse. She's also wearing a hidden microphone. This is the actual recording.

• 3:07Speaker 05

  Are you waiting for a joiner?

• 3:09Speaker 04

  Uh, yeah, I am waiting for someone to join me.

• 3:13Speaker 00

  Around her at other tables, the cops have taken their positions. She's nervous.

• 3:20Speaker 04

  My heart is starting to race a little bit faster.

• 3:26Speaker 00

  A few floors above them in a hotel room, there are even more police, the ones running this operation. They're listening to a feed transmitting from a microphone in Vienna's purse. There's one for backup in her bra. They hear her test the signal.

• 3:42Speaker 04

  Hey there, hey there, hey there. I'm just talking on the radio voice.

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  They hang on every word.

• 3:48Speaker 04

  Oh, I think the guy's here.

• 3:51Speaker 00

  And right on schedule, her target walks toward her table.

• 3:56Speaker 04

  I think he's here. Can you hear me? The name looks exactly the same.

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  Last time they were alone together, he did something she can't remember. But she knows it was wrong.

• 4:09Speaker 04

  Okay, so.

• 4:12Speaker 04

  Yeah, obviously. Haven't really wanted to do this for quite some time. Who, and we're gonna take this at my pace.

• 4:25Speaker 04

  And.

• 4:26Speaker 05

  Can I just ask before you start? Are you recording this?

• 4:30Speaker 04

  No.

• 4:32Speaker 00

  Of course, she is recording. That's what we're listening to. This time, she's the one with the secret plan. She needs him to confess, and she needs it on tape.

• 4:45Speaker 04

  So I hope that you're ready to tell me, like, the actual facts. So are you. Do you mean what you say it, what you want to be honest?

• 4:55Speaker 05

  This is the time.

• 4:56Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 4:57Speaker 05

  So you will get everything you need from me today.

• 4:59Speaker 04

  Okay, good. Then I want to hear everything.

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  This is the story of how that Pilates teaching mom became a secret agent in her own case.

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  So bring it on. Let's go. Let's get a confession.

• 5:20Speaker 04

  You called his bluff. That's the whole point.

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  I played him.

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  You played him so hard.

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  And then he left and was like, holy crap.

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  It's about how exposing the truth forced the people she loves to pick a side.

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  You know what? Fuck it. I hope he gets tons of years in prison. It's the only thing that's ever gonna make any change in this family.

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  And it's about what it takes to tell the truth.

• 5:47Speaker 06

  There's nothing more like life-giving than just being like, hey, I get to tell the truth, not to spite anyone, not out of revenge, but out of just like owning my life.

• 6:03Speaker 00

  For CBC's Personally, I'm Jodi Martinson, and this is Agent Layla.

• 6:09Speaker 06

  And the fact is, is that, oh, my goodness. I'm sorry, but he must be so regretting meeting me at the airport.

• 6:18Speaker 00

  Episode one, The Sin That So Easily Entangles.

• 6:30Speaker 00

  Vienna Luke was innocent at age 20. Her world felt safe. She was excited, even euphoric, and not in the way other young people might mean.

• 6:42Speaker 04

  I went to Bible school in Europe. So it was on, the general public might not think this, but a little bit of a high in terms of, like, the world is your oyster and so much positivity and motivation and, you know, where am I gonna end up? What's like next for me?

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  She had made some great friends. They banded together to go backpacking. And everyone agreed to make a stopover in Rome so she could run her first marathon.

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  My kind of, I guess you could say, like, life verse at that time was like Hebrews 12:1, which is all about kind of running the race.

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  Hebrews 12:1. Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses.

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  Let us throw off all that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.

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  Vienna loved that verse so much, she even got it engraved on the back of one of her favorite things.

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  It would have been like on my metallic blue giant iPod. I wish we still had iPods like that, first generation.

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  When Vienna finished the marathon, she sent an email home.

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  Hey, guys, I did it. Actually, it was all God. I ran the race. I missed you all throughout it. I just kept thinking of just how amazing you all are. I love you guys. From your daughter, sister, and Jesus lover, Vienna. P.S. I just thought the whole way, I am running for Jesus.

