The Girls: “If it was your daughter”

Summary

Podcast Summary: Embedded — The Girls: “If it was your daughter”

Episode Air Date: May 21, 2026
Host: Kelly McEvers, NPR
Reporter: Jess Clark
Series By: Dig, Louisville Public Media

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Episode Overview

This episode continues NPR Embedded’s "The Girls", focusing on allegations of sexual abuse against Louisville educators Ronnie and Donnie Stoner. The episode shifts the narrative from school-based allegations to the deeply personal account of alleged abuse within Ronnie’s own family, centered on his daughter, Arielle Stoner. Through harrowing personal storytelling and expert analysis, the episode investigates how multiple systems—law enforcement, schools, child protective services, and family—failed to protect Arielle.

Content Warning: This episode contains accounts of child sex abuse and includes strong language.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Arielle Stoner’s Story: Abuse and Silence

• Initial Disclosure: Arielle, Ronnie Stoner’s daughter, reports the abuse started when she was 11 and continued for 6 years (03:59–06:48).
• Summary of Abuse:
  • Began with groping at age 11, escalated to repeated rape over the years (05:11–06:35).
  • Abuse often happened in the family home, sometimes while others were present but unaware.
• Reasons for Not Disclosing Sooner:
  • Fear of hurting her mother and older sister (07:07).
  • Kept silent even when prompted by her mother during mother-daughter talks.

“I was scared to tell her because...I didn’t want to hurt...my big sister and her was the two people...they would be hurt the most.” —Arielle Stoner (07:09)

2. Reporting to Police: A Broken First Response

• Running Away and Disclosure: At age 17, Arielle, scared of her father’s reaction after she attempted to run away, called the police and reported the abuse (09:03).
• Police Doubt: The responding officer’s first reaction was skepticism about Arielle’s motivations:

  “I hope you’re not just saying this just so you can run away, because these are serious allegations.” —Police Officer (09:28)

• Process Problems:
  • Investigations by police and child protective services operate in silos, often re-traumatizing victims (11:04–11:12).
  • Delays: Nearly a month passed before Arielle’s forensic interview; protocols recommend as soon as possible after disclosure (16:12–16:41).

3. The Child Advocacy Center (CAC) and System Gaps

• Child-Friendly Environment: Louisville’s CAC is described as intentionally welcoming and non-threatening (12:15–12:29).
• Forensic Interview:
  • Interviews are recorded and observed by the multidisciplinary investigative team (13:22).
  • Arielle’s interview: She was too upset to verbally describe what happened, so wrote her answers (15:26).
• Expert Analysis: Jerry Seitz, national CAC expert, notes flagrant lapses:
  • Delayed forensic interview and evidence collection.
  • No medical exam or offered services for Arielle.
  • Failure to promptly check on Arielle’s half-sister, another child in the home (16:56–18:02).
• Policy Shortcomings: Kentucky lacks clear regulations requiring police or social services to notify schools if an employee is accused of child sex abuse outside school (31:19–32:29).

4. Systemic Failures: Case Mishandling

• Investigation Lapses:
  • Police investigation limited mostly to Arielle’s interview and a few phone calls (18:18).
  • Police never made clear to Arielle’s half-sister’s mother the real risk or details of the allegations. The half-sister never received a forensic interview (21:12–22:22).
• Lack of Communication: School administration was not notified and Ronnie remained in contact with students for more than a year (28:04–29:26).

5. Recantation Under Pressure

• Family Pressure:
  • Arielle was urged by her aunt to recant the allegations, even provided a lawyer to formalize an affidavit (24:00–25:41).
  • Arielle signed the sworn statement under emotional duress, hoping to move on with her life.

“I did it anyways because I just really wanted to put that past me...I did not want to deal with that.” —Arielle Stoner (24:11)

• Systemic Inattention to Recantation:
  • Best practice is to investigated why a survivor recants, but in Arielle’s case, authorities accepted her affidavit at face value and closed the case (26:35–27:12).

6. Ronnie's Continued Presence in Schools

• Ronnie remained working with students until a civil lawsuit—unrelated to the family allegations—finally prompted his reassignment (15 months after Arielle's report) (35:15–36:15).
• The reason for his reassignment was never relayed to him; neither he nor his family knew which allegation led to his removal (36:23).

7. Attempts to Close the Case

• Ronnie’s Girlfriend Pressures Detective:
  • Jamie Issus, referring to herself as Arielle’s stepmother and a social worker, repeatedly contacted police to close the case after Arielle’s recantation (37:07–43:49).
  • Detective Heller offered to close the case quickly after reviewing the affidavit, showing little inclination to investigate further (42:30–43:08).

“If we can expedite this process...I would greatly appreciate it in every way possible. ... You are a blessing.” —Jamie Issus to Detective Heller (41:07, 43:05)

8. Arielle’s Reflections and Ongoing Trauma

• Arielle expresses frustration and betrayal not only by her father but by every institution and family member who failed to act.

“They failed us just like everybody else failed us...If that was your daughter, what would you have done?...It’s frustrating.” —Arielle Stoner (48:22)

• The episode closes with Arielle and other survivors feeling that only they can protect themselves due to persistent systemic failures.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Systemic Failure:

  “Both systems, criminal justice and child protection systems, are absolutely overwhelmed with their workload... So oftentimes...people will cut corners and move on. ... Her writing an affidavit just tied it up in a nice, you know, little package for him, and they were able to file it away and move on.” —Jerry Seitz (27:12)

• Arielle’s Voice:

  “Your brother raped me. And y’all just living life like I never existed.” —Arielle Stoner, text to aunt (23:16)

• Expert on Recantation:

  “When a child recants, then it’s up to the team, the same investigators, to look into that recantation and determine what were the circumstances of the recantation.” —Jerry Seitz (26:35)

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Timestamps of Important Segments

• 03:59–06:35: Arielle describes the beginnings and escalation of the abuse.
• 09:03–09:43: Arielle discloses abuse to police; officer responds with doubt.
• 12:15–13:43: Walkthrough of CAC and forensic interview process.
• 16:12–18:02: Delayed and inadequate investigation flagged by expert.
• 21:12–22:22: Investigation into Arielle’s half-sister delayed and incomplete.
• 24:11–25:41: Arielle’s recantation and signing of the affidavit.
• 27:12: Expert analysis on recantation and overburdened systems.
• 35:15–36:15: Ronnie reassigned after lawsuit, not family allegations.
• 37:07–43:49: Jamie Issus’ call to police pressing to close the case.
• 48:22: Arielle on the emotional toll of repeated institutional failure.

