S4|E19: Public Access | Part 3

Summary

Gone South: S4|E19: Public Access | Part 3 – Detailed Summary

Introduction

In Season 4, Episode 19 of Gone South, titled "Public Access | Part 3," host Jed Lipinski delves deeper into the harrowing story of Scott Rogers, a Baton Rouge TV personality whose charismatic façade concealed a dark and manipulative nature. This episode unravels the intricate investigation led by Ronna Gray and Mary Jane Marcantel to expose Rogers as a sexual predator, culminating in his tragic murder-suicide.

Background: The Enigmatic Scott Rogers

Scott Rogers was a prominent figure in Baton Rouge, known for his engaging TV shows and charismatic presence. However, behind the scenes, suspicions about his true character began to surface.

Don Kelly [04:05]: "Was a. I don't know how you even describe him. He was different. You know, he definitely did not blend into South Louisiana culture."

Don Kelly, the Public Information Officer for the Baton Rouge Police Department, first interacted with Rogers when the latter sought to include police representatives on his show. Kelly's initial impressions of Rogers raised red flags.

Investigation: Unveiling the Deception

Ronna Gray, a public relations consultant, and Mary Jane Marcantel took it upon themselves to investigate Rogers' past, suspecting misconduct. Concurrently, Don Kelly's experiences with Rogers' production crew further deepened his suspicions.

Don Kelly [06:37]: "I said, you know, we're probably going to find out one day he was a serial killer or a pedophile or something."

Don Kelly observed anomalies in Rogers' TV production—high-end equipment on a seemingly low-budget show, crew members wearing matching uniforms, and the show being filmed in real-time, all contributing to his unease.

Ronna and Mary Jane's persistent efforts, alongside federal investigations led by the postal inspector, began to piece together Rogers' dubious history, including unreported arrests and allegations of sexual abuse dating back to the UK.

The Grand Jury and Rogers' Demise

As federal agents closed in, Rogers faced a grand jury hearing to determine the safety of his adoptive children. The tension peaked when Rogers was confronted with subpoenas linking him to past abuses.

Two days after the hearing, tragedy struck. On [14:05], a distress call was made to the Iberville Parish 911 center about gunshots at Rogers' residence. Upon arrival, investigators discovered Rogers dead from a gunshot wound to the head, alongside Matthew Hodgkinson, one of his former dance students, who had also sustained a gunshot wound interpreted as a murder-suicide attempt.

Ronna Gray [20:31]: "We had no idea. We knew that he's the other person involved in the shooting. So this is a real family situation."

Revelations on Jim Engster's Show

In the aftermath, Ronna and Mary Jane orchestrated appearances by Rogers' victims on local talk show host Jim Engster's program, effectively shattering Rogers' public image.

Stewart [31:06]: "When I met Scott, I was 12 years old. He raised me. ... it's all I've ever known."

Stewart and Jake, survivors of Rogers' abuse, detailed the extent of manipulation and trauma they endured, revealing Rogers as a "master manipulator" and "the worst predatory pedophile you could imagine."

Stewart [33:31]: "He is an expert at brainwashing."

These testimonies not only exposed Rogers' true nature but also provided the community with a stark contrast to the beloved persona they once admired.

Aftermath: Healing and Closure

Following Rogers' death, the community grappled with the revelations. Don Kelly expressed mixed emotions—from sadness for the victims to contempt for those who had enabled Rogers.

Don Kelly [35:25]: "It cozied up to so many people who were kind of movers and shakers in the city... people burning letters of character they wrote for him."

Ronna Gray embarked on writing a book to chronicle the investigation, further uncovering Rogers' manipulative influence both in Baton Rouge and his hometown in the UK. Her meetings with survivors like Ethan and Jake provided them with the closure needed to move forward.

Ethan [40:59]: "It set me free completely... it set other victims, I hope, free, you know, from that terror that you live every single day."

By January 2025, ten years post-tragedy, survivors had rebuilt their lives—Stewart had remarried and started a family, while Ethan found solace in Ronna's comprehensive account of their ordeal.

Conclusion

"Gone South: Public Access | Part 3" masterfully captures the relentless pursuit of truth by Ronna Gray and Mary Jane Marcantel, the critical role of Don Kelly in recognizing deceit, and the eventual unveiling of Scott Rogers' monstrous reality. The episode underscores themes of resilience, the quest for justice, and the profound impact of uncovering hidden truths on a community and its individuals.