• 8:19Speaker 00

  Vienna's parents wrote back right away.

• 8:21Speaker 04

  Great job, Vienna. Praise God. We're so proud of you. We're so pleased you had your friends with you cheering and supporting you along the way. Love you lots, Mom and Dad.

• 8:33Speaker 04

  There was trust in our relationship then. I didn't have any reason to doubt them or to question them. And, um, yeah, it was just simpler.

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  And when I think about the three of us girls, church was part of our lives.

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  This is Shaughnessy. She's the middle sister.

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  Reading the Bible, praying, listening to Christian music. We just never, we didn't drink, we didn't smoke, we didn't have sex. And we never, those things were not discussed.

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  Vienna and Shaughnessy have an older sister. We're going to call her Sunny. Vienna was 10 when Sunny started dating a guy named Justin Sewell. He's the first and only guy Sunny ever brought home. And when he first showed up, most members of the family were smitten.

• 9:25Speaker 04

  Yeah, he played rugby. He was the student council vice president, not president.

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  Yeah, I mean, I think in his, like, realm, kind of a big deal. And my sister's dating this guy, I'm thinking, oh, wow. Like, yeah, this seems like the perfect guy, totally.

• 9:46Speaker 07

  I remember thinking, the guy ate so much spaghetti.

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  Shaughnessy was not won over.

• 9:52Speaker 07

  I was like, this is crazy, because my dad would get like swatted on the head or anyone if we went back for more. So I remember thinking, wow, that guy.

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  He's just eating so much spaghetti and they're fine with it.

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  The Luke's house was built on a big lot in a Vancouver suburb. When Justin would visit, he'd do yard work. One time, he restained the kitchen cabinets. He quickly earned himself a spot on the Luke family's annual Christmas card. Within a year, Justin and Sunny were engaged and married.

• 10:27Speaker 00

  And so the years ticked by. Vienna grew up. She graduated high school. Justin became a veterinarian. He and Sunny moved to Northern B.C. to start building a business in Justin's hometown of Fort St. John. They also start building a family. They have their first children, two boys. And even though Sunny, Justin and their kids live so far away, the big extended family stays connected. They spend Christmases together in Mexico, cruises, phone calls. So when Vienna comes back from Bible school, all high on that experience and the marathon, she moves up to Fort St. John to live with her oldest sister and Justin. She gets a job and starts to save some money, but she doesn't have a car.

• 11:12Speaker 04

  So I was completely reliant on them to get me to work.

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  She asks her dad to hunt around for a used car. She'll pick it up when the whole crew comes back together in Vancouver for the wedding of a close family friend. She and Justin would need to get back right away for work. They could drive her new car, a black Jetta, back up north to Fort St. John. The two of them alone.

• 11:40Speaker 04

  There wouldn't have been any reason to think like, driving up with my brother-in-law, that that would be like a questionable idea. So I think at the time, it was just, yeah, normal.

• 12:01Speaker 00

  Since they're driving, they can bring a big rug Justin and Sunny had bought for their home. It went all the way up to the front seats, between both front seats, and it was quite large. So it was rolled up. And then we would have all said, oh, goodbye. And then they would have gone on their drive up to Fort St. John, which is like a 15-hour drive. Yeah, 15 hours. It's a monumental drive pointed north into the vast wilderness of British Columbia. And so Justin and Vienna leave the sprawl of Metro Vancouver in their rearview. Justin mostly drove. He steered that little Jetta along increasingly lonely stretches of highway between towns. The mountains are epic.

• 12:45Speaker 00

  The river valleys are wide. And from inside that little black car, the sense that they are alone in the world really starts to grow.

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  Then, many kilometers behind them, and still many to go, Justin reaches his arm over the rug and takes hold of Vienna's hand.

• 13:09Speaker 04

  It felt very awkward. I think in the moment, I just kind of froze and went with it.

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  It sounds so small, but remember who we're talking about here. Vienna had never even been on a date.