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Analysis & Broader Implications

• This episode demonstrates the compounding effects of institutional neglect and systemic holes in safeguarding children, especially when abusers hold positions of authority or trust.
• The lack of clear policies for inter-agency communication allowed someone under police investigation for child sexual abuse to remain in contact with students.
• Survivors are routinely doubted, unsupported, or pressured to retract their accounts, resulting in unresolved trauma and missed opportunities for justice.
• The episode foreshadows broader investigative failings in Louisville’s handling of child sex abuse, setting up future coverage in the series.

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End Note

Embedded’s “The Girls” series offers an unflinching, empathetic window into the personal consequences of systemic failures—through Arielle’s voice, expert perspectives, and a procedural lens, this episode ultimately asks: "If it was your daughter, what would you do?"

Transcript

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[Jess Clark]

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[Kelly McEvers]

hey, I'm Kelly McEvers and this is embedded from NPR. We've been sharing a series called the Girls. It's the latest series by the podcast Dig from Louisville Public Media, and you're about to hear the third episode in the series. As a reminder, both Ronnie and Donnie Stoner deny all allegations against them and decline to speak to reporter Jess Clark. This episode introduces us to a different kind of accusation against one of the Stoner siblings. It's not about how they treated one of their students, but someone even closer to home. Heads up that there is some cursing in this episode. Here's reporter Jess Clark.

[NPR Content Warning Announcer]

A listener note this story contains accounts of child sex abuse.

[Jess Clark]

This is DIG from the Kentucky center for Investigative Reporting. Jessica I'm Jess Clark. In the last two episodes you heard about how Ronnie and Donnie Stoner allegedly abused a student at a small Christian school in Louisville, Kentucky and then moved on to the public school district Jefferson County Public Schools. Donnie got a teaching job at a top middle school and became football coach at one of the most prestigious high schools in the state. And Ronnie was recognized with a district wide award for his work with vulnerable youth. But the shiny exterior did not reflect what several teen girls say was happening behind closed doors, that in reality these twin brothers were allegedly predators who used their positions to get close to their female students, groom them and abuse them, causing life changing trauma. At least two girls went to school administrators about Ronnie, but JCPS continued to promote him. In this episode, you're going to hear from another alleged survivor who went to police and how the entity that sworn to protect and serve let her down.

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[Arielle Stoner]

N E R and I'm

[Jess Clark]

21, Arielle Stoner is Ronnie Stoner's daughter.

[Arielle Stoner]

I lived with my dad my whole life as far as back I can remember, but I know I was with him for at least since I was a baby. My abuse started in sixth grade.

[Jess Clark]

Arielle was in sixth grade at Newburgh Middle School, where her father worked. She was 11 years old when Rani found out about a fake Instagram page with Ariel's picture on it. Whoever made the account pretended to be Arielle and described sexual acts she supposedly wanted to do with a boy in class. It was mean, the kind of cyberbullying that often happens in schools these days. When Arielle got home that night, her father's girlfriend at the time was the first to address it.

[Arielle Stoner]

I remember she sitting me down and asking, asking me, talking to me about the messages, asking me was it me? And I was telling her was it me? And she didn't believe me.

[Jess Clark]

She left. And then Ariel says her father, Ronnie, called her into his darkened bedroom. He asked her about being on social media she wasn't supposed to be. Then he took out his phone.

[Arielle Stoner]

He proceeded to show me the messages and after he showed me the messages, he sat me down on the bed.

[Jess Clark]

Ariel says he raised up her shirt and groped her breasts. She was 11 years old and he

[Arielle Stoner]

asked me how does this feel? And I didn't respond to him and I just sat there and just was like in shock I guess. So I didn't say nothing. And after that it's a blur.

[Jess Clark]

She does remember her father telling her not to say anything about what happened after that. Ariel says the groping happened consistently.

[Arielle Stoner]

He would wake me up in the morning times and that's when it would happen. He would touch on me and stuff and my stepbrother at the time and his mom would be asleep the summer

[Jess Clark]

before her freshman year, Ronnie and Ariel moved to a new home. Rani's new girlfriend, a woman named Jamie Issus, started spending a lot of time at the house. She was a youth service center coordinator for jcps, like Rani would become. After the move, Ariel says, Ronnie started raping her vaginally.

[Arielle Stoner]

Nine times out of ten, we were alone. Sometimes it happened. I can remember Jamie was in a shower. A few times it happened, or my little sister was there. She would be sleeping her room or just whenever he found the opportunity and a chance to do it, while no one was in the same room as usual. So it definitely happened when other people was there.

[Jess Clark]

The abuse went on for six years, Ariel says, and she told no one. Even when her mom sat her and her sisters down and said that if anyone ever sexually abused them, they needed to tell her.

[Arielle Stoner]

She said to me and my sisters, if anybody ever touch y', all, I don't care who it is, let me know. And when she said that, I remember I went. I ran in the room. I went in the room crying because it was happening to me, but I didn't say anything. Like, I wanted to say something so bad, but I didn't.

[Jess Clark]

Do you remember why you didn't tell her?

[Arielle Stoner]

I was scared to tell her because I. I didn't want to hurt. I didn't want her to be hurt. My. My big sister and her was the two people, the two main people I didn't want to tell because I knew they would be hurt the most.