Notable Quotes

• Don Kelly [06:37]: "We're probably going to find out one day he was a serial killer or a pedophile or something."
• Stewart [31:06]: "He raised me. ... it's all I've ever known."
• Stewart [33:31]: "He is an expert at brainwashing."
• Don Kelly [35:25]: "People burning letters of character they wrote for him."
• Ethan [40:59]: "It set me free completely."

Conclusion

This episode serves as a poignant reminder of the facades individuals can maintain and the importance of vigilance and courage in exposing hidden evils. Through meticulous investigation and unwavering determination, Ronna Gray and her team not only dismantled Scott Rogers' deceptive empire but also paved the way for healing and justice for his victims.

Transcript

[Margo Gray]

Every week on the Moth podcast we share stories that are funny, strange, heartbreaking.

[Jed Lipinski]

And above all, true. I myself have been married for 56.

[Don Kelly]

Years.

[Jed Lipinski]

Unfortunately to four different women.

[Ronna Gray]

You can work out a whole lot.

[Jed Lipinski]

Of in the aisles of Target.

[Ronna Gray]

Follow and listen to the Moth on.

[Margo Gray]

The free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Jed Lipinski]

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[Ronna Gray]

I did avoid a lot of people. I avoided going to things that I found out that Scott Rogers was the emcee I might have attended. And meanwhile I'm watching his weekly television shows and all of a sudden he announces that he's in the process of adopting a second child. And I just could not believe it. He has gone on TV saying one more interview and then next week I'll have. He called him Poe. He said, next week I'll have little Poe on the show and you'll learn his real name and medium and all that. He's really hyping it up.

[Mary Jane Marcantel]

But now he's got a new trial, which is a new form and a new interview that they have to do with him.

[Ronna Gray]

So he finishes his interview, he gets a call informing him that he's just been Delivered a subpoena, and he realizes what's going on and says, don't say another word to anybody. I'm on my way back to the office. And shuts everything down.

[Jed Lipinski]

In her quest to expose Baton Rouge TV personality Scott Rogers as a sexual predator, Ronna Gray often thought she was the only one outside of her small inner circle who knew what Scott really was. But unbeknownst to her, there were a few others who suspected something wasn't right with Scott. One of those people was Don Kelly.

[Don Kelly]

And I'm not a big podcast person. I'm certainly not a true crime person. Being a career cop, I hate most true crime shows because I lived it. For 33 years, Don was the public.

[Jed Lipinski]

Information officer for the Baton Rouge Police Department. When Scott Rogers wanted someone from the department to appear on his TV show around town, he called Don, and he.

[Don Kelly]

Was a. I don't know how you even describe him. He was different. You know, he definitely did not blend into South Louisiana culture. I mean, with the British accent and the big teeth and the spiky hair and the loud clothes, and he just. He definitely got your attention.

[Jed Lipinski]

Don dealt with Scott and his TV production crew strictly over the phone, approving requests and coordinating schedules. But one day, Scott's crew invited the police chief to appear on the show.

[Don Kelly]

And so I arranged for that. And I told chief, I said, I'd like to ride over with you. I'd just like to kind of see this outfit, this operation. So I rode over there with him and just had several very strong impressions as I sat and watched the production take place. And it just kind of put a lot of questions in my mind about what was really going on there.

[Jed Lipinski]

Before joining the police department, Don had worked in TV and radio in New Orleans, so he knew a thing or two about studios. The first thing that struck him was how nice the equipment was.

[Don Kelly]

I was expecting it to be kind of a shoestring production. And I was like, man, where are they getting their money from? There's no way this guy's making a lot of ad revenue on the show. I can't be, you know.

[Jed Lipinski]

The second thing that puzzled Don was that the crew members were all wearing matching shirts.

[Don Kelly]

They all wore these little polo shirts with the show logo and their name stitched on it. I've never seen that before in a television studio. You know, normally, you don't ever see people behind the camera who are wearing uniforms. That's kind of an odd thing.

[Jed Lipinski]

Another odd thing was that the show was shot in real time and seemed to revolve entirely around Scott.

[Don Kelly]

Normally, in my whole experience in television is you shoot those segments one at a time. You stop, you reset, you do the next one, you reset, you do the next one, and then you insert all the commercials. Later, in editing and post production, they did the whole thing live. It was like watching a Saturday Night Live. It was real time, and I could just see that the whole staff, you know, Scott was the ringmaster, and he was directing everybody, and they were all catering to him.