• 13:28Speaker 04

  Why is this happening? Why is he holding my hand? Why am I holding it back? Like, why, why am I doing this?

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  For long stretches, Justin held Vienna's hand, interlocked fingers, the kind of hand-holding couples do.

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  To add to it, which I am not proud of, he didn't just hold my hand in the car, but we like stopped and he like bought CDs at Walmart.

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  They walked to the CD aisle, hands intertwined.

• 14:02Speaker 04

  So we picked out CDs. And of course, they're like John Mayer, Hootie and the Blowfish. I was kind of like, what the hell is happening? But I wasn't doing anything about it. But I really was so confused because I was like, wait a second. When did you, when did you get the idea that I, like, I'm your sister-in-law? I guess the question is that I asked myself then, and I continue to wonder is, why didn't I speak up? Why didn't I pull away? Why, why did I just freeze?

• 14:42Speaker 00

  Vienna and Justin arrive home in Fort St. John. Justin and Sunny's house had a long gravel driveway. It was outside the city itself in a rural area on a road called Hilltop. It's a big home with a yard they cut with a riding lawnmower. It's quiet. It's isolated. They'll be alone for a week until Sunny gets home with the kids. They get back to their jobs.

• 15:11Speaker 00

  Then one evening, there's a lightning storm.

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  Justin calls down the stairs to Vienna's bedroom. He asks her to come watch the storm with him through the big living room windows. And then Vienna does something that she still can't explain.

• 15:27Speaker 04

  I don't know why, but I just like laid down on the rug, on the carpet in their living room. And then he laid down beside me and started rubbing my back.

• 15:45Speaker 04

  I just remember like rubbing, stroking my back, feeling like, yeah, like my skin was crawling. Like I wanted to get out of my body and I wanted to get up. And I felt very stuck, but also very embarrassed. Like, why did I do this? How do I get up?

• 16:16Speaker 00

  Vienna thinks it went on for maybe five minutes. It felt excruciating.

• 16:23Speaker 04

  And I don't know if I want to include this, but I will say it anyways.

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  Besides Justin holding her hand earlier that week in the car, Vienna had never been touched by a guy.

• 16:33Speaker 04

  This would have been my first experience, my first feelings of probably being turned on, even though I didn't want to feel that way.

• 16:52Speaker 00

  Vienna, that's so brave of you to share. Like, you hear that more from men who've been through assault, right? They get an erection. And it's really disturbing to them because exactly what you've described. I've never heard a woman talk about it, though.

• 17:11Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah. My body was naturally, because something was being done in a certain way, feeling turned on. But my brain was telling it otherwise and was like, I shouldn't feel this way because this is my brother-in-law. Like, I don't like him like that. Like, this was very extreme in, in the, the fight between what my body was saying and what my mind and brain was saying.

• 17:56Speaker 00

  Vienna lies there on the carpet. She's experiencing arousal for the first time. She's sick with herself for feeling it with a trusted family member. And she's totally frozen.

• 18:09Speaker 04

  And then eventually, I muster the courage, the strength to get up and start to make my way downstairs.

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  And as she walks away from Justin toward the staircase, he calls out to her, "I love you."

• 18:29Speaker 04

  Yeah, at that point, I'm not going to be like, what the hell? Like, why are you telling me you love me? Because I feel like I'm also in a little bit deep. He's held my hand. I did nothing. This thunder and lightning happens. I'm invited up. I lay down. Like, I did that.

• 18:49Speaker 00

  So Vienna says it back.

• 18:53Speaker 04

  Trying to just kind of get out of there and make as little deal about of this as possible, just without even thinking, very nonchalantly, like, yeah, you're my brother. Love you too. I'm get out of here.

• 19:12Speaker 00

  She gets back to her bedroom, closes the door, and lies down on her bed.

• 19:19Speaker 04

  I think that might have been one of my roughest nights going to sleep. And I remember just like shaking.

• 19:36Speaker 04

  Yeah, my body shaking and my teeth like chattering, like I was shivering and just like hoping to fall asleep.