[Jess Clark]

In February of 2021, Arielle was 17 years old and mad at her family. Her dad was taking Arielle's younger half sister to a gymnastics competition in Atlanta. Ariel wasn't allowed to come. She was often left out. She had a different dynamic with her dad than her little sister did.

[Arielle Stoner]

He was always on me about my weight. He used to make me do CrossFit when I got in trouble. It was one time in fifth grade. I think it was fifth grade, maybe a little earlier. I was cussing at school and the teacher told. And when I went home, he gave me a whooping. He made me do squats on the wall, and he put a bar of soap in my mouth until the soap dissolved. Every time I like, you know when you do squats and, you know you get tired so you fall down. Every time I fell down, he'll hit me with the belt and make me get back up and get back on the wild squat again.

[Jess Clark]

To Ariel's knowledge, her father never treated her sister like this or subjected her to the sexual abuse. Ariel says she experienced almost daily. When they wouldn't let her go on the trip, she decided to run away. Her plan was to get a ride from her father's friend to her job working at Taco Bell and then make a run for it. But the plan fell apart. The friend saw Ariel's bags when she picked her up and got suspicious. Instead of taking her to Taco Bell, she dropped her off at Donnie Stoner's house, Ronnie's twin, and drove away with all Ariel's things. Ariel was terrified of what her father would do once he found out she tried to run away.

[Arielle Stoner]

I ain't gonna lie. I was really scared that day because I guess I thought when he got back from Atlanta, he was gonna whoop me. I guess it was going through my head.

[Jess Clark]

Donnie dropped Ariel off for her shift at Taco Bell, and that's when she made the call. On the sidewalk outside. She was sobbing.

[Arielle Stoner]

I called the police, and I told them that I was planning on running away and that I was scared for my life and that I was being sexually assaulted. So that's the first person I told.

[Jess Clark]

She says this was the very first time she had ever spoken aloud the nightmare she had been living for six years. And what she says happened next is the reason many survivors of sexual abuse never come forward. He didn't believe her.

[Arielle Stoner]

The first thing he said was, I hope you're not just saying this just so you can run away, because these are serious allegations.

[Jess Clark]

That's what the police officer said to you?

[Arielle Stoner]

Mm. That's what he said. And I said, no, I'm really. I'm really serious. This is really happening to me.

[Jess Clark]

Arielle can't remember if it was the dispatcher who said this on the phone or if it was the police officer who came to meet her. We can't confirm whether the dispatcher said this because the city no Longer has the 911 tape. They destroy them after two years. LMPD is refusing to provide the body camera footage from the detective who came to meet her, citing an active investigation. But whoever said it made the first misstep in a series of errors investigators would make in Ariel's case. After Ariel told the officer what happened to her, she went to stay at a friend's house and shortly after that, moved in with her mom. When a child makes an allegation of sexual abuse in Kentucky, it sets off two investigations, each with different goals. One is done by police and prosecutors, whose goal is to determine if criminal charges should be filed against the alleged perpetrator. The second Investigation is done by the state's social services branch. And their goal is to determine what resources the child needs and whether any children need to be removed from the home. If it's pretty complicated, you've got investigators with two different government agencies interviewing a lot of the same people, family members, friends, the victim and the suspect, both trying to figure out what happened. That system creates a lot of potential for gaps.

[Caroline Rochelle]

They're working, to some extent in silos. There's not a lot of coordination. There's the child telling their story over and over again, which is re traumatizing them.

[Jess Clark]

That's Caroline Rochelle with Child Advocacy Centers of Kentucky. In the 1980s, a prosecutor in Alabama had an idea for unsiloing child sex abuse investigations and creating something called a multidisciplinary team.

[Caroline Rochelle]

This prosecutor said, you know, instead of all of these different people talking to the child separately, what if we start coming together and sharing information?

[Jess Clark]

Collaborating Child advocacy centers, or CACs, popped up to support these multidisciplinary teams in the 1990s and 2000s. Now Kentucky has a center for each region of the state. Multidisciplinary teams can meet there to discuss cases, and CAC workers can get kids resources like counseling and food pantry items.

[Ilia Mihu Fox]

We can, like, walk through and show you the space.

[Jess Clark]

That would be great.

[Ilia Mihu Fox]

Basic overview on it.

[Jess Clark]

I got a tour of the center that serves Louisville and its surrounding counties one afternoon from Ilia Mihu Fox, the CEO and president of Family and Children's Place, which runs the area cac.

[Ilia Mihu Fox]

This is like very, very, very intentionally designed to be child friendly and to try to not be intimidating and just, you know, to feel safe to them and to feel welcoming and inviting. So kind of go out of our way to not be like a Law and Order episode.

[Jess Clark]

The walls of the center are painted comforting yellows and blues. There's kid friendly art on the walls. A chihuahua in silly glasses, kittens in teacups. In the supply room, shelves are stacked floor to ceiling with teddy bears and dolls for kids to take home. But perhaps the most important thing that happens at the CAC is the forensic interview.

[Ilia Mihu Fox]

So here's the two forensics rooms, and they're the same other than one's a beach and one's a forest.

[Jess Clark]

In one of these small, comfy rooms decorated with a beach or forest theme, a child will sit with a forensic interviewer, a social worker with special training in getting kids to talk about abus, asking leading questions. The room has a camera that transmits a live feed to a room across the hall. Where members of the multidisciplinary team can watch simultaneously.

[Ilia Mihu Fox]

Across here is where the detective, the member of Child and Protective Services, other people of the investigation team, they're sitting here watching it on the screen. They have an earpiece so that they can ask questions if there's other things and everything is being recorded. And the kind of spirit of it is that the kid is telling the story as few times as possible.

[Jess Clark]

As we leave through the waiting room, I notice a mural of a tree and woodland creatures. But it's what's on the tree that draws my eye. More than 100 animal shaped wooden buttons have been stuck on the wall along its trunk.