[Jed Lipinski]

When Don and the chief got back in their car, the chief asked Don what he thought.

[Don Kelly]

You know, the chief said, well, what'd you think? And I said, man, I gotta tell you, I'm glad I'm out of there. I feel like I just left Jones down. I mean, it felt like a cult. And I said, and that guy Scott Rogers is as phony as he can be. And I said, half jokingly, I said, you know, we're probably going to find out one day he was a serial killer or a pedophile or something.

[Jed Lipinski]

From then on, Don convinced the Baton Rouge PD to limit its contact with Scott Rogers and his TV show. When a member of Scott's team proposed a weekly segment featuring some Baton Rouge police detectives, Don turned him down.

[Don Kelly]

I said, we just can't do that every single week. I don't have the time or the staff to devote, you know, just a one little show. We got all this other stuff going on. Well, he apparently went back to Scott and told Scott, I said that. And so a few minutes later, the phone rings, and it's got for me. And it wasn't the phony, charming, little cute British twit. This guy was about to come through the phone and choke me. I mean, he was so angry, screaming and yelling at me, cursing at me, belittling me because I called it a little show. He latched onto that, and it just. It blew me away. I mean, I was holding the phone away from my ear, like, man, what an overreaction. And I thought, okay, now I'm seeing what's behind the mask. This is the real Scott Rogers. Now.

[Jed Lipinski]

Don Kelly's run in with Scott Rogers took place a few years before Ronna Gray learned about Scott's past. Don had no idea what Scott had been accused of in the uk he didn't know Scott had built a church inside a local shopping mall, or that he'd effectively kidnapped two young men whom he'd abused as children and brought them to the US with him. But by August of 2014, thanks to the efforts of Ronna Gray, And Mary Jane Marcantel. Federal agents were closing in on Scott Rogers. As we noted in part two, the feds had caught him lying about a past arrest for sexual assault during an interview to adopt a second child, causing them to take both of his adopted children. They'd issued subpoenas to Scott, his daughter, and the two men who lived with him, Stewart and Matthew. Baton Rouge was now about to learn who Scott Rogers really was. But even people like Ronna Gray and Don Kelly weren't prepared for what Scott would do next. I'm Jed Lipinski. This is gone south. 48 hours after Scott's two adoptive children were taken away, a hearing was scheduled before a judge. The hearing was to show proof that the kids were unsafe in his home. The postal inspector assigned to the case was there.

[Ronna Gray]

And at the hearing, the federal agent laid out everything she had. All the statement from Ethan in the uk, all the information she's gathered, the information on him not disclosing his arrest, the information about his trial, the fact that he was charged by a 12 year old boy with sexual assault, and it ended in a hung jury.

[Jed Lipinski]

Ronna and Mary Jane didn't go to the hearing, but when they learned the boys would not be returned to Scott's home, they celebrated.

[Ronna Gray]

We were thrilled that the children were picked up and were in a safe place. We were assured they were secure. And we'd been told if that's all we accomplished, we should consider that a victory.

[Jed Lipinski]

Still, Ronna knew how vengeful Scott Rogers could be. She was unsure of how he'd react. Ronna and Mary Jane wished the feds had arrested him. Instead, they'd scheduled a grand jury to meet in two weeks, at which point Scott's fate would be decided.

[Ronna Gray]

At this point, I don't necessarily think he knows I'm the one behind it, but I was cautioned to be careful and, you know, to remain safe.

[Jed Lipinski]

In their conversations, Ethan had occasionally asked Ronna if she was afraid of Scott Rogers. And she had always told him no.

[Ronna Gray]

And I said, I'm not really afraid of Scott Rogers. He does not come off as an intimidating figure, but if I would be afraid of someone, it would be Matthew.

[Jed Lipinski]

Matthew was one of Scott's two former dance students who'd come to the US with him. He lived at Scott's home and worked for his production company. When Rana's PR firm partnered with Scott years before on the disaster preparedness campaign, it was Matthew that she'd interacted with the most.

[Ronna Gray]

Matthew appeared so brainwashed to me that when you talked to him you just didn't see anything behind the eyes. He answered you very politely, but very robotically, like he was trained to say very little to me. So I used to imagine there's a knock at my door. What would I be afraid of? I'm not afraid of Scott Rogers. I really wasn't. But I would have been afraid of Matthew.