• 19:48Speaker 00

  For years after this, when she tells this story, including in therapy, and one time after she holds hands with someone on a date, Vienna's teeth chatter and her whole body shivers.

• 20:08Speaker 00

  How do I recover from a friendship breakup?

• 20:10Speaker 01

  How come there's nowhere to hang out anymore? Why do I feel lonely when I can communicate with anyone and everyone through my phone? These are the questions that you're not alone in asking. And that's where our new podcast, Cornerpiece, comes in to start small on life's biggest questions. I'm Taha and with my friends Sabrina and Melissa, we're going to explore life's ungooglable questions on this new podcast with TED. Come hang out with us on Cornerpiece with new episodes every other Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts.

• 20:45Speaker 00

  So, all of that was on their first couple of nights alone. Sometime later that week, Justin presents Vienna with another idea to pass their time in that big house.

• 20:57Speaker 04

  Oh, hey, what about, what about getting drunk? So you can experience what it feels like to do that in a safe place.

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  He'll mix the drinks, she'll be able to test them out.

• 21:14Speaker 04

  The crazy thing is, is that I don't think I really ever like had any desire to get drunk. I was scared of what it would feel like.

• 21:27Speaker 00

  Even though she was feeling lukewarm to the whole idea, it didn't sound totally out of left field to her. She knew another Christian girl who had done the same thing with someone she trusted.

• 21:38Speaker 04

  It wasn't as though he like pressured me. I just was, I was just going with it or I was, yeah, taking the bait.

• 21:51Speaker 00

  So they go about their days as usual. And then the evening arrives.

• 21:57Speaker 04

  I don't remember what time I got home. I don't remember what we had for dinner, whether I changed after work. I just remember him mixing me drinks.

• 22:11Speaker 00

  He makes something blended, like a daiquiri or a margarita. And he makes her a liqueur-based drink with kalua. Vienna sits at the dining room table. She's not watching him closely. He made three or four drinks, but she only sips. Maybe altogether, she drinks the equivalent of one.

• 22:31Speaker 04

  Basically, I'm not fully engaged in this exercise. I'm not trying to finish these drinks. I'm not trying to get drunk. I'm just like, okay, yep, this is what's going on. I'll drink these drinks. Yeah, I'm going along with it. But he's not, he's certainly not drinking these drinks that he's given to me. He's not like, oh, I'll pour you a glass, I'll pour me a glass, like none of that.

• 22:57Speaker 00

  There was country music playing. She starts to feel what she imagined it must feel like to be drunk. They go to the living room and start dancing together, two-stepping.

• 23:09Speaker 04

  The dancing does not feel, and maybe it's because I'm already a little bit like out of it. The dancing does not feel sexual at all. It is very like friendly.

• 23:22Speaker 00

  But then, the drinking plan takes a turn.

• 23:27Speaker 04

  I lose feeling in my legs. And I remember, I mean, he would have been like still holding on to me. And then I kind of collapsed onto the ottoman.

• 23:45Speaker 00

  As the world goes black, a few thoughts flash through Vienna's mind. Of all the things in the world, she thinks about how bad she feels for her brother-in-law. It had been a hard year for him. His parents separated and his sister got sick. Then she thinks to herself, if this is what getting drunk feels like, it is not worth it. This feels horrible. And then she has one final thought.

• 24:13Speaker 04

  I just love Jesus. My 20-year-old self was kind of like, I don't need booze, I don't need drugs, I got God. And then I did say out loud a couple of times on repeat, I just love Jesus, I just love Jesus, I just love Jesus.

• 24:39Speaker 04

  And then I woke up in my bed. And I remember it was like I was not in my body. And it was like I was looking at myself from above to my brother-in-law taking off my underwear.

• 25:06Speaker 04

  And even in that moment, thinking, okay, like, why is he undressing me? Why down to my underwear? Like, this doesn't make any sense. There must be a reason that my underwear are being taken off. Like, he's gonna redress me, he's actually helping me.