[Ilia Mihu Fox]

After the forensic interviews, the kids pick out a button and leave it on the tree. And then we take them down at the end of the year. So these are the buttons for 2024.

[Jamie Issus]

Oh, wow.

[Jess Clark]

How many cases do you. How many cases like did you have last year?

[Ilia Mihu Fox]

I can give you the numbers. I want to say somewhere around 6:50 ish, 6:30 ish in terms of. And the last time I looked at the numbers was like early April. And at that point it was approaching 600. But I don't know what the numbers are right now.

[Jess Clark]

That's like almost two a day. Mihu Fox sent me the numbers later by email. In fiscal year 2025, the center saw 798 children on another wall. Staff have collected all the wooden buttons from years past into clear containers. There are far too many to count. Arielle remembers doing her forensic interview here at the CAC back in 2021.

[Arielle Stoner]

I remember seeing a camera in a corner, like high up in the corner. They had a table on the left wall, like a little small table. A lady, I think it was a lady, yes. She was sitting across from that table and I was sitting on the other side.

[Jess Clark]

Do you remember how you felt during that forensic interview?

[Arielle Stoner]

I was nervous, scared, just because I didn't know what was about to happen. I knew they wanted to talk about it, but it was still fresh and I wasn't ready to talk about it.

[Jess Clark]

Arielle says it was too hard for her to say out loud what happened to her. So the interviewer let her write down her answers on a sheet of paper and then the interviewer read them back to her aloud. Advocates say the CAC and multidisciplinary team model streamline prosecutions, help avoid retraumatizing kids and ensure their needs don't fall through the cracks. But it's not clear that this model worked as it should have for Ariel Stoner Jerry Seitz is a national expert on the CAC model. She's a forensic interviewer and trained social workers and law enforcement across the country on child sex abuse investigations. I asked her to take a look at the record CPS and law enforcement had on Ariel's case, and she saw a lot of red flags.

[Jerry Seitz]

Lots of concerns here as far as the way it was handled from law enforcement and cps.

[Jess Clark]

A key component of the forensic interview is that it happens as soon as possible after the allegations are made, Seitz Sundays. Ideally that's 24 hours, but according to police and CPS files, police waited almost a week to call her mom to set up a forensic interview. By the time they actually got Arielle in, it had been a month since she called the police, which is absolutely

[Jerry Seitz]

unacceptable, especially when it's child sexual abuse and the alleged perpetrator is her father, because so much can happen in those cases. You know, the child can be pressured to recant before they even get into the interview. And then there's that safety, you know, protection issue.

[Jess Clark]

It also means that law enforcement missed an important window to gather evidence because the child may disclose details in the forensic interview the police could try to corroborate.

[Jerry Seitz]

There may be semen or DNA evidence somewhere, and oftentimes that exists even with delayed disclosure. If something happened on a comforter, people don't wash their comforter every week right

[Jess Clark]

on top of the delay. Seitz says there are other concerns. The Child Advocacy center did not give Ariel a medical exam or test for sexually transmitted infections, which site says should be standard practice in child sex abuse cases. There is not a record in CPS or police files that Ariel was offered any services like counseling or therapy. And Ariel doesn't remember anyone reaching out with those kinds of supports. Seitz is particularly concerned about how long it took police and CPS to talk to Ariel's 11 year old half sister, who spent significant time with Rani. Investigators waited over a month to reach out to her mom and she was a no show for her forensic interview.

[Jerry Seitz]

Even if the half sister wasn't sexually abused by the father, it's a safety issue. They have to figure that stuff out within 24 hours. So there's concerns that CPS didn't do their job in an expedient manner, as well as law enforcement.

[Jess Clark]

The Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services, which oversees cps, would not talk to me for this podcast even to discuss general practices around child sex abuse investigations. And the state social workers assigned to Ariel's case didn't get back to me either. From law enforcement records, it appears the police investigation was limited to Ariel's forensic interview and a few phone calls by Louisville Metro Police Department Detective Charles Heller. Those calls can't really be described as investigatory. There's one call with Ariel's mom, Jenithia Taylor, informing her that Ariel has made the allegations and scheduling the forensic interview.

[Detective Charles Heller]

Ma', am, I've got your daughter's case that came across my desk today. Reach out and make contact with you.

[Jess Clark]

Heller explains what the forensic interview is and gets some scheduling information. Then Taylor asks what she should do about Ronnie, who she says keeps calling her dad.

[Jenithia Taylor]

Like, you know, he's been calling and he called yesterday and he's like, I took a missing person out on her. They're gonna bring her back to my home. I said, you know, because he's saying it's untrue. And I'm like, do you really say do that? Because my daughter took it upon herself to call the police and the, you know, CPS before I even knew about it. So it's like to me, she was that scared, so what do I do about him?

[Jess Clark]

Heller tells her she can take out an emergency protective order to prevent Rani from contacting them and says a victim's advocate will be in touch.

[Detective Charles Heller]

I'll talk to you in a little bit then.

[Jenithia Taylor]

You have a good day.

[Tanosha Spillman]

Bye.

[Detective Charles Heller]

Bye.

[Jess Clark]

Then there's the call with Tanosha Spillman, the mother of Ariel's 11 year old half sister who stayed with Rani. Sometimes you'll hear silence where LMPD redacted Ariel's name and her sister's name. And Heller's call with Spillman.

[Detective Charles Heller]

Anything that she could give us would be great. Even information about

[Arielle Stoner]

the.

[Detective Charles Heller]

There have been allegations. Do you understand? Do you know anything about the case yet?

[Nicole Adele]

I guess I'm kind of jumping to

[Arielle Stoner]

conclusions that you understand a little.

[Jenithia Taylor]

Just.

[Tanosha Spillman]

She told me that she was interviewed, but very little detail. I really, I know she. He had custody of her and I just know that she ran away. That's all I know.