[Jed Lipinski]

After the hearing denying Scott's request to regain custody of his adopted children, a week passed in which Ronna and Mary Jane heard almost nothing, aside from rumors that Scott was doing damage control.

[Mary Jane Marcantel]

There were some phone calls with his church and the people who were trying to help him, and he says, oh, it's all a big misunderstanding. They say I lied on my farm, that's not true, blah, blah, blah.

[Jed Lipinski]

Ronna and Mary Jane figured Scott might try to deny the allegations and move on. But when Ronna turned on around town that Sunday morning, Scott wasn't on it.

[Ronna Gray]

His daughter hosted with Chef Celeste, who was a chef on the show. And he is just under the weather and they ask everyone to pray for him that he's not able to be on the show. It's a message to me that he's having a pretty hard time and he knows things are not going well and that they're not going to go well at the grand jury.

[Jed Lipinski]

Then a few days later, they got an update from the postal inspector. Apparently Stewart, the other young man at Scott's home, the one who Ethan had texted from England after running into his parents at a gas station, had contacted the agent who'd subpoenaed him. He'd asked to be taken into protective custody and agreed to testify against Scott at the grand jury. When the day of the grand jury finally arrived, Rana tried to distract herself at work. She promised to call Ethan if she heard anything.

[Ronna Gray]

It was another very tense day. We knew it was happening. We knew that Matthew had been called and Scott's daughter Kimberly had been called and we knew Stuart was in position to be there and we were just waiting to hear whatever we possibly can hear from it.

[Ethan]

I remember the day, and it was a hot summer's day in the uk and I had a house with a garden, really nice big garden, and. And my friend had come over for the day and it was just. It did feel a bit odd. The whole day felt a bit odd. I remember just thinking, oh, I need to contact Ron or I just need to know what's going on.

[Jed Lipinski]

At 12:52pm that afternoon, just minutes before the grand jury convened, a call was placed to the Iberville parish. 911 center this Iberville 911 with a.

[Mary Jane Marcantel]

Transfer from 1045 Daisy after Ms. Maria Edwards residence.

[Ronna Gray]

She heard a loud noise. Go ahead Ms. Maria.

[Jed Lipinski]

I just had two noises, ma'am.

[Don Kelly]

Two guns, something.

[Jed Lipinski]

I just had two noises. Can you please send somebody over very quickly?

[Ronna Gray]

Please.

[Margo Gray]

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[Ronna Gray]

The higher ups are concerned about one thing, and that is avoiding scandal.

[Margo Gray]

It's no wonder that college campuses capture the nation's attention, especially in moments of upheaval. I'm Margo Gray. Each week on the Campus Files podcast, we bring you a new story.

[Ronna Gray]

It was the biggest academic scandal in the history of college sports and probably in the history of academia.

[Margo Gray]

On Campus Files, we cover everything from rigged admissions to the drama of Greek life.

[Jed Lipinski]

A chancellor having a pornographic double life is an extremely rare case.

[Margo Gray]

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[Jed Lipinski]

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[Margo Gray]

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[Jed Lipinski]

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[Margo Gray]

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[Jed Lipinski]

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[Ronna Gray]

I was in my office downtown, sitting at my desk, just like I had been when I got that email. And Mary Jane called and said, scott's dead.

[Mary Jane Marcantel]

She goes, what? I said, scott is dead. And she goes, what?

[Ronna Gray]

I wasn't even sure I heard her. I was like, what? Scott's dead. What? I said it probably three times.

[Mary Jane Marcantel]

And I said, I'm getting in my car and going out to the crime scene. Do you want to go? She goes, no.

[Ronna Gray]

You know, I didn't want it to look like this was something I was happy about. You know, this is a tragedy. And she tells me she has a lot of contacts with law enforcement, and word was spreading on the radios that there'd been a shooting at his home and that he had died. But she's very willing to go to the scene and observe what she can. So I say, you go. Will, stay on the phone.

[Mary Jane Marcantel]

Rhonda was having a reaction. Okay. Ronna's. I'm gonna call her. More emotional. She doesn't do what I do. And so I said, okay, let me get in the car. Because I wanted to get there. I knew that had just happened, you know, 30 minutes before, whatever, and that there was going to be a lot of activity so I could get there in time to kind of pick up with what's going on. So when I get there, first of all, it's hot as hell. It's August. You know what August is in Louisiana? God damn, it's hot. So I park and I get out, and I'm walking towards the house, and there's tape around the house. I want to see who's there. I want to see what's going on. You'd be surprised what you can learn at a crime scene, even if I'm not in the house.