• 25:33Speaker 00

  The next morning, Vienna wakes up feeling rotten.

• 25:36Speaker 04

  I am sick to my stomach. Like, it wasn't like nausea, it was like muscle pain. Like, my core was like tight. And like, I felt like I just wanted to be in fetal position.

• 25:56Speaker 00

  Eventually Vienna drags herself upstairs to call in sick to work.

• 26:01Speaker 04

  He, my brother-in-law, has left me money, exactly what I would have made that day.

• 26:11Speaker 00

  For a few days, Vienna's life becomes a bit of a blur. Justin showed up at work to wash her car. A coworker looked at her like, that's strange, the kind of thing a boyfriend does. She's doing a lot of what she calls shelving.

• 26:27Speaker 04

  I think it's that I just can't even admit that to myself. There's no part of me is like bringing that up with him. Oh, hey, you did this to me. I'm just shelving, yeah, that is being shelved.

• 26:39Speaker 00

  She tries to pretend everything is normal. But inside, Vienna is spinning out.

• 26:44Speaker 04

  Just blaming myself for all of it, like, why, like, why? My fault, my fault, my fault. Like, how did we end up here?

• 26:53Speaker 00

  She and Justin go for a drive, and in the car, she confronts him.

• 26:59Speaker 04

  I basically told Justin, like, something happened between us. I can't, I can't figure it out. I don't know what happened. But I do know that I, that it wasn't right, that it was a violation of my, I mean, I didn't even see it as a violation of me at that point. I saw it as a violation of like his relationship with my sister. But ultimately, I kind of called him out and said, hey, it's on you to tell her about it.

• 27:34Speaker 00

  Justin tells Vienna, no. He's consulted one of his spiritual mentors. And that guy has advised him it's best to bury it, not tell Sunny. No need to rock the boat.

• 27:45Speaker 04

  Almost like he's like, nah, it's no big deal. It's not worth like telling your, I don't have to tell your sister.

• 27:52Speaker 00

  It's in this moment that a line gets drawn between secrets and truth and who they serve. Justin wants to keep it secret. Vienna thinks Sunny needs to know, but she can't do it herself.

• 28:05Speaker 04

  I didn't say, well, if you don't tell her, I'm telling her. I didn't really want to confront all of the emotions that I was dealing with. So, yeah, I'll believe you, I'll take you for your word and I'll assume that you know better. You're older and that you would do the right thing, too.

• 28:27Speaker 00

  Sunny and the boys arrive back home. On the surface, life goes back to normal. But for Vienna, the psychological work of living with a secret begins, the shelving.

• 28:38Speaker 04

  As much as I'm trying to shelve the most deepest, darkest part of it, which is that him removing my underwear, it's a real, like continual flashbacks.

• 28:52Speaker 00

  Why do you think your body woke you up so that you made that one memory?

• 29:02Speaker 04

  I don't know. I mean, I think it was so invasive that I think the invasiveness of it woke me up. I mean, yeah, which is like so, the most painful memory of it all. But also is like the extremely profound that if I didn't have that, like I would have nothing to even be able to call out and say, you did more, you did more to me than just get me drunk. Yeah, I wonder, it's hard in like a supernatural way. I'm like, oh, was it God, like, kind of, or what? Yeah.

• 29:42Speaker 00

  Say that part, like that part of you that says there was a greater reason.

• 29:47Speaker 04

  I think I'm hesitant to like go there because I feel like my idea of God is that he is safety and protection. Was it God? I, I woke myself up. I knew whether it was the invasiveness of it or what. Like, I knew, I knew I needed that piece of information. Did I have that foresight? Was it an instinct, a deep knowing that, whoa, like, you're gonna need this?