[Detective Charles Heller]

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So. So some allegations about her father and we're just trying to. To clear things up. And so we would just want the counselor to talk to your daughter and see if, if, if anything, any mistreatment has occurred to her and if she's seen or heard talk about any mistreatment that's occurred.

[Jess Clark]

Heller never makes it clear that the father of her 11 year old child has been accused of sexually abusing his other daughter, starting when she was 11. Spillman never brings her Daughter in for the forensic interview. CPS did eventually speak to the sister, but not until more than four months later. Then, in August, six months after Ariel called the police outside Taco Bell, Heller makes his first attempt to contact Ronnie, whose name has been redacted from the audio file.

[Detective Charles Heller]

This is Detective Heller with the local Metro Police Department Crimes Against Children Unit. I am calling just to get something on the camera calendar to have you come down to the office here at fifth in Kentucky.

[Jess Clark]

Heller leaves another voicemail for Ronnie three days later, but Rani never calls back. A few weeks after that, Heller refers the case to the Commonwealth prosecutor. The only evidence he had collected was Ariel's forensic interview. Arielle never knew her case was turned over to the prosecutor. In fact, she knew almost nothing about its progress. After the forensic interview, Ariel says she only heard from her detective once more.

[Arielle Stoner]

I know either he called my mom or she called him just for a follow up. And after that, the case went ghost. It was nothing really else they had. Nobody reached out, so we just forgot about it.

[Jess Clark]

By the next spring, she hadn't heard from police in over a year. And she wasn't talking with Ronnie or anyone else from his side of the family except her aunt Ronnie's sister, Latanda Brooks. They had texted a few times over the months since Ariel left her father's house. Ariel read me their text exchange. Brooks said her dad missed her. She urged her to come home and said she had a hard time believing Ariel was telling the truth about her father abusing her.

[Arielle Stoner]

She said, I just don't see that happening. And why wouldn't you tell somebody sooner than what you did? You could have came to me. You know how I am about y'.

[Detective Charles Heller]

All.

[Jess Clark]

Furious, Ariel fired off a long message

[Arielle Stoner]

in response and I put all caps. Your brother raped me. And y' all just living life like I never existed. Nobody bothered to check up on me. And you are the only person who tried to reach out to me. I don't want to talk.

[Jess Clark]

But months after that exchange, she softened towards her aunt. She missed her and reached out to see if they could get together.

[Arielle Stoner]

When I got to her house, we talked for hours, like all night hours, just about life stuff and about this situation. And to my face, she told me she believed me.

[Jess Clark]

She asked her about her plans after graduation when she planned to go to college. And then this question after she asked

[Arielle Stoner]

me about the college stuff, she was like, well, what do you want to see going forward with your dad?

[Jess Clark]

Remember, it had been more than a year since Arielle had heard from detectives or anyone at cps. Half her family had iced her out and she was terrified of facing her dad in court.

[Arielle Stoner]

I was nervous. I didn't want to do that at all. She was like, well, you know, the only way you're not going to be able to face him in court is if you just tell his lawyer it didn't happen. At first I was hesitant and I had to think about it. And I was like, what? I know in the back of my mind that that's not right. Like, I knew it wasn't right, but I did it anyways because I just really wanted to put that past me. Like, I did not want to deal with that. I was really, like, so nervous to see him face to face.

[Jess Clark]

Ariel spent the night. The next morning, Brooks called Ronnie's attorney, a well known local defense lawyer named

[Arielle Stoner]

Rob Eggert, and was like, hey, Rob, I got Arielle here, Ronnie's daughter, and she would like to talk to you. So I was like, shaking. I was nervous.

[Jess Clark]

Her aunt handed her the phone. She could see Brooks out of the corner of her eye, giving her a thumbs up and whispering encouragement. You're so brave, Ariel says, she whispered.

[Arielle Stoner]

He said, are you sitting here on the phone telling me right now that this did not happen to you? And I said yes.

[Jess Clark]

The next day, Brooks drove Arielle over to Eggert's law office downtown. Inside, a sheet of paper was waiting for her on a round wooden table with a pen. It was a sworn affidavit saying Ariel lied about Ronnie molesting her, that she made up the accusations because she wanted to move in with her mother, that Rani had never abused her, and that no one was pressuring her to withdraw her allegations.

[Arielle Stoner]

I picked up the pen and I signed my name. And that was it.

[Jess Clark]

With college on the horizon, she saw an opportunity to start over and put the abuse behind her.

[Arielle Stoner]

Just forget about it. That was my plan. Just go to college and move on with my life. But it didn't happen that way because I found out I was pregnant and I never made it to college and that I had already signed the paper then, so it was too late.

[Jess Clark]

I called Brooks one day at work to ask her about that night she spent with Arielle and the affidavit. She denied pressuring Arielle to sign it and wouldn't talk with me further about the case. What Ariel did is known in child sex abuse investigations as recanting. It's common, especially when the abuser is a family member. A 2007 study found rates of recantation as high as 23%, and that children abused by a parent were the most likely to recant.

[Jerry Seitz]

When a child recants, then it's up to the team, the same investigators, to look into that recantation and determine what were the circumstances of the recantation. Was there pressure to recant?

[Jess Clark]

That's Jerry Seitz again, the national expert in child sex abuse investigations. According to Seitz and other experts I spoke to, it's best practice to investigate the recantation, but that's not what happened here. According to police records, police and CPS got the recantation. They didn't question it, and they closed the case. Unfortunately, Seitz says, that's not uncommon.

[Jerry Seitz]

Both systems, criminal justice and child protection systems, are absolutely overwhelmed with their workload. Their cases are high. These cases are very emotionally draining. They cause secondary traumatic stress. So oftentimes, when the players in the investigation are uncooperative, people will cut corners and move on. You know, they just don't have the time or energy to really press for justice and protection, which is really unfortunate. And it happens everywhere. It's not just Louisville or in metropolitan areas. We're seeing it all over the US her writing an affidavit just tied it up in a nice, you know, little package for him, and they were able to buy all it away and move on.