[Jed Lipinski]

Mary Jane was among the first people to arrive at the crime scene. Her law enforcement source had told her Scott was killed in a shooting. But he wasn't the only victim. Someone else had been shot and airlifted to a nearby hospital. Her source didn't know who it was. While Mary Jane studied Scott's house, more officers arrived, including the sheriff, a man named Brett Stasse. As he assessed the scene, Stacy cast a confused look at Mary Jane.

[Mary Jane Marcantel]

Stassi walks out, and he's got a clipboard in his hand. And I walk up and Stacy's looking at me because that's the other thing cops do. Who are these people and why are they here? And he's looking at me and I'm looking at him and I'm not shying away from looking at him. And I happen to look down at his clipboard and he has got Matthew's name written down. So I now knew the other person was Matthew.

[Jed Lipinski]

Mary Jane texted Rana that Matthew was most likely the second victim, but the circumstances of the shooting were still unclear.

[Ronna Gray]

So we know that he's the other person involved in the shooting. So this is a real family situation. What is this about, you know, what happened here? We had no idea.

[Jed Lipinski]

At that point, a man named Ronnie Hebert showed up. Ronnie was the major in charge of criminal investigations at the Iberville Sheriff's Department. He conferred briefly with the sheriff before approaching the front door.

[Ronnie Hebert]

Automatically when I enter a home, on any type of crime scene, when I pull up, first thing I'm looking for, I'm looking for cameras because, you know, cameras are just. It's so very valuable to have. So when I walk into the residence, I looked up, lo and behold, I see a camera. It's pointing up toward the ceiling. No big deal. Walk a little further, there's another camera. This house was full of cameras everywhere, both. It was a two story residence, cameras everywhere. But every camera I noticed was pointing up toward the ceiling. And I thought that very odd. Why would that be like that?

[Jed Lipinski]

Inside the house, Ronnie spoke to another investigator who told him what he'd found upstairs.

[Ronnie Hebert]

I proceeded upstairs and found Mr. Scott Rogers and he was in the bed, apparently deceased from a gunshot wound to the head. There was another gentleman I did not see. He was already transported to the hospital before my arrival. And quite naturally, it was not a pretty scene.

[Jed Lipinski]

Back downstairs, Ronnie learned that the investigator had found Matthew alive on the floor beside the bed with a single gunshot wound to the left side of his head. Next to him was what appeared to be a suicide note. It read, they broke our happy loving home. They do not get to take Scott too. The evidence suggested Matthew had killed Scott before turning the gun on himself in an apparent murder suicide attempt. When Ronnie walked back outside, he noticed a woman sobbing on the sidewalk. Her name was Maria and she was a co pastor at Scott's church. She was the one who'd called 911 after hearing gunshots on the second floor.

[Ronnie Hebert]

And that's when she was explaining to me that Scott had been acting very strange, very depressed, and he was in fear that the feds were already bugging his home with listening devices and cameras and whatnot. She said he was very paranoid. Mr. Roger was so paranoid that when you walked into the residence, there was a little end table located not far from the front entrance that everybody had to put their phones on silent and put it on the table and was not allowed to use the phones while they were in that residence.

[Jed Lipinski]

Scott had been despondent since his children were taken away. Maria said she'd been staying with him for several days, during which they'd often prayed together. Hours before his death, Scott had asked her to pray with him again.

[Ronnie Hebert]

She said she went in and prayed with him for a good period of time, came back downstairs. Matthew apparently at that time had entered the residence and he went upstairs. And she said some short time after that, that's when she heard a gunshot. And she said she feared the worst.

[Jed Lipinski]

When Ronnie finished his interview with Maria, he looked around for other potential witnesses. He noticed a hawk eyed woman in her late 60s leaning over the crime scene tape. It was Mary Jane Marcantel.

[Ronnie Hebert]

I had no clue who this lady was, but we had a conversation and I said, well, I gotta get an interview from this woman because she is a wealth of knowledge.

[Jed Lipinski]

While Mary Jane was talking to detectives at the crime scene, Ronna Gray was in her office in downtown Baton Rouge trying to process the news of Scott's death. She had promised to send Ethan updates about the outcome of the grand jury. But when she'd learned about Scott's death, she'd waited until the local newspaper confirmed it. Then she emailed him the headline.