• 30:23Speaker 00

  It's the end of summer. Vienna moves back to her parents' place outside Vancouver, over 1,000 kilometers away from Justin, Sunny, and that house in Fort St. John. For months, she fights a war between her body that remembers and her brain that's trying to forget. At this point, it's about 10 years before the Me Too social movement. The iPhone has just been released and Facebook has just opened to the public. In Vienna's vocabulary, it was either nothing or rape. There was no language for what's in between. Then, on autopilot, she travels to Florida to go on a family cruise. That means for the first time since she's moved back home,

• 31:08Speaker 00

  she'll be coming face to face with Justin again. When they say their goodbyes at the end of the trip, Shaunacy, the middle sister, notices something is off. I remember like it was yesterday. I watched, and I don't know why, I happened to watch it.

• 31:26Speaker 02

  And that I wasn't busy hugging someone else, but I saw the way that, and I, it's very specific, the way he hugged her.

• 31:34Speaker 00

  Justin held Vienna a little tighter and a little longer than anyone else.

• 31:38Speaker 04

  I think he like picked me up and hugged me.

• 31:41Speaker 02

  And I think that's strange. That's prolonged. I knew something was going on.

• 31:49Speaker 00

  Shaughnessy describes herself as like a dog with a bone. She's a deeply intuitive person who trusts her gut. So while everyone around her doesn't notice what's going on or pretends not to, she does. And once they're back home, she starts to ask questions.

• 32:05Speaker 02

  The next scene that I can remember like it was yesterday is where in my parents, it's called a utility room. It's a narrow room with a washer and dryer.

• 32:12Speaker 04

  I think she was like doing laundry.

• 32:15Speaker 02

  And then I just said, I was very forceful. I said, something's going on between you two. You gotta tell me what's going on.

• 32:21Speaker 04

  Well, I just remember like freezing and being like, she knows. Like, how does she know? No, she can't know this. No one can know this.

• 32:31Speaker 02

  And I remember saying, something's going on between you two and you need to tell me. I was like very firm.

• 32:38Speaker 04

  She definitely pulled it out of me. I did not volunteer.

• 32:42Speaker 02

  And then she told me, she was like, it was in June and he got me drunk. And she didn't say much more than that.

• 32:50Speaker 04

  The fact that he'd taken off my underwear. I couldn't divulge it. Like, it was just too, it was too painful. I told her like the bare minimum.

• 33:04Speaker 00

  So in other words, Vienna hasn't told the most damning part. The sole memory she has of what happened after she blacked out. But for Shaughnessy, knowing Vienna so well, even the idea he was giving her drinks is enough.

• 33:20Speaker 02

  The only thing I knew is he, something inappropriate happened, but she couldn't, didn't want to disclose it or couldn't disclose it. And I didn't even know how to ask. But in my moral compass brain, the minute I heard those things, I was like, I don't need to know anymore. I believe you and we got to tell someone about this because this was wrong. Whatever happened to you, or he did, was totally wrong.

• 33:43Speaker 04

  It wasn't like, oh yeah, I got that off my chest. It was like, whoa, once it's like out, it can take on, like, what is it going to become? She probably was like, we're going to tell mom and dad.

• 33:57Speaker 02

  Oh, we got to tell mom and dad. That's what I said.

• 34:00Speaker 04

  Like, this is what we're doing. And I was just like, like a deer in headlights.

• 34:05Speaker 02

  Yeah. Cause I thought, oh, well, sure, surely we're going to go to them and they're going to help us.

• 34:09Speaker 04

  I think in going to my parents, even though I wasn't the one like initiating it, it was my sister. There was like a hope that they would see, like, know the person that I am.

• 34:25Speaker 00

  Vienna and Shaughnessy wait until their parents get home from Florida. They've stayed a little longer to spend time with Justin and Sunny and the grandkids. Vienna tells her mom and dad a few pieces of information. She says Justin held her hand, that he touched her the night of the thunderstorm, and that he got her drunk.

• 34:45Speaker 04

  If their response had been different, I might have been able to open up. But I think because their response was, whoa, we don't know what to do. I knew that I couldn't share more.

• 35:02Speaker 00

  Vienna does not tell them Justin removed her underwear.

• 35:07Speaker 04

  But I was smarter than I gave myself credit for, smarter than they all gave me credit for, in that I knew how important that one detail I had was. And I knew that it would be falling on ears that weren't ready to hear it, that weren't ready to acknowledge or inquire. And then they call him.