[Jess Clark]

Okay, let's go back in time a little bit before Ariel signed the affidavit and catch up with what Ronnie Stoner was up to in the months after Ariel told police he was abusing her. While Arielle was finishing up high school, estranged from half her family and waiting for a call from her detective, Ronnie's life was moving along as usual. He went to his job at Newburgh Middle School and continued to work with students and coach football. That seemed weird to me. Usually when the school district learns an employee is accused of misconduct, they move the employee into a position without contact with children. Who while authorities investigate. But to do that, the school district has to know about the allegations. That's pretty straightforward. When the allegations are reported in a school setting, the school is already in the loop because they are the ones making the report to law enforcement and cps. But what if the alleged abuse didn't happen in a school setting? What if it's an employee's own child and the child went directly to police or cps? Who was responsible for telling the school system that one of its employees has been accused of child abuse? I wondered. So I called up LMPD Detective Charles Heller. Heller still works for lmpd, though he no longer works on the Crimes Against Children Unit. I wanted to ask if he remembered contacting the school or the district in Arielle's case.

[Jess Clark (Interviewer)]

Was there any. I'm not seeing any notes about contact with JCPS in here, but I wonder if that may not be reflected in the LMPT file that I got.

[Jess Clark]

Is there protocol for reaching out to the district if you learn that one of their employees is accused of something like this?

[Detective Charles Heller]

Yes, and I think that we had talked to security, and security had said he was already reassigned or something. There was something that there is a protocol under the circumstances. And I vaguely remember a conversation that led us to believe that there's not a continued concern, at least at that moment, with him in contact with anyone else or again, been a little while. Can't remember exactly.

[Jess Clark]

A quick fact check here. There is no record indicating Ronnie was already reassigned when Ariel came forward to police in 2021.

[Jess Clark (Interviewer)]

So you. Do you think you remember talking to JCPS security and investigations Unit?

[Detective Charles Heller]

I believe. Well, if it wasn't security, it would have been one of, like, the principal.

[Tanosha Spillman]

His.

[Detective Charles Heller]

Like whoever would have been his direct report principal or something to that effect.

[Jess Clark]

Like the principal of the school he worked at.

[Detective Charles Heller]

Yes, it would have.

[Jenithia Taylor]

Yeah.

[Detective Charles Heller]

But that's who I. I believe I spoke with, but it's been a while. I can't say for certain. I've worked a lot of similar cases where we worked with jcps, and. And I could be remembering something else. I could be remembering a different case on that one.

[Jess Clark]

Okay, so is that the protocol normally to call the school principal?

[Detective Charles Heller]

Yeah. Well, on a case like this, let's see.

[Jess Clark]

I know I'm asking Heller to reach back years ago about one of many cases he would have had. So it's not surprising he can't remember the details. But what is surprising is that Heller doesn't seem sure what the protocol was. I think that's because there wasn't one. That's right. I scoured every state law, regulation, policy, and operating procedure I could find that govern how police, state social workers, and school districts handle child sex abuse allegations. And there is no clear regulation to. To ensure schools are notified if their employees are accused of child sex abuse in the community. This explains why Ronnie wasn't reassigned from his position working with kids, even though he was under an active police investigation for abusing his own child. The district never knew. Republican Representative James Tipton, the state lawmaker working to curb educator misconduct, brought this issue up in our interview before I even mentioned it.

[Representative James Tipton]

If law enforcement is investigating, I don't know if there's a requirement for them to report to school.

[Jess Clark]

That is exactly what I was about

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to bring up next.

[Jess Clark]

Actually, I cannot find a requirement. Do you think there is an opportunity for a policy solution to this disconnect?

[Representative James Tipton]

We can certainly work on policy to try to we need to talk to some stakeholders and ask some questions. I want to make sure we're legally constitutionally what we're allowed to do, but from just from a individual. It's just common sense to me that the school district needs to know if there's an investigation going on when they've got an employee of the school that is in contact with minor children.

[Jess Clark]

The LMPD file we obtained includes CPS reports making clear that Ronnie worked at Ariel's school, but there's nothing documenting that investigators from either agency reached out to jcps. You remember that LMPD Detective Charles Heller said he may have contacted the principal of Newburgh Middle School, a woman named Nicole Adele. I called her up to see if she remembered Detective Heller calling about Ariel's case.

[Tanosha Spillman]

Please leave me a message and I will get back with you as soon as possible. Thanks.

[Jess Clark (Interviewer)]

Hi, Nicole, this is Jess Clark. I'm a reporter with the Kentucky center for Investigative Reporting.

[Jess Clark]

I tried her twice more, but she never got back to me. When we come back, Ronnie finally gets reassigned, but it's not why you think after the break.

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[Jess Clark]

this is Dig. I'm Jess Clark. After Ariel's accusations, Ronnie's life went on as usual for more than a year. Then in May 2022, 15 months after Ariel went to the police, Ronnie is suddenly reassigned out of his role, working directly with kids. Arielle says she heard from her aunt that an officer came to Newburgh and told Ronnie to pack his stuff and get out. But Ronnie's reassignment wasn't over his daughter's allegations. It was because that was when Alyssa Foster decided to start a lawsuit. And her lawyer, David Mauer, had put the district on notice. When Ronnie was packing up his office, he didn't actually know which child had accused him of misconduct. When JCPS investigates educators for misconduct with students, they are not supposed to share the name of the child making the allegation until the first investigative interview. Ariel and Alyssa find this kind of funny.

[Arielle Stoner]

If I was Ronnie, I'd be.

[Ilia Mihu Fox]

I'd be my pants.

[Arielle Stoner]

Because any of the one people that

[Ilia Mihu Fox]

you just over in the last 20 something years.

[Arielle Stoner]

Exactly.

[Ilia Mihu Fox]

You don't have a clue who it could be.

[Arielle Stoner]

And I know for a fact, like what Alyssa saying, like, they didn't know. They thought it was me. Everybody thought it was me. The reason he's not coaching and stuff.