[Ethan]

And I remember looking at my phone and an email coming through and it just said, urgent open now. And as soon as I saw that, I just knew. I just knew. I opened the email and obviously saw the headline. And it was a very early headline in the story. And my, I just started shaking. And I read that headline and then just passed it to my wife and then she read it. And it was this. The most surreal news you could ever expect to receive. It wasn't out of the blue so much because we knew that, you know, Scott was dangerous. You could never tell what he was gonna do. But it was the most surreal thing. Because of the journey that we'd been on and because of everything that we'd.

[Jed Lipinski]

Done, Ethan went for a run to digest the news. Rana, meanwhile, turned on the TV to see what the local stations were reporting.

[Ronna Gray]

The cameras are all live at the scene. And I start seeing people on television saying what a wonderful person he was. Our state fire marshal in Tears over the loss of this close friend of his. And I'm very nervous for these people that they don't know the story behind this man.

[Jed Lipinski]

Ronna then got a call from the postal inspector. She said the sheriff's office was getting bombarded with media calls from the UK and across the country asking about the local TV personality shot in his home. She asked Ronna and Mary Jane to brief them on their year long investigation and explain what they were dealing with in Scott Rogers. The next morning they both sat down with Detective Ronnie He Bear.

[Ronnie Hebert]

They told me the whole story from A to Z. To be honest with you, I was blown away. It's probably one of the most, if not the most interesting interview I've ever done. I've done thousands. But for them, I just gave him the floor. I said, tell me why you here? And they took it from there. And I just sit back. It was like reading a novel, except they were telling me the story.

[Jed Lipinski]

Ronnie had seen Scott's show around town a few times and like pretty much everyone in Baton Rouge, he liked him.

[Ronnie Hebert]

And he seemed like the nicest person in the world, the best personality in the world. Everybody likes Scott Rogers from what I understand. Nobody would say anything bad about him. They thought he was the second coming of Jesus. Well, lo and behold, I didn't know he was the devil.

[Margo Gray]

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[Jed Lipinski]

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[Margo Gray]

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[Jed Lipinski]

After speaking with Ronnie, Ranna and Mary Jane felt relieved that at least the sheriff's office, the same office that had made Scott an honorary deputy now knew what he'd done. But the rest of Baton Rouge was still in the dark. So Ronna and Mary Jane did what they planned to do months earlier. They gave the story to a local reporter they trusted, talk show host Jim Engster.

[Ronna Gray]

And I called him and I said, who do you have on your show tomorrow? Because this has happened, and I think I can get a couple of his victims from the UK to talk to you. And Jim said, I'll clear the deck. You know, I'll do it.

[Jed Lipinski]

Ronna called Ethan to see if he was willing to speak with Jim on.

[Ronna Gray]

The radio, and he said, I'm not ready to do that, but I tell you, I think Jake, another victim, would do it. And he called him and told him, and he's like, I absolutely will. And then Stuart, one of the young men who had left the home and gone into protective custody, agreed to do it also. So we arranged for the two of them by phone to be on Jim's show the next morning and tell the whole story.

[Jim Engster]

This is Jim Inkster. Coming today. On the show, we will discuss the life and tragedy of Scott Rogers, who came to Baton Rouge in the early part of this century and was the talk of the town. He was a pillar of the community.

[Jed Lipinski]

Jim Engster, a popular talk show host in Baton Rouge, was about to interview two of Scott Rogers victims. Before bringing them on, he told his audience that at the time of Scott's death, he'd been under federal investigation for lying on his immigration and adoption form. The man who shot him, Matthew Hodgkinson, had also shot himself and was in critical condition at a local hospital. Scott Rogers had been a guest on Jim Engster's show 14 times. Jim now found himself in the awkward position of telling listeners that his chipper former guest was actually a violent pedophile. Stewart was the first to speak. He told Jim that after the sexual abuse allegations wrecked Scott's reputation in the uk, he'd begun plotting an exit. He'd met a woman online in Dallas and later married her to get a green card. The marriage dissolved soon after. But as a new US Citizen, Scott was able to sponsor his daughter, Stewart and Matthew for immigration. When Scott heard about a public broadcasting opportunity in Baton Rouge, they'd all moved there. Stewart confessed that Scott had emotionally and sexually abused him for years in the uk Considering their history, Jim asked why he'd followed him all the way to Louisiana as a young adult.

[Jim Engster]

Why did you follow him to the United States, follow him to Louisiana, and continue to be associated with him, if he truly did what you say he has done.