• 35:33Speaker 00

  They call him right away?

• 35:34Speaker 04

  Right away.

• 35:35Speaker 00

  Like that day?

• 35:36Speaker 04

  Yeah. So my dad, I don't even think my mom got on the phone. My dad called him. I can't hear. But then I get handed the phone. And I have to talk to him.

• 35:55Speaker 00

  She pleads with Justin for the second time now to tell Sunny what happened.

• 36:00Speaker 04

  And I remember him saying like, so basically you have me up against the wall. Like, I have to do this. You're giving me no other choice. And I was like, yeah. Yeah, you have to tell her.

• 36:12Speaker 00

  Vienna doesn't know if Justin told Sunny or not. But whatever happened, Sunny does not reach out to Vienna to hear her side of the story.

• 36:22Speaker 04

  So at that point, I'm like, even at 20, I'm thinking like, she blames me. Ultimately, my parents are, I mean, I can kind of see from their perspective that they're like, okay, wait a second, like very confused. Really what I needed was somebody to be like, oh my goodness, we know you. Wow. Something is terribly wrong here because this is out of character. My mom, it's like, almost like she forgot, like completely who I was. Like,

• 37:04Speaker 04

  it was easier to take Justin for his word. He was the one with the, that knew what happened. He got to write the story.

• 37:15Speaker 02

  And then in that moment, therein lies the history of our family with Justin Sewell, where he is able to create the narrative. And then my parents are basically believing his version of the events.

• 37:30Speaker 00

  Vienna and Shaughnessy's parents didn't want to talk about this for the podcast. But in writing, they say that their effort to uncover the full story was unsuccessful. And so lacking information and clarity, they had no path forward. They felt uneasy about what they knew, but didn't pursue things further.

• 37:50Speaker 04

  And I guess all I could tell myself is that I must be confused. This must not have, this isn't a big deal.

• 38:03Speaker 00

  But that little memory of him taking off her underwear, it kept whispering to Vienna's conscience.

• 38:12Speaker 04

  My intuition was ahead of me in that I knew, I knew that what I had, I was saving it for a rainy day, that if that piece of information got back to him, then he just had the upper hand.

• 38:42Speaker 00

  For six years, the truth stays buried. Vienna feels lost to herself. And what really happened that night is almost lost to time. But then people start to ask questions.

• 38:57Speaker 05

  Why are you alone with this guy? And his wife's out of town and the family's like orchestrated to be somewhere else?

• 39:05Speaker 02

  She's like, exactly like this. Well, you know, there's pictures, right? There's pictures of your sister. I'm like, what?

• 39:11Speaker 00

  Vienna and Shaughnessy find people who can help.

• 39:15Speaker 07

  My whole life, I have been a champion for the underdog. It's why I do my job. Take control. You are a strong, you aren't the girl who got taken advantage of. You're

• 39:23Speaker 00

  the mom of two and strong woman. And people who get in their way.

• 39:29Speaker 04

  We're family, but it's not a trusting relationship anymore.

• 39:35Speaker 00

  That's in the next episodes of Agent Layla.

• 39:45Speaker 00

  Agent Layla was produced in consultation with Vienna Luke and Shaughnessy Luke. The series is written and reported by me, Jodi Martinson. Sophie Woodruff is associate producer. Jeff Turner is our senior producer. Mixing and sound design by Graham McDonald and Julie and Yuzi Ali, with additional mixing support from Evan Kelly. Anna Ashitay is our coordinating producer. Executive producers are Cecil Fernandez and Chris Oak. Tonya Springer is the senior manager. Arif Noorani is the director of CBC Podcasts. Tune in next week for an all new episode of Personally, Agent Layla. Or you can binge the whole series by subscribing

• 40:27Speaker 00

  to our CBC Stories Premium channel on Apple Podcasts. Just click on the link in the show description. If you've liked this episode, please share it with your friends. That's the number one way people find out about good podcasts, and it would mean a lot to us.