[Jess Clark]

Ronnie and his family thought it was Ariel. Her allegations against her dad. That could explain why Ariel's aunt chose the moment she did to pressure Arielle into recanting just two weeks after Rani was reassigned. It could also explain why Ronnie Stoner's girlfriend, Jamie Isis, had this phone call with LMPD Detective Charles Heller a few months after Ariel signed the affidavit. We got this call through an open records request.

[Jamie Issus]

Hello?

[Nicole Adele]

Hi, this is Detective Heller with the Louisville Montreal Police Department calling for.

[Jamie Issus]

Yeah, hey, how are you?

[Detective Charles Heller]

Hi, I'm doing well.

[Nicole Adele]

How are you doing?

[Jamie Issus]

Thank you for calling me back. I really appreciate it.

[Nicole Adele]

No problem. I checked my voicemails this morning. I had one from blowing you up.

[Jess Clark]

Jamie Issus is Ronnie Stoner's longtime girlfriend. Issus and Ronnie have a lot in common. Issus was another youth Service center coordinator, the same position Ronnie had at Newberg, working with vulnerable kids. She was the coordinator at Barrett Middle School until last July, when JCPS promoted her to a bigger role. Just like Ronnie. The School Administrators association awarded her Middle School Youth Service Center Coordinator of the year in 2019. And also like Ronnie, she's not shy of media coverage.

[Jamie Issus]

Today.

[Jerry Seitz]

Hundreds of girls from JCBS schools learn life skills and the importance of self worth.

[Jess Clark]

Issus has been featured several times in positive stories about local schools, like this report from WLKY in 2022 about a program Issus helped organize called Women of Worth Empowerment Conference.

[Jamie Issus]

So if they Leave today feeling they belonged here today, and they belong together as a cohesive family with all schools within jcps. We won.

[Jess Clark]

The victory is called Heller, the detective on Ariel's case. In August 2022, the school year had started, but Ronnie was still reassigned and his promotion to Manual high School was on hold.

[Jamie Issus]

So I'm gonna be very transparent, if you don't mind. Why this is like 911 and why I've been blowing you up is because. Let me shut the door. Cause I wanted to be private, and I work in education. Help.

[Detective Charles Heller]

Yeah, yeah.

[Nicole Adele]

Cause you're the stepmother, right?

[Jamie Issus]

Yes, I am the stepmother.

[Jess Clark]

I'll jump in here to say that Issus and Rani are not married. But for years, Issus has referred to herself as Ariel's stepmother and Arielle as her stepdaughter. It drives Ariel nuts. Issus herself is a social worker who used to work cases just like Ariel's. She was a CPS worker who assisted the Crimes against children unit from 2009 to 2011 before becoming an educator. On the call, Issus starts pressuring Heller to drop the case against Rani. Rani's name and Ariel's have been redacted from the recording by lmpd.

[Jamie Issus]

So is he works in education as well? Got removed from his job on the 18th of May. And so we're going on three months, and JCPS will not tell us what the allegations is over.

[Nicole Adele]

Okay.

[Jamie Issus]

And so we're assuming it is the allegations of his daughter reported over a year ago. And so it's been very, very stressful, as you probably know. And people I can tell.

[Jess Clark]

Again, what Issus doesn't know is that the reason Rani was removed from his job was because of Alyssa Foster's allegations. She thinks this is all about Ariel. Issus tells Heller Ariel signed an affidavit recanting her claims. CPS got the affidavit and closed their case, but Heller never got it. Files show Heller hadn't touched Ariel's case in almost a year. He had referred it to the prosecutor 11 months prior and hadn't heard anything since. So the case was still open, and Issus wanted Heller to drop it.

[Jamie Issus]

I need to get this resolved as quickly as possible so we can go back to normal life. And so I needed to talk to you because I don't know if you are the piece that's holding this up or not, but I have all the evidence and documentation that you would need for your case, and I just wanted to share that with you, and if that is what you need to close Your case out. I will hand deliver it.

[Jess Clark]

The evidence ISIS is referring to is the affidavit. Heller explains he still hasn't been able to reach Ronnie and that LMPD doesn't have the authority to reassign educators in jcps.

[Nicole Adele]

Well, we never make requests like that to remove anyone from their. Their position. So that would be something that I made or anything like that.

[Jamie Issus]

No, no, no, no. I know and I didn't believe. No, no, no. Let me apologize. I don't think you did it per se. I think because I used to work for cacu. I don't know if I remember telling you that.

[Jess Clark]

CACU is the Crimes Against Children unit. The unit ISIS worked with as a social worker investigating child abuse for two years. She still works part time as a state social worker.

[Jamie Issus]

I never was concerned of the allegation by any means. I was more concerned of my daughter acting out and getting her the help that she needed because making this acquisition of her, of her father is concerning to me. And that's a whole nother level of, you know, from the field that you're in. So if we can't, and I want to use this word the way that make me feel, but I'm not trying to rush you, but if we can expedite this process, if we can get this case closed, I would greatly appreciate it in every way possible.

[Jess Clark]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Nicole Adele]

I'll call the prosecutor once I get the documents and I look over them. Call the prosecutor and I think I could have it closed by either Wednesday this week or at latest Tuesday next week.

[Jamie Issus]

That would be absolutely amazing And I am 100 grateful for that. You have no idea. We have been. I can't even tell you the roller coaster ride that we have been through on every level. So if I can get something moving, you are a blessing.

[Nicole Adele]

Yeah, I. I don't mind. You know, I.

[Ilia Mihu Fox]

If.

[Nicole Adele]

If there are false allegations and we can prove that, you know, I want to. To clear the air and get these things closed for sure.

[Jamie Issus]

Okay.

[Nicole Adele]

Get them off my desk. So.

[Jamie Issus]

Thank you. I know. Okay. Can I have your email address, please?

[Jess Clark]

She gets his email address and says she'll send over the affidavit and the CPS letter saying the allegations were unsubstantiated.