[Stewart]

I've been wrestling with that myself this last few days. The truth is, at least as I'm coming to understand it, is that when I met that man, when I met Scott, I was 12 years old. He raised me. And I think that that, on some level, gets in you deeply, that informs your thinking when you're an adult. It's all I've ever known.

[Jed Lipinski]

Jim then asked Stewart why he'd suddenly decided to testify against Scott at the grand jury, knowing it might result in Scott's arrest.

[Jim Engster]

I understand, sir, that you have been in protective custody of some sort for a while, maybe a week. Is that accurate?

[Stewart]

A couple of days.

[Jim Engster]

Couple of days. How did that happen? What caused you to go to authorities?

[Stewart]

I was afraid.

[Jed Lipinski]

After his adoptive children were taken away, Stewart said Scott had become desperate. He was convinced his citizenship would be revoked and that he and the others would be deported back to the uk. He'd begun drinking heavily and talked about ending his own life. Then, on the Saturday before his death, Scott and Stewart were walking down the driveway when Scott turned to him and.

[Stewart]

He looked at me and he said, you know, what I really want is I want you and I to go upstairs and lay next to each other and just shoot ourselves in the heart.

[Jed Lipinski]

Stuart was terrified. The next morning, he'd secretly called the agent who'd subpoenaed him. He'd entered protective custody the following day. Matthew, however, wasn't so lucky. Stuart assumed that Scott had made a similar proposal to him and that Matthew had consented.

[Stewart]

And so when I tried to picture Matthew on Wednesday, I feel so sad about that.

[Jed Lipinski]

Jake, the man Ethan had described as Scott's biggest victim, spoke next. Jake hadn't seen Scott in over 15 years. His interview wasn't long. It served mainly to support Stewart's account of Scott and to help explain why so many boys and young men had fallen under his spell.

[Stewart]

He is a master manipulator. He is an expert at brainwashing. He is the worst predatory pedophile that you could imagine. And when you're a child and you're.

[Jed Lipinski]

Faced with that type of monster, with.

[Stewart]

That type of intelligent mind, you don't stand a child.

[Jed Lipinski]

By the end of the broadcast, Jim Engster seemed genuinely distraught over what he'd learned.

[Jim Engster]

This is Jim Inkster. You're listening to 89.3 WRKF in Baton Rouge. This is one of the most tragic shows we've ever done, maybe the most tragic, and obviously this defies the imagination of some people and the host might even be included in that number. It's a. That if we were to make it up, people wouldn't believe it.

[Jed Lipinski]

In the hours after Jim Engster's show aired, the people of Baton Rouge were forced to face an uncomfortable truth. Scott Rogers had fooled them all. All except for Ronna and Mary Jane's inner circle, that is. And Don Kelly, the PIO for the Baton Rouge police who'd always thought Scott was a fraud. Still, Don was as surprised as everyone else by the murder suicide. Your reaction when you heard that Scott had died in this murder suicide?

[Don Kelly]

Shock. Shock. Even as badly as I thought of him and what a phony I thought of him, I was really just shocked when I found out the full extent of everything that happened. And sadness for one thing and one thing only, other than the victims as the whole story unfolded. And that was Matthew.

[Jed Lipinski]

Days after the shooting, Matthew had been taken off life support and pronounced dead. Don had spoken with Matthew dozens of times before whenever Scott wanted someone from the police department on his show.

[Don Kelly]

And he was always a gentleman, very nice, seemed like a very sweet man. And so when it all came about and I found out what he had gone through, I felt very sad for Matt. I didn't feel sadness for Scott. Fuck him, you know, good riddance.

[Jed Lipinski]

Among the other emotions Don cycled through were happiness at not letting Scott infiltrate the police department, regret at not having sounded the alarm earlier, and contempt for those in power whom Scott had taken in.

[Don Kelly]

I mean, it cozied up to so many people who were kind of movers and shakers in the city, people who should have known better, people whose fucking job was to protect society from folks like Scott Rogers were the ones who were helping him facilitate all of his access. You know, I made a joke afterwards that that sound you hear when all this started coming out is the sound of desktop shredders, incinerators all over the city, the people burning letters of character they wrote for him to help him adopt kids, and photos they had of him together and awards they'd given him. Everybody was like, oh, I don't want to have anything left that shows me being tight with this guy.

[Jed Lipinski]

Two days after Stewart appeared on Jim Angster's radio show, Ron and Mary Jane arranged to have him sent back to the UK after nearly two decades away.

[Mary Jane Marcantel]

I actually went to the airport that Friday when we put him on the plane back to England, and he had not seen his family in, I don't know, 20 something years. And probably within a week after that, I got a phone call from an Unknown number. And it was Stuart and his mother calling me, and his mother thanking me for giving her, her child back that she had not seen.

[Jed Lipinski]

Eventually, Baton Rouge discovered that Ronna Gray, the mild mannered public relations consultant, was the driving force behind the year long mission to take Scott Rogers down. A local publisher asked her to write a book about it with a caveat.

[Ronna Gray]

The first thing the publisher said to me was, you think you know this whole story, but you don't really know it. You can't write the book until you go to the uk, you meet this man that you've emailed and talked on Skype with and talked on the phone with. And you walk the streets of Bury St. Edmunds and you see how they grew up in this town and this town that Scott Rogers corrupted before he came here with his evil. You've got to do that.

[Jed Lipinski]

So Rana booked a trip. A few months later, she found herself face to face with Ethan for the first time.

[Ronna Gray]

Number one, meeting him in person was very emotional. He did an interview with me now that I'm writing the book that we recorded. And he said he never cried throughout all of this. And then kind of talking back to me, he cried. And he said, now I cry like a little girl, you know, I can't stop. But it was such a release, I think for both of us that this was over and we had done this and we had stopped this from happening to other children.

[Jed Lipinski]

That same day, they drove to a small English town several hours away to visit Jake.

[Ronna Gray]

And he opened the door and before I could say a word, he said, you're the only person who ever helped me and I don't even know you, and I don't know how to wrap my head around that. And he looks at Ethan and is like, what you did, you know, no one's done. And so both of us were just kind of overwhelmed with his appreciation of it.

[Jed Lipinski]

Then Jake said something that took Ronna off guard.

[Ronna Gray]

He said, are you sure he's dead? I need to ask you, are you sure he's dead? And I said, yeah, he, yeah, you're positive? Because we always thought he would fake this just to get away if he was about to be caught, because they thought he had amazing powers. And I said, no, I've seen the autopsy photos. In fact, I had taken them with me, the whole sheriff's office report on a flash drive with me. And he said, can I see them? And I said, if you want to. And he said, I do. And so I pulled him up and let the two of them see them. I was very unsure about this. He thanked me and he said, I needed that. When I got home, I was talking to a clinical social worker. I was telling her this story, and before I could finish my sentence, she said, please tell me you let them see them. And I said, I did. I was scared I had done the wrong thing. She said, no, they needed that. That's the only way for them to move forward is to see some. You're coming in a stranger. They need to see some concrete evidence that this man can't hurt them or their families again.

[Jed Lipinski]

I spoke with Ethan In January of 2025, 10 years after Scott's death. I asked him how that event had impacted his life.

[Ethan]

You know, how did I feel about it? It set me free completely. It set me free. I think it's, you know, Jake 100%. It set him free as well, and it set Stuart free. And it set other victims, I hope, free, you know, from that terror that you live every single day.

[Jed Lipinski]

After moving back to the uk, Stewart had met a woman, gotten married, and had, by the latest count, three children. For Ethan, Stuart, Jake, and the other survivors, it was the ending they all needed.

[Ethan]

I've got Rana's book in my room. And that, to me, the story's in that book. It's not inside me anymore. You think about it every day, but, you know, you think about the ending and you think about how it's over, and you think about what you did to stop someone from spreading more evil. And now they're gone.

[Jed Lipinski]

If you have information, story tips, or feedback you'd like to share with the Gone south team, please email [e-mail] that's gone Southpodcastmail. And for bonus content, you can follow us on Facebook, TikTok and Instagram @ Gone south podcast. You can also sign up for our newsletter on substack. Gone south with Jed Lipinski. Gone south is an Odyssey original podcast. It's created, written and narrated by me, Jed Lipinski. Our executive producers are Jenna Weiss Berman, Maddie Sprung Kaiser, Tom Lipinski, Lloyd Lockridge, and me. Our story editors are Tom Lipinski, Matty Sprunkiser and Joel Lovell. Gone south is edited by Chris Basel and Perry Crowell. It's mixed and mastered by Chris Basel. Production support from Ian Mont and Sean Cherry. Special thanks to J.D. crowley, Leah Rees, Dennis, Maura Curran, Josephina Francis, Kurt Courtney and Hilary Sh.