[Tanosha Spillman]

Detective Taylor, I really appreciate you. I have been blowing you up and I promise you it's all for good cause. I thank you for taking the time out to talking to me and listening to me and getting this ball rolling for me. I really, really appreciate it. Absolutely. I'm glad to help all right. Be safe, honey.

[Jess Clark]

I played this phone call for Ariel and Alyssa in Alyssa's living room one evening. They had a lot to say.

[Arielle Stoner]

Oh, my God, Jamie makes me so mad. Like, do you hear how she sounds? Like, just listening to that conversation makes me mad, because how can you literally sit up here and say you was never worried about the allegations? Like, what type of person are you? What type of person are you? What type of mother in quotes mother are you? Like, be for real? That's crazy. I don't even know what to say. I'm just like, oh, that's a lot to unpack right there.

[Ilia Mihu Fox]

That's a lot to unpack. Yeah. I don't even know where it's starting, either.

[Jenithia Taylor]

For real.

[Jess Clark]

Like, why Is it the fact that she's pressing.

[Ilia Mihu Fox]

Can we just drop the case? And he's like, yeah, sure.

[Jess Clark]

I'm trying to get dropped by next week.

[Detective Charles Heller]

Right?

[Arielle Stoner]

It'll be done by 12. Like, what?

[Ilia Mihu Fox]

I'm sorry. Is it that simple?

[Jess Clark]

Ariel knew Issus didn't believe her, but now she knows that the woman who calls herself her stepmother, an educator and a social worker, actively pressured police to drop their investigation into her alleged abuse. We reached out to Issus, but she wouldn't talk to us. The phone call also revealed how little police pushed back. No one ever tried to ask Ariel about why she recanted, even though recantation is common in child sex abuse cases and it's best practice to investigate further when kids take back their allegations. Heller didn't seem to know that. When we spoke.

[Jess Clark (Interviewer)]

When you received the affidavit, do you remember, like, were you suspicious of it, or did you, like, I guess. What. What did you think about that? When you received the affidavit and the recantation?

[Detective Charles Heller]

I. I can't remember, like, a specific thought that I. That I had about it. I do believe that I received it from an attorney, so. From an attorney's office, I believe. I. I guess I thought it was a. I believe it. It seemed unusual to me, but compared to other cases. But, you know, I know that. That attorneys have a high standard of ethics, so I. I trusted the. The letter.

[Jess Clark (Interviewer)]

The letter from the attorney. Because it came from an attorney.

[Jenithia Taylor]

Yeah.

[Tanosha Spillman]

Yeah.

[Jess Clark (Interviewer)]

When you say it was unusual, what do you, like, what do you mean by that? Just the form of it, or, like, that it happened at all, or the timing or. I guess. What?

[Tanosha Spillman]

What? Oh, just.

[Detective Charles Heller]

Yeah. And in official. Such a high level of official recant. But most of our recants. When someone recants it, it's Typically, they called me and it's a recorded statement from them to me or from their parents to me, something to that effect. It's not usually done through an attorney.

[Jess Clark]

After I heard Heller's call with Issus and knew more about best practices, I called him back to see what he had to say. He never returned my call. Seitz says what happened to Arielle doesn't look good on the system. If police had got Arielle in sooner and gotten a warrant for her father's home, it's possible they could have collected evidence to corroborate her disclosure. And there were other things police and social workers and the prosecutor could have done to prevent Ariel from recanting in the first place. Connecting survivors to resources and checking in with them regularly can make them feel more confident in moving forward with prosecution. But none of that happened in this case. Then there's the four month delay in getting eyes on Ariel's 11 year old half sister to make sure she was safe. And the fact that the school district never knew that Rani was being investigated for child abuse. These are things that should have been raised in those multidisciplinary team meetings. Records show the team discussed the case three times, but for some reason, lots of things still fell through the cracks. In the next episode, I'm going to show you how Ariel's case, with all its failings, is representative of a larger problem with how police investigate child sex abuse in Louisville. Back in Alyssa's living room, Ariel still can't get her mind around that call between police and Jamie Issus.

[Arielle Stoner]

They failed us just like everybody else failed us. And they could have did way more. Like, that phone call really pissed me off because why wouldn't you just be like, something's not right about this case, like, if that was your daughter. I guess like I asked this, I asked people this all the time, like, if that was your daughter, what would you have done? Would you have been like, oh, I can close it by Wednesday. I doubt it. I doubt you would have did that repeatedly. We just keep finding out. People just keep failing us over and over and over and over. And it's so irritating and like, it's frustrating.

[Jess Clark]

The list of people who failed Ariel and the other alleged survivors is long. They say they were betrayed not only by Ronnie Stoner, but by people and whole systems meant to keep them safe or provide justice. Louisville schools, police, child protective services, courts, and in Arielle's case, her own family. After so many failures, these women now believe the only people they can count on are themselves. Next time on dig.

[Arielle Stoner]

Of course it was wrong doing it to me, but seeing that it was other girls, I was like, I can't just let that slide.

[Jess Clark]

DIG is produced by the Kentucky center for for Investigative Reporting at Louisville Public Media. This season was reported by me, Jess Clark, and edited by Jake Ryan and Laura Ellis. Special thanks to Morgan Watkins, Michelle Tyreen Johnson, Roberto Roldan, Amina Elahi, Joe Sanka, Kelly Wilkinson and Laura Atkinson. Kojun Teshiro created our theme music with assistance from Ryan Marsh, photos by Justin Hicks and Gisele Roden, and illustrations by Effie Chalikapoulou. Our work is community funded. Visit kydig.org and click donate to help make reporting like this possible.

[NPR Content Warning Announcer]

Hearing stories like this one can bring up painful feelings and memories, especially if you're a trauma survivor yourself. If you need to talk, you can reach the Rainn National Sexual assault hotline at 800-656-Hope you'll find that number and more mental health resources in our show.

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